Transcripts For CSPAN National Gentrification Summit 20240714

Came toere because we put a focus on newark because we believe in what is happening in newark. A focus in newark because of the history of struggle here, protected struggle, protracted struggle, rebellion, moving forward, and eventual ascension to the office of the mayor. [applause] him. T is not just about i will never forget, i was struck by his slogan. He said when i become a mayor, we become mayor. That said this was a collective enterprise, collective work and responsibility, so there are policies being elaborated here last year we were talking about a Marshall Plan, because he called for a Marshall Plan. And we are going to work toward the creation of a Marshall Plan to get massive investment in the cities, because no matter what our mayors do for all the good efforts that are made, unless we get massive resources in our community, we are not going to be able to solve all problems. We must fight for reparations and fight for a Marshall Plan. [applause] the struggle against gentrification is not without controversy. It is complex, it is difficult, so there are voices that may agree and disagree, and that is fine. This agreement as long as it is constructive should be welcomed. It is not always comfortable, but nobody ever said it would be comfortable. There has to be creative tension and out of that comes better partnerships read it sharpens our analysis, sharpens our thinking. This is not a blanket endorsement of anyone. Is it it is about an understanding that someone has the right vision, right direction, because without the right vision we know for sure the people were parish. So vision is important, and the values behind that. We wanted to lay that out there. This summit is about the fact that black people and black institutions are being placed. We came here, to newark, because at least there are efforts being made to mitigate this. Is always mean that successful, because gentrification is a monster. It isnt the first time black people have been removed. We talked about the need grover removal of the 21st century, as long as White Supremacy is in place and a capitalist political economy, we will always be challenged until we transform that system. [applause] so now, i want to introduce a number of people. We had a summit and everybody couldnt come to the summit, because it was a summit. But we have convened some of the most brilliant minds, activists, organizers, elected officials, faith leaders, all across this country, to deliberate and share ideas about how we are going to deal with this crisis, and we are going to deal with it. From the institute for race and justice from harvard said, you know, ron, we came here on an emergency, but we are now emerging. We are emerging. We will be victorious. We cant introduce them all but that would be to because that would be too difficult, but if all the resource people who came from all across the country could stand up so people can see you. [applause] thank you, very much. Would like to introduce the panel. Tois a conversational format tap into the wisdom, ideas, experiences of these folks on the stage who have come from across the country, different disciplines, different experiences, different expertise to share with you and among themselves, part of what we have been trying to do in deals in terms of dealing with gentrification. Let me start in no particular order, starting with dr. Jeffrey love, associate director and the department of urban planning at Texas Southern university. Give him a wave. [applause] the return of the native son, i was so happy because i knew him from the Jackson Campaign and beyond. He was here for many years. He is now president of the council of bishops, president of all the ame bishops. Welcome Bishop Reginald jackson. [applause] lee is the director of development from the great city of new orleans. [applause] next step needs no introduction, revolutionary in office, assemblyman Charles Barrett from East New York. [applause] all the way from omaha, nebraska, the African American Empowerment Network and omaha is one of the most formidable, powerful models of operational unity i know. Please welcome willie barney. [applause] our Favorite Places happens to be in mississippi. We have a lot of love, for jackson, mississippi. The mayor couldnt beer but set his apology, but he didnt have to apologize because he sent his chief of staff, dr. Sophia amari. [applause] and she needs no introduction, she is my bad sister, you know her well, she gets stuff done. She just gets stuff done. She was on my radio show the other day and almost took over. That is frederica bay. [applause] a woman in support of the million man march. Shortlyining us chairman marian hamm, the chairman is in the house. [applause] finally, a brilliant mind, a great faith leader all the way from oakland, california, with the Live Free Initiative of the reverendaction, Michael Mcbride all the way from berkeley, california. And last but not least, my dear friend who has been the one who has moderated so many things, you see him on msnbc, he has his i was goingogram, down my list, you all know her, right . Black americas leading dr. Tical economist, Julianne Malvo is in the house. [applause] and before i forget, i have to say that on your program you have danny glover, i have to apologize. Listen carefully. Danny was here yesterday, he was in new york planning an event for harry belafonte, but danny is a film star and television and so forth, so he had to go back for shooting but he sends his regrets. Danny is with us and loves us, and sends his love and respect. Lets give it up for danny glover anyhow. [applause] i forgot another one. All right. From the rainbow push coalition, Vice President and chief strategist for engagement of programs in the rainbow push coalition, reverend gary from chicago. Thank you, reverend, for saving me from myself. Going to do this is going to be a conversation, moderated by my dear friend coming up. Time permitting we will hopefully be able to entertain a few questions. You will raise your hand, we will get an index card to you, and at the conclusion, the most important thing is that we hear from our host. Welcome to the rostrum to moderate the session, you hear him on siriusxm progress 127, any time you turn on msnbc, all over the place, ill must have to get autographs from this brother, my beloved friend reverend mark thompson. Reverend thompson thank you, all right. [applause] god bless you. [speaking arabic] what it is. It is good to be here in new work, new jersey. I was just at reverend sharptons convention, had the privilege of interviewing senator cory booker just a few minutes ago. And i wanted to let dr. Daniels and others know i did my best to get him to change his schedule to be with us tonight, and we almost didit we it, but he sends his greetings as well and understands the importance of this conversation. Amen. In terms of our other esteemed elected official, mayor roz student atwas a Howard University and i was a student at the university of the district of columbia. In 1990, reverend wilson remembers we organized the student boycott of virginia beach, virginia, because in 1989, black lives matter is a new term, but our struggle with Law Enforcement has been going on all these years. 1989 with theer students at virginia beach, a place we always went to on labor i want tod, so acknowledge the longevity of the mayors relationship. We had no idea either one of us would be where we are now. You never know. It could have gone the other way. But god has put us in a position to continue to serve our people and he very much so is continuing in the footsteps of andgreat ken gibson shea his father. So please give the mayor a round of applause. [applause] and even though i say we were together in 1990, i will let you in on a secret. I maylly tell people millennial, so dont tell anybody. [laughter] , i have a lotiels of affection for ron. Because i know the sacrifices he makes for our people. Is not in the socalled celebrityetc chelon, so to speak. And he works hard and i tell him, let me know anything i can help you, but he works hard and just takes it all on himself. At this stage in life a lot of folks are ready to retire and give up. He hasnt done that. He himself, even though they are really somewhat peers, when dr. Ron walters passed away, we needed to figure out who was going to pick up the mantle and of conscious and woke academia. Some folks get phds and they are in these ivory towers and they are not in touch, on the ground with our people. Ron has continued to do that and is been a constant organizer in terms of organizing meetings and conferences that think tanks and things like that, the institute of the black world, going all the way back to the First Political black convention in gary, indiana, so we are just so thankful for what he does and what he continues to do. And i dont mind saying we are on siriusxm and cspan and ron i think holds the record of any individual of having cspan broadcasts events. [laughter] i dont know anyone else. I geteople say, how can on cspan, i say put on ron daniels and cspan will be right there. So im thankful for that as well. Please give dr. Ron daniels around of applause for all that he is at all that he does. [applause] from dr. P the mental ron walters, we were on the at fourthday on wol theh streets northeast, First Property kathy hughes owned, and i made a decision i would have dr. Ron walters sit in the studio with me and my cohost, dick gregory, and for our community we would come up with a working definition for self determination. The academician he was, we crafted that definition. It was this. Is a peoplestion command and control of their own ownural destiny, their social destiny, their own economic destiny and their own political destiny, without any external interference from any external forces. When we talk about the issue of gentrification, that is not selfdetermination. People decide where we live, where we move, what we do. They want to live in the suburbs, you all need grows move snto the city you all negroe have to move to the city. And when they want to live in groesity, you nee have to move out of the city. And now after 50 years they say, we want the suburbs back, you all have to move into the city. That is not in control of our movement as a free people and that is why this conversation is important. So we will begin the narrative,n on the each of the panelists who choose , we shall respond to this, what does gentrification look . Ike in your community nationally, or from the perspective of your organization or institution . This will give us a greater picture of how this is happening. And again, this isnt just for the national and International Audience that is happening, because we know that it is happening, but our panelist will give us more specifics and detail on what is happening, right where they can see it. So we will go down the line. Good evening, everyone. Thank you dr. Daniels for convening us and thank you all for coming. Friday night you could be anywhere, but you are here because you want to soak