Well read thank you so much. Good night. Bestsellr most recent book held Voter Suppression is destroying our democracy. Doctor anderson is a renowned historian and author. She is the professor of africanamerican studies at every university and is the author of the unspoken truth of our nation is divided. I am a great admirer of her work exploring the legacy of slavery, segregation and discrimination and how we remain fundamentally an equal nation 400 years after the arrival of slavery in north america. Doctor Andersons Book one person no vote, calls the history of the Voter Suppression including all of the current ways the Republican Party is undermining Voting Rights. Doctor anderson, im delighted ti am delightedto have you heret your work. Its wonderful to meet you, and to talk about what they can do to fight back against efforts to suppress the most fundamental rights we have, the right to vote, and we know that this is occurring each and every day in the country so thank you again. First let me ask a question of doctor anderson one person, no vote. As you explore the history of Voter Suppression with a particular focus on the path following the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County. To start the conversation, can you give the audience a summary of the decision and what it meant . It will go down in the same way as the dred scott decision act as one of the worst decisions ever made by the Supreme Court. What shall Shelby County does is it that the preclearance provision of the act. So a bit of background on that and what that means coming up to 1965 you have massive Voter Suppression in particular in the south against africanamericans to the point where you have 0 African Americans registered to vote with over 100 of white registered to vote. After more pressure particularly in selma, that cinematic explosion on the bridge and they did it shocked the nation finally led congress and the president to sign the Voting Rights act which is said states that have a demonstrated history that discriminated against their voters and who have used one of the conditions of the literacy test have to give any changes made approved first by big u. S. Department of justice or by the federal courts in dc. That is called preclearance because what happened previously is that the states would implement, there would be litigations, they would tweak the law but the way that these things were happening is the greatest interesting millions of black voters and so now with the preclearance and they could be in place. In mississippi for instance only 5 of africanamericans were registered to vote. Two years after the Voting Rights act we had almost 60 of African Americans registered to vote. The Voting Rights act word and thats why it got a crosshairs because it imports the democracy. The Supreme Court said section four of which is the preclearance, how you determine whether a state or jurisdiction comes under preclearance that racism really isnt a force that was and it looks like its picking on the south and it would have been more movement. Thats what it may have been to the Supreme Court. What is said to me if there were states that were working to implement and the federal courts for blocking them. The reauthorization of the Voting Rights act had shown the department walked over 700 proposed changes to the law by preclearance statements because they were racially discriminatory so racism has not stopped. But by blocking the preclearan preclearance, what it did, it let the dogs out and they kept charting out two hours after the decision it implemented a racially discriminatory voter id law. These states were coming in with confidence and we ended up in a terrain by the time we got there where over half the states have implemented one of these voter implementation techniques. Thank you for that history. I was born and raised in El Paso Texas and i remember those days. For those who think racism isnt alive and well in america all we have to do is look at what you are saying and how it has reemerged with a different face. We have to make it clear African Americans and people of color are still fighting many battles just to be able to participate in our democracy. That is what we are fighting for and im so glad you are laying it out because so many young people dont know that history. Lets go back to the beginning of the democracy now. What did the right to vote for quick at that time and before the goals to limit or suppress access . Generally you have to be male and have property and for the most part, white. The larger the population became, the more useful the voting restrictions implemented. Delaware, maryland and kentucky all initially allowed to vote but there was a general fear if there are more people voting than they wont really have a say in what the government looks like and what the policies are and we cant have that. What they did in new york is eliminated at the property requirement and increased the property requirement for black males devote. They had to have 250 for property and business in the early 18 hundreds so you see these barriers in the founding and the evolution of the United States in terms of how they would curtail the black political participation, how do we curtail and just stop the participation so thats what it looked like at the founding. After the civil war, we ended up getting first the reconstruction of sedlak males can vote. Then congress was like lets nail this down in a constitutional amendment so we get the 15th amendment says the state shall not abridge the right to vote on account of race, color or previous. Thats is what you saw happening. The state of florida looked and said black men can vote and came up in 1868 with a felony disenfranchisement law. Then you saw george implement a tax debate 1860s and early 70s. Then we start to get to the rise of jim crow. Black folks were mobilizing, advocating, voting. Because almost half the population in mississippi was black, one legislator looked up and it was almost like a scooby doo moment for them. Now weve got this amendment says