Make your own choices, or should washingtonres in make those decisions . To talking about your right selfdefense. It should be your choice, youre right. Y votedsman brale against your right. Nra Political Victory Fund is responsible for the content of this advertising. Ernst promises shut down the department of education, wa students. [indiscernible] ernst, promises for them, too extreme for us. We will have live coverage of that debate sunday at 6 00 eastern, 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. The Family Research council is having its values voters summit with remarks from rand paul. He tweeted out his speech, and you can read it at www. Cspan. Org. Also at the event, rick santorum, sarah palin, bobby jindal. You can see live coverage of the value voters summit this afternoon on cspan2. The Congressional Black Caucus holds its annual legislative conference. This afternoon, a discussion on police and race. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] it looks like they are not quite ready to start, at their annual legislative conference. A couple of the guests still not yet in the room. This afternoon, we will bring you that discussion on police and race as it gets underway. Now a discussion on poverty on this mornings washington journal. Host new numbers on poverty in the United States. 2013 the Census Bureau says 45 million americans lived under the poverty line, which is 14. 5 of the population host numbers on poverty in the United States. 2013 the Census Bureau says 45 million americans lived under the poverty line, which is 14. 5 of the population. For historical purposes, you can see other years. 2012, 15 . 47 million people. 2007, 12. 5 of the population in poverty. 1959, 40 million people. Over 1 5 of americans lived in poverty. Robert doar of the American Enterprise institute, when you see that number, 14. 5 of the population in poverty, what is your reaction . Guest discouraged and disappointed. We are worse than we were in 2007. And significantly worse than we were in 2000. We reached cut of a trough, and we have gone backwards since then. It is disappointing and we have to rethink what we are doing and examine how we got away from what we were doing that was successful in the late 1990s. Host olivia golden, center for law and social policy . Guest we had a reduction last year and we had a reduction in child poverty. So we roughly addressed the blitz from the recession and got close to 2007, but that is not an acceptable level. We still have one in five young adults beginning their careers, ages 18 to 24, and because we know a lot about the lifelong consequences of poverty in those years, i think we have to take really seriously what we do next. Which, for me, has a lot to do with the economy, low wage work, and challenges that families face. Host you talked about 2000, a good economic year for the United States you think that poverty levels would go down. Guest that is true, but there was much more focus into getting people into employment as rapidly as possible. Now i think we are more focused on providing assistance, which is good, but can distract from the objective of getting people into employment point. We are five years from the recession. Were not back to where we were in 2007. We are a long way from where we were in 2000. Host i have a different Analysis National for the office, and a half of alpha ph alpha, i would like to thank you for attending this afternoon. We will go ahead and get things started. The discussion needs to be had in our communities. Im am excited. Are you guys excited . Good. The first person, he was elected from nevadas fourth Congressional District in 2012. He is the first African American color to serve in nevadas delegation. He represents one of the most diverse districts in the country. He has served in nevadas state senate, and the 2008 became nevadas youngest state Senate Majority leader. He serves on the finance committee and the committee on government reform. Join me in welcoming congressman Steven Horsford. Afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I know we were out late, now, but were here now. It is great to be here. Thank you, josh, to the brothers alphi. Hi out far i am so pleased to have this Dynamic Panel and fellow Fraternity Brother moderating this panel as well. I would like to give a couple of opening remarks because as everyone knows, we are here in large part because of an event that occurred on august 9 in ferguson, missouri, when a young, unarmed boy who had just graduated high school and who literally was weeks away from enrolling in college had his life taken from him in an unnecessary event and tragic event. I had the honor of attending Michael Browns funeral at the request of one of my colleagues who represents that area, and i attended to pay my respects to the family and to the community, but also to be part of this National Conversation about what we can do to improve the relationshipice and what each one of us can do to make sure that we know our right, and that is what this panel is all about. During the funeral, one of the young man who spoke on behalf of Michael Brown he was a friend of his said that Michael Brown wanted the world to know his name. This tragic, unfortunate, and unnecessary event in the circumstances following that tragic event, the fact that we had literally Law Enforcement agencies in ferguson having the militarizing force in a community and turned it could equipmenturned against citizens who were expressing their firstamendment right to protest, we have to use that tragic event as an opportunity now to have this larger discussion, and that is what this panel is all about today. To ask for your help and support, because there are