up some knowledge. We appreciate it. Provideels asked me to Historical Context to this gentrification. Basically gentrification is an assault on our selfdetermination. But even more than an assault on selfdetermination, this is something called been there, done that. The Great Recession caused africanamericans to lose nearly half of our homeownership, lose a significant amount of our wealth, set the tone in some places for the possibility of land takeover. But understand that in the wake of enslavement, i have this computer not because i needed because but because of a couple of numbers i want you to have. In 1880, 15 years after enslavement, black folks had one dollar for every 36 white folks at. In 1890 we had one dollar for every 26 white folks at. Every 23dollar for white folks had to. 1910, one dollar for every 16 folks every 16 white had. Look at the progress. Today we have seven dollars for. Very 100 white folks have from a wealth accumulation perspective we are worse off in 1910. Hen we were in we were just out of enslavement. Mark, you talked about degrees, all these degrees folks have running around, well, we didnt have degrees then. Only one in 100 of us had gone to college. Us were nor hbc schools, really. But we were able to accumulate in ways we have never before. Now, what happened . Theres nothing trifling about the black community collectively. When people talk about the wealth gap, they will tell you we have some deficiency. We do not. What we do is live in an era through hostility, and something i call economic envy. When we get it, white folks want it. That is how it goes. Over 1000 we had blackowned banks. Now we have 23. Now some of it was changes in banking regulation that happened deliberately. There was a brother in richmond, virginia, john mitchell, and he f. U. R. Before everybody did. He had a cadillac. They took his bank. They said the negro league arrogant they said the negro was arrogant. They put it on paper. Ended up bank consolidating in 1929, 1930, and became consolidated savings bank. Oft bank thrived in hundreds not thousands of people in richmond in the 1920s got their homes because consolidated was lending money to black people when other people would not. Its important to understand, we have made economic progress but then people jump up in our faces and take our stuff. Economic envy israel real. Tulsa, oklahoma was about economic envy. The story some people will tell you, the melon deficient will tell you tulsa was about a young oreshine guy, 19, raped assaulted sarah page, 17yearold elevator operator. Dr. Olivia hooker died not too long ago and dr. Hooker was six when it happened. She remembers it. She remembers hiding under the table at her home, the tablecloth hiding she and her siblings. Watched the white people come in, vivid memory of folks who were so envious, broke her mothers caruso records, took a next to the piano, burnt her dolls close, just people because black people had too much. When the oklahoma governor later asked for a commission to investigate this, remember nobody went to jail, they have pictures of people, a black physician came out of his home, hands up, they shot them, they killed him. We dont know how many were killed. Some people say 300, some say 600, we know 35 square blocks were eviscerated, we know me of dollars were lost we know millions of dollars were lost, and we know nobody paid anything. In fact, the red cross did not even want to go to tulsa. They wended they ended up going through external forces, but they didnt want to come. They had us in concentration camps. And the black women of the rich area of tulsa, they were not reservationeave the unless they were going to do a days work for white people. There were not allowed. Want to givee, we in this first round everybody just three or four minutes. Hen we want to come back dr. Daniels had asked me to do the Historical Context. History takes a long time. [laughter] [applause] [laughter] case, you mustsa deal with. White folks had been stockpiling guns and waiting for an excuse. When the Governors Commission came in, why did they have this . They said too many need gross. They didnt say need gros they di they said, too many negroes. They didnt say negroes. Public policy conspired against us. The g. I. Bill, so many things, when you look at Public Policy, we have systematically been discriminated against, systematically taking our stuff, and as i listen to the mayor this morning and so many others, when there is vacant land it needs to be redistributed to people who have been systematically sidelined. When there are opportunities, they need to be distributed to people who have been systematically sidelined. It is utterly inexcusable for this wealth gap to exist, as hard as black people work. And dont let anybody ever tell you we dont work hard. Final part before he snatches the mic. Atinal point, when we look all of this in the context of economic envy and this other stuff, we must look at the ways we have to resist. We must look at the resistance we must put out there. We have black mayors who do not , they neversibility met a developer they dont want to slowdance with, and to our detriment. We have black City Council People taking money under the table so that they can exploit our people. We cannot have that. Financial literacy is not Public Policy. We must be responsible stewards of that which we have been blessed with. We must save and invest. But if we saved and invested everything we got, we couldnt close the wealth gap. We will be literate, but we also want our share, reparations now. [applause] reverend thompson amen. I apologize, i should have told you three or four minutes from the outset. Let me also apologize, please keep dr. Malveauxs mother and mother in prayer. Dr. Jeffries coming may we have your permission to continue dr. Jeffries, may we have your permission to continue . All right. Charles, three to four minutes. Charles i want to take the responsibility dr. Daniels spoke of to provide creative tension. I would like to play that role. We can talk about gentrification, but there is a larger problem. That is the problem of a racist, predatory, parasitic, bloodsucking capitalist system. [applause] and the solution is revolution. The solution is socialism. The solution is us electing that are notls descriptively black that look like us, but are authentically black and committed to us. Our biggest problem in our neighborhoods is black neocolonial puppets of the Democratic Party. [applause] that is the problem in our neighborhood in new york. You know how we stopped gentrification . Existsection it does not in East New York, and it doesnt exist because i have a beautiful African Queen wife named who is on the city council. So when the developers came and showed us these pretty pictures, we asked them what is the area Median Income requirement . Because if it is not the area Median Income of East New York, you are not building in East New York. East new york, the community had the largest increase in the , East New York, 13. 2 percent. Harlem lost 14 of its bracts. Bedford stuyvesant, 600 increase of its whites, lost 16 of its blacks. I have the distinct honor to say i actually lost white population in my community. I lost them. They left. They left. I didnt ask them why, they left. So if you see one or two or three or four or five whites in my neighborhood, they are passing through. [laughter] but that is on a serious note. We have 13,000 black elected officials in this country. We had mayors, governors, city council members. We need to get radical revolutionaries elected, people that are really committed to us. Just having a black face and a high place doesnt mean anything, even if you are the president. Even if you are the president. They said, dont mess with the black president. When you dont mess with black leaders in high places, we are in a difficult situation. We have got to deal with it because if we dont, im going to say this and run out of here, one of the good things about having trump is that you all are angry. If you would have had somebody else, you would have thought you had made progress and you would have been cool. This fool is disrupting the whole world. Everybody is angry with him, so it provides impetus to the movement. If hillary would have been elected, you would all have been saying, we got a woman elected, you wouldve thought you had progress and you would have went to sleep. Capitalism is predatory. Callf you go for what they compassionate capitalism, that is an oxymoron, but compassionate capitalism is, you get a 15 dollar minimum wage and some food stamps. Compassionate capitalism is to get a few jobs into a few programs for your community, but it still revised the impetus for the rich, it still exploits, but like malcolm said, you suffer peacefully because you have the wrong people in power. I will have more to stay later. Stay ready for the revolution, because that is the only solution. [applause] [crowd cheering] reverend thompson i just want to make sure we are still on the air. [laughter] wbai, are we good . Wpfw, are we good . Are we still on . Serious siriusxm, are we still good . Cspan, are we still good . I see the red light on cspan. We are good. Amen. I was once asked in and interview, mark, what do you think about the most powerful political couple in American History . And they thought it was going to talk about half of the couple he just mentioned. And i said, do you mean charles and inez barron . [applause] what does gentrification look like in your community . Good evening. I bring you greetings from jackson, mississippi. Amen. Nd thompson mumba. Ehalf of mayor i would like to say that he is groone of these ne politicians that we referenced. Arlier jackson, mississippi is in the process of rebuilding, rebuilding a city that has been exploited and divested in for decades, even with black leadership. Even though we dont face gentrification the way many of it,urban areas are facing we understand that as soon as we , we will have to address it. Our mayor often makes the statement that we will not move our people from one state of , and that isther essentially what gentrification is. People isment to our to involve them in the government. Our commitment is to design our economy, which we call a dignity economy, meaning that every single citizen in jackson, mississippi deserves to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of their economic status, their social status, their level of education. We are committed to building a just society for all human beings. Justn building that society, we understand the relationship that we as proprietors, as elected officials, the role that we have to serve. We have to serve the role of Servant Leadership. We are servants. We are servants of the people. So often, we that dont listen, especially when we get elected are we have the doctorate, the letters behind our names. We often think that we have the solution. We understand that we cannot Craft Solutions unless we craft them in concert with the people who put us in office. Build, we constantly touch bases with our citizens. We have what we call