Now. Thank you for the amazing performance. How are you all doing . Were going to get this show started. Thank you all for joining us today. I want to get some chants goin chants going. Show those in power here loud and clear why we are here to stand for black women and Racial Justice, all right . Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Come on, i cannot hear you all. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No racist. Police. No justice. No peace. No racist police. When black women are under attack, what do we do . Stand up, fight back. When Indigenous Women are under attack, what do . Stand up, fight back. When muslim women are under attack, what do we do . Stand up, fight back. When any of us are under attack, what do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. Stand up, fight back. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. Racistrump, no kkk, no usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. No trump, no kkk, no racist usa. What do we think about White Supremacy . [boos] what do we think about White Supremacy . [boos] it has got to go. We see over the past year that White Supremacy is in the white house. It has been in this country since the very beginning. But today we see in this administration it is intent on marginalizing our community, taking our allies, our jobs, our theth care, and ignoring unnatural disasters happening across the country and across the world. The countries in the caribbean and neighboring countries that are suffering. So what do we want . Justice. When do we want it . Now. What do we want . Justice. When do we want it . Now. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. White supremacy has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. White supremacy has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. White supremacy has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. White supremacy has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Donald trump has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Donald trump has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Donald trump has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Psy cysts have got to go. So one last time black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. Black women matter. All right. Thank you. [applause] give a round of applause for that chanting. [applause] we will have a real conversation supremacy, our responsibility to have uncomfortable conversation. So let me go ahead and welcome to the stage the president of the ms. Foundation, teresa younger. [applause] teresa hello. Hola. Are you already . Who walked, who marched here . I did not hear you. Who marched here . [cheers] first off, thank you. Second off, lets take one second to appreciate this amazing weather that we hire and recognize we have brothers and sisters and sisters in other parts of this country and down in the south and in puerto rico who cannot be here with us today. Join us for one second as we send them our love. All right, lets get going here. Welcome to the march for Racial Justice. [applause] lets get going here. Welcome to the march for Racial Justice. Are we ready for this . We have some amazing speakers. Going, i want to make sure we get started on both the right and the left foot. As a nation, we are standing at a crossroads. Nation, we are standing at a crossroads. I dont have to tell you all this because we know it, but in one direction, we have a future that is riddled with scandal, peppered with disinformation and misinformation, and steeped in indifference. Is that the way we want to go . No, its not. However, in the other direction road. Eally rough it is going to be a hard one for us to handle, but it is the road of hope and redemption. It is the road of a future that actually respects us all. What im talking about is a road that actually asks us to speak truth to power, ok . This is not necessarily about making us all feel warm and fuzzy. We have work to do, and we cannot let one person or five make aor even 150 people determination of what we need to be doing in order to create a safe, free, and just world for everybody. So lets just confront the lie of White Supremacy that holds back all of us black and brown, trans and cis, rich and poor, enlightened and blind. Lets understand that White Supremacy is not just those who carry torches down the road. Its not just those who feel so emboldened to take off their so that they can march before us. White supremacy is entrenched in everything we do. It is the principle by which this country was developed on, and now is the time for us to say no more. What are we saying . No more. Idle think i heard you. What are you saying . No more. No more. We just need to take note that we are going to be about having what i call uncomfortable conversations, right . If you are sitting and the water is rising, you moved to a higher level, but if you are at the top of the hill, the rising water never touches you, so this is about having uncomfortable conversations, not just with people we know or dont know. Its about asking a question just once or twice. It is going to be hard. It is going to be long. We actually have to call out what it is racism, sexism, thatarchy, all these ills constantly are in front of us, and now is the day and now is the time, but i want to remind us because some of us think of Martin Luther king as having this we are going to all love and peace and respect each other, and he was about love and peace and respect, but he was about speaking truth to power. He was about radical love, soy want to call on the words of dr. Martin luther king jr. , who called on us to radical love so many years ago. He said, i come here today to plead with you believe in yourself and believe you are somebody. You are somebody. I talked to a group last night. Nobody else can do this for us. No document can do this for us. Lincolnianience emancipation proclamation can do this for us. No johnsons civil rights bill can do this for us. To