To this book, when we fight, we win. They helped put this collaboration together. We have artists and all sorts of movements including climate change, black lives matter and a whole bunch of other social clinical political movements that are so important. I will let him tell you more about who is with us tonight. There will be a performance as well and he will tell you more of all of the stuff that is happening. The book, if you havent seen it yet, please, please check it out. Its beautiful. There is art and personal stories and all kinds of things with tons of great interviews. It is not to be missed. We are so thrilled to have them here for the launch of this book. Please welcome greg jobinleeds. [applause]. Good evening. All right, so before i get started, im going to take a moment to ground us. Here we are, and i want to take a moment to take a breath and bring in all the people whose on shoulders you stand. Im thinking especially for me about Martin Luther king and my father. Im sorry, im going to to start with the ancestors. All the people who have come before us in social movements on whose shoulders we stand. So take a moment, take a breath and bring in your ancestors. And then take a moment and bring in our elders. Think about my mother, think about some of the elders in the book and take a moment to bring all those people in. And then take a moment to bring in your peers. Your peers here in washington, peers in the book, peers across the country and peers across the globe who are all part of this Global Movement that when we fight, we win is a small slice of. Then lets take a minute to bring in our young. The next generation and the generation to come and then a moment to go in the direction of the sky and whatever that means to you. Some people call it your creator some call it god, some call it eternity so take a moment and bring in the sky. Then i want to take a moment and bring in the ground. If you can feel the ground through the concrete and the earth, the mother. Weve been doing these six directions as part of a ritual. One of the things we find about transforming social movement is there is an element of ritual. That is part of all movements. Ill tell you a little bit about how things will go tonight. Again, thank you you abby for welcoming us in setting this up. We have, im going to start off with a five minute overview of the book and then we will have day who designed the art in the book and she will show the slides behind that. That we have the national lgbt task force who will be speaking on her story as the first story in the book and her story and its incredible way weaves together all of the other stories. Then we have jonathan stiff for the alliance and others who will be talking about immigration movement, nafta freemen from Pan African Organization who will talk about the prison Justice Movement and then i will turn it over to the artist who designed and really are the brilliance behind this book and we will turn it over to them. They will talk and give a little show and will have a q a after that. So lets give one shot out for day. Also for jorge. If you havent felt the book, it feels beautiful. The art and it is absolutely stunning. It is remarkable, it is absolutely the brilliant artistic work of day hernandez and jorge deas. [applause]. Ive worked with them for about 20 years and anything they touch turns to beauty. It is absolutely incredible. Out of the darkest moments, they grow flowers, and it is really amazing. How many how many people in this room are actively involved right now in social movements . That is amazing. When we fight, we win has been a journey of amazing people like you. Its full of wisdom and art and the images of people like you who are leading the campaign to gain change in america. All of the royalties in the book are going to go to the art and organizations that are here. All the royalties go to there. Anything you buy here, its a nonprofit publisher so it goes into nonprofits or this local bookstore. The title, when we fight, we win was a rally cry first heard by jorge deas at the antiaddiction campaign in in boston. They were foreclosing on homeowners and city life was able to keep families in their home. They said we dont always win but we win every time the right to fight, we win our humanity and if you dont fight, we lose when we fight, we win highlights what activists are doing to change the horrific Police Brutality and racism in this country. We used to be the world leader in High School Graduation rates. Today we are the world leader in jails. As an activist and a tshirt for more than 30 years, i have watched as things have gotten worse and worse. The leader shows us how to be better allies to those on the front line of the struggle. They show us how to speak out effectively and how to transform our society as we stand at this scary and pivotable moment in history. Children, the elderly are sent to deportation camps. Families are torn apart. It reminds me of my parents, watching relatives rounded up for deportation and nazi germany. I am alive and dan is alive because some people spoke up. But not enough. Not enough people spoke out about the brutality then and thats why what i know now to be silent is to collaborate. Thats why i have to say that we have to listen up and we have to speak out. When we fight, we win his filled with the voices of ordinary people who are not collaborating and two are making progress. One is a founder of black lives matter. Her brother was arrested and tortured in the l. A. Jails. He was starved and dehydrated and had to drink the water out of his toilet bowl. She tells a story of how she found the l. A. Coalition to end sheriff violence and how they one oversight over the l. A. Sheriff department. When we fight, we win. This piece of art is done by a man who was in solitary confinement for 17 years. He did not see a another soul for 23 hours a day. When we interview them he has to write his answers and pencil. His powerful art became the symbol for 30,000 prisoners who went on hundred hunger