peoples assemblies, when we are getting ready to do something within the city, we go out and say, what do you think about this . And if you agree with this, how should it be structured . What is the best way this will affect you . We are implementing participatory budgeting to help citizens understand because they see millions of dollars in the budget and they dont understand how that money is allocated or how it is used. We want them to understand the budget so they can make meaningful input into how their tax dollars are being used within the city of jackson. Over my threeo go or four minutes, i just want to say for those of you who are not aware, our current mayor is the lumumba, the leader of the african independence movement. Free the land. Free the land. Free the land. His father was elected mayor in jackson in 2013. On, after 10assed in office. During his campaign he made the we all in our administration hold very dearly, if you dont love the people, you will eventually betray the people. [applause] we have to put people in office who love the people. And we have to hold them power isle, because seductive, power is very seductive area we have to make power is very seductive. Thee have to make sure that people we elevate to positions of Servant Leadership are held held close to us so that love can continue and we can Craft Freedom and selfdetermination together. Thank you. Free the land. [applause] reverend thompson chokwe l me, we his son said to can take mississippi back. Black folk can govern. Just like the sister in georgia, we can take mississippi back. Please, gentrification from your perspective. My name is ellen lee. Im here on behalf of mayor Latoya Cantrell of new orleans, the first female mayor of the great city of new orleans. She is amazing. She is a community organizer. Hat is her roots the work she did in her neighborhood after katrina, organizing that community, fighting for resources to bring that neighborhood back. It was one of the neighborhoods those planners said would not be able to rebuild, you are too low, too much water. If said, i will be doggone that is going to happen. Not today. And she organized so that that neighborhood would come back, that the people of new orleans would be able to come back and live where they choose to live, and not where someone else tells them to live. [applause] i am also a lifelong new orleanian. I have seen the changes that happen. , a lot of growing up vacancy, a lot of blight, house prices nothing like they are today. My 92yearold mother still lives in the house we grew up in. And when she tells me that prices in that neighborhood, i know some of you on the east coast, this is nothing, 200 50,000, three hundred thousand dollars for a house in the neighborhood i grew up in, i cant believe it. All, do notfirst of open the door when people come knocking. [applause] and the second thing is, we all the homestead. That is the homestead and we are holding onto that land. But for us, gentrification looks like families who, at the wages they are currently making, after work over 100 hours a week, would have to work over 100 hours a week to be able to afford living in new orleans. It means that if you are not making that minimum wage, what you would need to be making his 22 to 25 an hour to be able to afford to live in new orleans. Who havehose of you experienced our wonderful purse our wonderful hospitality and food and music like no place else, no disrespect to folks else, it like no place doesnt pay 22 an hour or 25 an hour. So imagine the hardship on people. Downtown in new orleans, ive lived there my whole life, ive never seen downtown being developed in the way it has. Affordable, very little affordability in downtown, where people could actually be close to the jobs that they have. But we didnt have policies in place to make that happen when we were trying to rebuild after katrina. Katrina accelerated the gentrification in new orleans, and because of government officials, we have to take responsibility for our part in doing that. We have to hold ourselves accountable for the role that we played in that. What that also means for us is that people are being pushed out from the innercity and other parts of our city, into the outer areas of the city. Cool, but it might be all right if we had great Public Transportation to get people there. It might be all right if we had other services in those areas. So that is what that is looking like for us. That means our Service Economy is being compromised. If i cant get to work and im an hourly worker, now im in trouble when my boss is late and i may lose my job because my boss is late. Its things like that. It means for us, literally, our culture. So when our musicians and artisans cannot afford to live in the city that they create, weve got a problem. Thats what gentrification looks like in new orleans. Reverend thompson thank you. [applause] she mentioned a black woman mayor in new orleans. Amen. We just had another in chicago, didnt we . The sisters are coming on strong. Ok, brother. In new jersey in 2012i set i was going to georgia, was going to be quiet, i was not going to get involved, fights and all i was going to enjoy my life. And sure enough, nothing changed. And i have discovered that the problem of gentrification and other evils which black space are intentional. Face areblacks intentional, they are deliberate, they are planned. So when you ask what it looks , they just built mercedesbenz stadium, hosted the super bowl on the west side of the city, gleaming, beautiful structure. The west side of atlanta, heavily low income, unemployment time, people struggling. It is also where the au center is located. There is a herculean fight now because Developers Want to take over the west side of atlanta, and their intent is to move out the population that lives there now. Fightare in one heck of a , i almost said something else, to keep that from happening. And it wouldnt have been so bad if it was just there, but we major fighta because the state of georgia had the audacity to think they were going to take control of atlantas airport. Atlantas airport is the biggest airport in the world. For blacksa mecca because of the Atlanta Airport. , the development of Atlanta Airport, he is the hubwho made atlanta the that it is. So atlanta is a major hub and mecca for black life. It has 34 billion of revenue. Enerated black businesses thrive in the city of atlanta. Their intent to take over Atlanta Airport has nothing to do with corruption. It is about getting their filthy on 34n 34 million billion. It is about dismantling the black middle class. Wishssemblyman barron, i i could say what was happening in new york is happening in atlanta. But the white population in new york is increasing. The black the white population in atlanta is increasing. The black population in atlanta is decreasing. I will say again, nothing changes without pressure. Black folk have got to fight some, and i think protecting our race is worth fighting for. Believer that we have got to apply heat, but let me also say im a Firm Believer you have to also provide light. There are folk who do not want our people to see what is happening to us, and that is why it is important for black leadership that we have black leadership that has some character and some backbone, because we have got to help our people see what is happening to us. So if you ask me what our biggest challenge is, our challenge is to help our people to see. [applause] im going to talk about gentrification broadly. Is important to remember gentrification is a process that has been atthat least more than 30 years in the making. Gentrification is a process that includes disinvestment, reinvestment and displacement. Now historically, we know about displacement. I am jeffrey lowe. I was introduced earlier. Im a professor at Texas Southern university in urban planning and environmental policy. [applause] for the record. That disinvestment is based on and lack ofregation resources, redlining, blockbusting, and we know who benefited and they didnt look like us. Its based on White Supremacy and racism. What is different with the reinvestment from the past is that it is global, it is global capitalism. We have brazilians, asians, people from all over the world. They do not hold our values. They are not concerned about our improvement of quality of life. It is all grounded in capitalism, and all they are concerned about is making a dollar. Im talking globally, you cannot talk about gentrification, for example, in harlem or morningside heights, and not talk about white people who can no longer live on the upper west side. They are being pushed out, and they are pushing us out, and it is all about making the welltodo wealthier, and it is global. It is global. So the displacement we see happening, living in communities where housing value across the country in most black communities is four and five times higher than it has ever been. And it is because of that global investment. And our Public Officials are letting it happen. Our black middle class are letting it happen. And we have to hold ourselves accountable. We are complicit in it because we didnt put pressure on them to do anything different, and until we put the pressure on them and make the policy thates, and it is global, is the emergency we are talking about and that is the emergency that we need to address and take immediate action. [applause] willie barney, all the way from omaha, nebraska, center of the country. I want to share a couple of things. The first, the name of our organization is the africanamerican power network. The africanamerican Empowerment Network. Empowerment is not giving someone power. Empowerment is helping someone realize they had power the whole time. So if you have that power, the second word we focus on is collaboration. Kingell that out, dr. Talked about living on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. If you go city i city city by city, that is what we have been living in. In the city of omaha, and 2006 we had a 49 Graduation Rate for African Americans. We had a crime rate going out of control at the highest level ever. We collaborated, we brought africanamerican leaders from every sector together and developed our own plan. That plan brought together hundreds and then thousands of people to develop a revitalization plan from the community from the grassroots level. We developed our own plan and we put it into action. We took the communitybased plant to the city council, and were able to get a unanimous vote to approve the plan. It is now the master plan, but it was developed by the community and for the community. That is the first step. The other thing is, working in collaboration we have been able to address longterm issues that have been decades in the making. We were able to reduce gun violence by 88 in this area we have been focusing on. Graduation rate that was 49 and is now at 81 . [applause] we are moving the dial. The Unemployment Rate was 25 . We have been able to bring it down to 7 . It is not where it needs to be, but we are reversing those trends. Now we come to the third word, ownership. We