be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul with and sign with a own emancipation proclamation. Do not let anybody take your personhood. Be proud of your heritage. We dont have anything to be ashamed of. Somebody told a lie one day. We know this life. They couched it in language. They made everything black, ugly, and evil. Look it up in your dictionaries and see the words synonymous for blacks. It is always something degrading, low, and sinister. Look at the word white. It is always something pure and high and clean. We want you to use the right language today. We need also remember to forgive. I want to get the language so right that everyone here will cry out yes, im black. Im proud of it. Im black. Im beautiful. I will say that again just so you understand. While the color of my skin may be black, i am made up like so many of us here of native peoples and white peoples, but today, i stand in front of you and say yes, im black, and im proud of it. Im black, and i am beautiful. [applause] this is the pathway forward. This is what you are going to hear today in words and songs and poetry because it is why we march. We march for liberation, for justice, for unavoidable and unnecessary struggle to uproot White Supremacy. And i want you to join me today as we commit to calling White Supremacy what it is when we see it, and that we understand that if we dont raise the question, nobody will do it for us. We have to do this together. It is not about black people or indigenous communities. Folksnot about our trans or lgbtq communities. Turn to the person next to you. Turn to them, say i am in this with you. I didnt hear you. Say i am in this with you. Now turn to a person you dont know and introduce yourself. Introduce yourself. We are community and i am in this with you. Know that we are in this together. We are going to stand here and sit here and be part of this together, and then we are going to leave here and join everybody in whatever city they are in, and we are going to do this together. How are we going to do this . Together. Wait, i didnt hear you. How are we going to do this . Together. Lets get this started. Are you ready . Im going to wrap up with my favorite quote. I said it this morning. If you were with us when we marched for black women, you will have heard this, but i will just say to you all i want you to be the kind of woman or man or however you identify that when your feet hit the ground in the morning, the devil says, oh, shit, shes up. Lets be that kind of community. We can do that. We can be part of it today. Lets get going. Are we ready . Are you ready for some of these speakers today . Im going to tell you, you stay until the end, you get a reward. I want even tell you who it is, but we will start off as strong as we can be. We start off with a board member of not your mascot. She is a writer and speaker and advocate. Ceo of ae founder and tribecalled geek called geek, and she is here with us today to tell us where we stand. Johnny day, come on. Thank you all for being here today. There are people in this nation who do not understand why we are here. They dont understand why we cannot turn a blind eye, why we cannot leave well enough alone. Havent they given us enough . There are people who believe that we are causing division and hate while bringing awareness to the struggles of our communities. They believe we need to be polite and sacrifice everything that we are our languages, identities, spirituality, cultures, and communities in order for us to be worthy of life, liberty, and justice, but for those of us who choose to love out loud or have obvious disabilities and differences, whatever they may be, we know how it does not matter polite, how educated or obedient or silent or how indivisible we try to make ourselves. We are othered. For those of us with brown and black skin, the consequences are deadly because it fills those a fiercer didh that without even thinking, people clutch their purses or shoot on sight. Murder, rape, imprisonment, slavery, genocide, injustice that is why we are here. We need to a certain that we will not be broken, defeated, eradicated. Ordo not raise our voices fists with hatred or division in our hearts. We raise them in radical, revolutionary love, and that love is so strong that it has called all of us here today regardless of our background, regardless of our differences, because we have come here to restore an innate link back to our humanity, because we were not born knowing how to hate or discriminate. We were not born believing that the moral aptitude or worthiness of life, liberty, and justice was determined by the color of your skin, sexuality, spirituality, wealth, or community. We are taught, and we can and are choosing to untangle ourselves from the web of colonization and oppressive Power Systems that are the very foundation of this nation, and we need to be unapologetically honest about our experiences, and that is what im going to do. Yesterday, as i walked around this city, i realized that as an indigenous woman that i am in the belly of the beast. I am in the midst of a city sued so and antidiligently tidigeneity. This is a city where the mockery ,f our identities, our cultures and everything our ancestors died for occurs on any given sunday with no thought to the racism and harm they are perpetuating. This is a city and a nation that missed the irony of Washington Redskins players taking a knee while wearing a jersey that represents the racism and discrimination that we face as discriminate as indigenous people. [applause] some of you may be thinking that its just a name, just a mascot. We have bigger issues. But representation matters. ,nd it impacts our reality social, education, professional, even our political realities. We are less than 2 of the u. S. Population, yet we are the most likely to be killed by police. Rates of homicide, sexual poverty, arecide, anywhere from two to 10 times the rate of National Averages of any ethnic group. Our women and girls are