16th president made it abundantly clear to Young Americans everywhere i say to all those Young Americans that are watching this today on cspan, that they can go forward and achieve whatever it is they want to achieve, because the 16th president of america made that very, very clear. You can be born common and become uncommon. If you have an extraordinary hunger and desire and you are prepared to do whatever it takes to keep getting up off that mat and getting back up on that horse. Last one. Yes, sir. I tell you, its interesting that you would say lincoln. Im wondering, given everything that you said, what you really think, will bring us to the point of action, because i suspect what im suggesting is that it requires lincolnlike leadership, and i say that because the roots of liberalism historically, if you look at prior to world war ii, and as an perch chamberlain coming back and declaring peace forever, only churchill stood up in parliament and said we have today taken the first draft of a bitter cup. We sent people over admiring germany. We sent people our elite thinkers and intellectuals admiring stalin and later mussolini. We brought muslinfully to appear in pictures in hollywood for goodness sake. Only when a catastrophe occurs do we appear to wake up. What is going to be required for us to respond in a meaningful way against the change, the direction of this country and the world . Well, Winston Churchill said to the america he loved that america always does the right thing after exhausting every other option. And de tocqueville said the greatness of america lay in her ability to repair her thoughts, to recognize a trajectory that wasnt good and to recorrect a curve, and i remain wildly optimistic that america can reach the third centennial. I remain wildly optimisticking this Great Republic will be returned to, and i believe america will crush Political Correctness. Im optimistic for a lot of reasons. Im optimistic because im a student of history, and there is a very remarkable boomerang spirit in the american psyche. Im optimistic because when i have a look at even right now in the depths of american despair, the innovation that still exists in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, the backbone and the patriotism and the traditions of Middle America that are still so alive, im optimistic because i have to be. Despair is not only ugly, its unamerican. America has always been about that tomorrow is going to be better than today, and the day after tomorrow is even better than tomorrow, and if you lose that, then we can never do anything. Youre probably right, probably will take a pearl harbor type situation for america to wake up. I sincerely hope not. I sincerely hope it comes before that. But my message to you today is always believe in america. And no matter how hard it is no matter how difficult it appears no matter how unrealistic it seems no, matter what youre told, always believe in america because i believe this is a providential nation. I believe this is a nation unlike any other. And we really need to preserve and it protect it and defend it. Most of all, we need to retake it from the elite that are bullying us and forcing us into conformity. We need to retake america and crush Political Correctness and i encourage all of you to come and see me after the event. Barnes noble are here with advance copies of my book. Im more than happen to personalize and sign this for you. Youve love america and hate Political Correctness, this is the book for you. [applause] we had an opportunity if you want to know about the chairmans council, please ask us. We stood at a place called Little Round Top in gettysburg. When you talk about courage and talk about standing and facing adversity, when you talk about a common man who became uncommon in his valor, colonel Joshua Lawrence chambers, professor at bow dench college of maine. Not a professional military officer, but there he stood in charge of the 20th main regiment and when the 20th 20th alabama fought through and started coming up the hill, he knew he was the last in the line of the army of the potomac and knew his orders were, you cannot retreat, you cannot surrender. Casualties mounted, they ran out of. A mission. The alabamans ready for one last final charge. Colonel Joshua Lawrence chamberlain said the one word never been said in the entire union army up to that point in the civil war. He said bayonets. Theres a moment that will come nor United States of america, standing on a Little Round Top, when the casualties are mounding, when we have run out of ammunition, when we fear that there is no other recourse, cannot retreat, cannot surrender, we have to say that one word that is the embodiment, the spiritual embodiment of the american people, the american citizen, and thats bayonets. Thank you for being here today, and next month we have the former head of the Defense Intelligence agency, lieutenant online michael flynn, on march 31st at the hotel intercontinental, and i think it will be a great session to hear from someone who understands exactly what is going wrong with our intelligence gathering apparatus in the United States of america. God bless you all, good morning, and thank you for being here with us. [applause] youre watching booktv on cspan2, with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. This weekend on booktv, on after