must be in a position to own. We are building strategies and redeveloping our cultural [applause] , entertainment and Business Districts with the focus of owning the land with our partners. And when i say we, its a collaboration of over 500 organization including organizations including pastors, neighborhood groups, meeting every month to strategize on how we are empowered to change our own community. That is what we are focusing on in the city of omaha. [applause] i am sister frederick bay in support of the million man march in the jew Jersey Coalition for due process of law. The newon man march and Jersey Coalition for due process of law. I am feeling james brown good in the midst of all these powerful minds that have come together for one purpose, and that is to get back our stuff. Malcolm said it best. The fox is still, doing what . Guarding over the hen house. The fox is still guarding the hen house. Say, when theyn came and touched the mansion, the mayor, we came back from the million man march on fire. Us down there,d over 60,000 men from new jersey, the wall street journal said from newark, new jersey, and we came back on fire. We came back and we built a few things. And we had property and we taught children math and science. Dr. Roslyn wrote the curriculum. You understand. The folks due from the board of education in newark . What did Chris Christie do . And who owns that property today is audible. It is owned by amazon. They own that prime property dr. Jeffries talked about right now, so we know who the foxes are, and new jersey is new jersey. The judges on the foxes, and complicit. You go to the court, you dont even get to the court. , bank of wells fargo america, you name it. 2008 was the stock market crash. And some bailed out, folks said they had to be bailed out. I dont know, im not a politician, i know we were bailed on. [laughter] i know who benefited from that, it wasnt me and you. So in new jersey, foreclosure, that is what gentrification looks like. Thats what dr. Daniels talked Removal Program of the 21st century. The problem is predatory mortgages. The problem is fraud. Slavery was a fraud. What we are asking for, and what folks gave black governor murphy, Philip Dunstan murphy, 95 of our votes. 10should not have to ask months after for a moratorium on foreclosures. That is what we have been doing. A moratorium, thats right, thank you very much, on foreclosures. We thank god for assemblywoman tucker. 3119, that she issued. Before, Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver put the first bill in further moratorium on foreclosures. And she said, we know Chris Christie will not sign it. But the elected officials didnt dunstan wouldnt sign it either. The reality is he came from wall street. But i believed our elected officials. We are going to give him a chance. Now he needs to believe us and write that and issue that moratorium on or closures, mayor baraka, that should have been issued on the first request. Because new jersey is number one in foreclosures in the nation for how many years in a row . Three years in a row, the state of new jersey. So we know what the problem is. The problem is the banks andauding, toxic mortgages, taking our stuff after they have been paid. Insurance has already paid these banks. We dont oh them nothing. If we had a hud loan, hud already paid these mortgages. So they get the benefit of paidages that are already for. By the insurance, by hud. For trillionsem of dollars and then take our homes. We go to the courts and we evidencebased documents that says this is the law. Upholdwant you to do is it. Law. E process of so what weve asked what is very simple. Were asking for an executive order for a momentary on foreclosures in the state of new bleeding. Stop the assemblywoman cleopatra tuckers thembly bill 3119 for momentary on foreclosures and we need you to support us on this, yall. And lastly, were taxpayer, voting citizens that played by and we were defrauded as a result of the 2008 market when banks were bailed out, homeowners were preyed on toxic mortgages that continued to disproportionately devastate our community. Mor e solution is the momentary moratorium. Have bought and paid for. We dont beg for nothing, absolutely. So we need our elected officials, our clergy and call out the foxes the continue to guard over henhouse, black and white and all in between. Foreclosures are at the very the negro Removal Program of the 21st century theour hope is that solutions to foreclosures are included and ibews Marshall Plan and the model cities totiative as vehicles revitalize marginalized communities. To thank mayor at northcause we meet city hall every first and third thursday. Our next meeting is the 18th april, 2019. Thanks to Council President crop and mayor peraza. I want to again thanks our hamm for putting us on fire when we came back and all the brothers who went to the millionaire march. Stand and raise your hands because you all inspired us so much. My daughter, love you much, all right . But we can do this, yall. Do this. Weve done it before. Harriet showed us how. And again for radio, give her applause. Again, for radio, each panelist, reintroduce yourself. God bless everybody. Mcbride. S michael i am from oakland, california. Panther partyack for selfdefense. Yall, power, you say to the people. When i say all power, you say to the people. Power. To the people. All power. To the people. All right, all right. I also got to add, were the home of the soon to be three stateba champions golden warriors, god bless yall. All power [laughter] no three ways that gentrification [laughs] a long time coming, so i say amen, all right. Three ways gentrification has impacted us in the bay area, the the tech, the rise of industry. The influx of Tech Companies created aay area has massive displacement of working brownblack people, people, even middle class, poor white folks. If you are not a millionaire, literally, you cannot afford to home in the city where i was born and raised, san francisco. The rent is too damn high amen. Dy say you know when a preacher cuts, in trouble. Somebody say amen, right . 3,500 a month for a one bedroom . Apartment. A studio now, its oakland, 2,500 for a bedroom apartment. Tech industry has inequalityh wealth that literally no one can afford live there. If you did not have an apartment before 2012, you in to oakland, san francisco, or the bay area without at least 120,000 income. Two working, or single income. An apartment. Certainly cant buy no home. Industry. E tech we could say it shows us, the by racist governance white progressives. Everything i learned about White Supremacy i learned from white progressive people. [audience reacts] me now. T you to hear you need to break that down, brother. Spend a minute there. The things in the bay area are the way they are is not because of the tea party. Hmm progressives have governed bay area for decades. Black elected officials who lack courage, who do at feel like they can center black political agenda and win a Progressive Political coalition reason why gentrification is running rampant. Im just talking about the bay area. Cant talk about yall. Somebody say amen. Weak black religious institutions and cultural weanizations who forgot that the original people of the earth. [applause] and would rather serve a jesushaired blueeyed palestinianskinned jew who was born in a hood called nazareth, unjustly the criminal Justice System of his day and executed by the empire. Thatjesus, somebody say jesus that jesus. They dont know who that is. S and the third way gentrification mass us is the peoplelization of black by Law Enforcement agencies of Public Safety theirntinue to grow Police Budget even when crime is dropping. And i tell folks all the time, the progressives are not the politics or black politica black people. Now, they better than donald trump, somebody say amen. We not dumb up in here, thank me, doctor dans, he walked off the ledge one time because i was ready to blow this thing up. The we should not be illusions that white our friends. Are not under the control of republicans. Ordered the state who the National Guard and cracked all of our heads on the ground republican governor. The department of justice who i worked with for Michael Brown was killed and after, but in a of way, still could not convict cops who kill black people. President ur beloved language likeut thug to describe the Young Baltimore so we have vision an agenda and a that is clear about who our enemies are. Thats right, thats right. And how we will further. And ill talk about our the next goaround. Right. Already, the mike preach now. So i need you to be a little more brief and you said three to four minutes and im going to try to context. In a quick senior Vice President of the rainbow push coalition. Certainly, i bring you greetings the reverend jesse lewis jackson, sr. You all at least appreciate his efforts because at almost 78 and publicly acknowledging that he has been parkinsons, he still does far more than most of us in this room. Right. s is so at least thank god that hes still doing something for of yall and all of us up in here. All right. So lets talk about gentrification because we keep its ag it around like name. System. Gentrification, i defined it as ofprietary spatial control black people, established by by force. Ined established bys law is because the law is not about rules. Its systemwe bring our value to the table and we plead with plantation owner, do the rightthing, but do the thing is a spike lee joint. Political philosophy. So we have been to tag another joint, but brother malcolms reminder, weve been bamboozled. And so in order to be ourselves, we think as black people, weve blackface to acceptable and then when white people put on blackface, stupid to be outraged, as if somehow or other, they can make it acceptable at any time in history that the mockery and ridiculing and caricaturing of black people is somehow acceptable. What i will say gentrification looks like where im pastor in baltimore city. The wire. He home of its the birthplace of thurgood marshall. Its the home of peron mitchell, finestloway, one of the arts districts to be found outside of harlem, new york. Down pennsylvania avenue. Our problem with gentrification like a badlooks attempt to play monopoly by checkers rules. Monopoly players in the room . All right. See how much yall know about monopoly. The last twows pieces of property that you can go. Before you pass parkhey are boardwalk and place. Im going to see what else you know. How many of you know your first places after you pass go and collect your 200 paycheck . Mediterranean avenue. Now, while we are picking pieces, trying to figure out whos going to be the thimble, cannon he cat, the the most important player in the bank because the money and ifls the youve ever played monopoly where it went too long, once you money the banker can then print more money, yall back to me to keep going. E so now, the process kind of flows like this. Some of us want to just live long enough to escape trespassing on park place and get ourk so we can check. We ignore baltic and