The committees reach and boost its effectiveness in the 20s when elections. This is about an hour and 45 minutes. Good evening. Come on, lets clap. We made it through the storm. Welcome to democracy and colors. Democratic National Committee chair for them. Im an elephant, codirector. We are so thrilled that you are here. I want with our partners need to and inclusive, we want to welcome you warmly here today. Thanks so much for joining us here at George Washington university for this historic and important conversation about the future of the Democratic Party. We want to welcome our viewers a live stream for joining us across the country everywhere from ohio to florida to california to nevada and we look forward to your comments, your photos, your head and if you dont mind using the hash tag down and color or dnc forum, we can follow the forum. Do i think jessica bird and the raven group for making tonight have been. [applause] and another note. We have some voting members of the democratic National Committee in the audience we went to thank you are being here today for this conversation. [applause] we want to also thank you or your service. The words coming to music and the message of the new american majority thats multiracial progressives elected and reelected by president barack obama remark conversation today. To get us started, i would say to bring to the stage former Nevada State Assembly member and Vice President of Public Affairs for me too, lucy florez. Please give a round of applause. [applause] hello, hello. How is everyone feeling tonight . Yes, this is fantastic. My goodness, look at this turnout. I know we are reaching hundreds of thousands of people in our live stream not only today but afterwards as well and thats really exciting. Thank you all for being here this evening. Me too is a very proud media partner with democracy and color and inclusive because of the Digital Media country that strives to give voice to the 200 , those who are 100 american and 100 pitino, we know how important it is to provide access to conversations that protect communities of color. A latino point of view that resonate across communities. Id fall to cultural youth on their way to becoming a majority, conversations, numbers are numbers. We are on our way to become a majority. Conversations like these in access to conversations like these are more important than ever. In that spirit, mitu is also very proud to bring roel pereira, a young man who has some powerful words to say about the power of words. [applause] and 19 nospace, an an earthquake ruptures of San Andreas Fault killing an estimated 3000 people. If vibrations can break boulders and devastate lives, then our words can split open mind and ode to the geographical shape of its fact is vibration. Our verbs are at earthquakes. So lets break the ground. Our Fallen Heroes are trapped underneath them. Resurrect poets from grace. Leaders reviewed played. In 2010 an earthquake takes the lives of 300,000 haitians. Do not underestimate the hercules behind your time. Your voices are the reason the axis is tilted. But your silence is the reason this planet is dying. So lets cause a ruckus. At earthquakes can destroy lives, our voices can rebuild them. In 2011 and earthquake devastates fukushima, japan. I have been to the mountains and i looked over and ive seen the promised land. But the only thing in our way is a mute mountain. So the crumpled mountains. We crack rock without needing a pie. Just give me one word, one sentence can make the ground moves like a tsunami. You can hear the words cracked concrete, cracking like a blast that took two cars. Not an exit this world, leaving the earthquakes would cause repercussions. The future, the future belongs to those who prepare for it today. So today, i have a dream. My dream wasnt heard. Today i have a dream, but my dream was deferred. Today i had a dream about a king, but the king wasnt heard. The legends are angry. The world is violent while we stay for every action there is in the one opposite reaction. For example, the opposite reaction as well to the occasion. Problems react to solution. Oppression reacts to revolution. The death of trade by martin, zimmermans execution. Now this is a flaw. Voices react to vibration. Vibrations react to earthquakes. The sound is vibration. Our verbs are as earthquakes. So lets break the ground. Our Fallen Heroes in poets react. That speak but charmers trembling like an earthquake. And watch this granite shape. [applause] give him another round of applause. [applause] i can honestly say ive ever come to a political event, informed opened so powerfully. With such gratitude to our partners mitu for bringing to the saudi and. Again, our live audience, please let us know youre there been shot up for when youre joining the live stream. Given the outcome of the most recent election, it is clearly a critical moment for the Democratic Party and our country. Who leads us as chair of the dnc and the strategy of the party is going to be central to the success of gaining back power. So the road to tonight began at earnest from the poignant analysis articulated in democracy and color founders d. Phillips, brown is the new way. They said among other things and it challenged us to look at the power and the potential of the new american majority to be the democratic ready forward. The current president made ross appeals to White Nationalist and a seat has rightly stated unequivocably that the democrat lost because they did not know how to correct way address race. [applause] the fact is people of color are 46 of the Democratic Party and those numbers will continue to go up. The reality calls for a new type of leadership in a new type of understanding of who the voters are and what they want in political leadership. Steve and his wife, Susan Sandler have been working