Center for critical race and digital studies and coauthor of race appeal how candidates invoke the race in political campaigns, the winner of the 2012 a psa ralphs monkey award and also with us hed David Ellingtons founder and executive chairman of the Silicon Valley block chain society, a global member driven ecosystem block chaining cryptocurrency related project across industries and for social impact. Members are active investors primarily in technology, collectively representing more than 1. 5 trillion in investment capital, and the motto is funded revolution. I love that. We are so pretty new that is very compelling story, very important story kind of lesser known in tech, but looking at people have been working towards a social justice inside the Tech Industry and the book is called black software the internet Racial Justice, from the afronet to black lives matter of course by charlton d. Mcllwain and published by our friends at Oxford University press. Gentlemen, pleasure to have you both with us. Welcome. [applause]. Think you are the introduction and thank you for all that have come out and maybe a few others will trickle in along the way. So, this is a great place to be. Im wrapping up whats been about a month and a half long to her promoting this book and i can become no better place to end up, this part of the two were in this historic moment. I was just talking to these general and before we started when i got up to the west coast and was telling everyone when i was headed next and i said city lights and everyone forgot about the book. They just says, my gosh i grew up there and spent all this time there, yet to do this. Theres a bar across the corner so its a great thing to be here to talk about this book and to talk with and thank you david for joining me tonight. We will give you some back story about the book and get into some conversation. I dont know where it will lead. I have a starting point but ive a feeling we may jump off course and throw out the q a to the audience at some point. I thought i would start by telling you how black software came to be or at least where the journey started for me and that was simply to explain or try to explain black lives matter. Here was this movement, movement that was powered by digital technology, by folks who harnessed these new Digital Tools to do something that people had not managed to do central in the late 1960s and that was to put the issue of Racial Justice and really the issue of the way that black folks suffer at the hands of the us criminal Justice System back onto the us public agenda. Not since the early 1970s had that happen, but 2014, 15, 16 you sought everyone across the country even beyond the country knew who black lives the matter was, new what they stood for, new with the message was and even some folks who were not predisposed to agree with their position founder themselves agreeing saying yes, black folks are treated differently in this country and particularly in the terms of control justice so i wanted to understand where did this Movement Come from. Had the good sense to know things like this dont just materialize out of thin air so where did it come from, where was the genealogy, where did these folks trace their lineage most in terms of the social and rachel presold justice work but also technology in the facility and knowledge of relatively new technology. Thats where i began and i thought i knew the story i was going to write so this is for anyone thats written a book, i dont know if there are any, but you know the anxiety various when you think you know what you are writing about and find out you have no idea what youre writing about and that happened over and over the course of about three years of writing this book because it didnt really start off as black lives matter and of the mori started going back in time finding folks like david here and we will talk about this much more, the story just began to change, discovery after discovery of different people, different times and in different stories then compelled me too say there is something bigger, theres something broader, but let me start where i first began which was the 90s when the web comes online where everything happens, natural place to start, but those of you everyone except for maybe a couple you all remember the 90s. If you are thinking about black folks and technology in the 1990s, what are two words you undoubtedly remember or talked about . Anyone remember . You are too young in the 90s. That was the way in just which we began to think about black folks and technology from that point on and as much as larry irving and other policymakers had good reasons for pointing out the gap between access to technology that there was a tremendous erasure that was affected and so in some of these talks were ipad projections and usually put up on the screen a number, 5. 6 million. 5. 6 million where the number of people in 1995, number of africanamericans who had computers at home and who were online in 1995, but thats a story about 5. 7 million, 5. 6 million we know here nothing about because we presumed the story was black folks dont have access, therefore they have contributed nothing to this new medium in this platform and so my story began trying to understand who were the 5. 