wordses, former nasa and Central IntelligenceAgency Director michael hate didnt talks to former director James Woolsey about national security. Also this weekend an author panel on the black power movement, report on required reading for Incoming College students. Plus, innovation adviser, alex ross, on how industries will change in the next ten years. Journalists and historian, jessy hole hand, on the lives of slaves in the white house. And next weeks indepth guest, jane mayer, reports on the influence of big money in politics from a complete schedule, booktv. Org. Book tv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors, television for serious readers. Up next on booktv, Panel Highlights many social movements and author Greg Jobin Leeds talks about his book when we fight, we win. Our first event of 2016, so were off to a good start, i would say. [applause] so, while youre here, please feel free to take advantage of both sides of this partnership. Well have servers coming around the whole night. You can order food and drinks and makes it a fun atmosphere. Then at the end there will be a book signing. Obviously were here because of a book. So our authors will be sitting out front here signing and then you can grab a book on the way out. Well be happy to sell it to you. So, thank you again for being here. If you can take minute and turn off and silence your cell phones, we hate for them to buzz and all that stuff. And the other cspan is filming tonight up all presenters will be speaking into the microphone and during the q a ill walk around with a wireless mic and theyll be helping follow that so that we can get your questions recorded, too. So please help us out by speaking into a microphone at that point. Then at the end there will be a booksigning right up front here. So, i think thats all of the housekeeping points. Tonight, we are so, so excited to have greg jobinleeds here with a whole bunch of other contributors and people who have added really wonderful things to this book when we fight, we win. Greg is a longtime activist and helped put this collaboration together. We have artists and other members from social movements, including black lives matter, Marriage Equality and other initiatives so important, and are happening right now. Im going to let him tell you more about all the people who are here with him tonight but it should be really a fascinating discussion. Going to be a performance as well, and he is going to tell you more about all of that that is happening. The book, if you havent seen it yet, check it out. Its bull. There is art, peoples personal stories, all kind of things in this book. Tons of great interviews. It is not to be missed. So we are so thrilled to have him here for the launch of this book. Please welcome, greg jobinleeds. [applause] i want to take a moment, and maybe everybody can take a breath and bring in all your elders. The people who didnt on whose shoulders you stand and for me im thinking especially as this weekend comes up, thinking about Martin Luther king,s my father. Im sorry. I want to start with the ancestors. Start with your ancestors. All the people who have come before us, social movements, on whose shoulders we stand. So just take a moment, take a breath and bring under you elders, your ancestors, excuse me. Then take moment and bring in our elders. I think about my mother. Think. Some of the elders in the book. Take a moment and just bring all those people in. And then take a moment to bring in your peers. Peers here in washington, peers in the book, peers across the country, and peers across the globe who are all part of this Global Movement that when we fight, we win, is a small slice of. And then lets take a minute to bring in our young. The next generation, and the generations to come. And then a moment to go in the direction of the sky, and whatever that means to you, some people call it your creator, some call it god, some call it eternity. So take a moment and bring in the sky. Then i want you to bring in the ground. You can feel the ground through the concrete and the earth. And we have been doing these six directions as part of a ritual, and one thing we find about transformative social movements is there an element of ritual. That is part of all movements. Tell you a little bit how things are going to go tonight. Thank you, abbie, for welcoming us and setting this up. We have im going to start off with a fiveminute overview of the book, and then well have a who designed the art in this book, who ill give a shoutout in a minute but the dave will be showing the slides and ray from the national Lgbtq Task Force who will be speaking, and her story is the first story in the book that and her story in its incredible and then we have jonathan from the alliance for educational justice. We have with the center for community channeling, and rob, talking about the immigration movement. We have freeman from Pan African Community action and the institute for policy studies who will talk about the prison justice movement, and then were going to ill turn it over to the artist who designed and who really are the brilliance behind the book, and turn it over to them. Theyll talk and give a little show and well have a q a after that. Okay. So lets give one shoutout for day, and jorge, who this is if you havent felt the book, it feels beautiful. The art in it is