BLACK Leadership Summit | State of the People

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Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.

Home, everybody. This is a very special mini pod to us. We had a Summit of Black Leadership that was the culminating experience of the State of the People twenty four

All right, now, as promised, we are going to turn to a powerful talent hall meeting, and I promise you what you are about to hear will be starkly different and what you have been hearing from the Trump.

White House over these last few weeks. We are going to be joined by Angela Raie, co host of the Native Lamp podcast and we should say co creator along with Joy Read of this trailblazing marathon that we've all been putting on and there are many, many, many people that you will not see who've been up and working mighty long hours to keep this thing going. Also with Angela is Roywood Junior. We all know him as one of the most profound comedians and hosts of our time.

Good evening, everyone, Thank you so much for watching this live stream. We are twenty one hours in and as we embark upon this twenty first hour, my co host that I Roywood.

Junior, have a very very special guest.

He happens to have made black history and history all of America as the first black governor of Maryland. His name is Wes Moore and he joins us right now.

Good evening, Good sister, it's good to be with you. Angelaine.

Thank you, We love you, and we are so thankful for you and your leadership and everything you continue to do. And everybody else, I just want to say, not just good evening, but but but thank you for continuing to watch over us, continue to love us, continue to believe that, and to continue to go.

So can I tell you some hearing about about your.

Time right now, uh in a place, in a space where this is truly a celebration of us, when we know the assault that so many of us and our communities are feeling, when so much of the pain that our communities are are are are inheriting right now. But I want to say that even at a time when we know the kind of pain that is being intentionally infused upon each.

And every one of us from a federal government, even at a.

Time when I know that I'm standing here as the governor of the state of Maryland, where we have over one hundred and sixty thousand federal employees in the state of Maryland who right now are being questioned about the

And securities that we relied on and.

We believed in that are being challenged by people who have done nothing, nothing to sacrifice, so on behalf of this country themselves. I just want to say that I continue to be uplifted about the place in the space that I'm in right now that I'm speaking to you from Annapolis. I'm speaking to you from a place from the state of Maryland, that was literally the birthplace of Frederick Douglass, that was literally the birthplace of Harriet Tubman, that was the birthplace of Thurgood Marshall.

About the place in the space and I'm.

Standing here and coming here from Maryland, a place that is a northernmost southern state, a place that had the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, a place where the Mason Dixon Line literally runs through my state. And I'm standing here to say that we are all descendants of survivors.

We're all descendants of.

Those who came before us and saw the pain and saw the brutality that our society can intentionally flint flicks upon us. And they got up every morning and they said, still I rise, Still I fight, Still I conquer, and still I win. We are now just the most recent, the most recent iteration of this journey. We do come from the blood of Tubman. We do come from the blood of Douglas. We do come from the blood of Shabaz, we do come from the blood of Marshall. And just

Who may tonight happen.

This, this was the fulfillment that we all needed tonight. This is the entertainment that we all needed tonight. This is the joy that we all need to feel to night. And I'm here to say I will rock with you tonight and tomorrow and always.

We love you, and God bless you and thank you.

Thank you so much, Governor Wes Moore.

We are time for one question? Or does he have to bounce?

I always got time.

One question. I'm not gonna ask you about the samurai, so order on the wall the background. I know we don't have time for that, Governor more.

You can ask about that one.

No, no, that's that's getting ready to get used.

You flipped, you flipped the Republican governor gibnatorial seed to democratic as a can. What was one thing that you were able to do to help connect with Republican voters As I feel a little deeper into this administration, as we get deeper into the first one hundred days, I feel that some Republican voters are going to be a little more pliable coming up on midterms. Is there any one blanket thing or one piece of advice that you could give people as we start engaging Republican voters kind

No, they are, they are.

And you know, essent Sion Roy because I ended up winning with more individual votes than anyone who'd ever run for governor in the history of the state of Maryland. And the reason I bring that up is because just mathematically, you don't get that by just winning Democrats. We want democrats, we won independence. We want a good chunk of Republicans. And I think the big thing was we had to show up and we had to be able to make

That's the whole game. And it's rinse and repeat. It's rinse and repeat.

It's either saying that the reason that my my my daughter is not winning a state championship is because they're allowing boys to play, the reason that my child is not getting into college is because of affirmative action, the reason that that that that my my son lost their lost their job is because of DEI the reason, and

You're actually be able to bring more people on board.

And then you just have to go out there and show that you know how to deliver results.

And I think that's the reason that I.

Think we've been able to We've been able to not just get done, we'll be able to get done in the state of Maryland. But I think we've been able to keep keep the vast majority of people on our side on it. But I think you've got to be able to show up, and you've got to make the case, and do not let someone else define yourself.

You go to find yourself, but let no one. Do not give anyone else that power to go to find you.

Yes, sir, I love it, Governor Wes Moore.

We are so grateful for your service, for your time, and for your fight and what we know is a very very difficult time.

Not just for our people, but are all people.

And that is why we are twenty one hours into this marathon and we will continue to go.

We are not watching the lies on.

The state of the Union, but we will bring people into the knowledge of the truth here. So we wish you well. We thank you so much for making time for us tonight, and we will see.

You so God bless themily.

Thanks blessing you.

So Roy, I want to do something a little different real quick. We have someone who is a.

Queen and a sister to us.

She said recently at Essence Black Women in Hollywood. She said, I recently went through a little breakup. You may have heard about it. So I want to bring Joy read up really quick because she is Her name isn't just Joy. She is joy. She is walking joy, She illuminates joy, she loses joy, and she has been such a tremendous treat for so many of us for so long. Joy, you join us tonight in this in this time to talk about the state of the people. We've been on

Joy read Well.

First of all, it was so much fun to go on this journey with you, Angela.

Raie, my good sister. We started right We started at midnight.

Then I think I was up to like three four in the morning, fell asleep with the right next to the.

Bed, woke up to the beginning of the town hall.

So I don't know what I missed, but I feel like it was in my spirit through my sleep. So this has been incredible, Like this has actually been one of the most engaging. You know, it just just soul feeding twenty four hours that anyone could have had. I think our community is just you know, our hearts are beating a little bit faster knowing that we have this community.

And Roy, my brother, Listen.

I just recently saw you in Utah, so I know you have big things coming up. I'm excited about everything that you're doing. So and we'll just leave that well, you know, I know you have a great project coming up, and you know I love you.

So this has been amazing.

I just want to thank everyone who has been a part of this pulling it together. This has been a dream team group team effort. It's been incredible. So I'm going to answer that question for you, and I'm gonna answer it briefly because i know it's about brevity on tonight, and I just want to say for all of us, because we got like fifty people that want to come

So in nineteen sixty seven, this is what he said.

Is that is that I want to say that as I moved to my conclusion, as we talk about where do we go from here, that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society.

There are forty million poor people here, and one.

Day we must ask the question, why are there forty million poor people in America? When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. And he says, when I'm questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These

We need a movement.

This I think tonight or this last twenty four hours is the beginning of a movement. So I think that we because you know, black people have always been the ones to be the conscience of this country, Let's start thinking about what that movement looks like and what that society we want looks like, and start communicating that it's not about going back to where we were, It's about bringing the country to a new place.

Start thinking about what that place looks like.

And that's what Democrats, independence and anybody with good sense should be talking about.

Joyce that briefly, I feel like January for black people was like, all right, this is what it is. All right, it almost fit it. Halftime isn't the right word, but I feel like we all collectively took a moment as a culture to go ugh. And you know, I know black ways was going don't call us, don't tell us, don't check in on us, We are not going to help you. Where I feel like now, especially now, like

Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, everyone cannot have Angela Rye's cell phone number, because one of the strategies is to.

Call phone a friend.

And I have to say I have some of the the greatest friends, not just the Machetes, Angie and the other Machetes, but my best friend, Miss Kim.

It's miss Jackie that you know we do read this, read that together.

But she also is like a counselor on the side for my wellness. And I think that the reality is and and of course my husband best my best bestI is my husband Jason. I really think you have to lean into the relationships the people around you, your friends, your family, because unless you're grounded in those personal relationships, you're not gonna stay sane in this mess. And look, we as the ninety two percenters, we were sitting on

Because we have to put.

The mask on ourselves before we can put the mask on the country. So I think unless we're strong as a community, cohesive, and unless we have a plan, we can't even really try.

To save this country.

We tried to do that for almost five hundred years, and they're parts of the country that don't want to be saved. They want this fascism, they want to go in this direction. So I think, what we have to do as a community, Let's put the mask on ourselves. Let's get cohesive, Let's describe the nation we want, the society we want, and then we can form a plan. And part of that is a communications plan. How are we speaking with authority to our community? Who are our

Well, that's exactly right, Thank you so much. I want to bring in we have a big Black family gathering, y'all. I want y'all to see this. We have a full swath of experts, organizers, activists, attorneys who are here with us, and I really want you all to see how large of a gathering we have.

And it's going to continue to grow over the next few hours. I'm trying to make sure we get the visual where y'all can see the pictures of everybody in here. Right now, it just looks like me and Roy, but hopefully soon our production can figure out how to get the squares of everybody up. While we're doing that, though, I do want to take a moment Roy to recognize Congressman Glenn Ivy, who is joining us.

Clearly he is sitting with us and not in the.

House chamber, so I want to ask him why, like you chose clearly to sit out, Congressman, and I'd love for the listeners to know why this has been a hot topic Roy. I don't know if you and your chat groups look like mine, but people have been like wow, wow, So Congressman, I would love for you, especially because you're an attorney, so you know this man has broken mania law. Please tell us why you chose to sit out the State of the Union today.

Well, I appreciate you having me on, Angela Roy, and I appreciate what you're doing here. Thank you for pulling this together, and I thank you for hosting me because you know, I really didn't want to go, and I wanted to do something that I thought was going to be positive and supportive instead of going to the State of the Union, and you offered this opportunity to do it. I know I've got colleagues in there, a lot of the Black Calkings, a lot of House Democrats went, you know,

We're all saying the same things.

And I think we're all recognizing the need for a change to move forward. And I do feel like the tides turning for us. You know, we've he had a lot of good success with these court cases, have been about one hundred filed. You know, the legal teams that were put together by the unions and advocacy groups gotten a lot of injunctions put in place, probably around thirty and they've won almost all of those. And I think politically too, you know, his numbers are starting to drop.

People are starting to.

Realize that, you know, this was an okie dokee, this was snake oil. He said he was going to try and help regular folks out economically, but he's really just trying to help out Elon and the billionaire buddies.

And and you know, I think.

It's important to see too, with the tariffs, I mean, because that's clearly not aimed at helping regular people. There's no way he can spend that. I don't know what he's going to say tonight, but you know that's just taking money out of people's pockets as a sales tax.

I'm not sure, Congressman. Can you hear Angela, I'm not hearing her.

I told you to know why because I put it on mute, moving this notepad and forgot.

That is not helpful. I was trying to test how well you could read my lips.

I'm ready here, I'm ready to jump in. Just say the.

Word bail me out, man.

I thought it was my I thought my laptop had gone south or something.

Yeah, or hearing was going out something. I'm sorry.

I was just gonna say the question, the call of the question of the day really is where do we go from here? So, given the amount of pressure that I know a lot of our members are facing, your colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been protested so severely in town hall meetings that they were like, you know what, hell with those town halls. We're just gonna go forth and do something else. Where do we go from here? Do we continue in the fight? Do

Yeah?

I think all of that's right. I think we need to keep the rusher up. In fact, keep increasing it yeah, there were. There was sort of a you know, a lull after Trump won. You know, I remember when he won the first time and we had thousands of people come out and march in the streets, and there was a lot of anger and everything. This time around, I think we were all in disbelief, like how could this country have a life?

Ristman heive, I don't.

I don't want to cut you off, but I want to note right now I'm not watching the State of the Union, but reports are coming out the Congressman al Green has been carried out of the House chamber.

So I think he wasn't care carried out. He walked out of his own will.

So we said he got carried out.

They well, it looked like they were going to score it out. Yeah yeah, they no. Well that's why I put in chat. It appeared they were going to arrest him, but he decided to leave his own free will with Vincent and I just below the chamber. But he stopped the speech. Al Green stood up as the one Democrat and stopped the speech. So he's coming out, and we're going to go try to see we can get him now and bring him down here there so we may see him in a minute that was on it.

