But to make sure that folks from the outside didnt come in who were supposed to be there and that takes an amount of organizing that requiredplanning. I think it was garfield right who told me you had somehow gotten in your head the blueprint from the Administration Building. It was methodical. So looking at the time i just want to really get you all your views on or just your perspectives on those three days. Inside the building and how that experience shaped this moment. The idea of occupying a building and holding a building and the will that it took to really ensure that those demands wereaddressed by the administration. I want to share that were talking about organization and the division of labor such. Its important for people to know that you do talk about her of course in the book but Sherry Warren was absolutely instrumental for the logistics, the organization. She is embodied perseverance and the license of the moment as well and we really took two steps without each other. At the time i was the head of the organization as executive minister and three, i believe that the title that we had, minister of administration so i just want to make sure we dont proceed without bringing up to bring up in your book to yourquestion about the three days , it really was a nation inmotion in a way, in a figurative way. We had all kinds of committees. Sherree and i and garfield swaby, ross turner, and dave porter for sure without a doubt and i think i still might bemissing one or two other people. We were the designated ones. It was a coalition but she was the head of the coalition so by default because i was head of the black leader force at the time i had that leadership role but we went as a unit, sleepless nights and it was decided internally that the mayor would be on theoutside. Just facing the media, making sure the messaging was right. Taking sure they knew what was going on, the cover of the book is this young man raz baraka yelling at police so we were clear about our roles and personalities and how that fit. I would not have done well yelling at the police, that wasnt my strength so anybody plays to their strengths and the mayor did an excellent job. Anybody did an excellentjob. So i remember the level of organizations and people playing to their own strengths, their own talents. There were food committees , there were entertainment and arts committees going on on each floor. We occupied the entire building. There was security involved. It was just absolutely amazing on every front. It was the enemy coming together again, people didnt believe we had the imagination, the resources , the intellect, the inspiration that endured to pull this off and the other element that was really important was the community itself. I love to tell the story, we all love to tell the story about kathy hughes who we now know as the head of urban one but this was before urban one, this was before kathy hughes at all of the radio stations and whatever. She was just as wol a. M. She played a significant role in us staying alive in the building. You talkabout it in the book as well. She got on the airwaves and made sure the community was in support. So because of her support, we had more food than we could consume. The boxes that came into the building to support us when we were occupying the building included sanitary neck begins and tampons. All those practical kinds of things were absolutely amazing and then ill pause here but we in a lot of ways over ourlives to mayor marion barry. We might not be alive to this day were it not for his im sure, for his interdiction if you will. So im not sure if i completely answer your question but we can circle back to it but it was layers upon layers of organization and work and determination. Ill just pause there. I got three hours of sleep the entire time because i was supposed to be outside and i remember speaking in the building in greenwich waking me up and a number telling me youre notsupposed to be here, go back outside and bring me food and all kinds of stuff. I was outside most of the time but every role had a role and responsibility that we had to be on the floor where it was quiet andyou could study. We let people in the building at certain times and i was let in the building at a certain time and i was responsible for making that stuff happened on the outside and it was moving through the building there was a passcode you had to have. You cant just walk freely through the building. I hated that password so much. I remember Jesse Jackson coming and he says Desean Jackson was like what the password. He turned to me and i said the white man is still in charge and thatswhat he said. It was you know, we were young at that time. It was just very serious but i tried to get as many people involved. Thats not normallypolitical , not normally to be involved in and the thing i remember the most out of all of it is when i was going to school for social work on the roof part, basically dying out when i opened my eyes fully there was a Police Helicopter and the people were getting in the helicopter and i was like what the heckis going on . They got out of the bus and onto a helicopter and they were dropping people out of the helicopter on the road. There was a strategy people had to put people on the stairs in case people came so they couldnt move and i was yelling at those people off the stairs because they were just coming in full force. They were busting windows in the front door, holding security on theroof. They really were coming