absolutely stunning. It is remarkable. It is absolutely the brilliant, artistic work of day hernandez, and jorge diaz and ahay. Ive worked with ahey for 20 years now and anything they touch turns to beauty. It is absolutely incredible. Out of the darkest moments they grow flowers and it is amazing. How many people in this room are actively involved right now in social movements . That is amazing. Because when we fight, we win, has been a journey of amazing people like you, its full of wisdom and art and the images of people like you who are leading the campaign to gamechange america. All of the royalties in the book are going to go to the art and the organizations that are here, all the royalties go to their. Anything you buy here, its a nonprofit publisher, everything goes into nonprofits or this local book store so its really great. So the title when we fight we win was a rally cry first heard by jorge at the antieviction campaigns of city life in boston. Thanks for fork closing on homeowners but city life was able to keep many families in their home. City life says we dont always win. But we win every time the right to fight, we rein our humanity, and if you dont fight, we lose. When we fight we win highlights what activists are doing to change the horrific Police Brutality and deep racism in this country. The u. S. Used to be the world leader in High School Graduation rates. Today were the world leader in jails. As an activist a teacher for more than 30 years, i, like so many of you, have watched as things have gotten worse and worse, the leaders show us how to be better allies to those on the front lines of the struggle. And shows how to speak out effectively and transform our society as we stand at this very scary put but palestineol moment in history. This documents how the u. S. Immigration police are raiding homes in the death of night. Children, elder, sent to deportation camps, families torn apart. Deportation reach meanses me of my parents, my and my brother, dan, who is here, my parents watching relatives rounded up for deportation in nazi germany. I am alive and dan is alive because some people spoke up. But not enough. Not enough people spoke out about the brutality then, and thats why that i know now to be silent is to collaborate and what i have to say, we have to listen up and we have to speak out. When we fight we win is filled with the voices of moving activists and artisans and ordinary people who are not collaborating and who are making progress. One of them is patrice. She is founder of black lives matter. Her brother was arrested and tortured in the l. A. Jails. Starved and dehydrated he had to drink the water out of his toilet bowl. Patrice tells the story how she formed the l. A. Coalition to end sheriff violence and the won civilian oversight over the l. A. Sheriffs department. When we fight,. We win. When we fight use, question win. These piece of art is done by kevin johnson. He has been solitary con finement for 17 years confinement for 17 years. Not seeing another soul for 23 hours a day. When we interview him he has to write us his answer inside pencil. His powerful art became the symbol of the 30,000 california prisoners who went out on hunger strike, patrice and others in the movement were to spread their message, expose the horrific use of solitary and this year, the prisoners won major policy victory in and chae in the broad use of policy, first california, and now in new york, when we fight we win. While prison activistsed and black lives matter worked to create changes they put forthamazing, brilliant visions and show us how to get there the movements of today are gamechanging and intersected. Steve, a movement organizer at city life, helped lead successful come pains to keep people in their homes. And they do it by creating evictionfree zones. How . With my coauthors, they developed street theater and signs to tell their story using lawyers, quarters and be billing a human wall of hundreds of people, standing in solidarity, stopped banks from foreclosing on people. This is one reason why at city life today declare win we fight. We win. Worked in North Carolina to stop antiquer defense of marriage bill. They loss. But while fighting, they worked with queer immigrant youth and told their stories about the horrors of the deportation camps and the widespread discrimination they faced. The dreamers, these young activists became known as, marched with tshirts and that said undocumented, unafraid. They defied the Immigration Police and they occupied president obamas campaign office. Obamas Reelection Campaign office, and this is finally where it gets the president to fulfill his earlier promises. His campaign promises. When you fight. We win. There are many other gamechanging and interconnected movements in when we fight we win. Indigenous groups blocking the tar sands. And fracking. Occupy occupy wall street. Restaurant workers fighting for a liberal wage and many more. Together these brave souls tell the story of todays transformation. I end with four of their qualities. That make it so when we do fight, we do win. Number one, tell your story. Number two transformation only comes with visions of transformation, personal and organizational transportation formation, cultural transformation. Number three, work in solidarity, connect your struggle to others. We all need to listen up and