So, well, this is what the fire looks like.

He cut in.

Let me take you effects right now. I'm wearing a suit and I'm in the building. I'll report back in a second. That's all right.

This is what democracy looks like.

Right.

Yeah, I got a note saying I got escorted out.

But that's how you know, he's I think he might already file articles of impeachment against Trump, So you know that's his approach, and I you know, God bless him. The key is that we're all working together on the same team, trying to accomplish the same goal because we recognize how destructive Trump has.

Been just in it's like fifty days, and he's you know, he's.

Put the jackhammer to like everything across the board, especially things affecting the African American community, you know, like you know, the title ie stuff. He was trying to cut funds for schools, Medicare the Republicans like a one almost a one trillion dollar cut, and that's taking healthcare away from folks, uh and Obamacare too, African Americans. But also so you know, low income folks in those red and rural states.

Are going to be hit by that as well.

And so you know, we've always led the charge as African Americans for the fight for equality the injustice in this country.

Need the same things. Has it changed much from the data that you all pulled. I know, over two hundred and fifty thousand Black people eventually filled out that survey. It's the largest in United States history. But I think we still got a road to go. We got a lot more black people than who filled out the Black Census.

When you look at.

The data then and where we are now, where do we go from here? Just when you look at that.

Data, Yeah, we survey two hundred and eleven thousand people and we're going to do it again in twenty twenty six. We're gonna survey three hundred thousand black people. But what they overwhelmingly said is that we need an economy that works for us and specifically wanted expansion of medicaid, wanted help for childcare, wanted wages that.

Have our dignity in mind.

And now this last fifty days mean has meant that we need that even more then we even needed it a year ago. And I think we're going to see that with this budget that just proposal that came through that's going to slash medicaid, and so for us, it's

I love that.

Areva Martin and the Mario Solomon Simmons are here, and I want to go to you all because one of the places that we've seen people lean in Roy, You've seen this too, are around a legal strategy with this president. Most of what has taken place to stop executive action, where there have been more than one hundred and nineteen executive actions taken so far, over ninety five lawsuits filed

Thanks so much, Angela, Thanks Joy, Thanks everyone they pull this together. I'm still sleepy from my one am part of the twenty four hour marathon, but it was so incredible to be a part of the marathon over the last twenty plus hours.

Folks who were up who were.

Watching, just such a phenomenal job done by the entire team. So kudos to everyone working behind the scenes and all the folks who were up all night watching. But you're right, De Mario and I have been involved in some of the biggest reparations cases in the country, and when Joy talks about reimagining really what this country should be and not going back to where we were reparation should be on the top of the list of things that black folks should be thinking about. For so many years, so

A French concept.

And how dare we have the audacity to expect or to believe that this country would make amends? Would you know, acknowledge the sins against black folks and then do something about it in the same way that they have done for so many other people. Cornell Brooks at Harvard Kennedy School wrote a brilliant piece a couple of months ago about all the ways that this country pays reparations on the regular, on the daily, to so many different groups

Get all nervous about it.

They start clutching their pearls, and so many ways reveal their racism about you know, myths about black folks were not responsible with money. You know, we hear folks say, well, we didn't do it. Why should we have to pay for the sins of our fathers? We hear these repeated excuses folks not acknowledging the benefits, the benefits that they reap in this country every day from the uncompensated wages and labor force labor of enslaved people. So yes, Angela,

Thank you Vi de Mario.

I want to come to you, particularly around what we can be doing to ensure that we keep what's happened in mind, that we continue to fight for justice and the other ideas around Blackwall Street.

It's very existent.

So even if they did decimate Blackwall Street, the ideas that we can hold on to despite its destruction, and we should never forget it.

But how do we hold on to the fabric of what Blackwall Street was? And you're on mute D I did that too, don't worry.

Well, thank you for having me here, and just excited by everything that everyone is saying about pulling this together.

In Tulsa was more than a physical location.

It was a mind state. And so what I'm asking everyone to do on this call and for everyone that's listening to go to think Greenwood now, Dot com. Thinkgreenwood now dot com and sign the pledge that you will live by these five core principles. And then this is more. This is more than just talking about action. This is

You know this.

They have been at every court hearing. They've been back and forth to DC. You talked about Representative Green. Representative Green has come up tuss and.

Stood with us.

He is going to put forth leg on behalf of reparations because of the reaper. My good friends stated. Reparations is necessary for the structural changes we need. Listen, the racial wealth gap. It's worse than it was in nineteen sixty eight. And so as we talk about everything else besides you know, d I and anti woke and all these things, if we don't have structural changes, as Joy talked about, we will never get the racial wealth gap

I love that so much to Mario Roy.

I was watching you when Mario was talking about going to think Greenwood dot com, and I didn't see you take a note.

You've been standing right into that light.

You just see me look down real quick.

Greenwood now a lean Greenwood now dot com.

Than Greenwood now dot com.

See Roy, how you di it myself so that you wouldn't hear a click clack on the keyboard.

Okay, I was.

Down here, but you know my mama talked keyboarding that Miles College. Shut out the Miles cause I.

Was looking up.

Well, we need to go to take this pledge. So the Mario you said, there's five principles.

Yeah, five principles community love that built Greenwood. You know, one of the things about the community love, it's about making sure that we are standing together, we're doing everything to make sure that we can all be successful, but also making sure we understand this we not the eye.

I want to go to.

April Varrett, who has made tremendous history talking about resilience, and we know that many of our Labor Union brothers and sisters and family members are deeply resilient. Y'all have been on the front lines of some of these lawsuits.

Labor Union is writ large.

When you think about the inherent connection to that question, April, where do we go from here? Is something that doctor King asked all of us, and of course he had a tremendous strategic partnership with Labor. Where do you think we go from here now in twenty twenty five given the tremendous setbacks that we are all collectively experiencing.

So thanks for thanks Angela and everyone. Incredible, incredible show of resilience and spirit and how much we can center the squabble up enjoy and in love and in community. And to the question of where do we go from here? I'm so glad Joy invoked the spirit of doctor King because it is the very same things he called for. That is unfinished business. That is the north star I believe for where we go from here. We have to, I believe, join forces and build enough power to end

Think we can begin to get stuff done.

And I think that we have to stage, as folks have been saying, a fight. I don't get the Donald Trump phenomenon, but I've been thinking a lot about it. What attracts folks to that type of leadership, and I believe Americans are people who want to feel protected and defended, and for good or for bad. He is showing that I'm gonna protect, I'm gonna defend, and so we have to have that same energy in this moment. We got to show that we are gonna protect and we are gonna defend what we care about.

Right.

That vision that Joy talked about, I think is so important. And how are we not abandoning what we know we need in our communities.

I don't give a damn.

We should be out there talking every day about when they're gonna raise a minimum wage. You care so much about working people. When you're gonna vote on raising a minimum wage. You care so much about working people, When are you gonna put policies in place that stop price gouging and unnecessary fees that rob the pool? You care so much about working people, when are you going to invest more in our community?

So the very things that we need.

Now is the time to stand up the fight for them, unapologetically. And the last thing I'll say, Angela is I have come to believe that we are in the civil society because we want to fix things right. We want to be fixers. We want to put bomb on we want to throw water on fires. Now is the time to throw fuel on the fire. Now is the time to blow up the spot right.

It is not a time to shrink, It is not a time to be small.

We have to.

Blow up their spot in the way that they are trying to blow up ours, and I think we got to do that in a focused and a prioritized way. We got to pick our battles for folks. We cannot get sucked into every single squirmish.

They want to suck us into.

We will exhaust ourselves.

But by Memorial Day.

So let's focus and let's and let's fight like hell.

So while we were talking, it's also been dropped in the chat that Congress members Frost, Crockett, and Presley have also walked out of this joint Address of Congress for Donald Trump. So this is an opportunity. I feel like we got to bring in some of the youngest. So I want to go to zi uh Zi Brian. I want to come to you because it is so important to have young voices on here. You all are not

It's not gonna be one of those. But I am curious to know yes, one of the youths.

Right, yeah, Like, do you feel like, do you feel seen by that active protest? What would you have expected from members of Congress tonight? Well, thank you for having me first. Secondly, young people, as you said, are not just the.

Future, we are the current moment.

I'm encouraged by seeing them walk out because so often young black people are told we have to conform, we have to be like everyone else, We have to, you know, just make our way to the top, and we can't be outspoken, we can't say our true thoughts, and we can't really stand up in the ways that we want to.

Thank you so much, Zi, it's on my heart to go to this lovely young woman.

Uh.

Congresswoman Marsha Budge.

Is how I met her, but most recently she was the Secretary of Housing in Urban Development, where actual change did happen during that administration and under her watch. She also is the former president of Delta Sigma Theta, and she is such a gem. I have to ask you, congress women, because I know I see I'm still saying, congressman is Madam Secretary.

When you watch your colleagues.

Tonight as they sit in this in the House chamber, I want to know if you put yourself back in their shoes, what you would have done, and any advice you have for them going forward about how they deal with someone who is actively working to destroy democracy.

First, let me say I'm very proud of them.

The one thing that I always believed when I was a member of Congress is that there were enough of us that we did not have to ask for permission. We sit back too often and want to find out what's the group want to do, how do we all want to work together. Sometimes we just need to stand up, and this is one of those times. I think that the Caucus in particular needs to stand with all its might, because when you are sixty members of Congress, you are strong, and I think we have to use the power that

I love I want to go to the nation's oldest civil rights organization. The president is our good brother, Derek Johnson, I have to ask you, what is the NAACP telling us to do going forward? How are you all going to help us march forward, keep pressing on, keep pressing, keep hope alive, and also keep the pressure on this administration that doesn't seem to be accountable to any one of us, is only yielding to entities.

That have money to buy.

It feels like this administration is for sale. I'm not trying to put you in a partisan question, so I will just say as a as a general matter, we know that there's it seems to be that white supremacy is really the land here, and it seems like people who are poor and don't have something to offer them are putting harm's way.

And we're seeing that.

With the federal freezes, we're seeing that with the funding cuts, We're seeing that with the proposed budget across the board, we are seeing that. How is the NAACP recommending that black folks watching at home fight back?

Great question, and thank you all for organizing this. You know, the last forty three days was the distraction. The real fight starts on March fourteenth with the continued resolution budget. This is about the money, many folks outside of our community. They're going to begin to feel the pain. They want to do away with such security. Let's be very clear, they want to do away with medicaid and medicare. They

Race is a tool.

Money is the game, and we have to figure out how not to get distracted with racialized questions when at the end of the day, they are trying to redefine the role.

Special elections are coming up.

We have to play in those elections, but unfortunately we will feel some pain. But white folks gonna feel some pain too, because if they cut Medicaid, there's a lot of folks gonna leave nursing homes because they're depending on Medicaid. If they cut snaps, the biggest benefactors are snapped is the walmarks of the world and all of the farmers. They have already felt the pain where USA being cut.

There is no deal to get cut.

If government gets shut down because they don't get what they need from the cur bill, so be it. Because if it goes forward with them being able to appropriate through September and still not spend the money on the entitlement programs, we're no better forward.

So right now, let's focus on the budget.

Let's focus on the budget fight.

And the only two Democrats have right now is not to support the continued resolution unless they get some things in place to force the Republican priorty and Trump to do what's necessary. We may be nonpartisan, but with political hit as hell. This is not a partisanship conversation. This is about saving and protecting our democracy and progress made President Jackson.

No, no, no, no go, President Johnson. Now, if that's the directive to our elected officials, how do we convey something similar to our brothers and sisters who are just out here in the electorate. Our friend to get caught up in the algorithm of s whites whites, right, and some of them distractions will get you riled up. There were two cops who were convicted of kill so I don't remember the city but they were reinstated to their

That's the fight where in the control of the narrative in this moment is most important. CBS is compromised because they have an issue of merger in front of the FCC. COMPKINS is propromised because they don't want to lose the broadband money, the tens of billions of dollars that got for broadcasts. Therefore, MSNBC and NBC they're paralyzed. Disney is compromised because of the regulatory issues they're concerned with. The social media platforms as they exist are all trying to

Our community is thirty two point six years old.

