Great lineup of authors behind us. There will be one more addition coming soon. My name is davis pick up part of the events staff at politic pold prose and i would like to welcome you here to thisis politics and prose event. Tonight is a special location as we host a continuing series and Panel Discussion entitled race in america. We had one this summer at a main connecticut avenue location. That was an incredible host a conversation and were excited to keep it going tonight. This is coordinated by the great april ryan. [applause] she has a wonderful line of authors including joyann reid. [applause] Mary Frances Berry. [applause] avis jonesdeweever. D ston [applause] and soon to be here, wes moore. S [applause] politics and prose is honored to host this conversation as we are committed to tolerance and Public Discourse in addressing the most pressing issue of our times. We are thankful to have this partnership with busboys and poets and a shared common values to host such an important discussion tonight. If youre watching this at home or out in the rest of the story we welcome you to participate in our discussion with the hashtag on twitter on this facebook wit racematters. Our coordinator tonight april ryan is a white house correspondent. She has unique Vantage Point as the only black female reporter covering urban issues from the white house. Position point [applause] this this position she has held since the clinton era, and on behalf of the American Urban Radio Networks and through her fabric of america news thought, she delivers her readership ande listeners millions of africanamericans and close to 300 radio affiliates a quote unique ribbon and minority perspective in news. Her position as a white house correspondents has afforded her unusual insight into the racial sensitivities issues and the political struggles of our nations last three president s. She can be seen almost daily on Television Come in such programs as hardball with chris matthews, among many others. She is the author of the awardwinning book the presidency and black and white, and a first book at mamas knee. So if you will to introduce the rest of the panel will you please join me in welcoming april ryan. [applause] [inaudible] there we go. Let there be sound. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for taking time out at a very busy schedule during this Holiday Season two,y talk with us, to share with us kind of a cathartic moment for many of us, its cathartic. For others its a time offor ot celebration. I am hearing the church out there. You know, its almost like a preacher, call and respond. But this is very interesting time, a historic time. We are in the center of where everything is happening,ere washington, d. C. January 20 at 12 01 p. M. 2017 there will be a transition of power from number 44 number 45. Okay. [laughter] but literally we are less than one month away from what was a most historic election then we have ever seen. Less than one month and we are still trying to figure outve whats happening. So thats why were here, particularly when it comes to issues of difference, the other race. As we try to grapple with what we dont know and the things that we do know and the things that weve seen before, i want to give an example of something. One of the reasons why we are here tonight, the seven Poverty Law Center found the southern poverty incidents that were immediately following thedents election. In the 10 days after the november election, in the days after, what was that number . 800watt . 60 comment and going. Just 10 days after. 800 people wonder why are we talking about race. They say when you put the facts on the table your race baiting but thats why were here. Were talking about an issue that is in the forefront. It has been in the forefront since the beginning of this country and it is still here in 2016. Now, i also want to give you something, immediately following the election i talked to chris darden. Chris darden, the former prosecutor in the o. J. Simpson case, he said black republican and he said this is a time ofe activism. We also heard recently welcome, wes moore. [applause] we also heard recently from billionaire africanamerican democrat bob johnson who saysaid its time we need to find commoi ground. But this morning a doctor from naacp naacp head and from a maryland congressman who said both men are right. We are at a crossroads. So how do we have a parallel roads instead of being at the crossroads . Tonight and is 90 minutes that we have with experts, people that you know, people that you trust to talk to us and we will up the floor to you in a little bit but i want to introduce first a woman who needs no introduction. She is walking history herself spirit then dont introducer. [laughter] but i will. Because she says the only reason why she came out tonight is because i asked her. And i thank you so much. [applause]d her. Lets give Mary Frances Berry a big round of applause. Y fran [applause] hinot only has she served hee in one of the most visible activism and civil rights inos this country, for gender equality and social injustice in this nation, she also went abroad. She fought against apartheid in south africa, was jailed for her efforts. [applause] and she actually was allowed to speak at the National Cathedral in december 2013 after the deato of nelson mandela. Am i correct . 