6 million, what were their stories, would they do, where they come from, where did their journey start and thats where i first met David Ellington, so i went to start the story there with reading just a small portion of the book and i didnt know david had not got his copy from oxford yet, so maybe this will be a little bit of surprise we will same to read it and then david will ask you to finish out the story tells a little bit about whats at this moment meant. Chapter eight, its called the battle for black cyberspace and it starts here, beginning april 12, 1861 america engaged in the great civil war. January 1, 1863 president Abraham Lincoln emancipation proclamation gathered legal force and for two years, five months 19 days thereafter nothing change for many slaves and then Major General granger and union troops arriving galveston, texas. There he read the proclamation. The people of texas are informed in accordance with the proclamation from the executive of the United States as slaves are free involving an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves in connection existing between them becomes that between employer and free labor. No space was three and tellall slaves or free and some black people commemorated the day calling it jim t, the date of slavery and a brief period of in reconstruction 130 years later to the day David Ellington and malcolm symbolically assumed general grangers role. Their announcement was as revolutionary as a historic moment when the last slaves received word she was free. It started in 1994 Timothy Jenkins works, meanwhile malcolm that kim david back down to the budget in their malcolm gave daytoday claims of the future. I will stop reading right there, but david, tell us about that beginning, that moment and it may be a little hyperbole, but tell us about what ultimately became net know are in the significance of what it is you, malcolm and the team of technologists and others launched. Of course, first, thanks for inviting me and hosting. You just kind of blew me away. I completely forgot that. The specifically, that was the day we launch the service intentionally and we did tie it to june team is coming so it was tied to friedman emancipation but your eloquence there, but i was an entertainment lawyer in los angeles. I had gone well, i need to backup further, why would i care about or do something in african culture just because im of african descent, africanamerican, so i went to Howard University for graduate school and got a masters degree in african politics in the 80s. I then if so, i had a passion. I wanted to know my culture and there is the myths in the black community we walked around like kings and no, i wanted to know that true so i went for two years and that this degree and was always a part of my life, but then i knew i wanted to go to law school so i ended up working to make it very long story short i ended up going to law school in washington, georgetown. Go to georgetown law 91 when it to start at least by practice on the west coasts. I lived overseas in asia for a bit so i wanted to be on the pacific rim. I went to tokyo for a while, came back, went to law school when i graduated i said let me beyond the specific rim so i moved it to la. La only entertainment law and all my clients were black, surprise. Mostly this early stage, this thing called hiphop and r b and so there was also the time when gangster rap is just starting so i had to do with knuckleheads on death row in all that, but i realized i was really getting my feet wet in this medium and i was like really excited about it and this guy since i lived in tokyo i still kept in contact with folks there. Okay, there were seven or eight black people in tokyo at the time. [laughter] guess what, we all knew each other especially in that age group, separate from the military guys who were in tokyo, so anyway there was this one guy with a wild background. His name is kenny and he was a dj, but morning south africa, raised in libya, but his family was refugees because they were being persecuted in libya so they went to sweden, tall, beautiful handsome guy, a model in tokyo. I was at some event and saw him, a brother, okay whats up and we became friends and stayed in touch. Moved back to america, go to law school than la. We stay in touch over the years. He reaches out to me, hey david theres this kid malcolm whos really smart over here, went to mit undergrad and hes going to stanford, but im telling to visit you in la first. I said okay, fine. He came over, he was on a motorcycle comes up to stanford and starts school there. He was undergrad Computer Science and was going to get his masters at stanford. Are now practicing law and of course im an entertainment lawyer in los angeles so my parties are better. So, he comes down all the time he thought he was just going to go to school. Of course, he was always sleeping on my couch. Eventually i go to visit him and i like what you do up there, so i went again made a long story short i went to visit him once and he was at stanford living in palo alto. Apparently the Computer Science students called the lab the dungeon the dungeon. So, hes hes in grad school at stanford so we always has work to do. He said you can command my work to do to come down to the lab that i cant walk you through i have to finish a project. He sits me down in front of a big computer, chunky stuff, keyboards and im trying to keep myself busy and im playing around on this thing and theres a room full of computers, not a pretty room. Dungeon in the bottom of the building on the campus before the fancy stanford we have today. Im looking at all the stuff clicking around and somehow one of my favorite games in the day was a fellow fellow new clip from black to white, black to white and i was playing this game and it turns out it was in the university of stockholms a site that was some kind of Something Back in the day when it was all text still. I tried to get out of it and im sitting and theres a chinese guy sitting next to me and im like i cant figure this out and i cant find malcolm anywhere and at this guy so i said look do you know how i can he click, click and brought me back outside if you want to find stuff you can use this thing i created and it was called because i said what he doing he said hes working as phd and its called i said what is it called and he said a list of text and click on and go somewhere and come and