That mean almost half of our population grew up in school districts without ever having city or social studies. They don't understand the role of government, the levels of power, and so our fight is more about how do we keep our people.

Informed and focus that it is anything else. That is the fight that we are in.

Absolutely, and speaking of the fight, I wanted to go to someone who is another young leader. His name is Yusuf Omer and he is an SGA president at an HBCU. You talked about Miles College earlier, Roy, and so I want to know what the fight looks like for students at historically black colleges and universities where you all are being told that your funding could get hit too. This is the same man who took credit for giving funding to y'all that he did not give and has criticized

Absolutely, Angeline, just thank you for having us on here, Thank you for highlighting young people, understanding that we are not the future, we are the now. Understanding that hbc YOU has been the backbone for years, for hundreds of years of black excellence, producing leaders, innovators, change makers, people in all different walks of life, in every single field, despite being historically underfunded.

That's just reality, and that reality is clear.

As day that each HBCU in these United States does more with less. If we say that we truly value education and value all young people, we must invest in every institution that has invested back in US Federal funding for HBC YOU shouldn't be a charity, and it shouldn't be something that people can threaten to take away. It should be something that our government should continually invest and add more to.

I look at it like federal.

Funding for us at HBCUs is a debt ode to the legacy of what we do, of what our ancestors fought for, and the brilliance that these institutions represent. When you fund the HBCU, you literally fund the future of black leadership, a black culture of economic power and social progress in this country.

And as students, we're working.

On not only mobilizing, but we're now having students run for office while they're in college. We have students at HBCUs running for city council. These are hometown heroes that we need to shed the light on. We need to donate to their campaigns, we need to support them, and we need to educate. I want to shout out with my professor the reason I'm here, doctor Wes Bellamy. These

So it's definitely needed.

Funding for hb stop and the research fund it for HBCU should never stop.

I want to call up Wes Bellamy, doctor Wes Bellamy, who is yes a professor but also the social Action chair for one hundred Black Men. Talk about the role Wes, that you all must play.

Also in supporting black women who are doing this work.

Already, but we need to be standing together talk about the important role that you all play right now and where we go from here and talk about some of the things that you all are doing next or right now that folks can engage.

Sure you know, first and foremost, major kudos to you.

I'll call you the Chris Paul of the movement, Angela for always being an architect. She's always passing the ball, setting people up, and she can be nice and nasty when she needs to to get us.

We need to be stay on topic.

Let me.

So so yeah, thank you say as much love as you said alluded to. We know that HBCUs play a very pivotal role in our community. But just as important as it is for us to support our hbc US, we need to support black students no matter what institution they're at. We see pwy's under attack our black students, whether that be in black student unions. We saw this information come out right there at Ohio State University about

All of the things that are coming on in our bodies.

So I think it's important to be able to have your happy space, take the time away when you need it, be able to rest when you need to, and then again be prepared to go out and get up and fight the next day, because there will be a fight tomorrow. Secondly, when it comes to on a local level, we all need to be looking at how we can be engaged today. Whether that means showing up at a city council meeting, showing up at a school board meeting, showing up to a PTA or PTO meeting. We can all go and

There was a there was a there was a coward.

I mean, there was a.

Congressman who snatched the he snatched the paper.

She said she had a paper that said this is not normal, and he's snash the paper out her hand and then threw it up in the air like hip hip hooray.

Like that should infuriate.

Us and motivate us to go to work.

Me personally, I would want to do some other things, but I'm going to channel my energy to go do some work within the community, and I think those are the things that we can do right now. Like everybody isn't going to mobilize a five thousand person march. Everybody isn't going to be able to put together this prolific town hall, but we all can do something in our communities, first, in our neighborhoods, next in our states and congressional districts after that.

So let's go get to it.

I challenge y'all to work not only with me, but everyone else on this call and those who we don't know, so we can get to work.

And on that wes.

Speaking of getting to work, there is somebody that's all about that work that is now with Reverend Mark Thompson. Ayana Presley, the congresswoman who is about that life real og is here and she is ready to talk to us.

So congress Woman and Presley, welcome. We are so happy to see you. We're so glad you walked out.

Girl, glad you walked out. She she can't. We're relaying what you're saying.

Ok we said, girl, she said go girl.

That's what she said. You can hear me, Okay, you.

She can't hear us.

So tell us, Congresswoman, God bless you, what happened up set?

Yeah, well, we walked out, probably about twenty of us, but there were many people participating in silent protests with different.

Signs instead of things like musk steals.

UH, protect Medicaid, protect veterans. You know, this is the reforms of protests taking place UH in many iterations, including from Representative out Green and so yeah, this is a former protest.

I went very briefly.

Because I was here to hold space for my guest, who is.

A probationary federal worker who worked at HUD who enforces national fair housing laws.

She's also a wheelchair user, and.

So she navigated a lot of ablest spaces to be here today, so to honor her, I want to take up space, but I knew that I was not going to stay there because we cannot normalize this. This man has no respect for Congress. He does not respect us as a cult equal branch of government. He has contempt for the American people. He pardoned January six ers, who desecrated the very well that we are in today for this joint Address of Congress or state of a Union.

Listen, I've been in Congress six years. I've never walked.

Out of a joint address of Congress or State of the Union, not even for the occupant's first term.

I've never walked out.

But this is not normal.

This is a fascist dictator.

Uh.

And I could not sit there and pretend.

That this was it.

That man is unfit to be president. He is not the president.

Uh.

And so if he has contempt for the American people, I'm gonna stand in solidarity with the American people. And that is why I walked out in protest at nine point forty. These boots were definitely made for walking. And and again, I wanted to bring visibility to the story of the federal worker from my district who was fired unlawfully, unjustly.

Uh.

And it not only is disrupting her life and livelihood, but it's a disservice to the people that she serves every day.

Speaking of this is not normal. A member head to sign.

Oh, let me tell you about that.

Okay.

So Melanie Stansbury had a sign shot a rest in peace and power to she La Jackson Lee.

She was sitting on the aisle. Representative Jackson Lee used to sit for hours to hold that seat on the aisle.

Melanie Stansbury was in that seat well a sign that said this isn't normal, because it ain't and a as Trump was making his way down the aisle, a Republican colleague I think from Texas, but I don't want to misrepresent leaned across the aisle snatched the sign and threw it up in the air.

That's assault. We're talking about that. So the twenty who walked out, twenty who walked out?

This all?

Was this all black caucas No, it was a mix of Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus.

But I would say that there were more members of the CDC.

And you said you did not plan the standard me. You knew you would probably welcome.

I wasn't going to Well, honestly, I wasn't going to come at all, because again, this is not normal. This is in what other setting would we give audience to a fascist dictator. I want to be very clear, though, there's honorable in front of our names, every single member of Congress. For a reason, I respect my colleagues, and how each of them decided to demonstrate protest, how they chose to center their guests for tonight.

For me, I could not I could not sit there.

That very chamber was desecrated by January sixth insurrectionists.

That he parted. He does not respect us as a coequal branch of government. He has no respect for us. So it's insult to injury.

So again, if he has contempt for the people, we're gonna stand in solidarity with the people.

And I honestly it was a part of a broader democratic strategy to have different forms.

Yeah, you all know that she.

Is the truth. We got y'all tangled up in these wives, So tell it. So what did you did? You all walk? You walk at the same time.

This is my queen, Ayanna Presley. I take all guidance from her.

Yes, And essentially we did all walk out together.

We in our minds had an idea of what we were going to do.

I think each of us said there's only so much shit that I can take right when I have to keep flushing this toilet.

And we walked out within four minutes of each other. It was a small wave of us, and it was.

Also I heard it was a plane to where black was that kind of a uh uh.

Uh huh?

Mark Times go ahead, Roy.

Could you ask either of them? Do they feel like the hind closed doors? So it's behind closed doors. Any of the Republican officials are starting to turn against Trump?

Do you get this sen as any of the Republican members are starting to turn against Trump?

No, they're scared, but they also are mad at themselves for having no courage, And they're mad at us because we are the mirror.

Of courage that they should have.

And it would seem to Party it's a cult of cowards that are complicit in wholesale harm.

And they have a majority. He even deems irrelevant because he just skips right over them, right, I mean, it's they don't.

Mess that only abdicated their responsibility in this moment for our shared constituents. They have seeded their Congressional authority and power because of their fealty and loyalty to Donald Trump and not to the people that elected them.

And what is so very scary is that Donald Trump is trying to merge the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branch. We have seen Congress yield to him, the Republicans, and we have to make sure that the judiciary does not do what these Republicans in Congress have done.

That's right. I know I speak for everyone here. Answer you got a quick quck quick question? You want me to relay?

I don't just let them know we stand with them.

I'm going to go to some of their colleagues here to get a reaction, but tell them we stand with them, and we thank them for their courage.

We all stand with you. We thank you for your courage. You know, somebody you gotta do this, So I'm glad you all did that. And you know, I don't know you could hear him. He started whining, they don't love me. Then they don't have a clap for me. When I came up here for five years, they didn't clap. I mean, he went this, you know that whole Rodney dangerfield. Don't nobody love me?

Thinking, Wow, tell the truth and we'll clap. Tell the truth and we'll clap. Do your fucking job and we'll clap.

But if you're going to kill us, if you're going to fire us, if you're going to take away our rights, then we are not going to clap.

We are going to go for you.

That's right, damn right.

I know she was loud, and she says she takes all.

Hold on to Mario.

Well, because because they can't hear us Mark, because they can't hear us Mark. I want to just jump in here.

There was someone who's a good friend of ours, our good brother Gary Chambers, who Gary Chambers has been relentless about. Let's call our members. Let's make sure they know we don't even want them to go, tell them to go somewhere. So I want to get his live reaction to what he's hearing right now, Gary time in here.

I just I want to say thank you to the members of Congress who had the courage to stand up, because at the end of the day, we don't have to act like this as normal. We don't have to sit there and just allow him to lie in our faces. And I think that if we are understanding the spirit of our ancestors, that is to resist in both strategic ways and visible ways. So this government understands where we are in.

A strategic way. That's what he was just saying.

Okay, so we all agree to translate, but let's we got to keep the panel.

No, but I'm gonna say one thing. Since the Mario was here and we talked and a Resa was here, we want to introduce those of you who don't know. She mentioned Kank Truman, Shiela Jackson Lee. She has inherited the mantle from the spirit of Shila Jackson Lee and John Kanye is Ayanna Presley is now the primary sponsor and they try forty reparations now. So we appreciate that Maxwell Frost has said, yeah, Mcrokett is around, and I think Albreen is still coming.

I'll be back perfect. Thank you so much.

Mark.

We got we got Mark on the spot. Forget Johnny Roy.

We got Mark on the spot and he brought us right to our protesters that know what time it is. It is state of the people, y'all in a state of the unit, and it ain't a joint addressed. This is our time and it is so good to be alongside people with courage. I want to go to some sisters that I know carry the mantle for courage all the time. Bishop Leadaughtree, I want to come to you, and shavn Our Line Bradley, I also want to come to you simultaneously.

I want to hear what y'all think about that.

And now that we've had some sisters show up, show out say that we're not going to sit here and listen to this nonsense, what do people at home do with that same courage? How can we motivate and activate that same courage. I also want y'all to know I came to them because these are my These are my side passes. Okay, they get a prayer through and they'll get us some action that is rooted in faith.

So I want to hear from you all about what you think we do with that.

On the side.

I got a main line right to them.

Okay, I thought you'd mind.

I'm sorry, See Roy, that's why you know what somebody blocking?

Well, I'll start Shavn go ahead, Shavin you go well.

First of all, shout out to the love tonight. I suspect the ancestors are well and resting well because of what's happening right now. So just shout out to the whole family Angeler for keep keeping us rolling. I think a couple of things to offer as you think about the response. And I want to just honor black women in this moment for being aware and taking space that we know is ours to take.

I will tell you this, there.

Is a unity between the brothers and sisters tonight that I think it's palpable and I think it's changing the game. But when we talk about the ground game, we need to talk specifically about where people need to go. There are a lot of questions that are coming in on the strategies. What are we supposed to do? This is boycott, yes, activate, yes, But we're talking about now the legislative part of this work, This part of the advocacy on the ground is where voters can.

Take a stance.