the state shall not abridge the right to vote on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. We are going to use the conditions and entry point to the ballot box, poverty, hundreds of years of slavery followed by sharecropping and massive systemic poverty. We are going to make it reasonable. If you value the right to vote you would be willing to pay a small fee, a tax because democracy is expensive. If you want a democracy to thrive, you would be willing to pay for that. After you have hundreds of years of unpaid labor, that tax is real it was between two to 6 of the family income, two to 6 of their annual incomes to be able to vote. The Supreme Court said it didnt violate the 15th amendment. You are giving a lesson right now to the audience about institutional racism and Structural Racism. People always want to know what that means. Keep going. [laughter] is almost invisible. Racism is and always that person. We have the literacy test. Again its going to sound reasonable. We want an engaged citizenry. We want people who understand the values of the nation. Whats more is there to ask that they do something as simple as read a section of the constitution and interpreted appropriately. As youve gone through hundreds of years of slavery where you will be killed if you know how to read, if they find out you can come you will get at least 39 lashes against your back and you may be killed. Then black folks are already creating their own schools but with the death of poverty, youve got this massive imbalance between the number of teachers who can teach and the number of students that are hungry for that education and they systematically underfund black schools so that when you get to the literacy test 50 years later and the u. S. Is getting ready to go fight nazis. Over 50 is mississippi, alabama, georgia, louisiana and South Carolina that have less than five years of formal jim crow education. More than 50 of black adults in those states have less than five years of jim crow education. We then put the constitution in front of them and say read it and interpret it and again, the Supreme Court said because everybody has to read it and interpret it it doesnt violate the 15th amendment so that is when we get to 1940, only 3 of African American adults were registered to vote in the south. This is where the bulk of black folks live. This is how you can eviscerate the right to vote. It took mobilizing and organizing in order to break it down. Let me interject something im working on because youve inspired me to talk about this very quickly. Ive said you dont know the history of the country. The last few years ive been working on legislation but i decided to work with some academics and members of congress for a true transportation debate a Transformation Commission because it is about time we tell the truth. Thatso to let you know im getg ready to do this and i wont work participation because people have to understand in this country rwanda south africa has their commissions on the racial appeal and reconciliation but theres nothing really to reconcile in this country. So we are going to do that and youve inspired me to kind of told you about that. What you are saying lays out, why people have to be educated and if they can understand this goes back. The 14th amendment of course technically gave African American men the right to vote, but women didnt get the right until two years later. So after it became the law of the land, how are those undermined and ignore . This is mind boggling. Guest weve got a lot of celebrations rightfully so. But weve got to tell the truth and that is for the most part in the south black women could still not vote. This is why you have for any looting or in mississippi when she dared to try to register to vote, they beat her and then used economic extortion. They kicked her and her husband off the land. Then they forcibly sterilized her because she dared to believe that she had the right to vote. This is why you see this [inaudible] i had a chance to meet her. She was wonderful. Fierce to the organizing in selma where youve got. 7 . Let me be clear. 7 of africanamericans registered to vote and she said anime boy, not on my watch and became mobilizing, organizing until we could see that cataclysm. I got the chance to meet her and she told the attorney general eric holder after he thanked her for what shed done [inaudible] you gave a good speech, but that was quite a moment. She led the way. A black woman should be president or short of that, vice president. I believe on the history of africanamerican women in this country who else can save the fall of america and so now is the time. Now the last case for Voter Suppression today but they tell you in california for example there was a Campaign Recently where the voting place was shut down at the last minute and they had to fight to get it back open for black people could vote. How has that manifested throughout the country as youve said . It is like the mississippi plan of 1890. One is that they make it sound reasonable. We are trying to stop this massive voter fraud, the integrity of the ballot box. Who could be against that. So that is what it is operating under. Number two, just like the mississippi plan that has the grandfather clause, the good character clause and eventually coming out of South Carolina its all of these things the literacy test doesnt get it, the grandfather clause will. There are an array of hurdles black folks have to jump through, under, around in order to get to the ballot box. We see the same thing happening today. The tools in voter id, again its going to sound reasonable. Weve got this rampant massive voter fraud so we think it just isnt much to ask you just show your id when you vote to make sure we dont have all these people trying to steal elections or try to impersonate somebody at the ballot box. First lets deal with the why we and im going to call it a usda prime beef lie. California did a study from 2000 to 2,141,000,000 votes cast in the United States there were 31 cases of voter impersonation fraud out of 