strike. This year the prisoners one part of the fight that changed part of the policy in california and in new york. When we fight, we win. Black lives matters work to create these changes and put forth amazing, brilliant visions and show us how to get there. The movements of today are Game Changing and interconnected. A movement organizer at city life helps lead successful campaigns to keep people in their home. They do it by creating eviction free zones. How . They develop science and street stories to tell their stories. Standing in solitary they stop banks from foreclosing and they keep them in their home and they change local, state and federal policy. This is one reason why at city life they declare when we fight, we win. She worked in North Carolina to stop an anti gay marriage bill. They told their story about the horrors of the deportation camps and the widespread discrimination they face. The dreamers, as these young activist became known as marched with tshirts that said undocumented and unafraid. They defied the Immigration Police and they occupied president obamas Reelection Campaign office. This is finally what gets the president to fulfill his earlier promises. When you fight, you win. There are many other Game Changing moments in when we fight we win. Occupy wall street, the the chicago teachers union, restaurant workers fighting for a liberal wage and many more. Together these brave souls tell the story of transformation. I end with four of their qualities that make it so when we do fight we do win. Number one, tell your story. Number two transformation only comes with visions of transformation. Personal transformation, organizational transformation, cultural transformation and political transformation. Number three, working number three, worked in solidarity connects to your struggle to others. We all need to listen up and speak out. Number four disrupt the power change who has the power and how power is held because when we fight, we win. Thank you [applause]. Next up, i have the amazing honor to welcome ray kerry who is head of the national lgbt task force and who has a gorgeous story in the book and im looking forward to being with you now. [applause]. Thank you greg this is going to be a crying night, i can tell. Im ray and i have the joy and the honor of talking to greg over a period of months to tell a story which is really a series of stories in this incredible book. Im not going to tell you everything we said in the book because then you wouldnt buy it. You have to buy the book. I do want to say i love the title for the chapter that is about the struggle for lgbt, justice and inequality. The title of the chapter isnt how we won Marriage Equality, its reclaiming wholeness and both parts of that are so critical to our movement right now. Yes, the last last decade has been incredible. In the work that we have done to win Marriage Equality we have seen incredible results. The reclaiming wholeness is really about reminding the country, reminding our own movement that the answer to the question of whats next, after after winning on one issue thats important to some people is the same thing weve been working on for the last 60 years. Economic justice, social justice, racial justice. So i will tell you that i came out when i was 16 years old. That was in denver colorado. I thought sweet, im exempt. I dont have to get married or have kids, right. That was the story then in the 80s. I mention that because what i didnt realize i was doing was internalizing the oppression and lack of the quality around relationships and love. The reclaiming of wholeness for any one of us is to understand that you cant be a lesbian one day and a mom the next and a latina the next or whatever all the parts are of our whole selves and so when we talk in the book about reclaiming wholeness it is about seeing the interconnectedness of our lives and the joy of seeing this book come to fruition is that its not just a book, certainly and its an inspiration. Its something that anytime a staff member of ours is having a hard day, i will hand them a copy copy of it and safe flip to any page and just read whats on it because the book itself is about wholeness. Its about the insistence that we are human, that we cannot be divided up that we will come together to work for social change it is such a joy that you and others around the country will be a part of this. Theres something at the very end of the book, a mention of Vincent Harding who i have had the honor to know in my life. He has passed now but he talked about the river of struggle. What i love about the inclusion of the river of struggle is that water never stops flowing. And never stops flowing in a river is made up of so many tributaries and so many drops of water. Even when a log falls in a way, the water figures out a way to keep flowing. Im going to take from the experience of this book and learning from people around the country who are doing the work for change that we have to keep flowing i would say in joining us from the lgbt queue perspective how i would ask you to join, if you dont identify in that way in solidarity is to insist that we are all whole people that reproductive rights is in lgbt queue issue and immigrant issues is in lgbt queue issues and Police Brutality and all of these issues are issues that affect our lives as a whole. So, i invite you tonight to listen to our other friends and take in how you are part of a wholeness of this book. Thank you for this gift. [applause]. Thanks ray, next up we have jonathan from the alliance for educational justice. Education is the movement that is closest to my heart and has been. Im a teacher and im so thrilled he is here with us. Mac. [applause]. Thank you i would like to introduce my poem called just getting so the story about chicago is one about a missed possibility. I had an opportunity to work with brown. Every time he has an idea he has a way of well brothers and sisters and he gets us going. After them meeting i was left with but how the heck are we gonna pull this off. I walk into the