If you have a child that has an illness, they're currently receiving CHIP and supported by Medicaid. If you have a mother or father who is over sixty five, they're receiving any kind of treatments, they're receiving Medicare, Social Security is on the line. I also want us to understand that we start talking about snap and benefits, these are not just benefiting black people. As a misnomer about these entitlements.

And what I want people to.

Understand is you have to now start calling your senators every single day.

Be relentless, be relentless in.

A way that allows them to know you will be voted out. And we've got to also use the phone tree method, like we got a old school. You got to call your people to tell them to call their people to make these phone calls and then show up special elections in Florida First and sixth district.

Do not miss this.

I don't care this Republican district. I care that we got black people that can vote.

Here's the last thing I want to say is for this call tonight, as people are listening to what's happening, we got to understand that strategy will outweigh this foolishness.

But strategy comes when.

We had to take a moment to breathe and activate. Now that we're activating, look at what we've done in twenty four hours. We have called my father's seventy seven years old and he told me he clicked.

On to watch tonight. We're hitting generation after generation.

We got mothers, grandmothers, fathers, Folks that have not been listening are now listening.

So when you say turn the TV off, that doesn't mean turn off the activism. That means turn off this moment to be able to pull together what we're doing tonight, working y'all we are going to win because our ancestors gave it the blueprint. This is a different man, but not a different plan.

That's what I want you to hear, Bishop, before you weigh in.

We've been joined by Congresswoman Latifah Simon with Mark, Reverend Mark Thompson, and I want to go to her.

You all heard her earlier today.

I'm ready to go anywhere, all right, delivering her working family, working family party rebuttal or prebuttal to the state of the Union. So Mark, I'm coming to you now so we can hear from Congresswoman Simon.

Congswims, Simon, what happened?

A lot happened tonight.

I mean, I know, I walked out.

I walked out.

I couldn't listen to these these deep lives.

It's vitrio.

But it also, Sarah, felt like a clan rally in there.

We we have to really understand what's happening right in front of us. We heard the president said clearly. He said clearly that he wants to take us back to a nineteen fifties America. DEI is code for making sure that white men are leading everything. He has fired for star generals and has put unqualified white men to head our pentagon.

I can go on and on.

We heard the lies when he talks started talking about social security. That's my grandmother, that's my aunt. Those are disabled children and the children of dead men. That is a social safety net that we all have paid into. And he is going to just rupt that department. He is going to just rupt and fracture our education system again, that's disabled children, that's K through.

Twelve, that's FASPA.

I couldn't listen to someone who's trying to tear apart the very structures that we have fought to build in the last sixty years in this country.

I had to walk out.

It's my job to be in this building, but I refuse to sit and kowto to the neo clan.

I'm not doing it.

Had you contemplated that, did you have a feeling that might be what you would do?

I knew it, but my mother said, listen.

My mother is from malvern Ark and she told me this morning, Latifa, eight hundred thousand people are expecting you to do your job and at least go. No one is supposed to kick you out of your house. So I wasn't kicked out today. I left mid mid speech, very clear that we have work to do on the ground and factually, block by block, if we vote walk back block, we can take back the House, stop this mad man, and win the presidency.

It's that simple.

These folks don't care about laws, they don't care about the judiciary. We're facing a constitutional crisis when moreover, America is about to be sicker and poor, and none of us are safe.

You know last thing I'll say on this.

You know, a few weeks into me being here, I'm a new member of Congress, I was one of the few people outside of Doe saying let us in and talk to these folks who want to take apart funding for HBCUs, want to take disabled services out of our eight through twelve for our disabled, autistic children, intellectual and physical disabilities. Want to talk to them. Not only did they lock the doors, they sent Homeland security. You couldn't see that behind the doors there's a wall of Promeland

Watch out and be close and be clear. We have to organize, and folks have to run and went office.

Because we are this close, this close from being in a segregated apartheid America once again. We have literally shed blood, tears, intellectual beauty to have the small.

Rights that we have.

My mother wasn't born in a democracy. Yours wasn't either in this country. Literally they couldn't vote, Their grandmothers couldn't vote. We are only two and a half generations past those times. This thinly veiled democracy can be whipped away in a second. Look at El Salvador, the president of al Salvador ripped up the constitution, slandered the legislative body in the dictionary body, and has now created a prison state. We gotta work, y'all.

We got to do better, and I'm gonna do better.

That's what I'm here to do.

And I'm proud and honored to be one of two hundred people in this nation's history. Less than that has worn this pin.

So it's about action.

We're gonna be in committee, but we're gonna be on.

The streets too.

You may have had a bit of vantage point that we did what exactly happened with Al Green when they came in to escort him out, did they not?

So you know that brother is on the floor every single day fighting the good fight. I mean, listened to him his force speeches every day. What he did is he shook his cane and he challenged the leader of the Neo clan. And that's what he was supposed to do. And the Speaker of the House had a black man forcefully removed from the chamber by the sergeant in arms.

He is a sitting member of Congress.

And do you see the heckling and the hollering from the Republicans?

Do they have decorum?

No?

This is a discriminary body right now.

This is a leadership that doesn't see black men as equal to their white counterparts.

Is really clear.

If you look at the right side of the aisle, you see a monolithic you see a monolithic governance structure. It's a majority white man structure.

That's what they want.

That's what they're pushing for. And you better feel, you better feel the realness of that.

They are going to make sure that every head of state, every department head looks like those men, looks like the men who come.

From a Lennia and you had our uncles swinging from trees.

That is not hyperbole.

That is the truth.

That's the fight back.

We got fire up in the capitol, y'all. I'm gonna throw it back because I know y'all having dialogue and folks gonna keep dropping and thank you congress Woman, thank you.

Mark, keep them coming. This is amazing.

I want to go to bishoply Adoptree now we talk about you, can you please show everybody your shirt because your shirt is prophetic for this evening.

Look at this.

It says black women vote, and what you see is black women leading, black women walking out.

Boots were made for walking black women.

Cussing while they leaving. You gotta feel proud. Bishop, I want to hear about this.

It is an amazing moment. This whole day has just been an amazing thing. And to see these sisters step up and tell us what was happening on the floor is just singular. And you know, black women are doing what black women have always done in this country. And I'm not discounting the efforts of the brothers, but I was asked to talk about black women, so that's what I'm gonna do. And so I think what we're seeing is the continuation of the bloodline and of the lineage.

That is absolutely right, sos and on that speaking to somebody who's working on saving ourselves actively. He might've upset some party folks the other day because Jamie Harrison was front.

And center in the USA Today article.

While white folks are talking about identity politics no more, there's no space for DEEI. We're starting to see white folks in the Democratic Party aligned with Republicans sounding real dixiecratish, and Jamie Harrison is like, sweet brown, Ain't nobody got time for that.

So Jamie, I want to know where you will tell the party to go from here? You see black women and black men.

Thinking about mister Green leading with no direction in some ways, right they are leading. They're saying, we're gonna take this in our own hands. We are going to follow our own conscience. We know they are members of a caucus that's called the Conscience of the Congress. Jamie, how are you feeling about all this? And what do you tell the people at home who are like, finally we see leadership.

Well, listen, Angela, First of all, thank you for your vision you enjoy for helping to pull all this together.

And you know, the bishop just preached the word.

She just preached the word.

And we're at this inflection point, particularly where parties are. And you know, I'm very fortunate to been the third black person to be chair of the Democratic Party. But I can tell your Democratic Party ain't perfect.

And right now what you hear is there's a battle for the soul of the party.

You got some folks who love to say that black folks represent the backbone, the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. But at the at the first indication of any anxiety, electoral anxiety, they want to abandon those folks. They talk about identity politics being the thing that drags that is dragging the Democratic Party back held evangelist, the right wing evangelists in the South is an identity group. Gand owners in the South our identity group. But you

Many of them hate Donald Trump.

But the one thing that they respect about Donald Trump is.

That whatever he believes, he fights like hell for Democrats. We got to fight like hell for the things that we believe that our core values and the people who are the backbone of this party, and that is black folks.

And so that's what we need at this point in time. And listen, we're all gonna.

Have different roles.

We're all gonna play different different roles in us. You know, we saw it during the Civil rights movement, right there was the person who they were the people who march. There were people who sat in at the lunch counters. There were the folks who got the dogs sitting on them. But they were the pastors who organized. They were also the people who paid the bail.

Right, They're the lawyers that went into the.

We all have roles to playing. We got to figure out what our role is.

I often wondered, Angela when I was growing up in Orangeburg, what would I have done in the Civil rights movement?

Well, hell, we don't have to wonder anymore.

Because right now we are in the civil rights movement of our time, and the question is what will each of us do in this movement in order to continue to move our people, and our party and our families in this country forward. And so I'm just I'm happy to be a part of this. You know, I'm gonna do everything because I do it. Yes, I do it for my people, but you know selfishly, you know who I do it for, my two black sons who.

Are upstairs right now sleeping.

That is who I do this work for.

That's why I will give every breath in my body to make sure that my sons don't grow up in a world like my grandparents grew up in where the KKK march through their town, where they had to drink out of colored water fountains, where they sat at the back of the bus. I will do every single thing in my power, will give every bit of my blood, every breath that I have to make sure that my boys don't live in that world. Right now, we have

That is what defines Donald Trump.

And we got to do everything that we can to push back and fight back against that.

Congressman Harrison, thank you so so much. We want to go back now real quick to Mark Thompson. I understand he has a representative, Maxwell Frost, one of the few good things to come out of Florida. Mark uh gets also orange, just shout out to oranges. Mark real quick asked to start asking.

He can eat you, he can hear you, he can Okay, dope, So are you doing?

Good to see you? Good to see? Ain't singing since a daily show when you popped in a while back. Brother. What was the consensus before going into the chambers tonight amongst all the Democrats, Well, y'all was you're gonna walk out, Well, I'm gonna walk out, you walk out, I'll walk out. Or was it more organized? Was everyone kind of feeling their own way as the night went on, There.

Was definitely a lot of organizing going on. And here was the general consensus is that number one, this isn't a normal address. This isn't a normal time where you stand up when the president walks in, where you have that kind of decorum, because number one, he's never shown that to us, or the American people or any people. He's never shown that to black people. And so we walked in there, many of us with a plan of what to do. If you've seen the videos, you've seen

But I'll be doing other things.

But I held up a must steal sign.

But here's the thing.

The reason why we decided to walk out is because number one, we all worked really hard to get the Congress and our constituents set us there, and we knew we didn't want to stay the whole time. But I think there's power in occupying us space and choosing yourself. Went to get up and leave and walk out in the spirit of student protesters from the Civil rights era, and that's why we decided to do it. Us in a group of mainly women from the Black Caucus who

Yeah, you know what's next? What would you what do you want to see your other members and this party do?

I believe Look, number one, when you don't have all the power you want, you use all the power you got.

Point, Congressman Frost about not seeding ground. Earlier this week, President Trump tweeted or truth social or whatever about the possibility when it comes to the youth of if you protest at a college campus, automatic expulsion or if you protest illegally, which basically means we will draw the lines of the appropriate way to protest and then just say

I think it's a very serious threat. I think that Number one week campaign for a while talking about Project twenty twenty five.

Now it's happening.

Yeah, we have no room to act surprised about the things they're doing because they wrote them down and we told people they would do it. And this attack on freedom of speech and students is something that we have to take seriously. So what would I tell students to do?

Well?

Thinking to my organizing number one, build community and grow your movement outside of students too. I remember during the Black Lives Matter uprising, the nights where I was tear gas mason when I went to jail.

It wasn't just.

People my age that had my back, and it wasn't just people my age that bailed me out of jail. It was a multi generational movement of community that brought each other up. You know our pro bono lawyers where many of them were seniors, right, who came out to help us. So I encourage people young people throughout history will always be leading, right, But it is important to make sure that you bring everybody into this movement because it's of us, by us, and I think that's how

Thank you, Bresidan, thank you just well.

Last question for Mark Congressman is Angela Rye. Thank you for joining us.

I quick question for you. When you consider what just happened and you see how Congressman Green was treated, do you think it was worth it to show up to the joint address tonight?

Yeah?