to throw us out of there and do harm and april said marion barry, his friend was in there. It was really intense so the picture you see of me yelling is not like a full block, we were under attack and we were in physical confrontation with the police and some securityguards , they called out sick and they were in support of what we were doing because of our demand they should be paid better so a lot of them called out sick but those who stayed, we were in direct confrontation with those guys through the side and it got ugly for a little while and then marion barry showed up and the sun came back out. Its important people, for people to amplify the mayor here that it was very much the local dc police and swat teams, guns drawn. Like, landing on the roof of a fourstory Administration Building and when the mayor talk about banneker field hes talking about the park across the street. This wide open park, a football field size at least. But hes talking about helicopters landing their so it was an operation and they were coming in to say hi how areyou doing , would you mind leaving the building . It was his father who at some point in this process, i forget the order of it but the mayors father who was our intellectual guidepost if you will reminded us that the state has killed students for less than this. So there was a reminder to the mayor that we are in battle. This is not cute. Theres nothing simple about this. Yourlives are in danger and you could die. So it really was a life or death scenario for that time. And very few people, i dont want to quantify how many people but enough of us were clear that we wanted to continue like for some of us it wasnt a choice. We were willing to put our lives on the line and we did in order to stand up for what we believe and what we wanted. And id like to just saythis point. This book that you did is so much bigger than Howard University. I really want people to understand that this is not, this book doesnt exist so people can be sentimental about what happened years ago. This book doesnt exist because we want to remember our glory days. Most of usare in our 50s. And at the time we were in our 20s at the time so this is not about just being sentimental. I think an emotional response, reflecting is important but this is really about the continuation of what the movement for liberation looks like. What radical love looks like. 30 years later from 1989 prior to 1989 and how does it show up today 2020 in our personal lives and our careers . What are the stances that we are taking now ill save that for the q a but i think its important as you illustrate in the book what drove us and why we were doing this in the first place but when you make those kind of decisions and youre clear about it you could end up putting yourlife on the line as we did. Thats the point. I think in the interest of time i want to fastforward and give sort of a somewhat of a summary and then move into some of these questions. There are a lot of questions here. So yes. Miller is here and he asked about bill cosby and that could be a whole other 10 minute conversation but yes, it was bill cosby who had to move to put it nicely because the students had business to take care of and he was not allowed to speak. Which is kind of interesting because you all were not necessarily impressed by celebrity in thesame way that we kind of see now. Not only was bill cosby okay, yes and then Jesse Jackson shows up and people are like yeah,okay. So its very interesting even the stature that those two figures had in thatparticular moment. But the Police Intervention is really important because it speaks to the notion of who the state along to. That was something that had to be reckoned with and because of bill cosby and others, the National News media shows up at howard and those cameras pick up the attempt by the police to intervene in the building and its broadcast across the world so youre right, this is not just a narrow howard story. It became a worldhistorical event in many ways. Maybe you could that in the q a as well. So when those cameras showed up and this isbroadcast , warner almost has no choice but to step down so he stepped down and then he walks in the building an additional day to complete negotiation with the administration because again, this was just one of seven demands. Then you added three more demands, i think Donald Temple is here who played a crucial role in helping you also finally you leave the building and then for the next few months you struggle to get those demands submitted. The next year, next Academic Year you all continue to struggle to get those demands implemented and then you decide that spring to run for Student Government. You win and then you have this moment. You have a year essentially in power with the lover of student power to try to transform howard. So i think that kind of speaks to some of the questions about the links between protest and organizing and some of the things you were able to accomplish and i dont know if you all want to your years , your year as leadership at Howard University but i think thats a crucial legacy of the protest because it then builds from there. So you enter into the 90s with all of this experience and everything that you all have done since is really i think i would argue connected to that particular moment. I dont know if you all want to that or go straight to the questions or ill just leave that to youall. Youre right, one built upon the other. I think we were in the school of engineering