1 billion votes. Host why are people falling for this . Because of the brilliant marketing campaign. All you have to say is voter fraud. That republicans mounted that evil genius kind of good after the election with the help america vote act where they were talking about voter fraud so when the help america vote act you get Congress Working to fit us for what went wrong in florida and then you get senator bond of missouri and that didnt happen. Weve got proof that that didnt happen. It was the language, the marketing so it gave the equivalent of the Voter Suppression that was happening in florida and made those two things the same so this is how we get a voter id and that is where they got that credibility. We have proposition 209 to repeal all of the affirmative action in california for student enrollment universities and contract and i fought against that so hard. I knew and everyone knew what would happen if a. The language of the initiative was nobody to be denied access based on their color. Its so awful the sinister nature of how they were trying to deny full participation. In the book white rage to support its Movement Something powerful. Its part of the coverage we can be. We had a problem and we faced it head on and fixed it. You get the pictures of rosa parks on the bus and thats part of the narrative of field and phuket that power coming out of 64. How do you overcome that . They began to adopt the language of reverse racism, of how they no longer have covered only or white equal debate cole might so therefore it must be racially discriminating against whites so this is the battle that you saw. I wasnt in california and i was like no because what it doesnt do is deal with systemic inequality. It doesnt deal with the fact the k12 system for instance, the Public Schools are not only racially segregated, but economically segregated and unequal and has devastating consequences as children move into adulthood and unless we intervene, the consequences will remain the same. Now going through the legislature we are working hard to get that done but let me tell you theres all these other fights when i raised these issues and others. Brianna taylor launches his campaign in mississippi where cheney, Andrew Goodman and civil rights workers in 1964 that helped launch the leaders and to the right of 64. He says im a believer in the states right. Thats playing the race card but its never cast that way. Part of what happens is when we bring it up. When we talk about how it was hit with voter id, let me give a quick what i mean by that. When alabama entered into the voter id law they actually drafted before Shelby County but they couldnt get it through. I dont use those terms likely, but the republicans have recorded themselves in a previous bill talking about how do we depress the black voter turnout because they will get on these buffers and go to the polls so you think that is made of the recent show. So they look at the bow and said lord you must have a government issued photo id. But they noticed that Public Housing id for instance wasnt on the list. 71 of those in Public Housing and alabama are africanamerican and for many it is the only id that they have. Alabama looks at that and says no that is not an acceptable form of the government issued photo id. Does it get more than Public Housing but this is how you can begin. So then for fiscal reasons the department of Motor Vehicles to and also those with sizable populations so how do you get to the next county to get a drivers license if you dont drive . Alabama is like 48th in the nation in terms of public transportation. So how can you go tens of thousands of miles to get a drivers license thats what i mean when i say it sounds reasonable but then you see how targeted this is. Remember the 2008 election . We put a black man in the white house twice. What that means is the majority voted for barack obama and therefore america is not racist. That is what the narrative means. The majority didnt vote for barack obama. In fact the majority had voted for Democratic Candidates for president since 1964 when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and that includes jimmy carter and bill clinton. They have a sizable number that voted that she had an incredible round that brought 50 million student voters to the polls. They were overwhelmingly africanamerican, hispanic, asianamerican, young and poor. This would be the hippest of Voter Suppression. Hospost to get the after he was elected he would say the goal is to make sure [inaudible] exactly. The rules that rain down on obama, the obstruction, page read was intense and you see its policy wide into the republican legislation governors going after those folks in this community so just like the mississippi plan if this one doesnt get them, this one will. Thats right. The way that you will have black and brown precincts where they will have fewer operational Voting Machines and poll workers so there will be lines that stretch for hours whereas basically in white communities, get in and get out and what weve known from the working class communities which again demographically black voters often are, brown voters often are what you have is a combination of time and money so when you have to stand in line for five to seven hours to vote, to have lost a day of pay. Thats right for those who dont understand, they can come of Structural Racism, there it is. We go now to michele alexander, the new jim crow for slavery and sharecropping and mass incarceration. What is the parallel or do you see a parallel in Voter Suppression and what has happened with the times and what is going on now in terms of the same kind of objectives of the rightwing and those who want to make sure black and brown people are not a part of this. Lets look at florida, the best place to unpack this thing. Prior to amendment number four which is the Ballot Initiative in 2018 to get rid of the permanent felony disenfranchisement in florida before that happened come in the United States there were over 6 Million People who were disfranchised and could not vote because of a felony conviction. 