Transcripts For CSPAN3 400th Anniversary Of Forced African Migration 20240713

Here for black History Month. Now the association for the study of africanAmerican Life and history was founded by dr. Carter god win woodson i started as negro history week and now of course has been expanded to black History Month. We would like to thank our sponsors. They include the prince georges truth branch of u. S. A. Today and the law and policy group. We would also like to thank you all of those people who make black history happen all year round. The year 2019 is special for many reasons. We will explore those reasons in two parts. Part one will talk about the theme for black History Month this year, and that is black my grayings. Our press event also includes a panel of migrations, our press also includes includes scholars who will share their expertise on the 400 years of perseverance triggered by that migration. First, if we have her here, Allison Fitzgerald kojak. You will get her, she will come to give welcome in a few minutes. We are also honored to have the presence of dr. Lonnie g. Bunch, iii, the founding director of the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture and also a solid centennial ray of light. [ applause ]. Thank you. Thank you doctor bunch, thank you for your ongoing support of our group and our embrace of the legacy of our founder dr. Carter god win woodson. Each year the president of asala discloses the selection of the heme for the study of black history globally. Black history is not just an american thing. Black history is a study that we have seen actually take place in the uk as well as parts of africa and other parts of the world. So what dr. Woodson started has become a global, global event. Dr. Higginbotham is the professor of hess tree and africanamerican studies and the first africanamerican chair of the hess Tree Department at harvard. We are also proud to congratulate her for winning the dr. John hope franklin award. We just learned of this last night. She is a historian of historians. [ applause ] and to read her statement on this years black history theme, black migrations, i give you dr. Higginbotham. [ applause ] thank you, and welcome. Every year i write a statement to inaugurate black History Month. This one starts off happy black History Month. This year opens with the theme black migrations. As the founders of black History Month the association for the study of africanAmerican Life and history believes that migration represents one of the most important aspects of our faces past. The very title of the book, a nation of immigrants, written by president john f. Kennedy captures the centrality of migration to the makeup of the american people. However, for africanamericans, the history of migration has a unique meaning. That of forced migration. In the form of the african slave trade to america. Which ended by law, though not always in practice in 1808. And the domestic human trafficking, what we call the domestic slave trade that continued until the abolition of slavery in 1865. These are stories of families separated, of children taken from parents, and such pain was overwhelming and heart breaking for families then as it is now. For children separated from their parents in the hispanic migrants who seek asylum. Dr. Carter understood that in his book published in 1918. He presented quote the facts as to how the negro this is the United States have struggled under adverse circumstances to flee from bondage and oppression in quest of a land offering asylum to the oppressed and opportunity to the unfortunate. As asalaa calls attention to the many stores and forms of migration over the centuries and also in the present we give special attention to the year 1619 when africans arrived on two slave ships in the Virginia Colony. The First Permanent English Settlement in north america. I always like to say this is a digression. Africans were in what is presently understood to be the United States as early as the 1500s because they were slaves there of the spanish. And they helped to build the city that is the oldest city in the United States, st. Augustine, in 1565. But 1619 is crucial because it is the year that epitomizes the moment of the unfolding problem of race and slavery in the american past and present. And we want to applaud the legislation introduced by congressman bobby scott of virginia, and that legislation is titled the 400 years of africanamerican History Commission act hr 1242115. And that was that came out february 2018. 1619 is important because its part of the story of the United States revolution, the revolution that created the United States. It is the year, as i said, that epitomizes the moment of the unfolding problem of race and slavery in the american past and present. Virginias lawmakers led the 13 colonies in creating a Legal Process that gradually structured permanent racial servitude. Indeed, as a colony virginia, and later as a state would pass laws on race that would serve as a model for defining the subordinate legal status of persons of african decent. Asalah personalizes the 400 years history. The four centuries bear witness to migration as countless stories of a past left behind and a future full of hope for a world free from racial segregation. This includes many actors. Some escaping from slavery, some immigrating from africa, some moving from farm to city in the south or to the west. Others seeking employment in the north in the 20th century or returning to the south had the 21st century. And not least of all, those who came to the United States from the caribbean from south america, from africa, from many other places, join asala. Help us to make black History Month the best it is in 1619 to 2019, and throughout this year come with us on this intellectual journey of black migrations. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you dr. Evelyn brooks higginbotham. Our 28th president of the association for the study of American Life and history. Once again, my name is Gloria Browne mar shall, a professor at jon jay column and a legal historian. I also put on another hat. A legal commentator who covers the u. S. Supreme court. The study of black history involves many stakeholders. They include asalah medicals, branch members, students, support e readers, foundation scholars, archivists to name a few. But researchers of history rely on newspapers. And they say that journalism has been the first draft of history. We are pleased to present nichelle smith. Nichelle is the coordinating editor of u. S. A. Todays team and the leader of several race and diversity projects. Additionally, u. S. A. Today publishes an additional publication during blackis tree month. This year, asalahs calendar and other events are featured in this publication. I give you nichelle smith. [ applause ] thank you glor yachigloria. Thank you to members of asalah. I am so delighted to finally be presenting this black History Month special edition to you. This is exodus, the issue we have for 2019. We have been doing these issues for seven years. Unbeknown to the group. And asalah has been part of what has undergirded the issue since its inception. One of the things that we wanted to do with in edition in particular, we had a little bit of a freedom of movement to step away from our founding philosophy. We had founded this in 2013 to celebrate civil rights anniversaries and to find a way the talk about how meaningful those anniversaries were. This year, we had a little bit of leeway to really really drill down deeply into asalahs theme of black migrations to the point that the Writers Group that i bring together were like that is just so broad. What are we going to do to narrow that down. Luckily we had a reporter for our main story who had been wanting to talk about the schaumburgs in my motion exhibit in the 13th Migration Theory that they set forward. She was able to use the theme to really get into that to tell the story that does not represent africanamericans post slavery as victims but rather to talk about how we were confronted with a situation for which we had no blue print and we were able to move forward and find our way and use agency and intelligence and independence to build a new life for ourselves. Also in looking at this, we knew we had to talk about the 400th anniversary of the african arrival. I had been hearing for years, 400th anniversary of slavery, slavery started in 1619. I went into to begin the research thinking we were going to have a set date. We found that we needed to do some debunking instead and we turned to Darrell Scott and Gloria Browne mar shall and other people at asalah to help us drill down into the notion and debunk everything as well as give us the schedule. I am tremendously proud of this issue, as i am every year. I think this is probably our most thoughtful issue, and i hope that you will go on and maybe get a physical copy for ourselves. It is at on line store. U. S. A. Today. Com. The key points will be posted at our civil rights in america website that we have. Thats civil rights. U. S. A. Today. Com. Also, want to let you know that your word and your work travels so much farther than you think it do, than i ever thought it was going to do when we first started this. Last year we were able to give away 11,000 copies for free to museum yums and schools and libraries and other institutions. This year i am dhited to say we had the help of Kamala Harris and distributed 18,000 around the country. I am hearing lots and lots of positive feedback from all over the country and am hoping we can continue to present this to you. I just want to tell you how we use this issue to bring things full circle. Not only do we want to go back into the past, but we find the themes useful in terms of going back and getting what we need and as we push forward into the future. So with black panther being just the phenomenon that it was last year, i found that the asalah theme it was a perfect dwas to talk about the theme in terms of our ancestors must have felt the same way in their search for their Promised Land as we did when we all saw wakanda and started searching for that somewhere. I know that i did. Thank you so much for providing a mechanism to talk not just about america but about the haitian revolution, about the gulla people, about the islands and about so much more that we werent able to at the time into this issue this time but that we hope to be able to get into the future. Really appreciate the work. [ applause ] if i could say one more little thing. I want to give a shout out and love to the black press as well. People debate their purpose and usefulness as more black people are in the mainstream press. But without the news service, after row american and other newspapers in addition to the historians that are gathered here today and that are listening i would not be as informed as i am and be able to do this work. Appreciate you. [ applause ] thank you nichelle. Asalah created a National Calendar of events for the 400th. It is a Clearing House of events and activities taking place not just across the United States but around the world. Asalah provides organizations and individuals with a free platform to tell the world about their 400threlated event. For example, on our calendar if you have a chance you go to asalah, asalh. Org. Asalh. Org. And you will see we have dozens of conferences taking place, including a conference thats taking place in