maybe when we decided, i dont know the firsthand idea, maybe the mayor already had this idea that not only did we decide to run for what is known as 413, but we decided we were going to run for all the student councils. That was to the mayor that was by design. That was not anything ad hoc. We as an organization knew that for an organization that was unofficial on campus we had to leverage our power and tap into those resources that were made available to Student Government of the entire body which was the Howard University Student Association and student councils. I want to shout out on austin who was the first woman president of Howard University. I think the year before i entered. I entered howard in 1986. So i think she was the student body president maybe i dont know, the termbefore i entered. What that did was make me the second woman president of the Student Organization in all of howards history. But thats only, i only say that to shout out ona in terms of the leadership she played because she was no joke but what black media force did was bring inall of us. Sherree warren was theProgram Director if im not mistaken. When the mayor and i became elected we just brought in organization. Sherree warren was the Program Director and the mayor and i shared an admin executive secretary which was sandy who i think is in the chat aswell. Sandy caesar, so then we created new positions as well. I remember very clearly we created the entrepreneurship director because this notion of coming to a College Campus just to get a job and work for someone else was problematic for us so we created for the first time and entrepreneurship director so that we could explore what it means to be your own boss, if youre going to go that route and mayor, what did we have as well . The student athleteliaison . We created positions. We werent okay with just accepting the status quo so we created thinking to that as well. And we ran for multiple, we ran for Student Government. Yeah, it was a plot. I like to answer one of these things. I think marion barry was supportive of the protests. What he did was remove the police. I just want that to be clear. Thats really what his job is. He came up to the campus and told the police to get off the campus and leave those kids alone. He sent you all are stuck ina city dealing with drugs and murder, get off the campus. Thats critical, that was criticallyimportant. It made us stay there for the next today. Right. And mayor, you often talk about the responsibility of the elders or those in position and im having a flashback to one of your talks as an adult, as a mayor , you talked about the importance of running interference. Right, and so youre illuminating that by highlighting that mayor, marion barry ran in interference because as you point out and many of us know he was a member. When he was a student so he brought an understanding and a sensibility about student activism and what it means to do this work and continue this legacy and it saved our lives. And let me shout out also real young was the admin for the mayor where were we were in Student Government so shout out the sandy for correcting me for sure. One of the questions i want to make sure we get answered is from a current student. His question, two questionsin here. But ill ask the second one was your talking about husa right now and we know the pressures of being a student leader coming from all corners and his question was how did you all maintainyour independence . While you were studentleaders . Independence in what way, as an organization . I guess he speaking to the independent politics or the reason you decided to run in the first place. How did you maintain that consistency and connection and continuity with the purpose that you all are in . We were part of an organization, ill say that. I dont think we even thought about it either. I couldnt even imagine these people telling us what to do or what we couldnt do. Not at that time. I was 19 years old in the Administration Building doing that. Theres no way in the world these people were going to tell us to to do at that time when we thought we were invincible and we were part of an organization, part of a Larger Organization that we still talk to the people, we still were involved in that that keeps you grounded and focused and thats what to ray always used to say, you have to be part of an organization and it was just like the democratic party, one party that was active on campus was the all African People revolutionary party and that was an organization started by Stokely Carmichael who folks always echoed organize, organize. A part of an organization was helpful. I was a member of the all African Peoples Revolution Party as well. We had that in the backdrop, on the side and in thefront of us and all around us. We had that understanding for sure. Theres a question i think from lakisha lee, i hope im getting the name correctly around the immediate aftermath and how participating in the protests affected you and i think shes speaking to the harassment you faced or the repression that you all faced and one of the things that she sort of asked is how long did that stigma pick on you and what did youdo about it . Thats a heavy one. You mention it in the book, the harassment was real for all of us. Ill talk about my part. I knew and you mention this in the book as well, i was getting Death Threats on a regular basis. I dont know how the skinheads somewhere in Middle America found the telephone number to my dorm room but i would