Week, i just went to thank you all for tuning in for the Schaumburg Center celebrate 95 years is one of the worlds leading altar institutions devoted to research, preservation and education materials global on the black experience. Whether does remain closed and migrated online real can access parts of archival collection and enjoy our literary festival. This festival continues to expand the schaumburgs long tradition of celebrating and uplifting authors of african entrance african descent from across the globe. Were excited youre here and have so much to share in theater today. Enter marks to authors who have been doing incredible work. So please remember to follow the schedule at the schaumburg. Todays the last day but we still have a full day of incredible programming. We also want you to stay engage engaged. Follow on social media Schaumburg Center. Use the chat to ask questions and comments. Just keep it pg because the kids are watching per therell be a q a following this program. Again your question into the chat. We will try to get to his many of them as possible. And lastly as a reminder were recording this program for archives. We are a Schaumburg Center that is what we do. But u. S. The audience for sure will not be a part of that. Our next program i cant even tell you how deep and psyched and nerdy, black nerd ms. Im coming to this program. It is called reading from the voracious. A person say my work at the Schaumburg Center specially founding the schaumburg first black lives matters conference has been inspired part i cannot imagine how many of you are watching and know how one person among so many has influence our lives for the better. Im excited to start conversation reading from the barre should with you all. Two oh tell you more your class bestseller what the hell you do when she a y a adopted work that we are going to talk about today. The cofounder of the black lives matter is dick more clicks on humanity. Necessary and timely patrice gives us a story the protests of the most viable comes from love and always comes from the black lives Matter Movement of interiors are threats to. But in truth they are loving lives that led them to suggest this for the lives but powerful. This memoir is a testament to their work and love for will begin todays programming with a brief reading. as a young adult aand to remind everybody that the work that we are going to free black people is work that spans decades and centuries and we have so much hopefulness in front of us, there is massive leadership in the streets, theres massive leadership in congress, theres massive leadership across the globe and its going to take every single one of us to show up, be present, to transform this moment. I feel hopeful, we always say this in our movement but when we fight, we win. Im going to read from chapter 10 of the book and we have a new cover, i love this cover so much, such beautiful colors. This chapter is a chapter that is focused on my local organization that i started called dignity and power now. The organization has taken on the largest jailer in the world which is Los Angeles County jail system. The largest Sheriffs Department in the country. And has been successful at winning and started off as a group of five people in my living room talking about how do we stop the violence by Sheriff Deputies to incarcerated individuals. Almost 8 years later we have had some of the most profound victories, almost every elected official said we wouldnt be able to be successful in winning. This is this chapter. Every defeat, every help break, every loss contains its own lesson on how to improve. Malcom x. Black people cannot go on until we raise up and revolt. That is a journal entry in this chapter that one of my journal entries. Montys always been the sibling closest to me, he is the one i play with the most, joke with the most, our relationship has nearly its own language, not in the way we think of when we think of twins but me and monte, we never need full sentences, wholly spoken thoughts to communicate with one another. In every way, he is my best friend. Losing him at such a young age as an Early Childhood wounds that will take me more than a decade to really unpack, understand, and begin to try to heal. Im 11 when the police are picking up monty, who was then 14 and putting him in julie for hanging out in the streets, for underage drinking, for tagging which gives him puts on National Gang database and im still a teenager when he is tortured by the Los Angeles CountySheriffs Department. Theres a difference between abuse and torture. Both are affordable, often unbearable and both leave scars. Neither can be minimized. But i make the distinction here in order to explain that while abuse may or may not be intentional, it is often spontaneous, torture is always intentional, it is always premeditated. And its planned out and its purpose is to deliberately and systematically dismantle a persons identity and humanity. Its designed to destroy a sense of community and eliminate leaders and create a climate of fear. This is the definition used by the center of victims of torture. In a sentence, torture is terrorism and this is what my brother indoors. Hes not alone because while i know the basics of what he experienced the first time he was sent to la county jail in 1999, a jail run by the Sheriffs Department, it will not be until 2011 when i read a report issued by the aclu of Southern California that i fully understand what was done to my brother there. This is this abbefore the attack on the World Trade Center and the pentagon, before the second goal for, the skill to torture people were honed in this nation on people who were not terrorists, they were victims of terrorism. You grieve, you learn, song lyrics in the book by alanis morrissette. In the fall 2011 weeks after montys come home from state prison and days after hes back in my mothers house from the hospital stay, im in our college in on this site and going through my email when i noticed one from aclu of Southern California. They have filed an 86 page complaint against the la county sheriffs sheriffs apartment for torture. 