speak out, and number four, disrupt the power, change who has the power, and how power is held. Because when we fight. We win. Thank you. [applause] next up i have the amazing honor to welcome ray carey, head of the national Lgbtq Task Force and and who just has this gorgeous story in the book, and i so look forward to being with you know. Thanks, ray. [applause] thank you. Thank you, greg. This is going to be a crying night, i can tell. Im rae, and i have the joy and the honor of talking to greg over a period of months to tell a story which is really a series of stories in this incredible book, and im not going to tell you everything that we said in the book because then you wouldnt buy it. You have too buy the book. I do want to say, i love the title for the chapter that is about the struggle for lgbt justice and equality. The title of the chapter isnt how we won Marriage Equality. Its reclaiming wholeness. And both parts of that are so critical to our movement right now. Yes, the last decade has been incredible in the work that we have done to win Marriage Equality. But the reclaiming wholeness is really about reminding the country, reminding our own movement, that the answer to the question of what is next, after winning on one issue, thats important to some people, is the same thing we have been working on for the last 60 years. Economic justice, social justice, racial justice. So, i will tell you that i came out when i was 16 years old. In denver, colorado, and i thought, sweet, im exempt. I dont have to get married i dont have to get kids. Right . That was the story then the 8s so, and i mention that because what i didnt realize i was doing was internalizing the oppression and the lack of equality at the time around relationships and around love, which as a lesbian is important. And the reclaiming of wholeness for any one of us is to understand that you cant be a lesbian one day and a mom the next and latina the next or whatever all the parts are of our whole self, and so when we talk in the book about reclaiming wholeness, it is about seeing the interconnectedness of our lives and the joy of seeing this book come to fruition is its not just a book, certainly, and its an inspiration. Its something that anytime a staff member of ours or volunteer is having a hard day, im going to hand them a copy of it and say, flip to any page. Flip to any page. And just read what is on it. Because the book itself is about wholeness. Its about the insist steps that we are humans, we cannot be divided up, that we will come together to work for social change, and it is such a joy that you and others around the country will be a part of this. Theres something at the very end of the book, mention of vincent harding, who i have had the honor to know in my life. He has passed now, but he talked about the river of struggle, and what i love about the inclusion of the river of struggle is that water never stops flowing. It never stops flowing, and a river is made up of so many tributaries so many drops of water, and even when a log falls in the way, the water figures out a way to keep flowing. And so im going to take from the experience of this book and learning from people around the country, who are doing the work for change, that we have to keep flowing. And i would say in joining us from the lgbtq perspective. The lesbian, gay, by seeks all, transgender and queer perspective, how i would ask you to join, if you dont identify in that way in solidarity is to insist that we are all whole people, that reproductive rights is an lgbtq issue. That immigrant rights is a an lgbtq issue that Prison Reform is an lgtq issue, that police brew taility, assault of thes these issues are issues that affect our lives as a whole. So i invite you had to listen to our other friends here, and take in how you are part of the wholeness of this book, and thank you for this gift. Thank you. Next up we have jonathan from to the alliance of educational justice. The movement closest to my heart and has been and ive been a teacher and im just so thrilled that jonathan was able to be with us. [applause] thank you. I like to introduce my poem. It was also happening in new york city, philadelphia, and washington, d. C. So we were at a meeting and he said while we are here at the meeting we need to go downtown chicago, an hour away, to drop off title 6 complaints to the department of justice. And i said how am i going to get 60 students there . From that, journey for justice was born and this movement to fight school closings. Our worked before then was ending the school to prison pipeline. Our work now is how do we understand the two . The movement and the moment of black lives matter offered an opportunity to talk about state violence, understand what is happening in school through closings and the school to prison pipeline as government power that hurts and harms and the education young people of color are receiving in this country is an education that teaches them their place. It is not lost at its call to school to prison pipeline. We are starting to think about what is next. We have the idea of education being liberation. The hunger strikers. There was the 13 High School Students that showed up to a school that was supposed to be closed and demanded an education. We are working with brothers in brazil and south africa to understand what we are calling