get up inean until we a jam, hope we land on chance or mayunity chest because we need a get out of jail free card or help with the light bill. And the hustle goes Something Like this. Baltimorerday in city, our City Solicitor filed a lawsuit against the banks on behalf of the citizens inbaltimore because even their negotiating a bond rates, that theyy found out had scaled the cost of the bonds jurisdictions. Ck gentrification is not a thing just happens. It is a proprietary right and the one case in that started property law in the first place, and then ill leave it alone. Property law in the united a casewas established by called johnson v. Mackintosh or on how you mayng have studied it. There was a transaction where people hadous transferred a piece of property to someone absent a piece of deed. Called a there was another transaction ofut the same piece property, but because there was paper attached to there was a fight over who rightly owned it. The court made a determination of who had the legal interest in the parcel, they argued that the deed because it was established by not morals, had determined that the second buyer legitimatey the owner. And the second owner could then here it is inse the ruling, the right of by thisst inherited country tied to its birthright allows that the tarbtrary establishment of rules to spatially control land and the itre, the people on because if youre not on the property with permission and you dont own it, youre trespassing has now led to a system where now gentrification is keeping of townoes in the side where you supposed to stay because if you get caught on withoutce or boardwalk permission, your ass going to jail. There on the down end . Is that somebody yall know . Somebody yall know . [laughter] [applause] looked familiar. Power to the people. The people. Is it on . Can you hear me . Its on, doctor. Begin a discussion about gentrification, i think we examineant that theexamine the etymology of word. What is the root word of gentrification . Gentry. Who was the gentry . Gentry was the english word bouch becauseyg in england. Used interchangeably for land owners, but it was also used for the nations capitalists that was developing the word in gentrification its class nature. Another way of describing warfare. Ation is class it is the warfare of the rich against the poor. Another way of describing gentrification is ethnic cleansing. It is the removal of primarily and brown people from their communities and they are by other people and in people. Iod mostly white what does gentrification look like . Yourification is like when go away to college for four years, and you come back home yourou cant recognize community. Is multimillion dollar sports stadiums are built the downtown area subsidized dollars. s tax gentrification is when sparkling centers arerts constructed on the cemeteries of ancestors, as they are jersey,north new cemeteries so old that nobody remembers that they were even there. Gentrification is when the name is taken off a facility and a corporate name is the facility. When he went to philadelphia, station hadway wells fargos name on there. Gentrification is when you live in the hood and all of a sudden, blocks and blocks of the are replaced by condominiums, townhouses, that who live in the neighborhood cant afford to live in. Is when those townhouses and communities have put around them so that the people who used to live there cant even walk the community. Gentrification is when the schools you went to were public schools. Now, theyre closed and replaced charter schools. Gentrification on, come on. [applause] gentrification is when you shop, right . And now, they closed the shop, foods. And you got whole thats gentrification. Gentrification. Gentrification is when youre paying more than one half, maybe your takehirds of home pay to rent. Than 25 ld not be more of our income. Is so fitting that we have a jerseyere in north new on gentrification because newark the historical home of the largest in 1971, a brother named toby henry organized the people of a civil rights project to withhold their money until the elevators worked again, the lights were put back the urine was cleaned up in the stairwells, that apartments painted and the lead paint was removed from those apartments. That rent strike lasted over one the and if you want to know most powerful weapon to fight gentrification is tenants organizing and people organizing fight gentrification. [applause] how do we fight gentrification . Start from theto right perspective. Rightat is the perspective . Commodityng is not a simply to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Human right. For all people. All people have a right to decent housing and Affordable Housing. How do we fight . Barrettwith charles that we need a revolutionary transformation. The anniversary of the assassination of dr. Martin king. And if you read dr. Kings fifth book where do we go from here, chaos or community . In the chapter called the world what . Dr. King says he says we need a radical of power andn wealth in the United States and on to say we need a ourcal transformation of socioeconomic system. Thats a fancy way for saying, we need a revolution so we need a revolution, but its going to take us a while to the revolution. In the interim, we must fight reform. Tterm now, i know a lot of you middle dont caree in here about section 8, but a whole lot of our people get section 8 subsidies, and right now, donald puppet, bengh his carson, is trying to slash the section 8 program. Any budgetht against cuts in Public Housing and against the section 8 program. Furthermore, furthermore, we deal adequately with this problem, unless we get the rightwing dictatorship that currently house and thehite congress of the United States. Those are interim things that we have to fight for. Housing,o fight for for tenant rights. State, every town should have rent control. State, theyngton for statewidelaw rent control. ,e need to fight for that statewide rent control in every state where our people are. Now, i know some people dont hear this, because this means we have to intervene in the economic system. We have to intervene in the capitalist system, but im down with brother malcolm x. . Capitalist and ill find you a blood sucker. What did malcolm x. Say . That capitalism cannot exist andout racism, and racism capitalism are the two main drivinghat are gentrification. And let me finish up. Said, brother gentrification didnt just start. Gentrification, contemporary gentrification started after the 1960s. Gs of the thats when it started. Gentrification was one, when the interstate highway through the black community and blackd half the community. Ranrification was when they 78 through the south ward. Ranrification was when they 280 through the south ward. Gentrification was when they half of the black wards to build a university hospital. Back but howt goes do we fight gentrification . All right. Said, wether barrett need to elect revolutionary elected officials, but i tell you this, we need to build revolutionary organizations to hold those elected officials accountable. We just laid we just laid ken ken gibsonest, but came out of a process. Two weeks after the uprising of 1967 there was a black power conference in newark, new jersey. A year after that there was a black Power Convention at west kenny junior high school. A year after that, there was the black and puerto rican of 1970. N and out of that came the ken gibsonhoice, and was the mayor and got elected mayor. That was black power need to go back to this convention process like we did gary in 1972. Political agenda that includes a fight against and an economic bill of rights for a living housing as a human right, for healthcare for all, end to student debt and free tuition. Power to the people. All right. Larry. All right, so. Everybody okay . Gentrification, progress and cspan. All right. Solutions. Im going to request several individuals to talk about implementing, are working. That are first of all, dr. Jeffrey. Talk to us if you would about some solutions. Solutions. Me bring this to a spirit of process and Public Policy and i talk to you about this in a spirit of process and policy. In new jersey, three minutes . Oh, three minutes. All right, ill be quick. Be quick. Given the level of corporate and thats driving gentrification, and theyre really reconfiguring and redeveloping urban space, all thats where they can maximize, not only absorb maximize it. Its greed. Greed. Thei believe that many of have to be outside the realm. We need to begin to think of the realm ofside capitalism. We need to begin to think of ownership and wealth from less perspective tol a collective perspective. Country wet of the have cooperatives. In maybe black communities, we do not. They dont know what coops are, theyre not familiar with land trusts. These are institutions that not only move us closer to the availability of affordable and hopefully, in this right. Housing as a democracy,so build right . Because in the process is owned andly controlled. What thatone way and requires when we think about our to bringand im going the church in this for a moment, begin think about what stewardship really means, right . Notave a responsibility, just to ourselves, but to the generations that are coming make it better. An finally, because this is emergency, i believe that we back and demand and from ourely demand local governments because this localng to happen at the level, that we demand that any time a development is happening cities,ommunities and there must be a racial racial Impact Assessment that happens. An environmental Impact Assessment thats required for anything that has federal money and in most in most local places before they do development and environmental Impact Assessment happens. We need to do the same thing and inure the same thing happens our communities, to ensure that any development that happens makes it better for those of us ho are already in our community community. Thank you, dr. Jeffrey lowe, Texas Southern. Of newom the city orleans, ellen lee. Thanks. A couple of things that our for. Is fighting we talk about fair share, sodshake, fair share and theres a couple of examples. When our new orleans economy is still largely dependent on tourism, we need our hash tag fair share of the revenue thats generated from that industry so that we can support and in our neighborhoods and our people. Are renewing a tax, an existing tax that is disproportionately benefiting one institution, we need our fairshare to distribute that same tax in a new way that provides resources to take care of our parks and our Recreation Centers in all parts of the state so that even for people dont want to live downtown, they still have the quality of facilities that give them that same quality of life. When developers, if they dont want to have affordable communities,eir need ourt cool, but we hashtag fairshare of other resourceses that youre paying into our Affordable Housing can build thate Affordable Housing in other our city. We have been our fair share of hires, you have to procure goods and service from our