70 of the 86 pages are testimonies from survivors of those who are witnesses to torture. The report, which includes prisoners testimonies and that of jailhouse chaplains who could not be silent reveals the that under the watch of sheriff lee baca, torture in the la county jail which was for at least two decades pervasive, gruesome, systemic and routine. There was the scope of the report is staggering. The sheer number of individuals who have kicked in the testicles, set upon and beaten by several deputies at once, individuals tased for no apparent reason, bones broken by the guards, wielding flashlights at every tool that became an instrument of extreme violence and americas largest jail is breathtaking. Other elements of the torture almost broke me as he read the words of a civilian who testified about a wheelchairbound prisoner who deputies pulled off his bed, kicked and need in his ribs back and neck and shot with pepper spray in his face. I began to hyperventilate and remember my brother drinking out of the toilet, my god, i cant breathe. We cant breathe. Mr. Ggg testified about the deputy forcibly searched, prisoners with a flashlight ab placing the flashlight half an inch into the prisoners rectum, which caused extensive enough injury that the man bled and bled but he didnt complain because the last prisoner who did was taken away, attacked by several other guards, screams, hunting that refuses to be harmed or set aside. It returns and returns. Number please. Fingers, hands, collarbones, jaws and ribs broken. Prisoners who were already rendered unconscious continue to be assaulted and most every case the prisoner was reported by independent observers, of not resisting, many were handcuffed from the moment of the attack was initiated. One man was stripped and locked naked in the cell with other prisoners who encouraged ab male guards participated in torture, female guards participated in torture, everyone knew what was happening. Medical staff knew what was happening. The sheriff knew what was happening. It is reading this that makes me finally understand in a way had not before what had been done to my brother. My monty, my best friend. Stripped, beaten, starved, forced to drink from the toilet. What else . And what else. Montys testimony is not egregious, the stories my brother is our survivor and my whole family is. I began flashback and suddenly its 1999 and i watching my mother desperately try to find my brother, my mother is calling and calling and no one is helping her. I am a kid i want someone to help my mother i want someone to help my brother i want someone to help me but no one does. Please, i can hear my mother say as though its happening again, please, im looking for my son abin my cottage in the village in 2011 i began to cry as mark anthony and ray circle around me in support, whats happening, they want to know. I shake my head and overwhelm and point to the screen and reach for the bulbs and call my mother. Mom, are you there . She said yes. Can hear me too . She mustve signaled him to pick up another extension, they are suing the la county jail for torturing prisoners. My mother and monty are silent and after several seconds may be as long as i have a minute my mom says, thank god. And then after an even longer pause monty says, slowly and quietly but ever so resolutely, finally. Immediately i know i want to tell the world what has happened and i say to mark anthony and ray i have to do an art piece. Almost immediately i go to work, i pull together for friends with exquisite performers, i call my mother and asked, do you have documentation of the phone calls he made to the jail . I sure do, she says, i kept everything. I get the documentation and audiotape program recorded her written record i get the audio of the sheriff and the undersheriff being questioned by the commission that spoke together after the report is released, and i approached the local artspace is often allowed us to do political performance work, call the work stained and when audience walk in they see on the walls testimonies. Caution tape separates the audience members from four performers each standing alone as is in solitary confinement each uses their body in a different way to demonstrate the impact of being caged. One brother does herpes until he collapses, one woman laughs until she starts crying and then starts laughing again and whoops up for the entire show, one person paces and circles refuses to stop except the final performer jumps and jumps trying to desperately reach a sky they cannot see. Audience hears the recorded audio they hear the dates and notes my mother kept and took of the dozens of calls she made the show will pour for two years by the second show my homegirl, who Strategy Center francisca say to me, you have to do more, you can do more. She nurtures me and my growth and my vision with love and support of the midwife. And i want to not one more person to know what monty or any of the other prisoners in that report no, i want no family to ever feel what we felt. As the Program Towards the began to envision and create the infrastructure for a campaign, the coalition to end violence, launched in september 2012 our initial goal is to establish and ensure civilian oversight of the Sheriffs Department but as organizing work grows mark anthony and i know we need to fully realize organization in order to support it. Im scared to do this of course. I also know i am not 17yearold patrisse who first came to the Strategy Center, the one organization i been a part of for all these years, the organization that i volunteered for, at that point until all my adult life. While i am committed to leave my proverbial home and take it to the world all the lessons its given me including two large execute and win campaigns by building power amongst those the world considers powerless. If we could do that we could stop the Sheriffs Office with moms and dads and Sisters Brothers and cousins and friends whose