come home while we were doing all of this work for all of these desperate and because the security arm of black leader force was when it was i had security for months. The members of black youth were part of security were with me 24 hours exceptwhen i went to the bathroom. Because it was just that, the Death Threats were real. To the credit of Donald Temple, we did as much as we could as he advised us as our lawyer for the coalition that we had to institute language and provisions to make sure there was no retaliation from the administration. That we wouldnt get expelled. That those kinds of things, nobody thought of that wereit not for Donald Temple. But that was on paper but in real life, and ill turn it over to the mayor because i know he has his own stories but it was traumatic. It took years for me to even think about some of the work and the emotional toll doing that at 20 something years old. I didnt even decompress from the emotional impact for years and years and years later so ill pause there as i know the mayor has some other serious harassment going on as well. I think the most troubling part of what it was with me was trying to deregister me. All the other stuff that went on, you almost expect it. Like this kind of foolishness and we did what we could to protect each other. And we did that but i had to go to every teacher and get my schedule signed. All of this stuff on teachers to get validated. They just took, they had validation cards. They just invalidated me and i was basically not a student but i was going to class, taking tests and by the grace of god that was probably my best method during the protest and i attribute that to black leader force because black leader force encouraged success and intelligence which forced you to read and study and do your work because you had to be excellent academically and that was important so that was my best investment so i went to those teachers and it was easy for me to get signatures from teachers. This is the grade that he got and i had to go to the administration , everybody goes to howard and taft but just how horrible going to the Administration Building can be trying to get registered and validated and all that stuff so it was a nightmare justtrying to go through that process. One of those things that comes up a lot and i wanted to say this, im not going to ask a question about this but there was real support from black political leaders, black cultural leaders everywhere from Jesse Jackson to Sonia Sanchez to amira sanchez that was important to visit entire project but connected to that there are two relatedquestions. One is concerning faculty support. And i think we can weave in an answer to this other question related to what books guided you . What texts were important in this moment . Black positive education. [inaudible] that was our bible, our dictionary, our everything so that was one text but stolen legacy by james. I remember that. Underdeveloped africa. Walter ronnie. We had a lot of text and we had artists, we had Sonia Sanchez, we had really broke out on campus. We had just a variety of different artists and we brought in lecturers when we were in Student Government but im forced to remember the mothering that we got from mrs. Roberta macleod. I have to say that out loud because she is all about mothers. Our howard mother and when you talk about people standing by us and giving us guidance and giving us understanding, the nuances that we just would not know as students. We would know not know about your friends and whos not. And what happened in the board room that you should be aware of. We had a tremendous amount of support and we talk about the faculty a lot in terms of that support. I want to shout out a woman, the moral support that she gave us. Everybody knows mister cloud so i want to make sure that she, that she knew that as well. I would say a lot of those people went to the school to. So a lot of kids, they were concerned about those kids safety and Everything Else that was going on there as well so that was part of it. Nobody called their mother and father and got permission to do this , we just did so at the end of the day parents found out when wewere already in the building , and they said what are you doing, all this other stuff so that got people to say listen, you need to make sure these are kids, these are our kids, they are safe and we talked about that all thetime. I told your father you got to find out whats going on or call these people and all this stuff is important. Howard is a legacy so there are expectations people have from the university whether you like it or not, good or bad and theyre going to have their imprints on it and they feel obligated to raise the students of this university collectively. So they were, and now which is different from today, we had the luxury of a plethora of speakers. Maybe 1 million different comments we would go to, all this different stuff helped to shape our ideology and direction at times. Today i can barely think of a conference that we spoke to, i must of had five different malcom x conferences, mentor evers conferences, all kinds of stuff going on. All of us gathered around to support one another. I want to shout out, we cant under estimate the importance for me personally and collectively was the end influence of Sonia Sanchez. When i was an alpha sweetheart i met sergeant Sonia Sanchez through her son because we were in english class together and when i discovered because again im introducing black poetry and