businesses. Quickly, please. Quickly. Somebody say we are empowered. And the reason i wanted to opening is the mayor is contracts andand, other work. Other cities dont have that so you have a mayor and upinistration thats opening the door, but now, we have to walk through it collectively together, right . So we talked about collective investment and ownership. Have land in the community right now based on what im understanding that can be purchased if you work on it collectively and you can have a coop. You can have collective ownership and thats what were omaha is wenow in have specific, strategic lots buildings where we have that 70 ofke sure that is in good hands to make sure theres collective ownership. Other thing is all the different perspectives. In this roomeople are to come up like we did common agenda that was developed by the community for the community, theres no stopping can get done with the mayor that you have in place now. So first of all, you are empowered. You have the power to make the change, but you have to be andaborative, collective comprehensive. But develop your plan and go happen. Thank you, my brother. Omari a [reading names ] solutions. Solutions. As i said earlier, i want to on us not electing people like us, but people who think like us and us, right . Love also, we want to focus on and word is being said so much collective work and responsibility, right . Ujima. Collective work and responsibility. As servant leaders, we should design and defend, but we should design in concert with brothers and sisters, right . And i also want to talk about principle that were trying to implement and make jackson,ens in mississippi. As a part of the new african believingtalk about in community as family, right . Believing in the family and in the community, and then believing in the community as family and we used to live like that right . We used to lend a hand to our neighbors when they were in need. We used to collectively work to know. That barn, you we used to come to our neighbors its when there were that. And things like and now, we get behind our locked doors and we act as if we dont know each other. Has to change. We have to build collectively. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor . Solutions. Solutions, i want to suggest that we do this like we did in East New York. We started an Organization Called operation power. Organizing and working for empowerment and respect. That make history and revolution. Challenged did is we the entire Democratic Party club partye those democratic clubs controlled every black york, newin East New York city. So what we did, not only did we win the city council seat. We also won the assemble seat, leadership,emale the male leadership. Board. Rol the community we also control the judicial delegates. The local judge from that area, all came out of operation power. Because we did that, our first solution was the infrastructure. You not, youve got to come to East New York. Foreclosures . Yes. Do we have crime . Yes. Got three new 100 million schools built in East New York. Three new ones. A 15 million stateoftheart, twostory youth center and we got our a. T. Manup, inc. , brother mitchell, running the youth center, put pressure on the to give us 400,000 a year to run it. Have a new 36 million coming into East New York and theyre building it in somerea where there was africans buried on it. Them we want a Cultural Museum to honor our African People and were going to get it. We also was able to get a them what do you call mall, where shopping right . And one of the malls they tried in what is that place . Walmart. Theyre trying to bring in walmart. Youre notharles, going to stop walmart. Stopped walmart. We said get out of here and we from East New York who has space in there and he fusionestaurant called east and he was able to get that because we had a movement that that. Ed we also made sure that in all of got librariese fixed up, we got computer labs, Recording Studios in our schools. Studios, 500,000 and in East New York, where could and get a new apartment, one bedroom apartment making 16 25,000 a year for 550 a month rent . In East New York . All right. Solution. A [applause] solutions. Moving quickly. Very quickly a couple of think we need to look at and i dont see the mayor, but electeds, as opportunity zones, as opportunity zones are expanded, make sure that theres full application of the utility of section 3 under the because it allows for of publicipients assistance vouchers or those who area where there are theres Public Housing canthe income fits that you actually use the voucher to help establishing equity. Let me say that again. Not juster section 3, section 8. We want hud section 3 to be fully applied, and then as it once the loang, guarantees are paid back, track them when they go into the general fund and make sure that those funds are not redeployed to exclusive projects, that you uptown as well as downtown so that we can make sure that baltic avenue and mediterranean avenue have what just like park place and boardwalk. All right. Pass the mike, solutions, quickly, please. Need to organize and i will talk primarily to black leaders. , religious safety agendalic beyond policing and prison. Become front line suppliers, suppliers of front Health Intervention specialists who can intervene in conflict of young people on Public Healthing intervention so we do not have police toon the create peace in our communities. Are strategically located on every block of every black neighborhood in the country. It can serve as an outpost of healthking, mental healing, processing, black preachers we have to open up our and become Public Health violence prevention intervention specialists organize our congregations to do so. Erica ford, wave your hand. Shes one of our specialists in this regard. We have people that will help come train you all across the thats one solution that we can do. It will decrease Police Budgets and we can reinvest the savings from Police Budgets into housing, into schools, into food, into parks. All right, pass the mike. Julianne malveaux. Solutions . One of the things from a policy perspective we must focus system. E tax we believe when we behave as if and we system just is have to accept the tax law that passed in 2017 was a massive of income from the poor to the wealthy. We saw that this year when taxle didnt get the refunds they thought they were going to get. So were talking about have tong, we really organize around changing the tax doing things like taxing stock transfers. The wealthy almost exclusively. Half of us do not have any stock. Will put aside some kind of community development, that will be something. We talk about government programs, and people say how are it . Going to pay for change the tax code. The wealthy pay their share. Gap is notg wealth just a black community issue. Increasingly were seeing class whites and nun working class whites looking at a wealth gap. The last recession we ended up with 115 op 10 better off. 15 worse off at the end of the recession. So i would just implore folks as they do their policy work and talk to their legislators to focus on taxation. All right, dr. Julianne malveaux. [applause] folks, and those with the panelists, dr. Daniel asked me to share a solution. Panelistse all of our a round of applause. [applause] dont go anywhere. We were scheduled to have the at 9 30 andorward we are just it is 9 31. On time. Ht so as our brother comes forward and, you know, some of the sisters and brothers talked leadership, talked never and again, he thought he would be a mayor. Young. Were when we were kids, but a lot of ares even those of us who black nationalists and revolutionaries, when some of us go into public service, some of our sisters and brothers out. E us of selling its a complicated thing. It even takes courage to stand office as a black nationalist and a revolutionary because youre going to get hits, too. But when you do it in a way that described andhas up serve your people, get under your people and lift them up. That makes all the difference in the world. Your feet for the mayor of newark, new jersey, mayor rod. [applause] just want i want to thank and give honor to ron daniels. That, please. Who seriously while a lot of us talk a good game hes been putting in his many years and many people didnt know, weve this this is maybe our second or third time, this is our third time here in newark. Of and bringing people from all over the country to debate and issues right . It doesnt mean we necessarily agree all the time, but we have the courage to debate and discuss and thats important and here talkmebody up about friends and enemies. So its important and i said this this morning, its important for us to understand we agree with, our enemies, but they will always be our enemies. And sometimes, were going to disagree with our friends, but we cant treat our friends like enemies. And i want to use this as a matter of talking about something that my father talked is unity and struggle, right . Have to understand that that people will always to destroyin places and disrupt what it is, what are actually trying to do. Im aware and very clear on that, 100 percent. So, so at the end of the day, we have to have the right to struggle with people and unite around the things on a higher level, right . You cant hang out with racists yourse you mad at one of friends. Like you cant say i disagree with you on the policy and disagree with you on the policy, go stand with a racist to be against me because policy. Ree on right . Now, you either confused or you work for another entity that has not been revealed and it needs to be clear. So i want to be begin talking about that and emma brown said in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas. Fighting to win material inefits, to live better and peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee a future their children and the fight is over materials. And that we have to understand have to have allies. Allies. To have if we fight without allies we cant and win that speech came from something called tell no lies, claim no easy victories, right . So we cant lie and act like we winning. Successes wee some experience here and there, but collectively were losing. Collectively around the country were losing, right . And so i dont care who you say with, this and that, we have been losing right. And so what is the collective thetegy to get us out of condition that were in, protracting one step, to the the next step and do we have the courage to struggle with one another and largero unite around a issue . And i said this morning that we put10 things that we might on a piece of paper. We agree with number two and six or we start attacking each other because we cant get together on two on on eightough we agree other things, those two prevent us from organizing and getting together. As sophisticated as the United States congress who debate with one another. The its over they say its law. You break the law and see if they come to represent you. Is we have to be sophisticated enough to understand that when people are jobing things forward, our is to