hampton, virginia, custom is the site of the arrival of the 20 africans in 1619. We have great migration concerts in Prince Georges County presenting the music of the different eras of impact and Film Screenings in chicago. If you have a chance to look at our calendar and of course submit events that are 400th related you will find it is an abundant place for us to not only know whats going on in our communities but in communities across the country. We have been contacted about black History Month celebrated in scotland, carter g. Woodson, and to understand those connections throughout the dais pour ra. 400 years of perseverance includes a journey that includes overcoming unspeakable obstacles. But because we overcame those obstacles, were allowed to be in this room today. It is the honor and the glory of that resilience, that perseverance, that makes this 400th commemoration so important, not just to the african diaspra but the world. Africanamerican resilience, perseverance, love, family and cultural pride brought us through so much. And here we are today having gone through all of that, understanding that 400 years of perseverance is represented in so many different ways. And before we go to part two of our panel, i would like to have a welcome from the National Press club itself. Thank you so much. [ applause ] thank you, gloria. Great to see you and great to see all of you here today. I were happy to have you at this important occasion and to see your Smiling Faces and to know that theres so much to celebrate and that youll enjoy this Great Program that gloria has put forward. I want to just, if i can touch on a couple of aspects of our history that we think are important and have to do with progress and participation of the African American community and the press club together. So recently weve had two president s ago, jeff balu was our president. He works for al jazeera. Hes a producer in a television programming. Happens to be an African American. This is our first African American male president at the National Press club. Weve had African American female president s but this is our first African American male, and jeff did a tremendous job. He was a great ambassador for us. If you go to the ballroom, which is the biggest room around the corner on that side, theres a plaque and it commemorates the first African American speaker at the National Press club. This was 1962. It was dr. Martin luther king. He was about 33 years old then. And he was terrific a terrific speaker for us. And its meaningful to people when they enter that room and know dr. King spoke there. Interesting, dont have full video of this event. We have full a audio on the library of congress website, and he was terrific, of course. And theres notes of his i have a dream speech that would come later in life in that rhetoric that day. Its an interesting historic document just to hear and see that. I could literally go on like this forever, but i know gloria has great stuff. Ill leave you one or two other things that i find fascinating that inform our place, our country, so the last place that Louis Armstrong played trumpet in public was at the National Press club. For about a year he had been holding the horn and singing. He had a heart condition and wasnt up to the force you needed to play the trumpet. He was coming up here in january of 1971 to see us. His doctor gave him a gothrough right before he got on the train to come up, and he said, you know, let your own conscious be your guide. If you want to play, youre well enough to play. So people came there expecting to see him and to hear him sing, but not expecting to hear him play trumpet. And he was great, and we found the audio and we gave it to Winston Marsalis and he said i heard it play that run from hello dolly hundreds of times, but never heard that improvisation. So what it tells us about the human condition is that at the end of life, you know, the artist is still inventing. Right . And that music became the leadselling thing on my kids would know the terms on apple no, on itunes, jazz and on one of the other ones, digital ones for two weeks. And it was the music was years old, but in a way we hadnt heard it before. Kind of thats what the one of the things that happens at press club. Stuff that is important to our history but we havent really listened to it the right way or heard it recently helps inform us about the world were in in the public. We find the richness in art and policy and culture thats brought forward from some of our visitors who are in the African American community. And its a wonderful thing. Of course, if you really want to know about that, go to that Wonderful Museum down across the street. Anyway, i am grateful for an opportunity to see all of you. Im going to turn it back over to gloria. Thank you for being here. Thank you for what you do, and grateful for you to be here. [ applause ] thank you. Im also a member of the National Press club. So as we turn to part 2, we were going to be led by our president , dr. Higginbotham, who will moderate the consolers who will discuss 400 years of perseverance from their perspective. Doctor higginbotham . So we have a distinguished panel today. Brent leggs is the director of the African American Cultural Heritage action fund, a 25 million fundraising and Preservation Campaign at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He is a Harvard University fellow and author of preserving African American Historic Sites. Hes led efforts to create the birmingham civil rights National Museum monument in alabama which president barack obama designated in january of 2007. He is the recipient of the 2018 robert g. Stanton National Preservation award. Brent leggs other projects include preserving iconic spaces like the estate of madame cj walker in irvington, new york, or joe fraziers gym in philadelphia, pennsylvania or nina simones birth place in tyron, North Carolina and many more places. Brent leggs is also an assistant clinical professor at the university of marylands graduate program in Historic Preservation. Spencer crew is the clarence j. Robinson professor of history at george mason university. His Research Interests and publications focus on African American migration, slavery, and the underground railroad. He has been a leader in public history for several decades, serving formally as the president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom center in cincinnati, ohio, and later working at the National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution for 20 years. He brought there the innovative exhibits and the creative exhibits which have been important and memorable. The one that people probably remember best, from field to factory afro american migration 1915 to 1940. He also cocurated the exhibit, the american presidency, a glorious burden which is one of the smithsonians most popular exhibitions. Hes also published books with the same names, same titles and many more publications. Hes currently working on a biography of Thurgood Marshall. Gloria brown marshal is from john j. College of criminal justice. Shes authored many books and articles. Her two books that have really make a mark, the Voting Rights war the naacp and the ongoing struggle for justice, and the race law and American Society 1607 to the present. And i chose that book because its a groundbreaking work connecting Racial Justice over 400 years in the areas of education, Voting Rights, property rights, criminal justice, a host of themes that involve africanamericans, latinoamericans, latinos, asians and native americans. And shes currently working or almost done, i guess, she is done on a book thats coming out called she took justice about black women and the law. And shes also working on a documentary of the same title which will accompany the book. As she has told you, shes a u. S. Supreme court correspondent. She is a member of the National Press club, and shes also often on television. You may have seen her as an analyst for msnbc, cbs, cnn, abc, and shes the chair of asalahs 400th commemoration committee. And lastly, roger fairfax, is the jeffrey and martha cohen senior associate dean for Academic Affairs and professor of law at George Washington University Law school. He teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, procedure and policy. And his scholarship appears in numerous books and leading journals such as the Boston College law review, cornell law review, uc davis law review, fordham law review, harvard civil rights Civil Liberties law review, yale law review and i cant list all of them. While at the Harvard Law School where he received his law degree, he was one of the editors of the harvard law review and later a senior fellow at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for race and justice, and hes also an elected member of the american law institute. So we are very pleased to have you, and i look forward to this conversation. Brent leggs. Yes. Your work with the National Trust for Historic Preservation gives history a really tangible form. I like to always tell my students that you can learn history in books, but you can also learn history in museums. But theres something really special standing in those places where history was made. Please talk about why its so important to preserve sites of slavery and, in fact, why your action fund is so crucial for capturing 400 years of perseverance. Perfect. Well, i want to thank you, evelyn, and asalah for having me here today. At the National Trust of Historic Preservation, we preserve the places where history happened. And we believe that every american, including African Americans should be able to see themselves in the Historic Places that surround us. The National Trust we were chartered by congress in 1949. Today were a National Nonprofit organization and we are the leaders in preserving african Historic Places. We believe that preserving both the places of injustice, difficult histories and slavery is critical to understanding the black experience in america. But we dont stop there. We believe that its our social responsibility to reconstruct national identity, balance public memory, and to tell the full history of our nation by honoring the black women and men in entrepreneurship and activism, education, law, science, and all of the ways that we have contributed to the development of the United States. What i wanted to do today is to highlight a couple of our projects just to give you a sense of the kind of work that we do. Has anyone toured fort monroe . So, president obama used the Antiquities Act of 1906. It was his first use to designate Fort Monroe National monument. The National Trust, we got involved because we wanted to ensure that the story there, the story of townsend, mallory and baker, was brought to light. These three enslaved africans, they organized themselves and they would be considered contraband of war by benjamin butler. It became a catalyst, an unknown catalyst for emancipation when 500,000 freedom seekers followed in their footsteps. We believe as we recognize and honor 1619 that there is no greater story of black perseverance than the ones of those three men, and we want to make sure that all americans understand that history. Theres also a place called James Madisons montpelier in virginia, considered the far father of the constitution. We have been working at this Historic Site to expand the narrative there, and if you have the opportunity