members of congress who are working hard and have been working hard to try to address these issues well before the in ferguson, event before even trayvon martin. I sponsored the universal respect act, which is one opportunity for us to enact meaningful change. Woulda bill that require a comprehensive review of Law Enforcement policies across the country in order to eliminate or seizures that result in racial profiling. The legislation would amend the Homeland Security act to require that recipients of federal Law Enforcement grants and Training Facilities do not engage in racial profiling and that they cannot prove that, then they would be at risk of receiving funds from the department of Homeland Security. This is a companion bill to racialsman conyers end profiling act that could aid similar thing with the department of justice grants. We need your help. We need you to push other members of congress to support this legislation. Every member of the congressional but caucus thesecaucus supports measures. Many of our colleagues do as well. But we need others to contact your local congressional member and to ask them to sign on to these bills and help bring them to a vote in the house, because the only way that we are going to change these dynamics is by that support those changes. So as we continue to mourn the loss of Michael Brown and others who were tragically taken away from us, we must use our energy and our grassroots organizations to call for change. These types of local discussions such as the one we are having today is where Real Solutions can deform and shaped by the is finallyand it important that we as american citizens know our rights, know that we are protected by the constitution, and fight for our dignity against brutal actions by certain Law Enforcement agencies, and i want to say this enforcement of law officers and agencies do their jobs respectfully and professionally. But there are those instances where officers are not following those standards, and they need to be held accountable. And so while we support those men and women who serve and protect us, we also want to hold those accountable who are not doing their job in the manner in which they are called upon. And so i want to again thank the alpha forf alpha phi this panel and the discussion were going to hear next. Thank you for bringing your voice to these issues, and each one of you brings your own perspectives, so thank you very much for participating and for all of you being here today. Have a great day. [applause] now we will get this conversation started. I would like to introduce someone who you all may know. He is an actor and author of two books. Five my apologies. The most important thing is that this brother is truly invested in empowering his community. He has a passion or empowering young people. To inspire them to manifest their destiny can and he is bringing his foundation to the d c area to expand upon that, so if you would join me in working on a person that i have to pleasure of calling my Fraternity Brother, mr. Hill h arper. Thank you, everybody. This is a very important panel, and i know it is a friday afternoon at around 3 00 at the time the folks at a little sleepy. But this is a panel where we need everyone to be engaged. This is a panel that is about life and death. I takebout issues that extremely seriously, and first of all, i want to say i want to dedicate this panel to the late chuck stone, who was renowned for using his column in the philadelphia times to combat Police Brutality. Yet more than 75 black men turn themselves into him first in efforts to not have them beaten by the police. He would take their photos, and if they showed up with scars or bruises after they were turned over to the police, he read about it in the newspaper the next day, and he chronicled this. He is someone who chose to hold others accountable, and that is in part what we are going to talk about today in this panel. Often times i find that panels and meander and we talk about things and we hear people say, you know what we need to do, we need to do this, i want this panel to focus on what i am going to do, what you are going to do them and who are we going to choose to hold accountable, and what steps we will take a terms of our energy to do that. Out, most of these panelists are holding individuals, will, and i want to do a quick rundown. The more extensive bios are in the programs on the seats, so lets introduce folks. My brother ahmad is cofounder leader and policy director. While growing up in a brutal military occupation, he developed an interest in social justice. Ixt week have charles if say your name incorrectly, just wave your name to the people charles bell. He recently became the face of International Media coverage surrounding his august 2014 wrongful arrest by local Law Enforcement agencies where he was arrested and held on 100,000 bond, and denied immediate access to an attorney. Next we have ruby sales, founder and executive director of the. Pirit house project with spiritual maturity, spirit house has stood at the forefront in breaking the silence on statesanctioned murders of black folks by white police. It has documented more than 1000 of these cases. Have c. C. Battles. She is a higher educational professional who is national who is passionate about youth engagement. She serves as the core nader for the campus vote project where she works with colleges and universities. Have therell parks darryl park. He and his lara form law firm have this thing was themselves successful the giddy successful litigators. Ivory, a veteran Washington Area journalists, media executive. Secular was a executive director of he is a director for the National Association of black journalists. I have