make those things more effective, not get in the way of happening. Not to destroy it. Not pull it apart. And everybody up here will have is a great this panel up here, awesome, awesome, here. E panel up awesome. [applause] i do want to say, to push back and talk about a few things that i think are solutions right . Believe that conditions organize people. People organize people. In ourugh we say that sloganeering, everybody up here organizes every single day. They organize in good times and bad times. They organize when the heat it on them and when things are doing great right . Because youve got to organize things are great so that youll be prepared when things are bad right . So beatingewark and people up doesnt necessarily get them strength. Up. Ust gets them beat and so its important that we organize people and organizing takes work and it doesnt take opportunityism. Somebodys event and try to organize the people coming out of that event because to cant get them to go yours. Right . You cant go to somebody elses their eventrupt because you cant create an event on your own . Then you have to ask yourself comeant you get people to and listen to you since you got the right line . Line and got the right you talking the right substance . Why arent the people following you . Ity have to understand that takes work to get to that place. Happen simply to because you get people angry. Im trying to organize people to smart, not angry. Anger dont make people organize. Makes them organize. When you clear, you organized. Angry, you do all kinds of things. Some of those things you do might be in spite of yourself right . So its important for us to be clear on what were talking about and be clear on whats on. G you cant call yourself an activist and you dont know any. You havent studied activism. Yourself aall revolutionary, you dont know any revolutionaries. Revolution. Studied you havent read one book about about whatsbou happening, but you calling yourself these things. If you want to be a mathematician you have to study math. Want to be a journalist, you have to study writing. If you want to be a revolutionary youve got to study revolution. If you havent studied revolution, then you sitting the same mistakes that we made over and over again so you come to the meetings and and attack your allies and allow your enemies to go free. Your enemies and so what happens is once you destroy up another, the enemies come the middle and they win. And thats been happening to us for centuries and we havent been smart enough on, yet weats going havent figured it out, right . So listen you dont have to in here. H everybody you dont. Be your agreement shouldnt a prerequisite, anybody who says have to agree with everything i say is a narsest and if theyre a narcissist, you shouldnt want to unite with them anyway. At the end of the day all we the to agree to is that overarching principles and we can struggle with one another around those things to get to the end goal, right . I dont agree with everybody in andamily, but i love them we together, right . And if my mother Say Something and im going to get it done, the day weend of have to struggle with each other and struggle is important, its need and ronhat we daniels talked about the tension that we need, that struggle is important for us right . We have to have that struggle, be based ono principle. It cant be based on me trying get with you guys. It cant be based on a personal difference that i have. On that i dont like you as an individual. It cant based on all these other kinds of things. Our struggle has to be a principled struggle so we talk about selfdetermination. Im glad to see the collective working responsibility. People want selfdetermination, want to do the work and they dont want the responsibility so its tease put the responsibility on two people the two people because they didnt do exactly what you needed them to do, but youre not involved in any of it all. You sit on the back and the side and criticize, but fail to be the work. E for you have to get involved and thats tell no lies, claim no easy victories. Thats what that says. Cant have 10 soldiers doing the work of eight and then the two soldiers on the side complaining about the eight. Get involved and be a part of do 10 so 10 people can people worth of work. Thats what needs to happen. About decades,g decades of gentrification that took place out that years before most of you were even born. You. Some of [laughter] were talking about stuff that began postworld war ii right, when they began to defund or deinvest in these communities, circles around them, tosidize people to go suburbs. Purposefully disinvested in these neighborhoods. It was purposely and they things where they came in and said theyre going to invest in the community to and left thewn land barren for years so youve got a bunch of vacant lots in beencommunities, theyve since 1957,1950, they tore whole slots of land in that disinvested community so now, theres no wealth in your community and this whole idea that gentrification has a color is not true. Its not true. Its not true. Antrification is a part of market force that exists in capitalism which means that if the lowincome housing in manhattan is 3,000 right and charging 700 on this side, those people who cant there are going to find their to this side . And i can not charge them 700, them 1,700, 1,800 because i can get the rent. Thats the Market Forces that control that, not individuals. The market controls that. And that is a primary function capitalism, and so our job is to mitigate that. Way ofyou get in the that to make sure that that doesnt crush people . That youre not throwing people out . What . E guess when people say they came back to the community and it looked lookrently, it should different let me tell you why. Newark, for real right . Theres no theres not even an atm where money from. T vacant lots, abandoned buildings, schools that were decrepit, housing thats been outdated for 30, 40 years. Right . Should change, but the question is how do they change and where do you get the that . From to change i think most of us have been focused on the downtown areas because what happens is when come back, theyre trending back to the cities people are saying i want to move hipper, cities, its all these things. Theyre trending back so people downtown. We do we need to do in our neighborhoods where we live . Downtown. Ve and most of us dont live downtown. And so while were arguing about buildings theyre creating downtown, your neighborhood looks a mess and so what we need be doing is dash joined and formed a corporation at the meeting. They did it at the meeting. That is empowerment. I dont care what anybody is talking about. I sat in the meeting with them, other developers and identified three or four pieces they would develop themselves. Because the city has something that says you have to have a minority codeveloper, which means you get equity in the property and not a subcontractor, they sat at the table as the principal on the property, because the other folks could not get the deal done unless they were in the room. That is the condition you create. While you are yelling and screaming, those three boys are building in their community and will build property in the neighborhoods where they were born and raised. If you want to fight gentrification, own some property. Im glad i was able to sit in that room. We are about to cut a ribbon next month for a paper coop in the city of newark. An africanamerican brother from the south in this country the. Idsouth, we brought him up it is called freedom paper. We pay him a consultant fee to develop a Paper Company in the city. We invest in building the warehouse. We are training reentry folks in the city to run and own that coop. The municipal just past a toislation that allows us give a loan or purchase businesses from small or Midsized Companies with a loan and give that business to the workers. Off to thehat loan city in order that they own the property or own a business in perpetuity. Ownership collective is the beginning of how you stop gentrification. When people talk about inclusionary, inclusionary is a tool. That is not endall beall. It is a tool, especially if you have an Affordable Housing trust fund. Our people are not moving downtown. I dont care how much you fight or march, they are not coming down here. The families are too big to be down here. They have real families, and not bankers from wall street, they dont want to live downtown. They want to live in their neighborhood. They dont want to live next to vacant lots, dirty buildings, and unsafe conditions. They want the neighborhoods fixed up. Our job is to extract wealth from what they are doing downtown and force them to put it in communities where they live at through Housing Trust fund to get those Young Brothers who will build those property. It inan take it and put the gap in their finance to have a full project and tell them we need to charge this amount for their property. The other piece is a land bank or land trust. When a judge passes a land bank, the city of newark creates its own land bank. It allows us to control the toperty we have and begin use it for things we think it should be used for, and not giving it to speculators in these options and flip it and sell it at exorbitant prices. The land bank allows us to control it. You partner it with a land trust. Partsllows us to identify of the city and say these parts of the city will be affordable in perpetuity. We get to say from this blog to that block, we will always be affordable, no matter what. We get to do those things. You have to have the mind to be able to make those things take place. You need rent control. Newark has had rent control for a long time. Senti was a legislator, we them to rent control. Some people organized and strengthened it even more. We have one of the strongest rent control ordinances in the nation in newark. And tryvigate around it not being involved in it. That just means we have to be aggressive. People say the rent control is bad because the landlords are not registered. Help me register them. Get you and your organization to come out and meet what you want to meet. We are going to get 15 of us and walk down this block. We will identify the buildings that are not registered. We are going to make them get on the registry. And is revolutionary action activism. Not sitting there saying the buildings are not registered. It means get off of your laurels, get yourself in the community, knock on some doors, and say the buildings are not registered. Thats what you should be doing. Thats fundamentally what should be happening. Our fundamental job after rent control, after all of those pieces, is also necessary for us to make sure people in our community have wealth. They have to have wealth. No selfdont, there is determination. You cant determine your own destiny without resources. Resources, youve have no destiny. If you have no wealth in your house, how our kids going to eat . You have to go to the bread line to get food from somebody else. If you dont have a decent education, you will depend on others to do