educational colonialism and it is an International Movement and it will take an International Movement if we will liberate education. Our last piece in bridging what we learned from the movement for the black lives matter was the 1033 program. When we found out ferguson had the guns in the tanks and we found out they had them in los angeles and the Los Angeles School police department. There are 25 other cities across the country that are receiving governmentgrade weapons for schools. We ask the questions if we are familiar with the history of the weight on 76 we ask who are the guns for and who do you plan to shoot . And we have to have the same federal government that denounces the school to prison pipeline but continue to fund it. 250 million is given to police and all of free guns they want. If all of our lives are going to matter our first step is to call on the federal program to end the police out of school. Thank you. When we fight thanks, jonathan. Diet is a great story in the book. Next up, speaking about immigrant brothers and sisters we have the speaker from the center for Community Change and rob from casa. [applause] thank you and good evening. Thank you, greg, it is a pleasure to be here. I want to start out the book begins with a great fight. An inspiring fight by amazing young people called the dreamers that begins in 2010 where they fight and they win because when we fight we win. In 2012, something could not be done to give billions of young people the opportunity to go to school, to pay taxes and live without fear in this country was given in june of 2012. And then you take it from that fight to another fight. And it is the fight to save our parents. This fight is for 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. We are still there. We are still in the fight. It is ends in 2014 where after we were told we could not win and the president could not give us executive action we found out in june of 2012 that wasnt true because we fought and we won. Then again another victory when we were told it could fought be done in 2014 after sitins and fasts and arrests. In november of 2014, we again won the right for parents of children who were born here in this country to stay. But the amazing thing, and where we find ourselves today, two year later, is on this day we begin the year with race and hate and trump hate. We are similar to 2010 where we are the victory we had in november 2014 when we finally saw the many of fighting and many of us sat in living rooms watching the announcement of the protection of millions of families only to find out that the state of texas, plus 26 other states, filled a lawsuit against the United States that would prevent that executive action from being implemented. So the last year we spent fighting, we spent fasting, we have spent looking still to win an and eventually get to the Supreme Court to actually give us what we rightfully won by fighting. It is interesting that we find ourselves this week and this friday in that fight. Thank you. I am an organizer for casa. Casa has 80,000 members and it is one of the largest human rights organizations. We are finding ourselves for a fight for our lives with immigration. People think of immigration and see the image of a central american. We dont see immigrants are from all over the world. West africa, asia, europe, all over the world. So at casa, i have the opportunity to work with lead s leaders a west african immigrant comes to mind and he said last friday at the white house in the morning, to the press and to all that would hear him, he said you are going after Central Americans right now but i know you will be going after me next. He knows this struggle is all of our struggles. I have to opportunity to work with Young Workers from mexico and bolivia. These are leaders that have been arrested for civil disobedience and they are undocumented but they go forward and brave and put their bodies on behalf of the struggle. I ask you guys that are here to join us this friday. We will be at the Supreme Court at 11 a. M. And i will pass some signs out. I am an organizer. When we fight, we win. So thank you guys so much for this opportunity to talk to you. Thank you. [applause] i got to tell you when i first heard the dreamers stories and they talked about the ice raids and these vans coming at the dead of night and sweeping up families i had these chills as i was hearing because it reminded me of those same stories my parents would tell. My father was the last jew in his high school in germany. I really appreciate the story and also you telling that story, robert, about the first they will come were the Central Americans but who is next. There is famous quotes in the book that many of you will remember. Okay. Next up we have nesa freman from the super policy studies and i have to say about the prison chapter. It was my most serious to read and write and it is mindblowing. Thank you for being here. Good evening, everyone. Thank you greg, and thanks for coming here. I should say in terms of my relationship to this chapter and when it talks about mass incarceration is another aff affiliation of that. Chapter three talks about the transforming vision and it sps a lot of what the previous speakers spoke about. The Small Victories along the way, which are not the big wins, but the transforming visions is a lot of what jonathan said, which