Obviously this is a I don't want to talk about about anyone for their individual decisions. Everyone's going to decide how they want to represent their constituents, I'll tell you where I come. Where I'm coming from. Number one, I come from direct action and movement based politics. And for me, it's all about space. How are you taking up space? When are you leaving a space and making sure you're

Let me say this as we as he leaves, brother, we appreciate you, Tamika. This reminds me being with this young twenty something your brother in this capital reminds me of when we were with those other young twenty some of young brothers in the Capitol of Nashville. So this is Dejah Blue, love you man. You keep that up. Man, proud of you. Doppreciate all right, all right, we'll be back, y'all, go ahead, all right, thank you.

I am so grateful for these cutaways to the Capitol. It's putting us right in the moment. This is really really good reporting on behalf of Reverend Mark Thompson.

I want to come to our sister that she wipes her face. Latasha was on the plane for twenty hours traveling to get here tonight. Latasha Brown is the co founder of Black Voters Matter. Black Voters Matter got something to say about some of this too, So LB I want to come to you because you all have always been about the work of the people and making sure that we get it engage. I want to know your reaction to what Maxell is just sharing and what you think our next steps need to be?

Oh oh freedom, Oh freedom, freedom, Oh bumby, oh bummy, And before.

Me, I say, I'll be glad in my gray and go to my Lord and be free.

You know, I wanted to sing that song because this is the week March the sixtieth anniversary of people who sang that song on the Emma Petteris Bridge in the summer Alabama. It is also a song that my ancestors, when they did not have politics on their side, they didn't have resources, they have all any of those things, they knew that there was something inside of them that, No, you're not going to dehumanize me, You're not going to take away the Constitution is not what gives me my right to live.

God has given me my right to live.

And so I say that in this space that I wanted to bring the ancestors and the history and the long history of the ancestors and our resistance in this space, that that is a song of resilience, but it's also a song of resistance.

And so in terms of going forward, there are four things.

I'll be real quick because I think I'm turning into a I'm turning into a pot of sand Right now, I think there's four things and I'm calling I'm saying it in terms of this strategy around.

Force.

What we have to do.

The first thing is around the forty five in this moment with people, we have to fortify ourselves. What does that mean? We have to protect our assets and our information.

You cannot take for granted that all of the things that you have that is based on the computer that is going to be there. You need to download your documents, you need to protect your resources. My family who literally lived through the depression, my grandparents that raised me that born in nineteen o five and nineteen ten, they always kept money in the house. And part of what they said is the reason why they survived and our family survived during the Great Depression.

Is because they didn't have their money in the banks.

And so I know that that sounds a little like an alarmist, but you need to have two thousand dollars a minimum of two thousand.

Dollars if you can.

If you have that that you got set aside that at any moment you can touch it, because if your bank card goes down, what you're gonna do?

Right?

And so I think it's really important for us to really think differently.

We have to think in terms of a self determination model on how we're gonna protect ourselves and our assets in this moment. When I say protect your information, you have to check your sources, y'all. Part of what is happening is there are people who are intentionally giving us misinformation and disinformation. Check your sources and where you're getting information from, double triple of check that right. The next thing, the next as we're talking about from forty five, we've got to focus.

It's really important for us to be think about what it is that we need in this moment.

You know, we talked about earlier on this segment that we were on that we've got to connect to black farmers, that we've got to figure out where we can get our basic needs met. When we're talking about social security cuts, y'all need to understand the fifty eight percent of single Black adults over the age that are retirement age, ninety percent of their income comes from social security.

Ninety percent of their income comes from social security.

It will be devastating to our communities in terms of how will they live, how will they feed themselves, how will they protect themselves? So it's important for us not just to talk about how are we going to stop it depend on them, but how we're going to have and use our institutions and structures to be able to fortifyre people and focus our work so that we can

The fourth and the final thing.

That I'll say really is we have to really it will not be our politics to save us, y'all.

It will be our humanity. But we can no longer just think about citizens of a.

Boot deggnation that ad will believes that we are at the whimsical nature of white racist folks.

We have to think like founders of a new nation.

We have to really think differently, that we're not just citizens, but that we're founders of something different and what does that mean.

We have to really be thinking about how will we protect and provide for our people in this moment, the basic needs of food.

Shelter, our resources, and literally one of the things I want us to do, don't spend no money.

We cannot spend money in this moment. Why unless we're.

Spending money with our communities and with things that we need. Don't take for granted that the eggs are fourteen dollars. Now with the tear for this trade war, it is going to have a substantial impact on us. So this is not the moment to go by your Gucci bag. This is not the moment to go and spend on Amazon. This is not the Momba, and we ain't trying to get them our money.

No, that are gonna wait anyway.

So I think it's really important in this moment that we really see a o money and if you are going to spend some money, to invest some money, invest it in a black organization that is leading this work, someone that you know that is on the front line doing this work with us.

Ten dollars. I see my brother Quinn James with Collective.

Pack, I see David, all these organizations I see Shamon that are doing amazing work.

Write ten dollars, twenty dollars past.

The mic that has been standing in this space really making sure that our communities are protected, those of us who have been marginalized, and so in that I'll just say, in this moment I'm a leave with a question. I always ask this question everywhere we go, everywhere I speak, I ask the question. I ask people to close their eyes and my question to them is what would this nation look like without racism?

What would the institutions look like? What would a day look like?

And and everywhere I go, ninety five percent most of the time, nobody has been asked that question. And if you don't think we're not thinking about it, certainly we don't think the other folks thinking about it. So we got to shape change the paradigm in this moment and ask ourselves every single day what would this nation look like without racism? Because racism is not my birthright? And what will it require for us to build in that?

Somebody had to envision the cell phone, someone.

Had to envision this, Somebody had to envision a a racist concept around what it means, around this white supremacy hierarchy. So those of us, we who believe in freedom, we also have to see ourselves as visionaries and We've got to radically reimagine every single system in this country instead of us responding to the limited vision of others that don't want to see us in power. We've got to literally create the systems that every child can get fed.

Thank you Angela, Thank you Ntasha, thank you. Yes are almost open. We've been joined you all by.

Another history maker.

I so wanted to go to Jamal and Tamika and Angelo to talk about not spending money.

Y'all hold that thought, because we got to get to We got a queen. They might not be no kings in that house, but we have a queen amongst that. She is the CBC chairwoman.

She's one of my former bosses congress Woman he Vet Clark from Brooklyn.

She gonna show Donald Trump what time it is.

You can see he's a real gang say he don't want to mess with Congressoman Clark. She's here. Tell us how you're feeling, Miss Clark. What is your impression of tonight? And where do we go from here? These are soldiers who are walking alongside of you, who have your back horse surrounding you. We need to see you succeed, and so we want to hear from you tonight. How are you feeling and what are you thinking?

Well, first of all, let me thank you family for coming together in this moment to provide our community with the undergirding, the understanding, the education and information we need for this movement.

In this moment.

Uh, there's a there's a Maga fest, a Maga rally going on in the House chambers in this moment. And you know, I didn't expect anything less than a maga Uh.

You know, parade and and and and.

And pump and and circumstance and it is.

You know, listen, I think he's essentially run out of the greatest hits, so he's on repeat in this moment. The challenge around that though, is that, uh, he he's got folks around him that are ready and willing to implement the craziest of policies and and all aimed at, of course, raising up white supremacy as the operating system

We are not taking this moment for granted.

We know that we need to be felt, we need to be touched on the ground, and so starting in the month of April, we will be on the move across this nation, educating, informing, mobilizing, encouraging, empowering our folks to see this moment as our sort of generational moment where we have to envision a nation, as Latasha Brown is said, uh, where we center ourselves as the as the as the focus in the fabric of a democracy.

What does that mean, you know?

And what does it mean to operate in a space where we are valued and we value each other. This is just one of those moments, sister Angela Rai, And you know that's constantly reinforced for us, I believe each and every day, when you have one in five federal workers coming from the black community, when you have this constant drum beat around the dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Trump is insisting on putting into.

Place, our folks are certainly hurting economically and otherwise.

And so we have to, I believe, make.

Sure that our folks are handling business in an unconventional way that we move forward with and encouraging our people to shop among our people for those basic goods and services I think against Sister Brown said, this is not the time for luxury goods. It has never really been that time as far as I'm concerned. But you know, listen,

Need to raise them up.

Those will be our corporate entities if we pour into them in the way that we've poured into so many of the others who have now turned their back on us.

I'm also working with the CBC, and I'm going to close on.

This sin sta Agela on a program, if you will, a communications program called what side are You on? This is not a moment where folks can be one foot in one camp and one foot in the other. Either you're with the Black community with the development of who

History of this nation.

This is all of our moment, and we're going to do everything that we must do on the legislative event to hold the line. But we're also going to be in these streets talking to our people because in less than eighteen months there will be another election, and we've got to make sure that our folks are are focused on the power of the franchise and what it means for their own liberation. With that, as we say here since the Angela Rie, I'm gonna yield back the balance of my time.

Well, don't you just yet, because I just want to get clarity for our audience. This was the one quick question I have for you. You said there is there is a Magga rally going on. Does that mean, Congresswoman that you also left, did the rest of this Congressional Black August lead?

There are still members in the chambers?

Uh?

I am back in my office. I you know, I just felt like I knew what was next in the lineup of greatest hits. I didn't need to sit there, uh to to know, you know, what words we're going to be thrown at whom and what have you?

He is Let me just say this, what was the point for you?

What was the tip? What was the moment where you like, okay.

Now got tired? I just got tired.

I just got tired.

And he shook quite frankly, the fact that that that that the Democrats have been sitting silently raising signs, where's my son? Let me show you my sign raising signs occasionally during his speech.

It has shook the man.

He has been trying to find a way to get under the skin of Democrats and we haven't been paying him any minds.

So most of what you're seeing he's directing directly to the MAGA crowd.

And remember the House of Representatives is essentially split half and half, so we're only separated by two seats. So it's a massive blow to his ego that he's not getting any applause and he's standing up for the foolishness that he's trying.

To pull off in the chambers of the House.

Right now, well, speaking of foolishness, that took place in the chamber of the House, Mark Thompson, our colleague, is with Melanie Stansbury, who had her sign snatched by a Republican and she's standing live with Mark Thompson right now. We're go to Mark Congressman. Please stick around if you can't. I know you're tired, so we don't want to keep you too late, but I would love for you to hear what she says happened.

And if you do have to go, we first had knowledge it was bad new glasses. She got already too.

You know, this always an iconic fashion, always every day, all day, every day.

So cong Truom stands, but kN Truom stands very by the way. Folks is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and she last year was your first trip to Selma. You came to sel Malsh. She's coming back this weekend.

Yeah, see you guys this weekend if anyone's going down.

Yeah, so what happened? You had us? So what did your sign say? What did it?

Yeah?

Well, so a lot of us on the floor plan to do our form of protests. You know, we showed up for Donald Trump's town hall, just like Americans are showing up for town halls all over America. And just like Americans, we heard, had our voices heard, and I had a sign as he walked in that said this is not normal. And as I was standing there behind Donald Trump, some young man from Texas snatched out of my hand.

And threw it over the President's head.

And you know, I'm not gonna I'm not going to pretend like, you know, this is normal and that what's happening in America is just something that should we should sit down and take.

So, yeah, so who you know, I mean, who was it?

You know who?

It was a congressman from Texas, but I don't know his name, Golden something, Yeah, and he just.

I mean, it was very I was obviously in the frame.

Marjorie Taylor Green was facing me, and I think folks were trying to get it out of my hands, so they just pulled out of my hands.

Yeah, it does that violate any rules of protocol? Can someone just snatch something out of your hand and through it?

You know, I listen, I'm not going to make a big deal about it.

You know, if they want to be children, if they want to have their Maga party on the house floor, if they want to play games with us, they can do whatever they want.

And I'm you know, I'm not gonna lie. I grew up in Albuquerque. I was ready to fight, but that is not how I wanted to end my evening.

So did you know they get down to Albuquerque like that? I don't know how, now I know, so we need to know.

Okay, yeah, Congress I have a quick question, congresswoman. Has it always been like this from from the on set in January? Was there ever a brief window? A brief window? Well, y'all thought, maybe we can get across the al and get some of the station done. Or is this just an escalation of where you all fully expected to be at this point in the first hundred days.