1. 7 million of them were in florida alone. 40 of black men in florida could not vote because of a felony conviction. Over 20 of africanamericans in general could not vote in florida because of a felony conviction. Florida was going to counter in order to get the representation in congress but these were folks who could not vote so when you think about that, this is where florida is operating under a. Florida implemented as a mentioned before god the felony disenfranchisement law a year after Congress Passed the reconstruction act this black men can vote. In the felony disenfranchisement law they were eager to debate er targeted or applied towards africanamericans, so its criminalized blackness. It wasn wasnt a complex that e criminals but that criminalized blackness. And then sucked them into the criminal Justice System with the added bonus you get sucked into the system and the added bonus that youve stripped them of their rights. So, after almost 150 years to get this Mass Mobilization happening in florida, peoples initiative, amendment number four that sees the inherent injustice in the permanent felony disenfranchisement because the way that its run in florida is to waste like seven years after you have finished your term before the Governors Commission to get your Voting Rights back. The commission didnt need all the time. I met four times a year. When you have 1. 7 Million People this is designed not to work. You can design structures to work and not work with. I think it was the newspaper in tampa or palm beach. They did a study and found under governor rick scott who is now senator, governor rick scott, his Commission Said that they had over, the ones who were republicans, the republican felons who came to them, they got their Voting Rights back. Those who were democrats, not so much. So it is supposed to be fair and natural. Theyve paid their debt to society. The weight you have Civic Engagement the Republican Legislature followed the path to, we are going to be in a heap of trouble. What they came up with this first they tried to get around the language but it was pretty clear so then they sent you know what, serving your term means also paying the fines and restitution and court is and all of that. Once again we have a poll tax because if you dont pay your property tax and if you dont pay your sales tax, can you vo vote. So depending upon your wallet it depends on whether you can vote. That is what florida has done because these fees can go to the figures and if you have been incarcerated making pennies a day then paying a figure is impossible and you are blocked from voting simply because you do not have the money. Host than donald trump decides he wants to have their citizenship. That was another effort to suppress the minority vote and increase white and republican vote. So the fight for Voting Rights and i know a lot of people watching or listening to this you are laying it out and a lot of people just dont understand this. What do you think the public needs to do . Because i am convinced because we havent been allowed to tell the truth they dont know what youre telling us so would be the orders he would give to us . Organize, organize, organize. One of the things i would do for instance to, i look at alabama and cause alabama had applied every method of the Voter Suppression against the population and if you remember that, you had a republicans and democrats doug jones. They made it look like she was going to win this thing despite having every mark against him. I mean from the alleged pedophile and it just looked like he was going to win. [inaudible] use all the naacp, the league of women voters, the national council, Civic Society engaging and looking at every one of the methods of the Voter Suppression and figuring out how we go around and said even with the felony disenfranchisement is about the people could get their Voting Rights back to correcting the misinformation so these are the days when you need to get this in to setting up because they closed down the polling stations to setting up the montgomery bus boycott so people had rides to and from the polls. So that kind of organizing and mobilizing, coming into the community to let the grassroots do the work and talk with the folks about what they want in your life. What do you value and how are we going to get. Doing that kind of work is why they thought it would only be about 25 but actually it was 40 . In the black belt county, it was 45 . Black people and black women especially elected him and we know that and come november, guess what, black women in this country are organizers of the black community, black men and women working in the coalitions with other progressive organizations we know how to lead and put people together with common interest so thats what its going to take. I want to thank you for telling the truth and for your buck. [inaudible] often times people ask me and i know they ask you how do you feel about this as a black woman and i say lock weve been dealing with this and still we rise. We dont get depressed or beaten down. We understand what we have to do to make the country stronger so you have illustrated how we just keep going. Nobody told me about the world was easy. After youve laid out all of this because people ask me all the time how do you withstand this constantly. We look at the murder rate of young black men in the community. You look at covid19 and social workers in governing the country back up and once we put them at risk, you look at every aspect of this country and we are still fighting to make this a better country. We fight we fight . We fight to make america the america that its supposed to be. And we are here to stay. If thank you, thank you, thank you. Organize and vote. Send in the people that believe in democracy. That is the key. Thank you again so much. Remarkable discussion. Let me close by saying youve been watching bay area think you begin for joining us and we hope to see you soon. We look forward to working with you on the commission. Thank