to tour the new exhibition titled the mirrored distinction of color, what is beautiful about this is that the enslaved workers there literally working in the basement and on this plantation, it was hidden in the way that we had been interpreting that story. Today visitors will learn about those workers but also the legacy of slavery. They talk about Police Brutality. They talk about the aspirations and president obama becoming the first black president. It really speaks to the span of 400 years. And then the last slavery site that i want to share is in richmond, virginia. This nineacre archaeological site, if you see it today, its nothing more than pavement and driveways and streets, but if you were able to pull back that history, you begin to understand that this was the second largest slave holding site in america. When the National Trust learned the city had proposed a 90 million redevelopment to build a Minor League Baseball stadium, we thought this was an injustice. We organized to mitigate that threat and today are working with the mayor and community to develop a communitydriven vision for memorializing that historic space. But again, when i talked about balancing public memory and reconstructing national identity, it is to also to preserve sites of activism and community through the new initiative at the National Trust which is called the africanamerican Cultural Heritage action fund. This was birthed in the aftermath of charlottesville. You all remember those events were Culture Heritage and public spaces collided in the most violent way. The National Trust, we wanted to provide national leadership, and in response, we have created a social Impact Community of national thought leaders and im proud that dr. Lonnie bunch as well as dr. Evelyn higginbotham and their institutions are founding members of our 20 Member National advisory council, and were raising 25 million to help preserve 150 place African American sites in the United States. [ applause ] yeah. Places like the birthplace of nina simone in North Carolina or south Side Community art center in chicago where culture, arts, and Historic Preservation practice is being leveraged as a form of Community Revitalization and Economic Development, helping rich dennis to create a center for female entrepreneurship with the new foundation that they just created, new voices. Also john and Alice Coltranes home in new york. Were so happy to be working there. John composed his masterpiece of a love supreme in a bedroom in that space. But most americans dont realize that Alice Coltrane recorded her first five albums there and it provides us the opportunity to build greater recognition for black women in both civil rights, spirituality and in music. One of the aspirations and goals of the action fund is to create a 10 Million National grant program. Last year when we invited proposals, we received 830 proposals from 42 states requesting nearly 91 million. Last year at the Essence Festival in july we awarded 16 projects from los angeles to atlanta and new york, and invested 1. 1 million. Places like the wifendale ladies club in los angeles, the mary and Eliza Freeman houses in bridgeport, connecticut, tuskegee university, the August Wilson house in pittsburgh and beyond. We just closed our second year proposals and we received 462 this year. Requesting nearly 30 million. This year we will award nearly 2 million. Were hoping to invest in 20 preservation projects. And again, we are looking to support 150 projects across the country, because we want to amplify if i the stories of African American struggle and achievement. We want to foster education, truth, healing and reconciliation, but most importantly, through the action fund we want to highlight and share the full contributions of African Americans to this nation. From 1619 to today were celebrating black perseverance. Thank you. [ applause ] spencer crew. In 1903 the great scholar and activist w. E. B. Du bois spoke prophetically that the color line would be the problem of the 20th century. How did the migration of African Americans during the 20th century contribute to making that statement true . Well, i think as we listened to and read about du bois, we have to keep in mind hes a scholar, sociologist and observer of American Society. I believe what he was observing at the time were important changes that were taking place within the Africanamerican Community. He had done a study of philadelphia, having seen what was taking place and changing there. And what i think he also saw and why he believed the color line was going to be so important in how migration impacts that is that he was beginning to see a new generation of africanamericans coming to the forefront, a generation that had not been born in slavery, who had not been shaped by that but saw themselves in their place in a different kind of way and were much less willing to accommodate to the morays and the ideals that Southern Society had forced upon africanamericans before that. They did not believe that they were not equal, notecessors did but i think they had a different perspective. As you began to see the aftermath reconstruction and the new laws coming into place, segregation, jim crow, tenant farming, you have individuals who are trying to navigate this and figure out what alternatives are available to them. I think what begins to happen is you get into the turn of the century and new opportunities present themselves. Probably the most important one is the start of world war i with the recruiting of whites to go off to fight in the military and europe and other places and jobs beginning to open up in the north. Before that African Americans were looking for other choices, other opportunities. Theyd been moving from rural areas in the south to urban areas in the south but now they begin to move to urban areas in the north, and i think the biggest change that takes place that we have to keep in mind is the fact that we are shifting the Demographic Center of the African American community. That prior to the early 20th century, the majority of africanamericans, 90 of africanamericans lived in rural areas and the south. By the time we get to 1920, they were mostly in the south but much more urban in the way we operate. Were also much more northern in the way that we operate. And as the consequence, i think what du bois is beginning to talk about is what had been seen largely as a southern issue, where southern legislators and senators and people like president wilson had said we know best how to take care of this African American community. We have been around them a long time and we understand the issues that go with that. You in the north, dont worry about it. Its not connected to you. What happens with the great migration and this migration to the north as you get closer to world war ii is that the African American Community Becomes more northern. What you see happening is an explosion in the size of the African American population in northern cities in places like new york and cleveland where i grew up and newark where other people we know grew up seeing their populations of African Americans double and triple in size. And what this means is that this issue of African Americans and their place in the society, their impact on society is no longer just a southern question. It really becomes a national question. Because in northern cities theyre having to adjust to the issue of how do we accommodate this influx of new individuals into our cities. How do we provide the facilities, the support, in order to accommodate them. And what we see having happened is the growth of African American enclaves in many northern cities harlem in new york, the south side of chicago, area in cleveland and other places becoming very important areas of african American Life. And it pushes the issue of African Americans concerns more to the forefront. As people go to the cities, they dont go quietly and accept the setting. We begin to raise issues about what their life is like, what kinds of treatment they deserve as citizens and what is the nation going to do about that. And you see this in the growth of key organizations like the naacp, like the work of people as theres a decision to say that we have a place in this nation. Weve made important contributions, and we will not sit quietly and allow the kinds of discrimination and mistreatment we experienced before to continue to be the way that we operate. So the consequence, i think, what du bois is talking about is the push of African Americans to the forefront of the concern of the nation, and that impact is not only in terms of the growth of black populations in cities and the pressures theyre bringing and the political pressure of the naacp, but also you see the contributions culturally and otherwise of African Americans increasing as well. We talk about the harlem renaissance or negro renaissance because it wasnt just in harlem that it happens. Washington d. C. Is the center, chicago is the center. Thats an important influence of cultural growth. You see jazz coming to the north. Someone was talking about i just blanked. Armstrong. These things come and go. The fact that as he comes up from the south from new orleans and brings the music with him and others do the same thing, you begin to see this be part of an african American Life and culture, and its operating. You also see it in the plays that begin to emerge during this time period. So that the i think the face of African Americans becomes much more national in its orientation. And you first see this with the great migration that takes place roughly around world war i, but the reality is its just the start, its just the beginning because its another great push of African Americans that happens around world war ii. But this push is slightly different. It doesnt go so much north to south which had been the case so much in world war i. Many people come to washington d. C. During this time period during world war i. Many people who live in washington d. C. Now can trace their roots back to North Carolina and South Carolina into virginia. As you get into world war ii, that migration pattern comes somewhat northward but much more west migration. You begin to see people moving from louisiana to california, from the midwest to california, following again the jobs that are available in terms of the military and of things going on there so that what we see happening is that as African Americans relocate themselves in different parts of the nation, have an impact in those places that they really cause a change in how we are perceived. I think what du bois is talking about in terms of the color line is that now issues of race become much more consequential, much more important in terms of how we focus as a in addition. And also our influence upon the political system. You begin to see the shift taking place when you look at the arrival of franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt into office. While he may not be the most supportive president , his wife is and she becomes a spokesperson for the population. And i think those kind of things are what raise this issue to the forefront. As you mentioned, ive been doing some work with Thurgood Marshall and watching him operate. I think part of what he does with the naacp is begin to leverage this growing desire for change in the African American community, and unwillingness to accept things as they are. Through his work and