black literature, all this as a freshman sophomore writing for the hilltop, i was an editor for gannett which was the literary magazine or newsletter for the English Department. Im discovering all of this and when i found out Sonia Sanchez was in my english class , that began a lifelong relationship that exists today. So when she would come to campus it was at the invitation of me at the time when i was head of the alpha sweetheart court. She would come on her own every weekend with no pay. We paid her one time to come because we invited her in as a speaker as the mayor said and she was like ill come back every week, you dont have to pay me. There is no honorarium. Just give me an amtrakticket and i will be here every week and she was. So to the mayors point about what we had access to and the level of commitment, not only her Sonia Sanchez gave to us, we could sit at her feet every week and we did in the reading lounge of the blackburn and ask questions but it wasnt just about hey, how is your life but wewere studying. She brought us texts and we studied but connected to that was issues of character. Issues of personal development. What does it mean when you have an organization and one thing she always said, got to make sure theres an even number of men and women in leadership. So it wasnt just about text and intellectual exercises but it was about how to organize, how to build. How to be honorable in your work. How to respect one anotherand what to look out for. So i just need to say that part as well because it was just as crucial in any text that we learn from a professor on campus. I do see Carrie Hughes here. His role was just asimportant as marion berrys role. Hughes was the deputy mayor of Youth Services at the time and i just want to shout him out and quickly some other faculty that people may or may not remember Ronald Walters was crucial, eleanor traylor, joseph mccormick, alvin thornton. Those are all my teachers. The Political Science department in particular. We can close with this final question and this is from rosalyn in money and its an important one and it will give you an opportunity to talk about your life since howard and she wants to know what were some of the connections, how strong were those connections forged in this moment of protest do you became and what you became when you left Howard University, when you graduated. I had a Political Science major in history and i learned more about black people and history in Political Science classes that i ever learned in any history class anywhere ever. I had Ronald Walters, i had joe mccormick, i had all these people and i learned so much there and it kind of prepared mepolitically. John walters would say to me that the first step is getting into the conversation and if youre not in the conversation that what you say does not matter how do you engage yourself into the conversation, into the National Conversation thats happening which was the first thing i thought about about how you should run for office in the first place and even if i didnt win at 24 when i ran for mayor , the idea was just getting to the conversation. Im trying to all of our agenda, what we believe, insert that into the conversation and i get into that i getting intimate. If i get in a debate i can do that knowing that i can get on theballot so i can be invited to the debate. That was it and i think all of the organizing, i did not know how to win, all the organizers change from my experience in black leader force and watching other people and all these other things that were going on. Ive always been doing that, mobilizing, exciting people and arousing them but you cant win an electionby mobilizing people. You have to determine organization and husa was a forebear into getting into politics as in understanding how things works. My brother who was a better organizer than me to this day was able to turn all the things that they said you should do into Something Real in terms of how to organize that to run for office but all of this stuff weve been through at howard you feel like you were obligated to do something when you leave here. That when we leave howard you have to make something happen. We were on campus and he was the mayor of atlanta and with puppy we came to the super bowl, Dick Gregorys kids, Sonia Sanchez kids, on and on. And howard just makes you feel like ifyou leave the campus and do something , to fulfill your obligation and reinforce, had me on go all the time. Ive been on go since i joined near force. And i was on go before near force. Thats not who i was setting up to be. Honestly when i first step foot in Howard University campus. I would never have taken the trajectory that id taken from that point on good or bad, to be where i am today. I agree 100 percent with everything the mayor said. How that looked for me was a little bit different. When i graduated i didnt know what to do. Sonia had told us we were on the terrorist list after the protest. I had not done the things, nor had i properly prepared to go into the marketplace. Mayor, i dont know if ive ever said this but at the time my best idea for what to do upon graduation was maybe i can you know, the mayor was the fiery one. I was behindthescenes and i was quite. I was organizer like i said and i said abi can manage his career. I had no thought aboutwhat to do. That is the only reason why i enrolled in graduate school at howard in the English Department cause i had not done my work i knew i wanted to continue along this journey. So i got