you. According to the wall street journal, former National Security adviser to President Trump writes that the president ran the white house where, quote, obstruction of justice was a way of life and the president was stunningly uninformed. The white house says none of these allegations are true and the book contains classified information which makes publishing it, quote, inexcusable. The Justice Department has sued to stop it from being released but the publisher simon and your plans to make it widely available next week. Look for the offer in the near future on the tv and cspan. During a Virtual Event hosted by the Brookings Institution, journalist and Brookings Institution fellow argue theres been a deliberate devaluation of black people and their communities in the United States. Here is a portion of his talk. False narratives help normalize the hierarchy of the value that leads to an investment. One of the major goals of this book is to show theres nothing wrong [inaudible] underlining presumptions of black peoples unworthiness and undercut efforts to invest in the gritty neighborhoods. Theres there is a whole lot ofs and research that attempts not enough focus is on fixing Structural Racism. Until we rid ourselves of the research, policy recommendations in three forms, we will always do more harm than good. Most black people dont need to hear someone say overtly racist things about us when actions and outcomes tell us everything we need to know. When on the daily show they were asked whether or not he believes President Trump had used the nword in the white house would reply i dont need footage of a rock. Identify how the precious lives are devalued by race and the strengths that are devalued we can simultaneously debunk the false narratives that distracts us from investing in those assets. If we can account for the associated racism and the individuals, then we can begin to properly restore the lost value by investing in the people whove been penalized simply for being black. The study in know your price down to factors such as housing and structure and neighbor to factors such as education and crime. Owner occupied homes and neighborhoods are defined by 48,000 amounting to a whopping 156 billion. The point is the value is much higher than they are priced. Isnt this true in other parts of our lives. But some hundred 56 billion is a big number. Its the reason why i say theres nothing wrong with black people that ending racism canceled. 156 billion could have started. Black entrepreneurs certainly could use this mone money is thy to the authority knighting clones twice as often and when we do get loans, we pay higher interest rates. The loss of equity means many black Business Owners are less likely to have the financial cushion to whether th the the ao these two economic crisis like we are in now. During the great recession, about half of black businesses survived, compared to 60 of white. The 156 billiondollar loss on racism should have helped Municipalities Fund services for education. Weve known for decades that School Funding and racial prejudice are correlated with academic achievements. Schools dominated by students of color received 23 billion plus in majority white districts. This is largely a byproduct of an educational system that is designed to be financed destructors based on local property taxes. Many education reformers ignore the Structural Racism saying its too hard to address segregation and School Financing but when the reform is applied in the confines of inequality and the cities like it was in new orleans we leave little room but to blame the parents and school board for underachievement. I saw this up close. Approximately ten years after, the population dropped from over 70 to about 60 replaced by younger mostly white teaching and those that worked in before katrina were no longer. This flew in the face of research that showed positive effects of black educators on academics. Black students at one black hadk teacher by the third grade art 7 more likely to graduate high school and 13 more likely to enroll in college. After having to put teachers, black students likelihood of enrolling in college increases by 32 . Unfortunately, hiring more black teachers is something that we have yet to try. Theres nothing wrong with black people that ending racism canceled. The values underlying also behind why black women cant educate their ways despite their gain in the past few decades. More black babies die before their first birthday than all other racial categories. The mortality rates among black mothers is three times higher than their white counterparts. These disparities exist even after controlling education and income. In a 27 teams to the use and death records, my wife and her coworkers found racial inequality and things like income, unemployment, imprisonment showed harmful effects on black infant mortality. And racial inequality in unemployment increased, theres a decrease in educational inequality that improved in infant mortality. It is at an intersection of race, gender and occupation. Consequentially, the Solutions Must be at an intersection. The issue like all the others presented in this book is not an academic one for me and i can tell the personal struggles with my wife who is a physician and i had been trying to have a child when she was going through a crisis. I show that instead of restricting access to fertility options and the idea that the report we must expand womens reproductive choices. The lack of wealth and the federal government facilitated shouldnt continue to limit womens choices. Addressing the structures that cause inequality is an option we have yet to try and scaled. Theres nothing wrong with black people that ending racism canceled. Education is a waste of time the money. Basically he whistleblowers the Education System for over 40 years i feel like ive seen an enormous amount of waste with students being bored and taxpayer money being wasted if i write this who will. What made you think about this. It began and kindergarten teaching the subjects some of them i undst