2 and the South African government invited her to do that. So that speaks volumes. But shes also the author of the book five dollars and a porkis chop sandwich. Rk cho [applause] explains some campaign voter turnout activities are just another form of Voter Suppression. Of voter isnt that something . You have to remember also she served as the chairperson of the u. S. Civil rights commission. So we give a big round of applause to Mary Frances Berry. [applause]e] so up next is a fascia seen a lot. I call her a dragonslayer. Dragonslayer. [applause] shes used to the aem that she is in that p. M. Tonight. But sh [laughter] joyann reid is the host of aem joy, weekend mornings at 10 a. M. On msnbc shes a columnist at the daily beast and the author of fracture, barack obama the clintons and the racial divide and the coeditor with e. J. Dionne of the upcoming book we are the change we seek. Yes, with speeches of barack obama. [applause] this was supposed to be the year of the women, and we have womans advocate. It was supposed to be the yeare of the woman. [laughter] it was supposed to be. [laughter] sometimes to keep from crying you have to laugh, right . Without further ado i want to introduce to you doctor avis jonesdeweever, the author of the awardwinning book how exceptional black women lead cometh out of Exceptional Leadership institute for women. You see her about on tv with our regularly coaches also regular guest host on various and various leading Television Programs to include tv one as well as pbs to the contrary. Lets give her a big round of applause. Will go down the road to baltimore, my hometown. Be more careful town. [laughter] with a gentleman i just saw on with oprah winfrey. We are stepping in some high cotton. D step [laughter] i would like to introduce to you wes moore, a decorated army combat veteran, youth advocate and ceo of a National Initiative focusing on addressing the College Completion and the replacement crisis by reinventing the freshman year of college. He is also the author of two instant New York Times bestselling books. Thats not an easy task. The books are called the other wes moore and lets give wes moore a big round of applause. [applause] so for all of you out there in the audience tonight, i want you to pull out your social media devices. I want you to go on the twitter or the facebook, or the chat snap, i dont know, pick one. Snapchat can i know what its called. I want you to go on your device and want you to tweet out, were going to break the twitter tonight. I want you to tweet out tonight racematters, because what you put out their people watching, with a president elect who is very much on twitter. So lets break twitter tonight. I want to start off with history. We have to start with history. From where we have come from to where we are today and where we need to be going. Mary frances berry, youve seen a lot. You have protested a lot for the rights of people. Could you talk to us about where we are today in this crossroads, and is there a chance the road will be parallel . Well, the first thing i would say, and thanks for having me. Im so happy to see so many of you pick the first thing i want to say is im not as pessimistic as some people i know, mainly because i think if you begin with the knowledge of facts that will make you more optimistic than otherwise. The facts are that if we were to turn out more black voters in the cities in the midwest, in milwaukee, in detroit, it will turn out, and in philadelphiaro and in pittsburgh, if we had turned out more voters, hillary could have one of those states. And we didnt turn them out in the states, not because of Voter Suppression, but becausese oldfashioned things that campaigns have been doing for years, and ive been involved in at i know about, and ive written about in five dollars and a pork chop sandwich, which is putting street money and walker and money on the street and having yard signs and giving up chicken boxes and pork chops and 5 and motivating your people didnt happen because the money wasnt on the street. I know that because i talked to the people who were trying to get the campaign, send them the money so they could do these oldfashioned things, and facetoface persuades did want to vote, especially some of thew young people who didnt want to thought barack hadnt done much for them and she was going to do enough. That didnt happen. I think if we put money on the street next time, and if we put walking fragment of the street which is what my book is about, eckstein that we can get turnout. Because its all about turnout which is what the book is abouto now, where weve been. Where weve been is that we have of course add very tough times, the whole long history which i wont get into. Everybody knows. But in the last few years mostst of us thought that we had reached a new millennium, and that things were going so well that all we had to do was get hillary in office and now were just going to take the next step and everything was going ouret way. O and, in fact, it didnt happen. S so now where are we going . So that if i never get to see anything else here again tonight, i will just tell you that weve been here before. You may not remember but i do when Ronald Reagan got elected. E this talent wise, people were so sad. They were so somber when he got elected, and when he got elected all these people came to town with their money i remember they were quoting, you could never be too thin or too rich and at all these parties and all the stuff was going on. Ne they came to town and the attorney general announced that he was not going to enforce the civil rights laws, which was shocking. And all kinds of terrible things happen. We had constructive engagement with South African government and apartheid was going to stay forever. He close down a bunch of the programs for women that were in the white house. All kinds of bad, terrible things happened. Se and even though they happened, the Supreme Court was disgusting and some of the decisions and they handed down, but people mobilized. They resisted. They organized. They got over their sadness and their morning and pickgot ov themselves up and did what needed to be done. And in the end we were able to make some gains, even in a very terrible time. So im not pessimistic. Im optimistic. And dont say to me as some people have, it could have been as bad as it is now because reagan, you know, he has a building named after him downtown and an airport named after him and he was a sunnytowi fellow. I like talking to him. [laughter] but he was just as terrible or worse in many ways. Although he didnt use twitter i guess