i worked with him for years especially talking about the school to prison pipeline. It has been cultivating ideas and a vision and understanding. One in particular around this is the interconnected of this and the relationship between the black lives matter and the Police Brutality and this is a need if the system and society to control us. It speaks to, and we can see with the black lives matter movement, that we may not have seen before. We were seeing the movements dealing with or approaching different items in a silent way. I am looking education and the Prison Industrial Complex and Police Brutality over here. People are looking at an as a hoalistic holistic. I want to touch on starting with the family and friends of inc c incarcerated people. The this organization is primarily brothers who were formally incarcerated. It is an acting organization started in prison by those incarcerated and deals with the children of those who are affected by mass incarceration. One of the things we are seeing now particularly in the movement that we may not have seen as much before is a respect of the agencies of the most impacted. The oppressed. In other words, those most impacted by the social conditions or social ills that plagued us should be at the e forefront of the solution. So far we have been doing things for people. But people are respecting those most impacted by a thing should be the leaders of the thing. Pan Africanamerican Community is reflection of that. It is a new organization and risen from the need that the community most affected by Police Brutality, particularly arising from alonso smith, who was a washington, d. C. Teacher and was murdered by the special police. The private police who have more powers than regular police. We began organizing around the issue of community and Grassroots Community power. Community control of the police is the main objective. Usually we hear Community Review boards and community policing. But we are talking about the community actually having power over those who are charged or give sanctions to come into our community, be armed, arrest us and evidently kill us. If they are charged to do that it is only our human rights to have control over who is hired to do that and what their responsibilities are. This is not a new concept. It is a concept that started sometime before particularly the black panthers who were organizing Community Control of the police. So much, and i will get to the last thing on where the ideas come from. So much has been done to take us away from the solutions and the things we fight for. The Community Control the police like a lot of other things have been intentionally put to the side so people dont understand it. So the new generations came up and fight for redress and didnt know there were solutions and ideas that preceded them that were attainable. It is resurfacing now. We are hearing about Community Control of the Police Across the country. It is something we can achieve not only do we know how we can do it statutory but we are engaged in the community of organizing and building agencies with those most impacted. Lastly, i want to talk about, and this is not quite in the book necessarily but it is part of the work, all of the work that has been done in the book is part of communication. I am with wpfw radio and we have seen, particularly with the rise of the internet, so many creative needs of dissiminating information to engaging people and informing people of the struggles affecting your lives. The media was mostly controlled by those who were oppressors. Now we control a lot of the media and are finding ways to get our message throughout in a way that has had unprecedented successes. Even the internet thing, the bill trying to control the internet. Net neutrality. We have held that and they have havent done what they want because when when we fight . We win. All right. Now we will get to the good show of the night and the artist who made this beautiful and makes the evening beautiful. We will end with their show. We are running a little late so there might be a moment of q a but it might be tight. Jorge and day hernandez are here to speak now. [applause] that we are tight is actually good because i dont like to speak. I will go quickly. The book. The book. I am the art cuerator and director of the book. I am an artist with this organization and basically this book emerged from a longterm, more than 20 year relationship between my mentor and your friend and colleagues. I was in puerto rico and the first time i came to the the states to do work around anti foreclosures and evictions. I came to work directly with the organization to develop to signs and then after that i started coming back and forth doing work with the organization and started working with this project. It is an organization of artist who are committed to create and develop cultural solidarity. I wanted to introduce readers to visionary artist who are committed to their communities. And to kind of like present all of the work that goes through cultural work. The labor that goes to culture work. Anything else i want to say . I am a puppeteer by heart. I do puppets and work with paper. Going back and forth with the artist in the book their reactions have been great. The beautiful thing about this book is it does have a lot of work of artist who are often unrecognizing in media