You know, I tried to come in with an open mind, but when I let me, let me be real. The inauguration was on doctor Martin Luther King Junior day. I did not come back to Washington, d C. I chose to be home in my community, celebrating the holiday with my community. But when I saw the images on television of Elon Musk and these billionaires and his cabinet yucking it up, I knew that it was not going to be normal. And then he went down to the stadium

So we know what's up.

We're going to be in the fight. We're the resistance for the next couple of years. And you know, as the Reverend said, eighteen months is right around the corner, so we got to start organizing.

Now, let me ask you this, Of all the terrible things he's done, he was a million a day, which ones are most threatening and most impactful to your district in Albuquerque?

I mean all of them, right, I mean day one, he signs this executive order essentially taking out all of the diversity, equity and inclusion offices and and staff. New Mexico is a minority majority state. We are a state that is black, brown, indigenous, and that is an attack on the people of New Mexico. This executive order he signed two days ago making English the only language of the United States. It is in our state constitution that

Us by the way. So there is so much that he's doing.

Every single day, he's firing thousands of New Mexicans. He's you know, these cuts that they're proposing in New Mexico, over seventy percent of our.

People are on Medicare and Medicaid.

That will not only lead to literally probably the vast majority of New Mexicans losing healthcare, our entire healthcare system could collapse.

So we're not going to sit here in Stanford.

I think in Consmanclark we kind of touched on his Zerila because I don't know if you really understand ruin Angela when they say it come up a minut. We only think of anyone context. But Medicaid also undergirds those who don't have Medicaid and keeps hospitals up. So when you take away Medicaid, you jam and everybody.

Oh yeah, this is what I'm saying, is like, if you take away Medicaid, every hospital in the state of New Mexico is going to go bankrupt. So if you think it's hard to get into see a specialist right now after they got Medicaid, all of that's going away. This is not just going to affect low income people,

You know, it is to me not only.

Immoral and unconscionable, but it's going to tear apart the fabric of our country.

So Albuquerque, you want to go, get you. We wanna get your sign back. Should we go get a beck, let's go.

We're gonna go down, y'op.

Please stay out of jail, y'all.

Please out of you.

But thank you so much for joining us.

I want to turn really quickly to we had some encouragement around not spending money. Our dear brother's head was plastered on a sign at the White House just a few weeks ago during a Black History Month reception. That is Reverend Jamal Bryant also here from until Freedom, Our Angelo Pino and Tamika Mallory. Y'all we have to get into this because Latasha brought up Amazon. She brought up we don't need no designer goods. But we're also talking

As well on that.

Thank you, and good evening everybody. This is what doctor King called the urgency of now.

It is a critical moment and we no longer have the question of community or chaos.

It is absolute chaos, which is why we need community.

I want to take a note really from across the border from ideal leader of Canada who said, I don't want to, but I'm.

Gonna have to cut the power.

Is the I supply the Prime Minister said of power to four different states, and you're forcing my hand.

I think that black people don't realize how.

Much power we wield with two trillion dollars worth of spending power. And what has happened today at Target for them to say that they're spending their growth has gone down because of the economy and recession and tariffs. When the tariffs just started today, it is a reflection of what our power is. Black people Angelus spend twelve million dollars a day at target. If we redirect that to

A revolution has to start.

A super bad system from Harvard University said, we don't even need one hundred percent participation, We just need three percent.

If three percent of the populace do what a lot.

Of our brave brothers and sisters did today and walk out and live their voice.

I think America is going to come to a screeching halt.

We've got enough power to do it, just within a number of people who are on today for the twenty four hours. And let's not undermine or belittle the strength of what happened with the blackout on Friday. America is about to have an asthma attack and a hype up imolator because we understand what our worth is, we know what our value is, and we've got to withhold our funds in order for the revolution to move forward. I'm

And not lose our spiritual focus and force.

Every day, three hundred and eighty one days, black people in Montgomery, after not getting on the bus, went back to the church to pray, and let's be very clear. We are now going up against a demonic, diabolical spirit in America.

It is not just a person, it is a spirit that.

Is afoot on the weapons of our warfare now, Cornell, and so we've got to really go in the prayer. But Frederick Douglass said it much better than me. He said, I got more prayers answered when I got off my knees. So we can't just pray. We've got to really go in the fighting force. And so in the spirit of Hazel Duke's, let's fight even when it's uncalled for. So that's the necessary calling and the beating drum that we've

Jama, share the website one more time.

Yes, targetfast dot org.

And let me say to you that when it is that you are registered at Target Force, we have a partner with the Black Chamber of Commerce. We're going to send you out a digital directory of three hundred thousand black businesses across the United States, so you can redirect your dollars away from Target and Walmart. And we're gonna send you a forty day prayer journal so that we can prayer way through a lot of our people.

Angela burned out, they tie it, they weary, they.

Want and they say it.

But I think that we've got to find that synergy, to find that second win and run to it.

Ry.

I know you had something, Well, no, I'll let let's let uh, Tomicky Mallory come in and I'll I'll let you all. Do you know can you see them saying no, No.

We got to bring everybody in because we only got so much time. You know, we under our left y'all have.

You know, I got to be quiet. You know, black women, you all got a black women and then I have my question.

Yeah, mararathon through this thing. So we're all we got a little less than an hour left to me. Ka Mallory and Angelo Pinto on this same topic, you all have been actively engaged around the target fast and I would love to hear from you all your perspective. There's been a lot of folks saying, hey, you know, why are we going to boycott something or fast from something when there are black brands on the shelves?

So about that, right?

So I think that it's a good time to talk about tactics, how we stick together. I learned on my podcast recently a Native Lampid with Andrew Gillim that only ten percent of black folks in Montgomery actually participated in boycotts. Never knew, never knew, And they want to burn the books. I'm still learning they're trying to burn the books.

Roy.

So you guys tell us a little bit about why it's important for.

Us to stay united in this fight with Reverend Jamal Bryant and untel freedom.

Certainly, thank you so much.

And to everyone, I see family, new people, just so many different faces here and it's been really inspirational and feeling to be among this amazing group of individuals evening, and you know, just want to join Jamal first of all in saying.

Everybody, well to me, hold on because I that's what's going on.

Congresswoman Waters, yo, hello, we heard you, so we thought that man, you were reclaiming your time, so you now have the floor. We want to know why you chose not to participate in the State of the Union tonight.

Please tell us why.

Thank you so much. Angela.

You know me very well, and you know that I was not about to put up with that bullshit that he was going to talk about tonight. You know that I think he is the most deporable, dishonest, no good man that I've ever encountered in my life. He has insulted us, He's insulted the American people. He's a sexual, sexual predi. He's everything absolutely awful that you can describe in a human being.

I've never met anything like him before. Antel.

You know you've been out there in Los Angeles. I've worked with gang members, the grips, the bloods, everybody. I've never encountered anybody like Trump. Trump is a person without a conscience. He will lie at the drop of a hat, and he knows that you know that he's lying, but he continues to lie. What he did tonight was, first of all, he continued the lives about all of the Mexicans, all of the people coming from you know, the countries of you know, Mexico and Guatemala and everybody.

What he talked about was, had.

You believe that they're all rapists and they're all murderers, and they're all this, and they're all that. Continuing to pump up the lie that he has used as his number one issue to divide and to create hate and to have something that he could point to to keep the American people believing that he had to protect them from. So it was pretty awful, and I really did not like the way he used the tragic incidents and the

He misused them.

He misused them, and what he did was he focused on them instead of focusing on the real issues that we're dealing with now and the harm that he's creating for workers by telling them get out of their office by three o'clock, by five o'clock. You know what, that reminds me of the sundown towns who would tell black people had to be out of town about five o'clock before dark.

You know, he's still dishonorable human being that he's always been.

It is so sad that we're going through this kind of change right before our very eyes, as he and Elon Musk move into all of the agencies and departments of government, shutting them down of firing people, doing everything that they can to basically make sure that this country is ruled by the white billionaires that showed up with him at inauguration time.

What he sang to all of us, we're getting ready to run this country the way that we want to run it. We're getting rid of all.

These regulations that have protected people in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

We're getting ready hug with all.

Of them money that's going to housing and to the homeless and all of those people in urban areas that don't deserve it. All of those messages, for me, were continuing messages that he has put for for a long time, long before this election. But it's not nice to say, but I told you so when he first ran. I told everybody that he should have been impeached. When we got into it, we didn't do it right. We waited too long, we didn't use the right issues, etc. And

On the poground tonight. I have to talk about this thing all night.

We have one of your colleagues who had joined you, and she's someone who regularly says she stands on your soldiers. He says, whatever Max says we're doing, We're doing. That is Jasmine Crockett, who chose to go to the State of the Union side, but she also chose to walk out, So she's right here, Jasmine.

Okay, hey, yes, listen.

For sure, Max is an og just like Al Green.

I follow their lead.

I thank God for them, I really do, especially in this time. You know, as one of the younger members in the Congress, it is so important to have people that are always going to give us a sobering message about the moment.

That we're in.

And as y'all just heard, she did not hold back. She gonna call that motherfucker what he is at all time. So and I'm here for you. What y'all don't know is we both from Saint Louis. Listen, we from the show Me State. Okay, this is what you get out of Saint Louis. But I am so eternally great. As I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do, I was on the phone calling Max and trying to figure it out.

And one of the things that we wanted to do was we want to make.

Sure that there was space that was hell for us, and if we did not show up, then what they were going to do is just put seat fillers in. And I wanted to make sure that the space that you know, my ancestors bled and died for that I occupied that space.

But I also got the privilege to walk the hell out of it.

And so that's exactly what we did, so that he could have those empty seats sitting there and that our messages would be seen. Even if he decided he didn't want to hear us, he was going to fill us in our actions, and so I didn't just want to sit there and not flap, but instead I wanted to make sure that I stood up in defiance and I turned my back on him like he has turned his back on the American people, like he has turned his back on the Constitution, like he has turned his back

Okay, I'm done.

Now I'm doing because the wordsman.

Not only for what she just said, but she has been telling the fight.

She has been every day, every week, whether she's in committee, what she's on the floor, whether she's in the streets, she has been telling what she has learned about him, his leadership.

She's called him out, She's called out every dumbass that he's appointed to office while he's talking about getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion and hiring some of the dumbest people, some of the most incommoned people in all of the agencies of government that he can get and then yes.

Elon Musk, because Elon Musk had the money.

To buy him.

This was transactional. He put the money into his campaign and Trump turned it over to him. And we don't know everything that Elon Musk has done with his high technology asks. We don't know or what he's being accused of by some as.

It may relate to the election.

But we're not going to give up in investigating and finding out whether or not Elon Musk and all the people that he's got hired.

In his business who are now working for him. We may be paying them through these.

Dumb as false contracts that he's got that he's gotten so much money from.

This billionaire is a billionaire.

Because he's exploited the United States of America, et cetera, et cetera.

So thank you, Jasmine. You continued to be whom you are. You walk as you tried to get everybody else to do.

You tried.

I'm so proud of the members that we're not afraid and decided that they will walk, because if I didn't have at least a group, then I just wasn't going to attend.

So I am so thankful.

I know y'all had a chance to hear from Melanie Stansbury, who is my writer out of New Mexico. We had to make sure we at least could do something as a unified group because saying, oh, there's only one person, and there's only two people, and I really wanted to show that there are more than just one person that is willing to engage in this fight. And if I could not get a group, then I just didn't want to do it. So I'm thankful for every soldier that decided to stand.

Up and walk up Congress from Crockett and waters real quick, is the relationship between Democrats and Republics between now and midterms? Is it completely irreparable if we go on to war and just voting the mount in twenty twenty six, or is there any modicum of hope that we can come back from this between nine mid terms? The energy that was in the room tonight, I mean, let me just.

Say that we have a good cause, a good democratic cause, And what we understand and appreciate is that people show their objections and their disagreements in different ways. And what we see building in this democratic conquerse is ways by which we're going to.

Win this fight. We're going to win this fight.

We're going to win this fight because I think what we're all understanding is this, we got to be in the streets. You know, it's not enough to be at home, you know, on the internet, you know, trying to convince people.

They want us out there, they want to see us fighting.

We are going to inspire people and help people to understand that the power lies.

When we all are sticking together, when we're working.