for you what you should do for yourself. It is important for us to build wealth in our community. The brother said something deep about diverting funding from Police Agencies to other organizations. Ford, 136ed out erika Million Dollars in new york city funds that were diverted for street organizing in their community. I knew her when she was organizing and protesting, she turned it into Something Real to give people a real opportunity in their community and keep them alive longer. We just had a meeting a few weeks ago with the organizations in this town doing alternative police work to get them to unite together the brick city piece collective. To get them out in the streets collectively. We even had the hospital. There was a doctor who treated a patient that was shot in the back. After they treated the patient, they referred them to the Street Academy to get a ged. We need to make that systemic and not just happenstance. We need to follow the lead of whats going on. We are having a meeting next week with the Police Agencies to make sure we need at least 1 , 5 of funding to be diverted to a fund for these organizations to do alternative police work in our community. Community street team, community solutions, Street Academy, youth court, all of these things that exist already. We are doing that. It helps empower people at the same time. This gentrification thing is difficult. I just want you to know that. Leavings as simple as her head, and the stuff goes away, there are a lot of hands waved already. It is a difficult thing. Thatially in communities have no resources, who depend on people to come and dump resources on them. They hope to make a deal. Most of the time, they dont do what they say they were going to do. Thempend trying to fight for doing something they werent going to do in the first place. We have find opportunities to create wealth for ourselves to do the things ourselves that we are dependent on others to do for us. We are busy fighting each other. We dont want the street sweeping contract to go to anyone else, we do want to do it ourselves. We dont want cleaning contractors, we dont want to spend 10 million on outside contractors, we want to clean buildings ourselves. We dont want to spend a lot of money for you to pick up our garbage. We want to pick up our garbage ourselves. We dont want to spend millions for you to pick up our stuff. We can hire our own people to get it done. It is a learning curve and we will fight to get it done. Yes we have to yell at each other to do the right thing, because selfhatred is alive and well. Relinquish our right to selfdetermination, because we are angry or we feel like we are not going to do it right, or it is not getting done the first month. Some people arent cleaning up your streets in the first place, you just didnt Pay Attention to it five years ago. Now youre focused on it. Everybody says these streets want clean. Your street was in clean 10 years ago. Now that we are saying we want to buy our own street sweepers and higher our own people to clean our streets, we are focused on our streets. We had to have more discipline. We have to have more discipline than that. I dont care if youre angry, your anger is not new. You can be angry and mad all you want. What you need to do is be organized. Organize, organize, organize. If youre not in an organization, go and scream at the wall if you want. You have to be part of an organization. You buy yourself is not an organization. You going to meetings by yourself is not an organization. Tweeting isnt an organization. [applause] im going to sit down. I was involved in some other stuff. I was at a debate recently. Somebody got up and said the mayor has an organization, they are looking at me like im the powerbroker. I laughed at that. It took me 20 years to build an organization. Im not angry that i have an organization. Im happy i got an organization. I remember i had 10,000 and was frying chicken in my mothers house to raise money to run for office when i was 24 years old involved in these communities and streets, raising my own money with no organization, going against all of the people. Im glad i got an organization, im glad i raised money. I listened. Know whortantly, i want me to ray is. [applause] you cant be an organizer if you dont read. You cant be Walking Around talking to people if you didnt read a thing. You have to read all the time. If i didnt learn anything from my father, i learned how to read, to study. I dont have to agree with you, either. My mother taught me that part. This house is democratic. I dont care if you are the mayor or not, i dont have to agree with you. She will say that to this present day. You have to convince me. Your yelling isnt going to convince me. You cant call me names and that will convince me to do something. You have to struggle with me. If you love somebody, you want to struggle with them. But you dont want to struggle with them, all you want to do is call people names. Struggle with people. I struggled with my mother, brothers, and sisters, because i love them to life. If you put your hands on them, i will hurt you. We disagree with one another all of the time. At the end of the day, i love these brothers and sisters appear. Ron daniels called me up the other day. I love the brother, but he has the right to do that. Outside fighting the very people who are here to help you get to the place you want to get to. [applause] thing, i was in oakland at the my brothers keeper event. It was some guys outside protesting about the event. They were talking about president obama. President obama wasnt even there. Is, it was a bunch of black and brown boys from the country, even native americans. It was a beautiful thing. They were talking about criminal Justice Reform, all kinds of things. The people outside protesting, i said how is this helping organize those boys . And you disagree with them, fighting criminal Justice Reform . You have more in common with them, but you are so focused on barack obama that you are forgetting there are people that need to be organized. If you are focused on organizing the people, you wont have time to be talking about barack obama, because you will be organizing the people, because you know the struggle is bigger than barack obama. You are preoccupied with him because you are opportunists and you think talking about him will get you attention and maybe the few people you can pull toward you. You have a better chance being in the meeting discussing, going back and forth and struggling with those ideas winning those brothers to your side and understanding the larger struggle. Our enemies are our enemies, and our friends are our friends, our allies are our allies. Our enemies are our enemies. We can never unite our enemies with our allies. Never. You cant ever leave your allies out there by themselves because you have a problem with them. Im not saying not struggle with them, fight with them like cats and dogs, but when the fight is over, you love them to life. When it is finished, you say this is the law. When people ask you what happened, i dont know what happened in there, but i know whats happening out here. We have to have that operational unity. We have to have operational unity like that. Anybody opposed to operational unity is cointel pro. They are involved in a counterintelligence program. Either objectively, or subjectively. Objectively meeting their actions objectively serve the interests of cointel pro, or they are getting paid to disrupt some stuff. He organized a situation, when the lights went out, people put their hands on her hips. Struggle. Manticize i grew up in a household, we came home and our windows were broken. I saw my father beat by the. Olice in front of my family in new york city i testified at 10 years old at a trial when they arrested my dad on charges he didnt even do. He was convicted of inciting a riot by reading his poem in a courtroom during a newark rebellion. I dont romanticize what revolution is. I grew up not off of snow white and the seven dwarves, i grew up on coal black and the seven chambers. [applause] thats just a fact. If you cant organize with each other, check your ego at the back or give the people their money. Someof you are taking money. You are talking about elected officials. Some are taking money. Give it back. Organize with all of us together. I want to praise ron daniels. This is the third year he has done this. Some of you just discovered this was happening this year. I take responsibility for that. Some of the folks in here, we wanted to get it out as much as we can. This is a beautiful room. We love you, we want you to movenue to struggle and things forward. Justification and everything we are talking about cant be defeated by one person. There is not one of us up here smart enough to do it ourselves. If we tell you we are smart enough to do it alone, we are lying to you. We are claiming easy victories and telling lies. We cant do it by ourselves. We have to do it collectively. House,her you come to my go to the Mayors Office and make an appointment and struggle with me in the Conference Room then be outside and not come into the meeting because you are mad at a few things. Come to city hall, set up a meeting. Bring you, your boy, your sister, the crew you got, and we can have a real debate in the Conference Room if youre are serious about the things you want to see happen in the city. God bless you. [applause] there was something in his voice that touched me, so authentic as he searches to Say Something to a National Audience that most of us wont admit in our homes. I am prejudiced. Tonight, heather mcghee, president of the Public Policy. Rganization she talks about that interaction enter followup. Isyou have to remember, this august. We have had this racially charged summer with Donald Trumps campaign, with black lives matter and the police shootings, the tragic events of baton rouge and dallas. A time when people felt like all they were seeing on tv about race was bad news and here admitting that he does prejudice, which for people of color, we all just kind of said, finally. This weekend, American History tv will mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire that helps to create the clean water act. Historian and coauthor of where the river bridge where the river burned, joins us to talk about the fire and the campaign by the cleveland mayor to find solutions. On the 15th anniversary live today at 9 a. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. The white house did not release a weekly address from the president. Representatives of california gave the democratic address, highlighting passages legislation called securing americas federal election. Willnents say it strengthen Election Security and prevent foreign interference in the 2020 election. Hi, im proud to represent the 19th district of california. The Mueller Report made clear that our country suffers multiple, systematic attempts to interfere in our elections. The report detailed that officers targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of elections. Victims consists of u. S. State and local entities