story in 2012. Although chicago was the center of School Closing and state violence, it was also happening in new york city, philadelphia and washington d. C. So part of our struggle, he got us at a meeting and he said while were here we need to go down town chicago to drop off some title vi complaints to the department of justice and i said how my going to get 50 High School Students to chicago . We figured a caravan of cabs. We had been through chicago rush hour to deliver these letters. From that journey to justice was born in this movement to fight School Closings. Our work before then was understanding schooled disick plan and the negative impact. For us our work has been how do we understand the two. For us, the movement and the moment of black lives matter offered an opportunity to talk about state violence and understand whats happening in our schools both from closings and the prison pipeline. As government power that hurts, government power that harms, its the education of young people that color receive is the education that teaches them their place and is not lost at its call for school in prison pipeline. Where i work now its beginning to think about what next. For us and the young people and the folks who do it, we have this vision of education and before there was the diet 13, it was the students who showed up to us cool that was supposed to be close demanding an education. Weve also begun to understand whats happening in the United States as an international crisis. We want to understand what we are now calling educational colonialism which is what we know as privatization is an International Movement. It will take an International Movement if her going to liberate education. The last, in bridging, what we also learned from black lives matter was the 1033 program per this. This is where my request is. When we found out that the Police Department had guns and tanks and we found out they had them in the l. A. Police apartment. Twentyfive cities throughout the countries have been receiving government grade weapons for schools. We begin to ask the questions about where the guns four. Who are you planning on shooting. Then we have to ask the same question to a federal government that denounces the School Prison pipeline but continues to fund it. We see students at the table arguing for 50 million to restore restore their justice while the same that are government gives 250,000 to the police and all the free guns they want. If we are really going to liberate education, if all of our lives are going to matter than the first step is calling on the federal government to end the 1033 program and program and keep police out of schools. Thank you. And when we fight, we win [applause]. Thank you jonathan. Anybody here who doesnt know about diet, its a great story in the book. So next up, we have, thinking about our immigrant brothers and sisters, we have rob. [applause]. Thank you thank you and good evening. Thank you greg, its a pleasure pleasure to be here. I want to start out the book begins with a great fight and an inspiring fight by amazing young people called the dreamers. That begins in 2010 where they fight and they win because when we fight, we went so it takes us and takes us to 2012 when something that could not be done to give millions of young people the opportunity to go to school to pay taxes and to live without fear in this country was finally given in june of 2012. Then it takes us from that fight to another fight and its the fight to save our parents. This fight is for 11 million undocumented people in this country. We are still there. We are still in the fight and it ends in 2014 where after we were told we couldnt win and the president could not give us executive action we found that in 2012 that wasnt true because we fought and we did win. When we found out it couldnt be done in 2014 after siddons sit ins and arrests, we then one the rights for parents who were born in the center to stay. The amazing thing and where we find ourselves today after two years, and rob will share a little bit more about that is that on this day today, we have begun the year two years later with race and hate and with trump, hates, and were beginning to be in the place similar to 2010 where the victory that we had in 2014 where we finally saw the many years of fighting and many of us sat in living rooms watching the announcement of the protection of millions of families only to find out after words that the state of texas, 26 plus 26 other states filed a lawsuit against the United States that would prevent that executive action from being implemented. The last year we spent fighting we spent fasting, we have spent looking to win and eventually get to the Supreme Court to actually give us what we rightfully one by fighting. So its interesting that we find ourselves this week, this friday with being in that fight. Thank you. My name is robert. Nasa is a human right group ca as a is a human right group. They see the image of Central Americans. What we dont see is that immigrants are from all over the world. There from west africa and asia and europe. There from all over the world. We have the opportunity to work with outstanding leaders. One west african immigrant said to the press and to all that would hear him, he said right now youre going after Central Americans. Youre going to be going after me next. He knows that today it Central Americans and tomorrow its west africans. So this struggle is all of our struggles. I had the chance to work with leaders from all over that have been arrested and they still go forward and brave and put the bodies on behalf of their struggle. I ask you that are here, we will be at the Supreme Court at 11 00 a. M. When we fight, we win. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you [applause]. I have to tell you, when i first heard the dreamers stories and they talk about the ice raids and the vans coming in at the dead of night and sweeping up families, i had these chills as i was hearing them because it reminded me of those same stories that my parents