the court cases he raised and in supporting the Africanamerican Community, you begin to see change. Thurgood marshall through the naacp and with others begins to change the voting laws in the nation and allowing African Americans to vote, and that is a huge shift. So much so often we focus on the brown versus board of education case as a critical case in terms of naacp work and of marshall. But in fact, even more important was the breaking through the texas white primary, because until then African Americans have been excluded from voting in primaries in the south, especially in texas. As a consequence had little impact upon the political system there. By breaking through that, getting the Supreme Court to say thats illegal, that African Americans need to be able to allowed to register to vote, it changes how politics are thought about. It changes the nature of the way politicians have to think about the African American community. Youve seen this happening in northern cities, more and more in chicago and places like that as the African American Community Grows in size and they can vote there, they have to Pay Attention to their needs and concerns because they can be a swing vote in a very tight election. This also becomes more and more the case in the south as African Americans have the chance to vote, they have a chance to have impact upon in small ways in terms of how people think about these kinds of issues so that what du bois is talking about and what i think hes predicting and seeing take place is this shift in this migration of africanamericans from in some ways lost in the rulers of the south because theyre isolated, becoming much more to the forefront of issues of concern in American Society and having a much larger impact upon it. And color and race becomes a key issue. You dont have the modern Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s without this shift taking place, without this growing sense of right of i think importance in a place in the Society Without this migration shift taking place. When you talk about du bois and his issue of the color line, the migration i think is that foundation for what he is seeing taking place, that the location of africanamericans in larger parts of the country, north and south and west, really helped to push forward Civil Rights Activism and changes in the society for which we are sort of the inherite eors of it today. Thank you. [ applause ] Gloria Brownemarshall, on all levels if we look back at the Virginia Colony, many of the earliest statutes denied what we would consider today fundamental civil rights. For example, in the 1660s, it was illegal for blacks and whites to marry, and its interesting in 1924, virginia passed a purity act, a racial purity act which also made that illegal. And we also know that it was not until the 1960s in fact, in the 1960s the loving case which comes out of virginia is a case that is based on those same laws. So in a broader sense, discuss the implications of 400 years of perseverance from a civil rights perspective. Well, since i have plenty of time to do that, im going to. Okay. And i just want to go and i will go through 400 years of civil rights history in the time allotted because the overarching issue is that laws are created. African americans follow the laws. Then the laws are changed. That theme takes place for 400 years. So let us begin with the arrival of the 20 africans. The hostages taken from angola arrive on the shores in the Virginia Colony. There are no slave laws. There are no slave laws in the colony. So you have european indentured servants operating under a contract for a certain number of years of servitude where they have to work for free, and theyre paying back the cost of travel to this new land, this new world, and their room and board, et cetera, and theyre doing that through their own labor. So theyre basically white slaves under contract, but there are no slave laws. So theyre contracted work. When these africans arrive in the colony, its unknown exactly what their status is, but because there are no slave laws, we know they were not slaves at the time. They were not enslaved. And so the question then becomes, there are this quasi legal status of an indentured african servant. It is a controversial point, because then that means those europeans in the Virginia Colony created the slave laws that would reduce them to perpetual servitude based on greed. I always like to ask this question if i might as an aside. For anyone who is working, if your employer could work you for free for life, would they . Now you know what slavery is. The ability to work one for free for life and you take away race, you take away Everything Else and you see thats what slavery is. So the landowners were also the lawmakers. 1619 was the arrival of the africans but 1619 was also the beginning of the house of burgess. So this gave local control to those members because it was too difficult to go to england and have the information travel back by sea every time a decision had to be made of legal consequence. So in 1619 they were given law making ability. The lawmakers were the landowners. Just like today, people who own property have a little more stake thats considered in the colony, in the county, in the country. Therefore, theyre given the benefits. So now we have the 20 africans arrive. Within those 20 africans we have mary and Anthony Johnson, and other africans, most we dont know by name. So if they were enslaved in the very beginning, they wouldnt have had the opportunity to rise up as mary and Anthony Johnson did and own property of their own. Mary and Anthony Johnson owned property of their own. They had servants of their own in the 1600s. So, therefore, those people who were part of the house of burgess were able to have political rule and control and make laws because they owned land. So now we have africans owning land. So now we have to change the rules. And thats why i said i can give you 400 years of civil rights history, because as soon as the africans own land, then all the sudden the laws changed and designated them aliens within this commonwealth, and aliens now within the colony had to leave and had to be pushed off of their land. So each time they would rise to the level of having a particular level of power, the law would change. The lawmakers and i still believe a lot of civil rights anticivil rights opposition or anticivil rights undermining of African American is due to competition. As soon as africans looked like they may compete against those people in longstanding positions who assumed by White Supremacy that they should be the lawmakers alone and controllers of the county or the colony or the country, the laws change to undermine the progress of the competition. Thats the other overarching 400year theme. Each time you look at civil rights, youll find the ongoing struggle. Thats why each generation of laws then finds a counter change to the laws as soon as progress has been made. So each time a generation believes they have ended slavery, they have ended jim crow, they have ended segregation, you see a morphing of these changed laws that then undermine civil rights again. So if we go through, for example, and ill give one for each century, one thats very pivotal, and that is they change the law that said that the status of the child of an african would be that of the mother, and that child would not inherit from the european father. Can you imagine if this was a financial issue where the european father had to pay or give part of the inheritance to the child, slavery would have ended in the 1600s or never would have started. When they changed the law ending the heritage rights part of european history for centuries that no longer would any African Child inherit from a european father, that allowed that father then to have free reign and go back to the fact that you dont have marriage between the two, but theres always been the socalled mulatto. As long as two places have had two races and the sun goes down, youll have nine months later some people of color. This has been going on this whole period of time too. The status of that child has been an ongoing struggle. Thats why as we go into the 1700s we see a perpetual servitude because the landowners who are lawmakers have decided i can best have optimized my profit if the workers are not paid at all. If the worker is not paid at all, then i have pure profit. So racism becomes the stigma that allows for the guiltfree oppression of a group of people, because if you decide theyre outside of the embrace of law, and then it was decided it was outside of the embrace of god. As a matter of fact, there a bible in the bible museum that is called the slaveholders bible. They would use certain excerpts from the slave holders bible to tell the enslaved person why god decided they should be in perpetual servitude. Now theyre outside of the embrace of god, outside of the embrace of law and outside of the embrace of society and we can do with you what we will because its gods will, and were just putting into law what is necessary for gods will. So when we get into the 1700s, theres now all these laws of oppression because people are not sitting back and deciding im based on what god said or any other person, i am not going to be oppressed in this way. And so a number of the laws begin to be laws that are crushing slave rebellions and preventing people from interacting. They have to have a letter in their pocket to indicate at any point they could be in any place outside of the control of the slave master. And so these pocket laws, you know and then the militia groups were created. A militia groups were groups made to enforce any runaway slaves punishment. You had bounty hunters. That was not enough. Then the u. S. Constitution then has in it a fugitive slave clause. And the u. S. Constitution has an extradition fugitive slave clause thats put in place that says that this property must be brought back, because in 1787 when the constitution was drafted, the idea was this fear that if theres property left, then the property holder would be left with nothing, and property was very expensive. So when we get into the 1800s, we have once again the push and the pull of civil rights. Dread scott decision of 1857 said even though weve been here since 1619, we were not citizens of the country and could not bring a lawsuit for our own freedom. When we get through the civil war, we have the 13th amendment abolishing slavery except as punishment for a crime. We have the amendments of the 14th amendment that gives citizenship at birth. It gives back the rights taken away by the dread scott decision. It also allows privileges, immunities, the equal protection clause and due process. The 15th amendment gives black men the right to vote triggering once again what took place in in the 1600s with mary and Anthony Johnson. Because when black men gain the right to vote, what do we have in the backlash, or black lash, the klu klux klan, the John Birch Society and all the other oppressive individuals as well as the Supreme Court that is oppressing the rights of African Americans with civil rights decisions leading to a case that instills apartheid, separate but equal. In the 1900s and then the last case, and that is in 2013 which is the Shelby County versus holder case which gutted the Voting Rights act of 1965. Once again, what youll see is two steps forward, one and threequarters steps back. Thats the