is called yet another hierarchal organization, yahoo comments jerry yang who later became jerry yang. So im like he was just giving his phd, him and his partner. This is the world i got exposed it to and when i saw that being an entertainment lawyer and knowing my culture, i saw there was nothing in all those clicks like 2000 links, text links before the World Wide Web which means there was dubbed, death, when all graphics and sound and video is added, before it was text, mostly scientists and the department of defense designing bombs, so i decided that there was something here, so when i went back to la thats when i had i just started, started bantering with him on the phone back and forth and thats when we finally said something super narrow placket no, not black thats too hard, so i came up with no are and we came up with that more scenic i went to read a part has as one of my favorite parts of that particular conversation in the book. We suddenly this is you and malcolm let me start early, david was the approaching middleage lawyer. Malcolm was in print . Really . I was only 30. This was malcolm malcolms i will talk to him later. Malcolm was a young geek and david took the lead. His vision was dead on but malcolm was there to remind him of his, his proposal backed a technological charm. We suddenly realize the idea of a network of black culture was an opportunity that the two tossed around potential names for the venture that began exposing in their mind and afro net was first out of the gate and they ruled it out they discovered a company with that name already existed selling hairnets not to mention malcolm pointed out there was an Online Service named after it that already existed. Malcolms suggested cyber black and david squashed it, to hardy said. I could have easily gone down the path of trying to be the blacker than black service but i had to say were about to enter the 21st century about communication and creating a place where people to talk, debate and have fun. To to me the Business Model of the next centuries about inclusion and then it happened in tandem. Malcolm said net and david said no are. Unbelievable thats great, i mean, we are doing a project together, but thats exactly what happened. Of them the story moves on ultimately you have this plan for the company and you come before ted who is magic man handing out buckets of money looking for great opportunities and brought you all in. You made your pitch and the rest as they say was history. So, in a previous version of the book there was a chapter titled remember when the internet was black. It had everything to do with the company in that moment and the realization about your idea, malcolms idea and recognition from aol that hey, this is going to be big. Welcome sm by the way to tie the last piece up we built the thing for six months in the early part of 95 and juneteenth is when we flipped it on on aol. Its really also because of my then wife who has since passed, wendy marx, she was working for a Company Called red Key Communications that was the president of the founder was ted lyons. Steve case bought communication and made ted president lost the was ceo and teds First Initiative was im going to find and identify and fund and because as soon as he announced the company wide my girlfriend at the time said you should submit your idea and she introduced it to ted and we were the First Company funded by America Online so today another branch you may know called brought motley fool, so six of us. That the second what he wanted. He new content would be compelling why people would want to join and pay monthly for some service and those of you that remember Online Services we talked about her early the 1200, the 2400 baud and finally in the American Online carpet bombed america with all these diskettes and that was back in the day when there was prodigy and jeannie and compuserve and apples in the world so thats how they wanted to step away and really crush them and they did so we were able to we got printed ted and we were on server doors. Think we got 200,000 with 20 of our company come over 199,000 by doing it oh, that he would have 5 of the company so instantly a Million Dollar valuation like the mob right, a made man. We wrote this check and thats when i went to venturecapital and thats part of the reason we were dis different in the marketplace. We were the First VentureCapital Professional money. A lot of people started things including new york online. That was purely just new yorkers primarily, it was really a predecessor to us and a bunch of others, but we were the ones who really got they were like theres an opportunity here so that made us a corporate Strategic Partner and also Venture Capital check so corporate money from ted and America Online and Venture Capital money from sim card which is terry jones also funded world space. What is that mean for you to think that to know that to have lived that the first big commercially successful Venture Capital back property as it were online that brought millions of folks to this new medium as we talked about before no one knew what the hell it would be poor, what it was about, to think about a black Internet Service that featured black contact, black owners, tell us about the significance of the moment both with that time and also looking back knowing what we know now about the Current Technology landscape and there was a lot of hype. I got a lot immediate attention and malcolm did as well. Novel, it was different. We fortunately were not in the Digital Divide basket because we were up and running. They tried to put us there like but we were doing pretty well so is that 5. 6 was really our target market and if you have black folks online it puts me in a certain category, so we could demonstrate to mercedesbenz this is where you should advertise so all of that came a