accepted to grad school at howard. I did one year. I did one year, shout out to dean king who helped me to become a resident assistant, and are a i did one year and it was only then did i realize that i was exhausted because what we want to remember is that there was the protests and then there was husa and then there was the hiphop conference. That, like that to the mayor we were on go 100 percent because we werent even impressed with the protests. Only. We were happy but wehad said were not done. Thats why we just stayed even after lee atwater resigned peoplequestioned why are you still in the building . That was the ultimate goal and we said no. I only say that to say we knew that we had more of our destiny to fulfill. We had all of these earth shattering you know, pivotal things that were pivoting us and changing the trajectory. There was no discussion about hiphop and the enemy before we as a collective said we need to talk about hiphop and put it in a collegiate setting to deconstruct the culture and the business and we brought, when it was easy to bring dougie fresh and biggie before he was biggie. Thats a whole othercomponent. Thats a whole other book. It is. And it made it be so but my point is we were doing groundbreaking work regularly. For me translated as i didnt have a chance to process so i went to graduate school because i didnt know what else to do and then i failed. What i learned that a c in graduate school was equal to failure i was like im out. I thought i was doing well because i got to see. I was like i survived my first year and then i learned it wasnt, i was like im out. Thats when i went to go work with doug e fresh as his assistant as he was doing groundbreaking work and wanted to mobilize hiphop artists. So that lasted a year. I didnt have a plan of action and then i went into teaching so it was around that time that the idea for me for work songs me came into existence and Akila Worksongs is 11 years old so ive been selfemployed for 27 years, amplifying the voices of social justice activism for artists and nonprofits and philanthropics so i designed a path for me out of not knowing what else to do but knowing that i wanted to stay in this conversation around arts and activism and what radical love looks like and how can i do that on my own terms . I did teach for aboutthree or four years. Sherree and i went to the board of ed and we went together. We she stayed on with the board of ed and shes a principal now. I stayed on for a couple of years and then i was like i love these young people in brooklyn. But this is not precisely my calling. I want to stay in education but not in the classroom. So i continued and made my business, my fulltime job as opposed to my side hustle and kilo works with us to thisday , we are still a still doing work in the community. We are the voices and the speechwriters and the message developers a lot of stuff that is not even appropriate for me to say because we are behindthescenes but it is still the work and it still the continuation because none of us to the mayor , none of us are impressed with what we have done because we still have work to do. Theres a song not to be super corny but for Everybody Loves Stevie Wonder there is a song from his album somebody put it in the chat, i cant remember the name of the album but theres a song talks about it taking us so long because weve got so far to go. Thats one of the lines from the lyrics so were still doing this work in different ways. Sherry is a principal, ras baraka is now mayor. We could go on and on but some of us stayed in the movement, its just showing up indifferent ways i didnt havea clearcut path. At the end. My understanding of what i needed to do and how i can use my talents came short journey afterwards. It looks like that is our time and i want to thank april silver and ras baraka not only for being part of this but for everything youve done and for the rest of black youth force and the people that participated in the protests, i want to thank you all for entrusting me with this story which is like you said all of our stories and it was an honor to be the person that put it on paper. And like you said, the work continues. I just again want to thank everybody for participating, for being engaged in the chat and we look forward to connectingto you all again. Thank you doctor myers or your work and your guidance, theres so manypeople we didnt name. It is impossible to name but i would say stay in contact with us. Through social media or whatever because we still have work to do. I think theres only some Unanswered Questions so we can continue this in whatever way but thank you to you as well area thank you to our ancestors that remind us every day we got work to continue. Howard university is sacred ground and we have to do what we can to make sure that its accountable to the students. So ill leave it there. I want to say thank you for putting this together and inviting me to be part of it. Taking us on our trip down memory lane. I just saw something show up on the chat there. It just brings back so many memories so iappreciate it. Please call on me, im interested. Thank you. Tv after republican senator of West Virginia what are you reading . Im reading two books, leadership by Doris Kearns Goodwin which gets into the leadership styles of 4 of our president s, the two roosevelt , Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson and then im also reading the order by daniel silva. What books are youplanning on reading in the future