civil rights story over 400 years. Thank you. [ applause ] and this legal story is really important because the founding i think why 1619 is so important to us as i said before, because these are the laws that are put in place at the same time that america as a nation is declaring its independence, calls itself metaphorically slaves to king george iii, and so we have this paradox where whites are going three steps forward and blacks are going three steps back by law. And that brings me to you, roger fairfax, because in virginia when we think about these laws for racial subordination, its really clear that its not just simply that these laws are being broken but those who break those laws are criminals. Theres a whole process of criminalization. I think about Martin Luther king. I like to tell my students sometimes that you have to understand that rosa parks broke the law. She was actually the one breaking the law. And so what is the role of the criminal system, the criminal Justice System as it relates to the arc of American History in which we see how unjust on many levels the system of criminal justice has been . Okay. Well, first of all, ellen, i want to thank you for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful event and also asalah, and congratulations on this terrific kickoff to what will be a yearlong celebration and commemoration of the 400th anniversary. Miriam webster defines perseverance as the continued effort to do something despite difficulties, failure or opposition. When the professor asked me to think about the role of the criminal law and four centuries of African American perseverance, i decided to go where i often go for commemoration. Im looking here at the front row, because that is the National Museum for African American history and culture, our wonderful institution which i think it is fair to say is, indeed, a monument to perseverance. And indeed, emblazoned on one of the interior walls of the museum are the words of dr. Maya angelou. Those words are, bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, i am the dream and the hope of the slave. In those words from still i rise speak powerfully to the perseverance displayed by African Americans throughout these four centuries were discussing. Ive visited the museum probably a dozen times now on various occasions, and as is the experience of others with whom ive spoken about their visits, i experience it differently every time i go. So in preparation for todays panel, i thought it would be worth going back. I went earlier this week to help me situate my thoughts about the role of the criminal law and these 400 years of perseverance, and you know what . It probably should not be surprising that there is scarcely an exhibit in that museum that does not bring into sharp relief the intimate nexus between the criminal law and the 400 plusyear struggle of African Americans in this country. And whether thats the criminal law being used as a means, as a tool of social or racial control, or to crystallize racial inequity and the professor talked about a little bit in terms of the development of the laws, the black coves that were designed to cement the racial subjugation after the civil war forcing African Americans into labor contracts, restricting their freedom of movement, denying them franchise, prohibiting them from serving on criminal and civil juries, regulating their access to transportation and public accommodation and recreation and education, regulating marriage between individuals of different races. And as the professor pointed out, these were criminal laws. So failure to adhere to these discriminatory prohibitions meant you were incarcerated as a result of your resistance to the laws. Again, the criminal law was being used as a blunt tool to enforce an unjust racial and social order. We also see in the Museum Stories of the failure to provide equal protection to africanamericans, the long and sad history of racial violence and state actors who were often indifferent at best and complicit at worst in this violence, the many horrifying images of africanamericans hanging from trees and bridges as a result of this violence the image of a young vibrant emma till juxtaposed next to his disfigured face as he lie in the casket in the moving exhibit with the casket in the museum and the descriptions of the rape or torture of countless African Americans often without any subsequent serious effort to apprehend the wrongdoers. And when they are apprehended, with no justice being served, no grand jury indictment or no conviction at trial. And we also see in the Museum Stories the use of the criminal justice apparatus to frustrate civil rights advocacy. The often cozy if not coordinated relationship between racial terror organizations as was just mentioned and Law Enforcement meant the racial terror groups had Carte Blanche to use violence and intimidation and even murder to frustrate African Americans in their attempts to exercise their civil rights or pursue economic advancement. And the museum depicts the phenomenon of the criminalization of the civil rights advocates. Mug shot after mug shot of now iconic and some lesser known Civil Rights Activists who were arrested and brought into the criminal Justice System simply for asserting their rights under the constitution. And so we see in the Museum Stories of, again, the criminal Justice Systems impact on this attempt to persevere despite all that stood in the way of African Americans throughout this time, and one thing that struck me was the set of Museum Stories about the criminal Justice Systems warehousing of black bodies, the vivid descriptions and depictions of convict leasing, exploiting that loophole in the 13th amendment and that ban on slavery to allow private parties to continue to profit from the unpaid labor of African Americans. And i could go on and on with these examples of how the museum chronicles these intersections of the criminal law with the African American history of perseverance, but we should be reminded that this is not only about history. I mean, many daunting challenges remain. And the museum chronicles this unfortunate history of Police Brutality within the African American community, but today we see instance after instance of unarmed African Americans losing their lives at the hands of Law Enforcement and too often with justice being denied. Yet, we persevere. We see the different, more enlightened Public Health response to the Opioid Epidemic that is sweeping majority communities, and rightly so. Thats the response we should have, but countless numbers of African American families are still feeling the effects of ill conceived policies associated with the war on drugs and that led to the mass incarceration that we still suffer from today. But yet, we persevere. The museum illuminated the criminal Justice Systems role in profiting as i mentioned from the exploitation of black bodies through practices such as convict leasing. But today we have a proliferation of private prisons here and the criminalization of positi poverty through criminal justice related fines and fees and penalties that were brought to light in the wake of ferguson, and the dysfunctional cash bail system we have that was illuminated and laid bare with the story of kalief browder. Were persevering as we continue to deal with these issues. Another story the museum told me was of the long and enduring struggle for educational equality for African Americans, and today were still grappling with that at the same time that we are confronting the realities of the schooltoprison pipeline. So still we persevere. And it really in quite moving fashion, the museum tells a story of the racial violence fuelled by hate such as the 1963 murder of those four little girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church in birmingham, and today we mourn in the wake of Mass Shootings at an African American church in charleston, at a synagogue in pittsburgh, and the hatefuelled violence put on display in charlottesville. But yet, we persevere. I mentioned earlier dr. Angelous words on one wall of the museum. As i close, i commend the Barry Jenkins adaptation of baldwins classic if beal street could talk. I was blessed to be at a Legal Defense Fund Screening of that film and that was followed by a q a with the brilliant director Barry Jenkins and equally brilliant sharon an eiffel. It was wonderful. Jenkins explores a number of the themes of the intersections of race and criminal justice, but baldwins words on the museum wall are the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it. History is literally present in all that we do. And i think that what baldwin said is true. I think its a fitting observation as we commence this yearlong commemoration of the 400th anniversary and as the anthem commands us, we sing a song of faith that the dark path has taught us but thats also a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. We can, we will, and we must persevere. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you. Im curious, im really interested in each of you has a mission, a project, work youre doing related to these topics, and youve talked about it so well, but im curious if youve ever been surprised or shocked or saddened or inspired. Give me an example of something that has crossed your path that really moved you. And i just want all of you to just speak. All right. A moment that has inspired me. So the first time that i witnessed issues of race in place was when i was in the third grade. My mom as a lesson for helping us to feel empowered, when we were registering for school, went up. I introduced myself. Im brent leggs, and the woman asked, what is your address . And i said 741 mcguire avenue. She said what apartment number . I said 741. She said, no, what apartment number . I said 741. Im looking at my mom standing there and seeing frustration she has. So give you some context, mcguire avenue is a long street. At the end of the street was a low Income Housing project. Where we lived in the red brick ranch house that my parents built in 1972 that they were very proud of coming from rural kentucky, and that literally was the first moment where i understood that race and place would create a false perception about my identity. When i had the good chance to go to grad school at the university of kentucky, i had a random conversation with the dean of the graduate preservation program. I was searching for my professional identity. Convinced me to go into that program, and they asked me to conduct the statewide inventory of historic rosenwald schools, a Massive School Building Program envisioned by booker t. Washington, funded by Julius Rosenwald and the preservation of the spaces is the physical manifestation of a social movement in response to a crisis in black education. During this process i learned that my mom and dad went to rosenwald school. Right . And i remember standing at a school having this multisensory experience and interaction with this physical history. You know . I could see and touch and hear the creaking floorboards as i toured the space, and for me, it really started to speak to the power of Historic Preservation and the power of place to remind us of our Great Potential and our social responsibility as a community to continue to fight for justice and equality. So today i stand here as a preservation professional, first generation academically trained, and were committed to