on this nonstop, calling for solutions in this increasingly racially polarized climate. So tonight, we have a very unique opportunity to have an open conversation about how race impacts the path forward, like the great dr. Reverend barber says. Our task is to build a new language that pulls people together and explores new avenues to political strength to save the heart of democracy, to hold race and class to gather as a cut not across race, but through it as we find solutions that perplexing challenge our nation. We have the deep believe that the next chair of the dnc must have the skills to lead and to organize a National Dialogue on race, Racial Justice in a multiracial unity and that this forum will help us to assess the readiness of each of the candidates who meet tonight to participate in advance that effort. Some historical trends, diversity in terms of staffing and contracting and want welcome to the stage leah daughtry. [applause] good evening. My sisters and brothers it is my pleasure to be with you this evening at the behest of my good friend donna brazile, the interim chair of the dnc. And thank you for your introduction. And thank you to democracy and collar for presenting this gathering to us. In a month from now the members of the dnc, and i count myself among them, will come together to elect our next chair. It is an exciting and pivotal time for us, for our party, for our country. We just witnessed the inauguration of a president who most americans did not vote for. We also just witnessed a a powerful gathering of millions of women from around the world, and men, come together in solidarity and common purpose to send a message that the hardwon rights of women and girls must be protected and advanced. These two events, one on the heels of the other, one filled with sorrow and anger and regret for us as democrats, and the other with full of hope and possibility, get all part of an important opportunity to regroup, to retool and to remind ourselves of who we are as democrats. That we have a mission, a mandate and a moral obligation to work, fight and speak on behalf of those who cannot work, fight or speak for themselves. To be successful we must reach out to every segment of the electorate and we need our next chair to understand that as the mission, the mandate and the moral obligation that it is. I dont like to talk about diversity because it seems to me that its hard to quantify. Thats like taking a teaspoon pepper and putting it into a pound of salt and thinking you have made a difference. But you really havent changed the quality of the salt. I prefer to talk about when it comes to our party representation. [applause] i believe our parties apparatus must be representative of the communities who have made our party strong and vibrant, as well as the community we are trying to reach. Top to bottom and bottom to top. Staffing, appointments, consultants, pollsters, candidate recruitment and fundraising. In every area [applause] in every area at every level we need, we must have and we demand to be represented in the party to which we have been loyal, and which is relied upon our votes year in and year out. [applause] it is a challenge but it is not impossible, and i know because as ceo of the 2016 of the 2008 Democratic National convention, i achieved this goal. In 2016 my staff with 60 female and 54 people of color. [applause] and not only that, we set a goal of onethird of my notice spending and we exceeded that reaching almost 50 minority spending. [applause] so in front of the camera and behind the scenes, our staff, are contingent was not the best in spite of diversity but because a diversity. Because we brought every voice, every community to the table. Our diversity is not our problem. It is our promise. [applause] and with commitments come with leadership and with intentional direction we can achieve these results up and down the ballot, up and down our party just by having the right tools. So tonight we will hear from seven of the now 11 i think candidates who are running for chair of the dnc. And we want to know tonight and we look forward to answering the question, what are the steps and the strategies that they will take to engage a new american majority . Who drives the strategy determines the outcome. How will they choose consultants and strategist for the party . On recruitment of new candidates, how they build a fence so it is of reflective and was a plan to recruit the next generation of progressive leaders . And on fundraising, how do we raise and spend dollars from minority communities . We look forward to hearing these answers. Were thrilled to have seven to 90 were qualified in each of them to lead the Democratic Party to its next iteration into its future, we look forward to pointed questions that gets to the heart of the matter. No pussyfooting around. We want real answers about how our party will move forward under the leadership of thank you and god bless you. [applause] and so without further ado we want an opportunity to invite our moderator to the stage. Joyann reid is hosed up a enjoy that is on msnbc on weekends. Give her a round of applause. [applause] she is also a columnist of the daily beast and editor of we are the change we speak, speech of barack obama that just recently came out. We are so thrilled and thankful that you are here. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. [applause] thank you. All right. This is exciting. Thank you, aimee. Good evening, everyone. I want a personal thing George Washington university for hosting the cd. Its very important and, of course, democracy in color for the invitation to be here. My friend jessica byrd and jamal sims and, of course, Steve Phillips. This is an important debate. I think this is an essential direct the Democratic Party has to deal with Going Forward. Im glad you all are you. Without further ado let me introduce those candidates for dnc chair who are hit with us tonight that will debate so lets start with congressman Keith Ellison from minnesota. [cheers and applause] there he is. All right. Lets bring on mayor pete buttgieg. [cheers and applause] i did okay . I set eyes going to say really quickly so would know i got it wrong. Raymond buckley. Thats an easy one. [cheers and applause] lets bring on jaime harrison. [applause] and now jehmu greene. [applause] and lets bring on the honorable tom perez. [cheers and applause] and last but not least Sally Boynton brown. [applause] all right. Thank you all for being here. You guys can all have the seat. Youve got some water there. So tonight i think what im going to do, my sort of plan here is to break this up into a few sections and i want to start off with the elephant in the room, the obvious. We just had an election in which democrats won the popular vote but did not win the white house. And one of the core questions that came out of this election is who should democrats be targeting Going Forward . Pulled up some statistics. Weird africanamericans vote for the Democratic Party at a rate of 88 voted for the democrats. Among white voters only 37 . Among latinos at this number is in a little bit dispute, its 65 . Voter latino has postulated closer to 20 . And among asian person 65 . One other piece of data about the election is that you want white voters with a College Degree, right, white voters with a College Degree still favor the Republican Party and only white women with a College Degree havard elder clayton but only really just barely. And despite the fact i would clinton actually improved on her numbers with white voters with a College Degree and spent a lot of time courting those voters and really focusing on them, she still didnt manage to win that group and yet you still up and, of course, white voters without a College Degree went overwhelmingly for donald trump, more than 70 . Lets talk about this debate whether not democrats spent too much time trying to win over particularly white women voters and really failing to do that at the end of the day and whether not the Democratic Party would have done a better job and what a been wiser to focus more time and attention courting voters of color. Ill just go actually ill go in reverse order. We will start with Sally Boynton brown. Its important we have a conversation with all other people. The idea of talking to specific groups of people doesnt seem to be working for us. Its time we really expect we have one thing in common, we are human. If we focus on giving power back to people is the great equalizer. Power is what will bring all of us forward. The democrats need to realize this more than anything else. Is that there are people out there youre not being heard and we need to make sure were bringing all of those voices together and with stop siloing our conversation into specific groups of people. The reality is folks in our country dont feel like the kids going have a better life than they had and that the issue we have to solve. If we dont solve it nobody else is going to spin at tom perez. I think we had to say where to go to one command or another. What we have to do, what we did a poor job of in this election, we didnt make house calls. We didnt get out there, we didnt persuade. You cant show up at a church every fourth of october and call that an organizing strategy. Thats what we did as democrats. When we are there talking, ted kennedy in 1980 at the Democratic Convention talked about the most important civil rights for any person is a job. When we talk about jobs, talk about opportunity, the second pillar of the Democratic Party has been weve always taken care of folks who are in the shadows making sure they get into the sunshine. And when we Pay Attention to those two pillars, thats how we succeed. When we are organizing, whether its in milwaukee or whether its in rural wisconsin and talking about that message, and hope and opportunity, thats when the Democratic Party is at its best, when hope is on about we win. When there is on about we dont do so hot. That is why i think we did in every zip code strategy, that is married around that basic message of Economic Opportunity and a party that is all about everyone. Inclusion is our strength. Diversity is our greatest asset as a country. We can talk about that everywhere because when you talk about opportunity, we need to talk about, are you lifting people up . Or are you dragging them down . We sometimes get too bent out of shape about are you on the left of the party, the center, the right of the Democratic Party, are you lifting people up or bringing them down . And we give people a job we get people that opportunity. When we make sure communities have safe and constitutional policing, were expanding opportunity. When we make sure immigrants have access to the american dream, we are expanding opportunity. I think that works everywhere. Jehmu greene. I absolutely agree with salad and secretary perez. I think where to do a better job with democrats engaging americans of all hues, genders, generations and backgrounds. But ill be very blunt. The dnc did a poor pathetic job of engaging young people of color in the 2016 election. [applause] we have to all that. We also did a very bad job of communicating intersection aldi. Sexism, racism, classism, homophobia. All of this is connected and we did not make a better way of communicating to all of these communities that are respected by the species because if we had the move would have turned up the white voters that are now getting the focus of immediate attention and i think one of the things that compel me to get into this race, the possibility of overcompensating for those strategic mistakes. We cannot do that as a party.