loved ones have disappeared, whose loved ones have been beaten, whose loved ones have been tortured we Call Organization dignity and power now and in 2016 do you believe you have the power to forge positive change . How can you get involved. The end. Wow, thank you so much patrice. Ive got to tell the folks watching i read the book i remember that segment of the book, that was only a fraction of this book and if you are blown away by the fraction of this book, you cant even imagine whats in store for you when you read the entire memoir. I want to thank you for that excerpt. While you are speaking i just wanted to draw back when you first said when we open how you were just coming to this space intentionally. I want to set an intentional space where we can just acknowledge all thats happening around us but still be hopeful and share in a space of joy. Ive enjoyed being with you so far this morning and this afternoon. I want to start with just how much you paid so much attention to language and the naming of things is so crucial. This is exquisite in the title of the book and even reading montys story but you use words like abuse, torture and then terrorism. For so many people now the concept of terrorism is mostly 9 11 but you are experiencing terrorism, the type of terror way before then. Can you talk more about the selection of this title and what the word terrorism actually gets to the heart of and calling it and naming it. We were thinking about several titles this wasnt the original title. I think asha text me early in the morning she said i have the title of the book and i said what you got . And she said when they call you a terrorist. I was like yes, thats it. I cannot argue with that. We felt like that was important because we wrote the book as an intervention to the idea that the black women who started black lives matter and the black postmasters organizers and activists were terrorists they knew it was propaganda being used to undermine the movement and the propaganda used to undermine black ab wanted to make sure we have a different conversation i thought it was important to keep it plain. Really get to the root im not interested in sugarcoating what we been named and how we have named it. The impact violence and torture has had in our Community Think its really important and when i talked to asha about what happened in the jails i said this is torture its not abuse. Its not Police Brutality its Police Terror. Its not someone getting in a fit of rage and then acting out from emotions, its premeditated. Its strategic, systematic. Thats why Police Terror and torture happen so often and frequently and people ask, if we just train them differently we have to remember this is exactly how they been trained. That becomes overly critical moments and opportunity for us to just be honest about whats happening. And love that idea of being honest about whats happening, i brought up the idea of language and naming it. Some of my favorite writers are always like, we have to be specific in our language and calling it. I love it. Immediately when i was reading this book, and overcoming a lot of questions about black lives matter but reading this book and seeing how much trauma and terror was normalized in your childhood and even thinking about it had me thinking and reflecting on my job how much terror i experienced and witnessed. I wanted to know for you when did black lives matter actually start for you. Its the reason why we decided to write a memoir and not a polemic. Because the black lives matter started for me the moment i could understand what was happening around me and communicate both in my body, maybe not verbally but communicate what my community was experiencing was unacceptable. I think that starting off from my childhood given what i witnessed as a child and what my Community Witness as we were all children really does give the framework for black lives matter. For me and why i would choose to be a part of starting and helping develop a movement to get black people free because i have been trying to do it since i was a child. Ive been recognizing the necessity for black freedom sense as long as i can remember. Is there a specific moment you can call back to when you just a no. People ask this question a lot. Its a cumulative. I think of someone when you grow up in poverty and grow up experiencing multiple Government Agencies and neglect and abuse and torture your family from the police to social services, to social welfare state to watching my mother work three or four jobs and still not making enough money to take care of her four children, this becomes aball of these experiences become very clear to me that black people are not seen as human, that the system in place doesnt believe in our humanity. I cant locate one moment because its not one moment, its so many moments that happen, sometimes simultaneously. Theres not like, this happened and then one year later another bad thing happened its like actually all the bad things are happening all the time all at once because its purposeful because there is no love, care, or dignity for poor people, especially if you are poor and black. Im thinking about i totally agree, just build up and builds up, at some point it has to be released. We all release in different ways and im thinking about why i love the reading questions at the end of each chapter. Im curious, you said earlier before we got on the call that this is not a revision, this is not rewriting your 2018 memoir, this is actually in addition to. I wanted to speak to the questions that you add to this text and why they matter so much especially for the reader. When we are adapting this memoir i wanted to i see this book as a love letter to younger millennias and generation z to give them an opportunity to read about somebody they probably heard about, listen to before and take the time to reflect on their own upbringing and whats happening for them. I was a young activist, i was started activism when i was 16 years old and i was hungry to read every single black woman b