building a pipeline in diversifying the field of preservation practice because we want other Diverse Voices and professionals to stand up and rep for black culture. [ applause ] as evelyn mentioned earlier, earlier in my life i had a chance to work on exhibition of migration at the American History museum. And i think for me what was most inspiring was the chance to travel around the country, and as we try to figure out about the exhibition, part of the mantra at the American History of museum was we cant do exhibitions on African Americans because we dont have the material culture. The idea of doing the exhibition was to begin to find the things and make them part of the story, to make it part of the story thats central to the African American community, that migration is a part of probably the history of all of us in one way or another. My wife reminds me of when she was younger, she would hear her parents talking to people and people would say where are you from. The parents would say were from d. C. They would say, where are your people from . Youd find out the people are from North Carolina and South Carolina People Places like that. More importantly in working with the exhibition, it was the chance to talk with people about their stories and to have them understand that their story was part of a larger context. Their story was part of a larger flow of the history that was more important. And more importantly, that the material culture that they thought was unimportant in basements, that were in attics, that were in trunks around the house, were really history and contributions to this country, so for me, its not one moment, but a series of moments of beginning to talk to people and have that light go on that their stories were important and that their stories were important enough to have their material culture, their objects, their clothing, their papers, their bibles, come to the smithsonian and to be a part of it at the National Museum of American History, and that for me was very important and inspiring. And it reminded all of us about the kind of contributions we had to make and how important saving those things and making them available were to ensuring that our place in this countrys history was never lost. So it was, for me, the chance to share that with people, to have realize that, and then to share that back to make sure that our stories are never lost. For me to make sure the most important thing is that we capture our heritage and that our stories are never lost, either. If we can do that, well never be forgotten as important contributors to the history of this country. applause when i was working as a civil rights attorney fulltime, i would be in small towns in alabama and georgia and i would not call them hotels, they were definitely motels, where i would be by myself and i started thinking, how long have we been doing this, advocating for our rights in court . And thats when i started writing my book race, law in American Society and i thought it would go back maybe to the 1950s, back to the 19 1905, 1906, the red summer, 1919 had another feature which was the cofax massacre in the 1800s, and then i would go back and find so thats why my book begins in 1607 and goes forward. But then i also found my place. I put a picture of my family in the front of that book because they were, and i found the term later, we just always told the story of coming up from kentucky in the 1800s and then there was a word, its called exodusters, that we then moved from five families, the bradshaw line of my mothers side to kansas, and in kansas we became farmers and five families, five brothers started their farming communities and we still have cousins who are farmers and at one point had the largest black farm in kansas. But what also got me about this was this idea of free will and in cases i ran into when i was doing my research was poindexter versus bailey and in this case, from 1850s, we had a slave master who, of course, would have these enslaved human beings and then right before he died, before he wanted to go to the rotten place in hell, he would manument them so when he did this, he put in his will that once he died, then this enslaved person could either choose to stay with his wife as an enslaved person or be free. The court then says no, this person has no right of free will. To determine if he can even be a slave, he has no human right because humans have a right of free will. This person is not human, its property, and you dont decide where the chair goes. You decide, the chair does not, so that always stayed with me, the idea that my ancestors traveled to kansas by free will, that i travel where a job takes me or where i need to go, that were here today based on free will, and its so important to understand that there have been oppositions, groups, and certain people in philosophy who do not want us to exercise free will. One klansman actually said after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed now theyre going to work for every inch they get. So if you feel youve been in a battle, you have been. Weve been battling for every inch we get each time we get it and the battle is over free will because it was determined that we were here for a particular purpose that would benefit others, not ourselves. So this is all quite unusual, isnt it . That we actually get to have our choices, choose our partners, choose where we live, what type of work we do, all this is relatively new for that time period between 1619 to present. I also wanted to talk about this one thing that happened to me, i was bust under missouri versus jenkins, i came into kansas city, missouri and bussing came very late so when i was bussing it was this old new phenomenon. And i remember people walking in looking in the doors as we were at the time about 20 africanamerican students in a school of hundreds upon hundreds of white students, and you heard the nword and you had things written on your locker and you had all these things happen, and i always say im still, to me, the jury is still out on the benefit of bussing, the benefit of this forced integration, but it also gave it also gave me the power to say that i can look anyone in the eye and be very clear in what i have to say to them without fear or favor, but i also realize those people who would come in with their charts and they would look and they would examine each person in the room and where they were seated and how many people were there and i always wondered who they were, they were civil rights attorneys, so little did i know years later, that i would become a civil rights attorney. My area would be education and i would be the one opening the doors, peeking in, seeing what the racial composition was in the particular classrooms and how many books were in the library, all of these things going full circle, and i think about our ancestors and how proud they must be and concerned at the same time that we move forward, that were here in this room, would be great pride, but then at the same time do we still have the fire and the sense of free will that we want to carve out a place in this world for the next generation to be freer than we are today . applause so its interesting, my father, roger fairfax, sr. Has been involved in a pretty intense effort over the past really two decades now to uncover our family history. Hes done some phenomenal work, aided by people like harmine powell whos a friend of professor crew and he has really uncovered branches of our family tree and traces them back to the early 19th century right around 800, but we hit a roadblock then because of the documentation, we couldnt find our ancestors prior to about that turn of the Century Point and the trail really went cold for a few years. But we had a breakthrough fairly recently and thanks to the work of another phenomenal genealogist, maddie mccoy from thevirginia slavery inventory database, we were able to discover my greatgreatgreatgrandfathe r Simon Fairfax who was enslaved in Fairfax County and received his manumission in circuit court. I think thats extraordinary enough. Theres a lot i could say about this and if you want to learn more the Washington Post has covered this story quite extensively, some other outlets, but the reason that these Media Outlets were interested in this story is because our discovery came literally 48 hours before i called up my youngest brother, was sworn in as Lieutenant Governor of the commonwealth of virginia and my father and maddie came up with this document 48 hours before the swearing in and i mentioned being in the green room right before we walked out to the steps of the capitol to witness him be sworn in and my father handed him a copy of the document. He did not know what it was. He had been obviously consumed by the events leading up to the swearingin and my father said just put it in your pocket, dont ask me questions, when you take the oath i want you to have that. So he did it, and he took the oath of office, it was a frigid morning, january, 2018, in richmond, and he was sworn in as only the second africanamerican statewide elected official since reconstruction with his greatgreatgrandfathers manumission in his breast pocket, so perseverance indeed. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Now, we would like to hear from you. Do you have questions for our panelists . So many i see bob first, and then ill just go back. Former president , i know that you know this but dubois when he talked about the problem of the color line he was looking at this not just domestically, but internationally and this year, 2019, the 100th Pan African Congress after world war i and its something we need to be aware of and think about especially when we have a president of the United States who can so flippantly talk about nigerians not wanting to go back to their huts in africa and who can also make comments denigrateing the african continent. Some people who see africa as not being a continent of nations and they see it, you know, as being one undifferentiated mass. I mention that because next week ill be going to paris with a delegation from Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity to commemorate the centennial of the first panafrican conference and that meeting was extremely important, organized by dubois, rayford w. Logan played an Important Role and ida gibbs hunt played an Important Role in the organization of the first Pan African Congress and of Pan Africanism so i think we need to keep this in mind. Of course, carter g. Woodson also saw the relationship between africa and africanamericans with several of his publications, i wanted to mention that. Thank you. My name is howard moreland. Im a husband of the woman whos passing the mike around. I want to give a shoutout to gerald horn who introduced me to the case of somerset versus stewart, and i think it was 1774. The case of a man who was enslaved in virginia and taken as a manservant by his owner to england and when he got to england he emancipated himself and sued for his freedom and the chief judge of the entire british umpire, empire, more powerful than the Supreme Court, he gave the ruling that there is not now and never has been a law in england authorizing slavery. Therefore, there is no slavery in england. Somerset is free to go. And two years later, when Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, according to gerald horn he had in the back of his mind this idea we have to get