good news for you all to the palace for it my brother is not the moderator of the panel. I am, which means you get to talk. That is good. We areto tell you where going so folks have a roadmap of what we are trying to achieve so we are coordinate. I want to break this panel down into five steps. First, i want to start with a that. I want us to lay out a that we are talking about so we at least have data from which to frame a discussion. I want to go to the micro areas each is more of a personal relationship to this issue. Then i want to doug about macro, the bigger areas, which will need policy. Then i want to open it up to the audience, audience questions. And then i went to and with end with action. First, lets go with data. I want to go to ruby sales. I spoke on a panel this week about equity in education with young black men, and it was detailed and laid out very eloquently how much data there is around education and government, keeping data about education. While researching this panel, i found no Government Agency is currently tracking the killing of africanamerican males. And so spirit house project has been tracking statesanctioned murders of black boys and men. Talk about some of those numbers, and not all of these are making national headlines. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be a part of this absolutely urgent conversation, thei hope that as we end conversation, we will have a broader understanding of why we should act. Want to first of all say to you that i want to start my conversation quickly with a song that was written in 1963 when three men were murdered in the society. It was written by ernies johnson by bernice regan. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. Until the killing of Black Brothers and sons is as important as the killing of white mothers sons, we will not believe in freedom until it comes. As we think about those words stay, the thing i must say to all honesty and urgency, that this is not merely about black men. On the an assault Africanamerican Community and that the discourse must be expanded to include the lives of our sisters and our mothers. But women are being killed. Theyre being raped. Melissa williams in cleveland, ohio, was writing in the car with her boyfriend rick they were chased by 59 police cars itsfired 137 rounds of all into the car dash of bullets into the car, killing both of them. We have a case of the young woman in detroit, michigan, who was killed by a swat team who entered her house. Years old. We have 93 yearold in texas who was killed by police. This is a crisis that is not confined to gender. Spirit house has documented since 2007 when i became interested in this issue after reading a small little story about an africanamerican man from 17 years old in mississippi, billy joe johnson, who died suspiciously in the hands of the Deputy Sheriff on a dark road in mississippi. It turns out that he had scholarships to multiple schools. He was an athlete. It turns out that he was shot and was let to lie in the street for seven hours. Mr. And mrs. Johnson will not allow to see their son as he lay in the street. Mrs. Johnson passed out. So when we see what happened to Michael Brown, we understand showed us that Michael Brown is the tip of a larger iceberg, that racked bodies are not valued in the society. We live in what i call an age of disposability of culture of capitalist technocracy where and a few People Matter inspire a culture of violence, where black bodies are the the lowestarry currency in society. So when we look at Michael Brown the guy who was just killed in ohio, we begin to detect a real pattern that the assault is on the Africanamerican Community. I know that black men are being killed, larger than all other numbers, but like women are being killed, in larger numbers than all of their women. Until we can frame a discourse reality thatts the the entire black community is being profiled, to be black is to be a suspect, to be black is considered to be a criminal, to be black is means that youre not safe in american society. And in those 1000 murders that we have catalogued, there are several things that you need to know. I was sucking right now, because i want to stay focused right now on data i want to stay focused right now. Inappreciate your comments that space and about this issue in general. I would like to open it up to the rest of the panel to share any data that they believe is relevant to this discussion. Anyone . Summit,e sevenyear this is from usa today and ian , the and like hill said travesty of this is that these statistics are not really kept. Independent media organizations have to go and talk to the fbi and peace these things together and piece these things together. 2012, two times a week a white cop tilde never whitein american a a cop killed an africanamerican. Of black men or black people under age 21 were the victims in these shootings appeared to 8. 7 of white people. Weree cases that complained about war drew media attention, of the 26,000 has keptts that the fbi track of, only 2000 up t of 26,000 only 2000 were considered excessive. That is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. One data point, i was asked , and i went down there. I spent four days in ferguson. As i was kind of getting through things and looking at my own data points, the one that stuck in to me the most was that 2013, in the municipality of ferguson, missouri, there were 1500 arrest warrants issued per 1000 citizens. Break down want to what an arrest warrant is cut it is issued by a judge after some type of penalty or ticketing of an individual. The to make their court arrestnce, so an warrant is issued. When you think about that, in one year, 1500 arrest warrants per