I believe that if we keep going to the streets and we grow and grow and grow our protests, we're going to have a lot of influence on the courts,

Willing to fight for what believed. And you know what, Hell, I'm in this fight. I'm in this fight, and I do believe that there are a lot of other people in this fight.

And when they see an eighty six year old woman on the street fighting in the way that I certainly know how, I hope it is going to inspire a lot of people to come on out and join us.

Is that right, Angela?

That is absolutely right.

And I'm gonna tell you what.

I know right now.

I was just gonna say that, listen, this is business.

I am going into the backyards and anybody that I can take out, I'm gonna take them out.

So I am gonna go I'm gonna figuratively.

Yeah, but explain it. So because because because right.

Now they have decided that they don't want to show up and be held accountable to the people that put them into power. They have made a decision the NRCC that they're not gonna do any more town halls in

Just no, I'm coming for it.

And when I say I'm coming for it, I'm not only showing up at their back door, but I'm also raising money.

When I raise money, I give money, I spend money.

I am in this to win this.

Just like Max said, we gonna get this thing done by any means necessary. I'm gonna make sure money, organizing, showing up and doing the work that they don't want to do. We are absolutely gonna do it. And yes, I'm gonna do this stuff on social media too. I know Max said, you know, we gotta get up the computers, but I'm gonna do the computer stuff too. Well, this is amazing, ladies. We so appreciate you coming on. We love you, Jasmine, we love you, Congresswomen, Queen next, I

Congress Waters came on. She didn't even have to say reclaiming my time. She just started talking it to me.

I was like, else to say, edit, And I'm glad that they did that because I was getting ready to try to come with my hoop and I don't even have to do it.

Till they already handled it for me.

So I'll just go back to some technical points on this issue around UH Boycott's Angela. You asked a very important question about what do we do with black vendors that are on the stores and places like Target, and we talked about how you know, UH Pastor Bryant talked about the list that the Black Chamber of Commons has with black businesses that you can get your products from directly, as well as ensuring that the businesses in Target, specifically

It came from the ground.

It came into the comment section on almost every post that I could find where Target said that they were rolling back their diversity, equity and inclusion programs. People started saying, I will never go there again. I'm not shopping at Target.

Inclusion in these spaces.

They felt connected to this, and we responded as organizers to help put some structure around it. Jamal came forward with the list that he's created with over one hundred thousand names. So this is a ground up effort. And the reason why I bring that up is because as we talk about all of what has been discussed tonight.

In those spaces behind the walls.

Our people need us on so many different levels, and as Latasha said, let us remember to continue to give money and resources, whatever little bit we have, if we're holding it from target, take it, take half of it, put it under your mattress or wherever you want to save it, and take the other half and send it to a grassroots organizer or organization that is out there doing the consistent work that while we plan on a mass scale, it is important that we deal with every

But we must not forget yet that there are people who.

Are literally the thing between the trigger and the finger of a thirteen or fourteen year old child who might kill somebody tomorrow because their grandmother lost their job.

And when we talk about.

Federal workers, so it's really really serious and important to us that we continue to focus on those folks, that we listen to the voices of the people, and that the grassroots, that the people on the ground be really at the center of all.

Of our organizing. We say it until freedom that the people.

Who are closest to the problem must be at the center of the solutions that we put forth in our society. And we want to make sure that everybody here, whoever you are, wherever you're organizing, let's ensure that we diversify. We want to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion outside in the world. Let us diversify every single space that we are working in to ensure that our people, all of our people are there to inform us as we go forward and do our work.

God bless y'all, and I love y'all.

And I'll just say I think that we're boycotting because we know we have to make America think again. Right, We need to make America think again. And the only way you make folks think is when you speak their language. So if their language is money, you gotta speak money or act money. If the language is votes, you got to act votes. If the language is viewership, you have to act viewership. And those of us who fight, we

So that's what we do.

What if you all found Angelo and Tamika, First off, thank you all for what you all have been putting together with regards to this, what have you all found over the years and years of activism that you've done, it's the most effective way of getting other black folks on board. Like Mama whole side is from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Pretty much every store there is a store connected to a bigger conglomerate that rolled back Dee and I. So when you're trying to get them to understand, hey, here's

So I would say that we only go at it a few times and then we keep it moving and roll with the ones who want to get with it, and usually more people come along as time goes on. As long as we're disciplined, you begin to see other people saying, let me peep my head outside the door and see what's going on, and maybe I'll join that fight.

Get everybody, but that has never been the case.

Angela.

You talked about the percentage of people who actually participated in the bus boycott, and even all of those people didn't start at the beginning. It took time for them to see a couple of things. One to be ashamed to keep trying to get on the bus when everybody else was making sure that they walk right on past it, and I think that's what.

That's what.

That's one of the tactics that we also use is to let our folks know you look kind of crazy going and target while the rest of us are standing outside.

And I would say black people are really a people of rhythm.

Right, oh oh, I think are trying.

To Yes, y'all, let me tell you something. We have twenty six minutes. I got some leaders in you. We got some of the most really get black minds in the world on here. I gotta do a rapid round because Holly told me what one thing that we're gonna do is be twenty four hours, so we're not going over time.

We got so much more we need to say and do.

That means we got to have a part two, three, four nineteen. But I gotta get these brilliant voices in so I love y'all. Were gonna keep talking about this on social were and keep going. I'm gonna go first to Bernice King because you just brought up Montgomery bus boycotts to me. God, I want to go to you, doctor King, and then I want to make sure we get to your colleagues.

If we can all try to keep our remarks to one and a half minutes or less. We gotta get everybody in. There's so many great voices.

Kimberly krinschyaw joined us, Doctor Dyson, Maya, everybody wants you to run for mayor Maya. I mean, come on, we gotta go, we gotta get we gotta go.

Doctor Burney's king. It's joined us.

Yeah, thank you, and good evening everybody. I just wanted to say this. This is one of those Nie and Mayan moments. Me in my four nineteen says the work is great and extensive, and we are widely separated on the wall. But when we hear the sound of the trump, I mean trumpet, we must rally together and our God will fight for us. So I want to thank you Angela, you Joy and others for pulling this moment together in response to the trump.

It in this hour?

What does that mean? My father said, And I'm gonna do it real quick in this book.

Where do we go from here? Chaos and community?

It's a part we overlooked so often, he said, I'm Nettles task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power so that the government cannot elude our demands. Or I would say so that the power structures cannot elude our demands. I want to applaud everybody on here for everything you're doing to keep my father's legacy moving forward. And I just want to challenge us, just real quick,

And I have a dream.

In his words, he said, we must forever and that's an underlying and a bold and aalis. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. And so every day we got to prepare our minds, we got to prepare our spirits because this is a marathon. And then finally, as we're doing what we're doing now in this season, in this moment, we have to figure out the strategy, the strategies to change the numbers in Congress.

Thank you so much, Angela.

I appreciate you.

Thank you so much, Doctor Renie's King.

I'm going to go next to Maya Wiley from the Lawyers com Meete and I'm sorry not the Lawyers Comity Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and then Mark Morial, President of National Early, Kimberly Crenshaw African American Policy Forum. Please, folks, let's get it in, but we want to make sure we're briefing. We get everybody else in Miami.

Start with you.

Well, first of all, let me just say I'm gonna be very brief just how grateful I am for all the wisdom, all of the action, all of the activism that we've already heard. I am just going to say one thing that we have not talked about. We are talking about a madman who has promised to weaponize the military against our communities. And one of the ways he's going to do it is an addition to protests. Because that was one and we heard that from Congressman Frost.

And that means us.

Whether or not we are citizen whether or not we were born here. So I just want to remind us of that as well as everything everyone else has said, because we won these rights.

These are civil rights.

These are about black people in our communities, both black people who are immigrants, but also the way they catch us up in their system and by the way they will use the military and our communities to look for us. So I only say that not to say we don't have anything we can do about it, but that we can't stay silent on that one either, because it is the silence that they're relying on and telling us that we shouldn't trust our own Thank you.

Then intimidate and dare the media to report it as fat and then called the facts. Last I'm sorried. Ton't mean to add more sadness on top of your sadness.

But yes, thank you Mark and Kimberly.

Yeah, yeah, thank you very much. Angela.

First of all, I want to thank you Angela and the entire team for hosting this tonight, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to participate in to just add this, what we are facing is an attack and a war on civil rights, a war on.

The last seventy years to surbrim decision.

Every single action being undertaken seeks to repeal the progress we've made and to erase.

Our contributions to this nation.

If this is not a wake up call for this generation that had the opportunity to walk through doors, stand on shoulders, avail themselves of opportunities, because the hard, sweat and struggles of others are parents and grandparents and ancestors, then I don't know what we'll wake us up. So I'm grateful and excited to see the activism, selective purchasing. We're bringing litigation. We've brought litigation with the help of

Get off the couch, get out.

Of your comfort zone, and recognize that this is a threat to the last seventy years and we're defining the future for our children and our children's children.

Project twenty twenty five is real. We're seeing it being executed, we're seeing it.

Being implemented and they want to bend this country to an autocracy and reinstate white supremacy as the operating and governing principles.

So I just think that tonight is just another step. Angela. We got to continue these conversations. We've got to continue to energize and excite people.

So I'm grateful to be a part will continue to play our role to the best of our abilities. I'll see everyone who being Selma and Selma on Saturday and Sunday as we as we celebrate and note and mark the milestone of Bloody Sunday sixty years ago.

You really are up, yes, Angela.

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that this is happening, and also how impressed I am. I was watching you last night around this time, and you are still looking good. So thank you and many many props to you. Listen, here's the main thing I want to remind us of. We have been here before. We know that this is the same thing that happened to us after Reconstruction. We know what violence did to our aspirations.

The wrong side of history. The fight is here.

So this has been a fight that's been going on for several years.

Many of us have been saying, Mark Marial one of them, chavn arline another one, that this attack on our freedom, this attack on our civil rights history, this attack on our ability to know and understand what our history is telling us, is an attack on the entire infrastructure of the last sixty years. They've told us from the beginning, they're coming after public education, they're coming after public values, and they're coming after the government. And that's exactly what

We have to fight magga.

Yeah, but we got to fight.

Those who are willing to say, maybe we're going to compromise on diversity, equity and inclusion, Maybe we're going to compromise on black history. Maybe we don't need to be worried about all of these ideas and these frameworks. Maybe we can negotiate a settlement. Whenever a settlement is negotiated, trust, we're the ones that are going to be thrown under the bus. So I couldn't be happier to be part of this. I couldn't be more enthusiastic and excited about

Thankk you so much. You guys, we have twelve people in eleven minutes left. Stephanie Young, I'm coming to you. We're gonna be quick as be mindful. Otherwise we can't thank all the team that pulled this off. So please me Minchael, Stephanie Young, you have the floor. Talk to us about voting. Were gonna go to these packs and get it done.

Yeah, well, thank you guys so much for all the work that you're doing continuously to make today, tonight and even tomorrow and all the things that will do together happen. I think it's really important to remember because I think a lot of folks have been discouraged and depressed obviously what's happened. But we had eighty nine million people in this country, actually not one hundred and forty four million people vote in this electronic This is not the highest turnout.

Thank you, step you guys there.

We have a very important guest who's just joined us, and I think that Quentin and Mike McBride might be okay with me yielding their time to her. Their work helped to solidify this history making Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester out of the great state of Delaware and our good friend, and I'm just so happy you're here. So I want to yield a couple of minutes to you. We're trying to meet our deadline.

Holly.

We might be over, but it's a good it's a good reason why.

I'm gonna be very very brief. I just left the floor from a very bizarre thing.

To witness and behold, and I will just tell you that.

Angela to you and everyone on here, Miss Reid, and I'm calling you misread because just thank you for the service that you have done for this country.

To all of you on this line.

I want to say, I needed to get on here to be refueled.

And I think in this moment it is going to require each of us to recognize what can I do in this moment. The fact that Angela, also Brooks and I were sitting in the row, the same row as Jim.

Clyburn and in front of us, Corey Booker and all of us, we.

Said, no, this is our house.

We're not leaving.

You're going to look me right in the eye and say these things, and we are going to then take our power and act. And so I just want to thank to the collective, to everybody who helped us get to this place. Now the real work begins. And as was said, they're using words like scrub to scrub our history, to scrub us out of jobs, even veterans who are one third of the workforce.