out of the British Empire in order to escape the looming fate of emancipation. So one of the cornerstones of the foundation of this country was fear of emancipation. My name is a. Peter bailey and i was just in ghana last im a member of a new Organization Called pan africanamerican Federalist Movement and our theme is africa must unite and we had a conference in ghana, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the first conference called in 1958. But i would like im of the belief that we as a people put much too much time on electoral politics and not enough on economics. And is there any historian, anyone exploring how we have used our collective economics to advance and promote our interests in society . We give our children the it was won because the bus drivers were losing thousands of dollars monthly and they had they said weve got to do something about this. We just simply its so difficult to find anyone who talks in the black community about economics and the use of collective economics as a means of promoting our interests in this society. I mean, Professor James clingman wrote about it all the time in his column, he got a book called black money matters. But we seem to on every level totally ignore how our collective economics can be a major weapon to promote and protect our interest in this society. I would like to speak to that for just very briefly. My area is not collective economics, but from the civil rights standpoint, once again it was two steps forward, you know, and then being pushed back a step and three quarters. And ill tell you why. It goes back to this issue of competition. When those principles got through the Middle Passage and rose on those shores of virginia and were able to survive at a time when not only was there cannibalism being practiced in the Virginia Colony and if you visit jamestown youll see, you know, the prostrate remains of evidence of this cannibalism that is there for you to witness, this was a very devastating place, even for the indentured european servant and so they navigated the culture, the weather, the conditions, and the economics. So when i say mary and Anthony Johnson had property of their own and why do i know this . When it was time for them to pay their taxes, there was a fire on the farm that was probably the neighbors, jealous of these africans who had this property, had this Economic Development, had this financial power and they burned their farm down. And so once again, this is the overarching story. We make economic progress, and that progress is undermined through terrorism, through murder, through fires, through the killing of the cattle, these things have been happening time and time again. Its not that we havent had the economic push. We have had economic unity, but as we go through even after slavery ended, there was this push, there was Economic Development, there was farming, and then there was backlash of terrorism and the ku klux klan. It went into the jim crow era, same thing, the reason why she becomes famous is because she sees these brothers who own a store in tennessee and then the store is doing well in the black community. The white store owner who was treating us horribly gets upset and decides to trump up the charges, go after the black store owners, say theres some rape involved and theres not and the next thing when we defend ourselves, theres a slaughter, and when these men who own the Grocery Store are put in jail, theyre drawn out and lynched. This is ongoing, we are fighting for Economic Development and the last point ill make is this, the boycott was a tool that we used to say if youre not going to serve us, if youre not going to treat us fairly, if youre not going to hire us, were not going to buy your merchandise and unfortunately, this case went to the u. S. Supreme court and the u. S. Supreme court ruled against the naacps use of an economic boycott. When we talk about the browder case, the browder case ended the montgomery bus boycott, the browder case ended that case so it wasnt the protests that ended the case. It was the browder case before the u. S. Supreme court so i just want you to know that the economic push and pull and what weve been through, talking about perseverance, and even starting a business is so difficult, to the point where we know now that the bank of america, countrywide and other banks during the Obama Administration under attorney general eric holder, they paid millions upon millions of dollars of fines because as soon as we bought a home, we found out we were given these horrible rates, these ballooned payments, and then ended up in foreclosure, they found out it was Racial Discrimination that led to the horrible terms that were given to us and we had the same collateral, the same credit, even more in the bank than other people, but each time we make economic progress, that progress is undermined by people who cannot imagine our free will and ability to rise up and not just be on the same level economically, educationally, etc. But maybe even be better inaudible in certain areas. Several books on economics, if you read her books. Julianne malveau. The National Urban league has the studies on the state of black america and they will bring those topics up. I just want to also emphasize the point about the browder case because three other women, not including rosa parks, are the ones who took that case to court, which shows that we need the protests, we need the boycotts, but we also need to take our cases to court and this is also why, and i do agree with you that economics is important, but please know politics is important. We have got to vote. Hi, my name is george jordan, im with the afro, im asking this question from a free lance standpoint. This week, we witnessed the attack of a black openly lgbtq actor this week. It was a hate crime, both from a racist standpoint and a homophobic standpoint and were also facing many challenges in the lict Lgbtq Community and criminalization of people who are hiv and being able to divulge your status. And i was wondering when we talk about perseverance and when you talk about visibility of groups, what are we doing in order to include those groups in the conversation and preserving Historical Places like lets say a building or preserving or working together to expand the conversation around civil rights with these intersections between race and lgbtqia . All right, ill start. Thank you for that question and we were all saddened by the violence that happened to our brother and are wishing him well. I want to start off by giving you a stat. The National Register of Historic Places which is the National Inventory of the places that we deem significant in the United States has an inventory of over 90,000 places. Less than 10 reflect a full diversity of america including underrepresented communities, women and lgbtq. At the National Trust we have been committed it to creating a more equitable interpretation and vision for the nation by advocating for the preservation of stonewall in new york city, which is a National Monument declared by president obama and then one of our National Treasurer campaigns is the home of paulie mary in durham, North Carolina and when you speak to interactionality, cofounder of the National Organization of women, first africanamerican episcopal saint. She was an activist and scholar against gender inequity, against Racial Injustice and were looking to identify and honor and recognize more places like that. Part of our push all along has been to have the investigation of places worth preserving, thought about in much larger terms because previously i think the idea has been who famous has lived there . And so the push all along has been more about who are the people they are connected to in different kinds of ways . When you go out and look at a house, the question is who built the house . Who served there . Who was the gardener . Who did all the things that kept that thing functioning and making it viable and if we continue to do that, which i think were continuing to do, it allows the intersections to come forward, and its broadening how people think about what makes these places important and if you do that, then i think it allows you to see a much Bigger Picture than you might eyes. I read an article title wanted, gay black men. And the reason i wrote it is i think that the Civil Rights Movement has always included all of us in some form or other and i use the prime example of james baldwin. And so the sense and byron rushton, and when you start going through the names and youll see in the different artists and activists and lawyers and others, and so thats always been a part of our community. I wrote that article because i wanted the black gay activists to come forward and use that energy and creativity and courage in the overarching issue of justice for our community because we cant afford to leave anybody alone in a silo. Our Community Needs all hands on deck. We needed it before and we especially need it now so i think we need each other and if nothing else the circumstances today are showing more than ever how we need each other. Im from mississippi, we defer. Its a respect thing. My name is Pamela Bingham and honestly, im so full and overwhelmed by this discussion. I didnt know if i was going to make it because i had to drive from petersburg today and my mother has alzheimers so getting up here is always a struggle. Theres so much to say, but in all sincerity, i always give a thank you in these environments to the people who made it possible for me, us, to be here at the National Press club. I am actually an environmental engineer, i am in his chapter of asala in washington, d. C. But like i said, im living in petersburg and i grew up in jackson, mississippi. I always thought i was free. My family made that possible for me. Summer of 1964, my mother went through that pregnancy, that was a pretty bad summer in jackson for those of you who know. So i feel very blessed to be here. But god has taken me through some changes from mississippi to florida to the dmv, and now, he is stuck me in petersburg, virginia, and i am like what is wrong here . I seriously came today. I am the greatgreatgreatgranddaugh ter of gabriel. My father has worked on this research until his death, 1950s to 2014. I am trying to finish his book, which is one of my questions for you. So i felt free all my life, and then i got to Central Virginia and people are not free in petersburg. I cant explain it, i pray for your brother every day, when he sat down on lee jackson day i said ooh, they really wanted to run him out on a rail. I cannot even believe there is a lee jackson day, but it is the friday before the king holiday in the state of virginia for those of you who do not know. It was accommodation made to have the king holiday. So coming from this rebellious family, i have three questions and it pretty much relates to everybody so ill just direct them. Im the family genealogist now and that day is passing. So first of all, in petersburg i have made myself the chair due to lack of anything happening. This is a community that is so focused on the confederacy and the petersonbering national battlefield, even though there were u. S. Colored troops, even it was the First Free Black Community in pocahontas island, i am refighting the civil war so i need asala to help me. I met the city manager. Shes from baton rouge so we have a common background about these things. We