he didnt. [laughter] twitt so we have been there before. Lets pick ourselves up and move on. [applause] words of wisdom. Lets go to joy. I want to ask you something. You talked to a lot of people all the time, and thats what makes you so great because you in the street. You find out what people are thinking. What is this necessarily more so about hillary versus trump or is it about our issues being on the table for either candidate . Which one is it . Thank you again for doing this. You guys can hear me . You a i think people are doing, depressed. Counseling others. Some counseling myself. I feel like avenue profession. Im not judging by the hour butn thats pretty much what ive been doing. And i think what you find the selection were a few things. One of them Mary Frances Berry is actually write it was a campaign that did not feel that it had to do that kind of on the ground street level campaigning that democrats sort of werestrel known for partly because theycr were adopting the barack obama model. Unfortunately the barack obama model only work if you barackng obama on the ticket. What i mean by that is that in t 2008 in the Obama Campaign came along and they seem to invent this brandnew model which was they could use data modeling, deep data dive meaning you could not only target a block in a precinct that actually a household and you would know that jane deludes and now sold is your voter but john is not your voter shall he find a way to micro target jane and not john. That all the sophisticated modeling. I had this dramatic fundraising advantage whether able to reach him. I saw things ive never seen before. Black folks during a barbecue where everybody brought 100 and gave to do cant be. You have not seen the kind of fund raising. I met people who into \50{l1}s{l0}\50{l1}s{l0} and \60{l1}s{l0}\60{l1}s{l0} would never given a dollar to a president to compete in the lives who are giving 100 to obama. You. You had this incredible energy, sophisticated datadrivenob campaign but you also had this charismatic figure and barack t obama who was poised to be the first black president. That was its own motivator the barbecues were not because of data modeling or because democrats and that is something sophisticated big news because of barack obama. People were voting as then in line for hours and hours because of barack obama. In 2008 i was telling the story, i was at a conference debate in d. C. For state and local legislators. One. One of the good things coming, the good news out of this campaign, democrats have discovered there are other things besides the presidency as a political party, right . They suddenly discovered their state legislators and there are governorships. Vernor if you dont control the sector of States Office you cant stop a Voter Suppression . What . Te we have to the 16 States Office so they dont throw all of thehe people were black and brown and throw those in the trash . We have to control the states legislatures so they dont pass laws for voter id . Democrats have sunday discovered to have fight at the localthat level. They will now try to get people to vote in midterms. Thats happen. When i was work on the Obama Campaign ive gotten out of news and was in politics, this thing happening was that people lining up around the block to vote for barack obama but the line was going so fast and we are out there wondering why is the line going so fast . This was a fourpage ballot. Theyre all the state offices, all these local initiatives are people were not voting. They were voting obama ande coming out going so excited. Theyre coming out in their wheelchairs, coming out, obama and they didnt vote for anything else. People were not paying attention down ballot. With hillary get the opposite. Jennifer granholm was treating, tweeting earlier that in michigan there were 75,000 voters who voted everything on the ballot except the president. It was a reverse pick people who came out but felt they bought interesting part is the to didnt push this idea that both candidates were equally bad. A lot of young voters whose minimum standard for president is obama felt these were not good enough so they werent going to vote for either of them because they had a black president. My kid, the only president in the light is obama. Make h they think that is what abrasion is. People who felt to righteous to vote for either candidate voted third party. Jill stein votes add up much more than Hillary Clinton is marching to the three state she lost, pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan, the combined total of Donald Trumps advantage, before these recounts it started was 107,000 votes. 107,000 votes, thats what a few dozen blocks a few chicken boxes and some street money. Speed back there you go. 40,000 thousand more black people voting in philadelphia, milwaukee. She wins. Milwau so you had a failure of imagination because the clinton team had the obama people and the obama modeling. They were using that data and there was saying by the dated we should not lose wisconsin toy donut to send hillary to wisconsin. E shou we cant lose belly because the suburbs have this percentage with a College Degree. We dont have to go to pennsylvania. We have all this data that shows we can win the way obama did but you dont have obama. Without obama the candidate at the top of the ticket has to create an intrinsic reason for this galvanized boat to take place. For a lot of reasons Hillary Clinton couldnt do that. They didnt tell their story. We had an media that was incredibly hostile to her and open to any store that depicted her as a criminal. You would a primary amateur opponent as she was depicted by donald trump. A lot at my kids aged voters saw her as a criminal. Yet understand the way she wasmu perceived among even voters ofwa color when she was a criminal. When they went into the voting booth if they showed up their attitude, she isnt good enough for me. Im going to Vote Third Party or not at all. You also at the last thing