They don't care.

And so I'm.

I'm on fire in this moment. I appreciate the help and support and the wisdom.

Like Sherlen Eiffel is going to be meeting with me and talking to me and talking about some of the levers. I'm once an urban leaguer, always an urban leaguer. Kimberly Crenshaw. I literally, Jamie, I could literally go through all of you here on this call and say thank you, thank you, thank you. But remember in this moment I said on the house on the Senate floor, for us, we know

I'll stick around till midnight because that's when the hour is dark as but we know morning is coming. Quittin and Mike real fast, and then I'm gonna get to these ladies that we need to get to everybody be encouraged.

Will this is you know, is the worst of times, is also the best of times.

We've never had as many black leaders in public office as we do right now, and that's because the work of everybody on this line, everyone watching. We've put the work in. We came up short last November. We're going to put the work in this year and next year. We have a black candidate running for governor of New Jersey right now in Rob's Baraka. Tonight was election night in Saint Louis mayor to Shara Jones running for reelection. And so while we are thinking about what's happening in DC,

Thank you.

Quinn from Collective Back, Pastor Mike McBride from Black Church, Pack Yes.

Black Church Back, and Lift Free.

Let me just say this whole day, these last twenty four hours, has been a demonstration of what happens when we organize together. Disorganized truth will find it difficult to defeat the organized lives.

What I was taught and so my hope is that we.

Organize ourselves on the ground. Brother Queen just said it powerfully. All politics is local. As we've manifested and flexed online. May we do that on the ground. May we attend to the differences among us on the ground by class, gender, sexuality, all things that try to divide us. Organize ourselves into the power. We need to keep this demonstration of our unity together.

I think Elijah Muhammad said our unity is more powerful than an atomic boond.

May we use our unity to defeat this wickedness around us.

God bless everybody.

Thank you pastor Mike.

Since we're in the Bible, I'm gonna go to red Lip Theology. I miss my red Lip today. But candicemenybenbals here, we need to hear from you. I personally reach out to you, says My best friend was like, you know you need to have so you're here. Please, we want to hear from you.

I just want to say that.

The one thing I want to challenge us all to do creators create writers right. If this is a moment of disinformation, of misinformation, they are burning our books, what will the record bear fifty years from now? So not only do we need to document this time until a story we also need to do the work.

That our souls need to have and our souls must have.

And as we're talking about self care, as we're talking about lifting each other up, that's gonna come from the art that we create. That's going to come from the love that we that we admit and and and give each other. And I am heartened by tonight's sis. I'm so proud of you.

I was up last night when you started, and I with you here at the end, and I'm so proud of you. Thank you so much for this, so very much. I'm gonna go to coach Jazelle and then to doctor Raquel Martin.

Did I lose hope, Jael? I'm at a lost heir, Okay, Doctor Raquel Martin, I'm sorry.

Yeah, no problem.

So I just wanted to state that although we acknowledge the fact that activism is inspired sustained by love and community, when it is constantly being challenged by injustice, the emotional toll is going to lead to burnout and numbness and detachment. So I am working with clients, I'm a licensed clinical psychologist. I really just want you all to be mindful of signs of resistance, fatigue, that's the exhution that comes from

It's going to take a while.

But when you're running on fumes, you can't sustain anything, and this is going to take a lot of sustainability.

Thank you so much.

I'm gonna go to doctor Dyson because he was not on a panel today, and we're going to get to some of the other folks for brief thank yous or something before we drop off. But doctor Michael Eric Dyson, mentor you have the floor.

Love you, love what you do, love what you stand for, so proud of you.

Very briefly, Let's make sure diversity is diverse, right, Don't be suckered by these people trying to make you hate trans people, or gay people, or lesbian people, or poor people are in the like. Let's understand that they are all those of us who are black. Understand the liberation movement for what it does. Number two, The truth is, be deadly serious about what you are committed to, but don't check yourself too seriously at all and in that way,

Thank you so much, God, bless you, Thank.

You, doctor Dyson.

We are going to go to doctor David John's the journalist extraordinaire Ed Gordon, Monique and our Fonzo and we are rapping y'all quickly.

I love y'all.

There's something special about being in the care of black women who love black people.

So thank you to you, Lolo, Jill, the whole team.

I think my only.

Contribution is to remind us of what Benny lu Hamer said, which is that none of us are free of lesson until all of us are free. So this is the moment where'mna step on some of y'all's toes and say gay, trans and gender expansive. If we don't lock arms and aims and hearts with every member of our beautify diverse community, we will never get free. So let's do the work of getting liberated together. Let's do the work of supporting each other and centering joy, and let's continue to resist.

All we got to do is keep going.

I love y'all, sincerely, thanks David.

And on that note, Hope Gazelle dropped. I'm sure she was just tired, but please look up the work of Hope Jazelle. David, can you share our Instagram.

And at Hope Jaselle.

She also is a leader with NBJC, so you can check us out at www dot MJC.

Download our bloo.

Lack facts data and aligns with the Black Census Project, and you can also find us at MBJC on the move. But shout out to Hope Jazelle, who is doing tremendous work. Find her, support her, find ways to level members of our community again who are transitgender expansive. They are the tip of the sphere of these neo fascists who are legislating genocide.

Thank you so much, dj Okay, Monique and Alfonso, come on.

And Ed Gordon, you want a Monique to go first, I'm so go ahead. You go ahead, Angela, Thank you, Thank you to Joy, Thank you to Rev. Mark, Lolo Holly, all of our partners who have worked on this. What I want to leave us with is make sure we remember is that there's a direct connection between our wallets, our pocketbooks, and our dignity. All too often we treat economic.

Justice and social justice like their separate conversations, and the truth is they're completely connected. Firing people from their jobs is directly connected to whether they can put food on the table and whether they can be treated with dignity at work, and then striking down diversity, equity and inclusion effects, whether public and private sectors, will be held accountable for addressing the disparities that show that black businesses are being

That's eighty percent. Eighty percent of.

Black businesses go out of business during that same time period, and this is due to systemic barriers that exist.

In the marketplace.

So remember as we go through this fight, in this struggle, that when you hear about the actions being taken by the new administration, understand that they.

Have an impact on your dignity and they have an impact on your wallet. That is the goal.

They are connected and.

If the global Black Economic form.

We're going to continue doing this work, fighting for economic justice and fighting for economic.

Freedom and working with all of you and doing so. Angela, thank you again.

Thank you, y'all find the Monique my sister.

I love you girl, real true.

And deep in the bunker, any bunker anytime. Thank you for this, thank you for everybody who worked from one scripture, Faith without works is dead, and that means it's like having none at all. It's like nonexistent faith. What we've done for the past twenty four hours is a demonstration of the height of our faith through our work. And I am so thankful for that because my faith is real high, my faith in God and my faith in our people, my belief that we can take this and

Let's do one thing and take some steps with the one thing.

And I'm just here to say the one hundred of y'all, two hundred of y'all, whoever did this for the past twenty four hours, I'll take at least ten steps with y'all any day in time.

Blessings, Thanks Moll.

The legendary Ed Gordon is still with us, and Ed you, I just want to hear from you, that's all.

I just want to hear from you.

I just want to Yeah, I just want to say this very quickly. And Joy started us off with doctor

This is a historic moment for us.

I don't know that we have the gravity of it yet, but we owe ourselves and our ancestors that accountability.

Yes, that is indeed the truth. Well, uh, Joy was the host that brought us in yesterday. So Joey, I want to come to you, Ray, I want to come to you, and then I just want to offer some thank you.

I just want to say that very briefly, because I know we're trying to get out of here, y'all. I'm telling you the contrast in my text messages between the people who watched the joint address and the people who stuck with us, the people who did the twenty four hours, however long they spent with it, it could not be sharper.

They just need us. All we need is each other.

Y'all.

This is enough.

All we need is each other. The feeling of empowerment, joy, freedom that we felt in these last twenty four hours and in this town.

All that's it. We got the answer. That's where we go from here, right here.

So my illustrious co host that said yes at one in the morning, Roywood Junior, he did.

She texted me one of the morning he were doing the thing. And the way that you all organize this, I have to praise you all and tell you all thank you. I mean, Angela knows it's forty pots on the stove. Joy, you know, it's forty pots on the stove. So I'm not always able to be part of the construction of any of this, but if you tell me where to be up here, by.

The way, I stirred no pots. I showed up with everyone else.

I just I have to say that the people who organized this, I literally am so in awe of everyone who participated in making this happen.

Athlete, Holly, Angie, all of y'all.

I rode.

I told you.

I was in that little car next to the bike. I was in a little you know, a little buggy next to the bay. I was in a sidecar, and I was just proud to be there. I am in absolutely awe. This was amazing.

Here's what threw me off. Joy Angela said, I saw the flyer. I was like, oh, that's oh they do that's oh, that's just good. But I just ever looked at the date and then and just like you want to do the thing that's on the fly, like I do the thing that's on the fly.

But I thought it was next week.

She goes eight tomorrow, hiss the window. All right, I'll be there.

I'll be there.

So to be able to turn this around and to be able to you know, just a quick shout out to Mark Thompson as well.

On the ground as Mark Thompson, can I just take up as.

They came off, as they walked out the.

Room, look at the cable corresponded moment. This Mark thoms corresponding in.

The field doing the thing.

And we've seen him do it before. He used to do it sometimes for me on my cable show. When I tell you that brother made this thing one of the most entertaining informative live it was in the moment. This was some of the best non television television that I and I'm a minute.

I've been at this a long time. Y'all am an oldie, godie baby. This was some of the best non television television I've ever seen. I was inspired, but I was also quite entertained.

I gotta tell you, I gotta tell oh, there he is markree is Mark.

Now, Mark, you can't have preacher words, but you got some pardon words because I'm gonna get these thank yous into all these people.

So this this is an incredible group I've had connor to work with. I have been up since six am Monday morning, not just the twenty four hours. So I'm gonna go try to find a few minutes to sleep before I go to Stema and not sleep at all. God bless you all. Really great to work with. Ashley and Holly and Lolo and all of you YouTube Angela Enjoy. Vince and I were just talking. You know, I think we're gonna do something. We're gonna do something here. I

Right, And I'm before I say anything, I know we're over time. If y'all got to drop, you just got to drop. But I am gonna yield this time to this sister that has been the glue. Y'all don't see her often, but when she shows up, she shows up with joy. She shows up with patience. She is the chair of the Elemental Pea Community.

She knows what that is.

I meant to say committee, but it's late and I'm tired. The Elemental committee had his Holly Holiday.

Holly Holliday out sanding she's gonna shout out her podcast right now because she got in trouble with her podcast. Go host, shout out the podcast. Holly, you know you are a gangster like I don't know Elon Musk. I keep saying, Elon Musk got a run for his money because she got integrity, a moral and a moral basis and a moral compass. Holly Holiday, you gotta say something before we leave.

I'm gonna do, y'all like Russell Simmons used to do on Deaf comedy Jam, because it is the most appropriate thing to say thank.

You and good night before you hang up on us.

Holly, I got some other people to think that you're gonna be rude and not oblige her indulge me. Rather see I'm telling y'all this late Ashley Allison. Yes, Oh my god, Ashley Allison, Mark Thompson, Holly Holly, the other Holly Holly Weeks who works with Holly Holliday.

I want to lol, Oh my god.

Lolo is Charles Barkley of Native Lampod, Lauren, Lolo Smith, Chloe and Avanni Hun Graphics, Reed Rachel and step Young who's sitting right here. They are press gurus. The press around this has been fantastic. I want to shout out Essence Studios, Alfonso put let me tell you about Alfonso David See y'all see the president of Global Black Economic Forum. But that is a political staffer at heart. Jammy Harrison, you know what I'm talking about. He had another thought partner,

Thank God for y'all. Vince Evans who was double timing as a.

CBC staffer and staffing us, Lisa Blunt Rochester because your prayers.

I know that you were praying with him for us. I thank God for you. I think God that you're in the Senate. The Senate needs you.

For every member of Congress who signed up to participate tonight. To Wes Moore who opened us up at the nine pm Tis James with the drama on the tape.

She was ready.

Everybody, Everybody, Everybody.

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