and the art scene and our political circles. This is to build movement so support your artist. I am jorge diaz. I am a member of the radical free theater and puppetry group. We have been around for ten years. We are based out of puerto rico. We have worked for almost 20 years working with communities of color, black and brown communities, in puerto rico and the United States and building the bridges and understanding the importance of building bridges with our oppressed folks in the United States and build those relationships which i think are important. I feel very honored to be around all of these wonderful people who stepped up and belong to our frontline communities. I want to talk about the frontline communities because a lot of people struggle. The right wing struggles as well. They seem to be winning. But i want to be clear that we are talking about struggles against emperilism, and struggles against racism. We are talking about the state of the movement as obama gives his last speech. I will not forget his inaugural speech. I dont usually listen to these things but this was interesting. One of the main lines i will never forget is this typical use president cowboy line. It was we will not apologize for our way of life. If somebody from puerto rico or third world country in the u. S. That scared me because i knew that meant we would continue on this path of war against our people, we would continue on this path of not having health care in this country, continue on this path of criminalizing our young black and brown men in our schools, and continue this path of the Prison Industrial Complex. I did not know i felt an extreme White Supremecist groups we have to battle. Before the speech, he was talking about this idea of unity and there is unity in the United States. We throw this world around; unity. When a lot of times our movements have not been about unity in the broad sense. It has been a unity of a couple folks or organizers or militant folks who are willing to take that chance and shift the culture. To shift us away from this identify we have to continue this american way of life. I invite folks, and invite you as a cultural worker, as you see the book, we have a mission to shift this culture so unity can mean unity against White Supremacy and one that is in the best tradition of this country and the wonderful people that fought for this country and i mean fought for the rights we are taking for granted or the things we are loosing. When we build that unity on a ship of culture we can get to a point where we can proclaim and yell out and the best feeling of liberation and freedom is when we fight, we win after everything in life failed her she raised her gates to the street protest with black lives matter to end White Supremacy because this is picture story telling about a complex system in light of her people in prison. It is the prisoners of the Industrial Complex or pic we think of people of color or poc. Before the war on drugs got declared there were about 250,000 inmates in the u. S. Prison nation. Today the u. S. Jails and prisons are filled with over 2. 4 Million People between 19702005 our population in prison increased 700 and 60 of the inmates were in jail for drug offenses and 10 for immigration related crimes. This means these two categories of nonviolent crimes made up over 60 of the prison population. As the judge, we ask you for common sense to the idea we have grown up and lived with the fact that prison is the way to deal with crime. It is including juveniles, native american countries, military, and the u. S. Has around 25 of the worlds prison population even though it only represents 5 of the worlds population. The population of inmates, black are incarterated five times more than whites and latinos twice as likey. 80 of those inca incarcerated low income. More black men are in prison or jail or probation or on parole than were enslaved in 1860. And that is why we ask if all black lives matter because we are all created equal why are some blacks more equal than others . This coicoinicides with the three strikes your out law and the drug war multiply the rest. This is revealing an Economic System based on the needs of the migrant. Look at the differences that turned working class people into Natural Resources to face puniti punitive, inhumane capitalist system of correction by force. Roughly 6 of state prisons and 16 of federal prisoners are incarcerated by and work for private companies. The majority of employer prisoners are paid between 12 cents to 40 cents an hour. They are subjected to dangerous situations like being exposed to lead while recycling electronics. Corporations annual revenue is 1. 7 billion with contracts with some 1500 facilities. These are the largest private person corporations in the u. S. Some would say this helped inmates prepare for the labor market. Corporations are taking advantage of prisoners. Why do they have to be exploited . And why not pay them a living wage since their familys lose the income member of that family . The high cost of maintaining with family members in prison leads to more than 13,000. This takes us back to our youth. Our American Dreams of upward mobility are common sense to us. If we study hard and work hard we will be rewarded. This is supposed to be an equal Playing Field in the land of opportunity. But reality is far from this