grew up in the same time and we know what our folks have gone through for us to be free now and for us to tell history completely. They do not want to do that in petersburg so i made an Economic Development argument, cultural tourism. Im still being fought. So i need asala, i need us to confab later, i need us to meet afterwards to really talk about this plan. Im meeting the superintendent of the Petersburg National battlefield is africanamerican, but he is constrained because he is in the National Parks system. So i understand everybodys viewpoints, they gave us the economic and the political lessons growing up in jackson so thats question one for asala. National trust person totally needs you. Melissa is a good friend of mine. And theres a gentleman who started a the word preservation to me didnt mean what it now means growing up in missouri. It had a whole different context. It made me nervous. They invited me to the first meeting because they thought i was that negro. They found out i am not that negro. So i need the trust. They want to throw out some markers, i want a museum. And thats at the beginning. I want to change curriculum, we finally got the names changed at a. P. Hill, black students in robert e. Lee school. Im going to wrap this up. Point two, my greatgrandfather, we have a family lawyer who told me this story two years ago and hes 90 something so im running out of time. My greatgrandfather helped grant get around vicksburg. We know this, we cant prove it to the parks service, they wont put it in the display, but they do acknowledge a slave helped him get around vicksburg in the civil war. What we need is the court case that this white lawyer took to the Mississippi Court to get my greatgrandfathers freedom. I need a student. All you law people to help me find that and remember that the courthouse is burned so its difficult. And the last question for anybody in the room can talk to me outside, i now have 3,000 plus names of relatives from my dads 50 years of work. How do we visually display that so that people can see their connectivity . Right now, its on 50 sheets of paper. So all right, so ill respond to your first two questions. And we funded an Equitable Development plan through preservation virginia to assess the Economic Impact of heritage tourism both in richmond and across the state of virginia for the purpose of equipping the mayor and other advocates with financial indicators to be able to advocate for increased public and private investment. So its supporting richmond, but its looking at the state cultural tourism economy as well and that will be a great resource for you once thats completed. And then your second question about museum versus historic marker or trail. Most newcomers to preservation always advance an idea of a museum. Its one of the most difficult and financially Sustainable Business models there is and i would suggest that you would start with a Historic Marker Program because okay and what i love about markers is it marks the history even if its absent and its a lowcost solution for being able to expand interpretation and when i heard you speak about, a conflict between the histories and it sounds like youre advocating for being able to tell the full history about virginia so im happy to talk to you about strategies for building some preservation infrastructure. Thank you. And understand preservation so ill be really quick. Im the publisher of the washington informer newspaper, thank you for the shoutout to the black press. And two years ago, i knocked on the door of the Preservation Office about trying to get our archives preserved and realized that was knocking on the wrong door, but i will say that like the informer which is 55 years old this year, there are hundreds, a couple hundreds of blackowned newspapers whose archives are in basements and storage places and were looking for resources to get those publications digitized, our photo galleries digitized so we can help to contribute to the research that people are looking for and so any recommendations you might have, im the former chair of nnpa so i would love to share that with the organization, National Newspaper publishers association. The other one is a flip it question, but i want to ask anyway. Ive heard a lot about african, black nationalism, all that today. And its just interesting we did a little piece in the paper this week that the recent friend of the president who was arrested this week has on more than one occasion say he would not seek whats the word, a pardon for himself. He would seek a pardon for Marcus Garvey. He said that more than once. Does anybody have any idea what thats all about . The only thing i know is that for many years, people may know Marcus Garvey was a global phenomenon, he was a charismatic nationalist who decided there would be a back to Africa Movement and that the black star line would be the ship that would take people back and the ship was unseaworthy unbeknownst to him, but he had a vision of selfactualization within the Africanamerican Community and he believed strongly in his philosophy and his writings that there was enough talent within the Africanamerican Community that we could be selfactualized people and defend ourselves, feed ourselves, and be there for ourselves as independent people. Marcus garvey, ive met a garveyite and im a member of a chapter of the Negro Improvement Association in new york city. So the garveyites continue. Im not the deep history of it, its in my book, thats the reason why im familiar with this, but i also know that there was this kiss case where there were conflicts within the Africanamerican Community that led to nonsupport when he was attacked by the fbi and others within the federal government to undermine his ability to bring and the power he had to bring the Africanamerican Community together and what really happened was that they said because he sold the shares to the ship and that the ship was unseaworthy that this was fraud and so therefore, this fraudulent action, he was accused and convicted of, led to prison time, and then deportment and so ive met his son and his son has been seeking Marcus Garveys pardon and he sought Marcus Garveys pardon during the Obama Administration so im only assuming thats what theyre referring to, that the pardon of Marcus Garvey posthumously because they feel it was not his intent to defraud anyone, but the people who sold him the ship and said they were captain and the ship could do what it could do were tricking him so im just going to that notion. Once again, each time we go two steps forward, and the ability for this man to bring together globally people of african descent and then there are people i met later in life who still mourned the deportation of Marcus Garvey. So im thinking that that might be it. Now, that part that part might involve other outside stimulants but i just want to say really briefly, there are there are legal scholars who are working on this issue about that case and the problems with that case. And the other point i wanted to make about Marcus Garvey, which ive only learned in the last 10 years or so is how great a global phenomenon the Garvey Movement was. I have a student who wrote his dissertation under me and the book is called the age of garvey. And hes seeing garveys ideas in africa, in cuba, just all over. And other people have written about this, too, but its just pretty phenomenal because we for so long thought if this was a new york movement, and then it became a detroit and a new orleans movement, and then it became a rural southern movement, and then it became a Cuban Movement and in england and in africa. So i do think its amazing. I think he was seen as a as a threat because it wasnt just simply that he was asking people to go back to africa. That wasnt the biggest part. My mothers people came from jamaica so they werent going back anywhere, but staying in harlem, but her godfather was one of garveys lieutenants and its interesting because his main goal remember was the redemption of africa and this was when africa is being colonized and carved up by the european powers. I think that was his biggest threat to the world. And rosa parks was a garveyite. I mean, it really was a Fierce Movement during its time period. This has been tremendous, gloria and all of you. Thank you very much. But my question is to ms. Smith. I want to bring us back to the usa special edition. Im just very excited that youre here and youre with us all and youre talking to us. I first saw one of those editions about four or five years ago, i dont remember. Well, i just happened to see it on the news stand and i was excited about it and i actually brought it to an executive Council Meeting and i said well you know, do we know anything about this . Did they reach out to us or any of that . Sorry. And so now, you know, to make a long story short i heard you talk about the free papers that youre going to be circulating and all that so might asala look forward to some of those free papers on this issue now . Asala can move forward my goal was personal. It was a mission for me i did not know i was would eons. Was going to be on. And now, here i am. My mission is, first, to tell the truth about who we are and show us warts and all and not leave our definition to other people. Its very easy to do. So, that is my charge. The second thing, how we distribute across the country and this particular publication, its very different. So, getting to the core audience, childrens schools and different populations. I basically have told filled this. My desire would be to get to this. And then you can hear the conversation back and forth to have a better understanding of where we need to go and a way to better integrate voices. So now i have more of an investigative focus and really trying to get the data around politics. I really want to begin bringing more voices. This is what we do. This is about beginning to tell everybody is stories. Thank you. Thank you. Unfortunately, we are out of time. This has been a tremendous location. We want to thank our panelists and and to think our president , the vision of black migration, forced migration, just to think of the wisdom that goes into making the selection for the black history thing for the year theme for the year. I would like to thank you for being with us for the first day of black History Month in this crucial year and hope you will go forward with your own commemorative activity, that you would think what you can do in your community to celebrate the essential journey of 400 years of perseverance and consider the resilience necessary to overcome so many obstacles, that they would allow you to have your friends, your family, your education and whatever obstacles we have today cannot compare to what our child and we have to think about aslah. Its on the website, aslah. Org. You will find family mentoring. You will find a list of books. You will also find at some point, events on our challenger. And you will see on february 16, we are having a luncheon. And there are still tickets available. We will delve even further into 400 years of perseverance with an entirely different panel. At that time, as was pointed out, we said that journalism is the first draft of history. 400 years ago what was taking place then is something we would be talking about today. As we go forward, we say though out and make good history. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. applause