murdered and disappear, and just a few weeks ago, one of my aunts joined their number. And those losses are hard. [applause] and many believe that the progress made four and by other communities will trickle down to , but that is not the reality because we are not asking if justice is even possible on stolen land. We are not working to envision what that will even look like. We are not working together. We do not know each other. We do not know how to communicate with each other, but we are trying. Over the last year, we saw that progress being made at standing rock. [applause] we saw people from all walks of life coming together to support onetribe, but that is just tribe. There are over 567 more sovereign nations that need to be supported, who are badly pipelined in their own lands as well as other issues battling pipelines in their own lands as well as other issues. Movement and the communities working toward justice for their people, we asked that you continue to support us, that you continue to remember us as we assert that we are still here as indigenous. Eople one of the things that people that i really want people to understand is that we are less than 2 of the population. 5 million among this entire population, and people do not understand the significance of that, but what those numbers mean is that we have survived the maximum efforts of one of the world greatest superpowers. We are still here. [applause] for your support because we are in this together and none of us are free until all of us are free. Thank you. [applause] see, this is not about us. This is not about any one of us. This is about what we are doing for those we love, those whose shoulders we stand on, and those who will come after us. That is what this is about. This is for the seventh generation that will come after us. What world do we want to leave them. This next person i should not even have to introduce because you know her, and you know her because unfortunately, she was that this the tragedy country does to black and brown men on a daily basis. This is the mother of full land of castile philando castile, the founder of the full letter castile philando relief fund. Join me as we bring to the stage valerie castile. [applause] thisll wow, is solidarity. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of you coming out. Now this is what solidarity looks like. We are all in it together. Each and every last one of you. We are here to support one. Nother as we fight for justice im valerie. Castile. S philando days since i last saw my son, when i last hug my my son,n i last kissed when i last told my son that i love him. My son was taken at a very early age under such rhythmic action. Y son did everything right i did everything humanly possible to protect my kids. I said if you want to carry a weapon, go get your license. My son started working with you was 13 years old, and he was gainfully employed until he was ruthlessly murdered. Didr all that, we everything we could. Dashcam video from the in the car. They had audio. And then they had the aftermath, which im sure a lot of you saw my son take his last breath, and a his last breath, he did dying declaration where he said, i wasnt reaching. He told the officer he said, sir, i have a weapon in the car. Instead of giving my son direct stop moving, dont worry about the license, he shot in that car with no regard for human life. He shot my son five times. Five times, and he was still strapped in his seatbelt. My son knew what he needed to do when he got stopped by the police. Wastarted driving when he 17. And those sparse amount of years, my son had been stopped 50 times. 50 times my son had been stopped by the police, and he was only 32 years old. You to the mac. That dont make no sense. And they say theres no racial profiling. Heyre not stereotyping you tell me what it is. These are some things you need to ask yourself. Use your common sense. My son did everything right. The womano protect and a child by informing the. Fficer that he had a weapon the weapon was not shoot ready. On, i got a weapon in the car, let me get the gun , andy pans, let me cock it then im going to shoot it. That dont make no sense, but my life and body. They cut my son open trying to save his life because he was honest and he told the truth. Im still wondering where on this planet do you tell the truth and be honest and still be murdered by the police. Come on, somebody, help me out right now. Right. Did everything he had an honest job. The only thing wrong in his life by the policessed until they ultimately killed him. Understand, the area my son was traveling in, everybody in the state of minnesota new. You go all the way out of your way just not to pass through that little area because of the prejudice. We going to call a stated a spain. Quit playing. You know it. Racism is alive. Its a live all over. You nextdoor neighbor know, right about now, in the culture we are living in, i always knew there was a silent war on black people, and people of color, but now its not silent no more. They doing it out in the open. And then for a person to tell. Ou your video dont mean shit and it video, audio, dont mean shit that came out the police mouth. Im not just saying that. Im saying with the police said. Then the police pull over a white woman and said, what you are afraid of . We just kill black people. Yall saw it on facebook, on tv. Thats what he believes. Because racism is alive. They have infiltrated the government, the jails, the police department. White supremacists is all over the place, and they are out there showing an even more. Nowadays, you cannot even walk down the street, some white nigger. St, aw, \ they doing it all the time. I mean, i came here to speak let you know and how dissatisfied i was with the verdict because they had everything that they needed. They had everything they needed for conviction, and they didnt. I stilled and understand how that happened. You had everything you needed here you got you everything you needed. My son t