Education which ended segregation in Public Schools. Hosted by the Thurgood Marshall fund, this is just over 45 minutes. Were excited about whats to speaker, dr. Next steve perry. He told me to keep his introduction short so i will do that. Grassrootsected by Community Members and Inter National leaders dr. Steve perry is one of the most sought america. Cators in a diverse array of politicians and groups from the urban league alek, even President Donald Trump have reached out to dr. Hear his insights on what matter to parents and children. And powerful voice has been featured on msnbc, fox, cnn, aljazeera, tv 1, bet, and , as well as on the Oprah Winfrey network on multiple show s. He provides a fascinating perspective that is not often and hen Public Discourse has been fighting for dis advantaged children and families for 30 years. Welcoming dr. In steve perry. [applause] steve long time no see. Thank you for staying for the conversation. Dr. Paine, thank you, sincerely, thank you for what you do and what youve done. [applause] its all too easy for us to get caught up in ourselves, not that there are people upon whose shoulders we stand. And you represent the very best of our community. So, again, sincerely, humbly, i thank you for having me and the here. F us also, i thank you for the work that youve done to make it colorle for children of and black people in particular education. Ess to an a lot of people talk about it but youve been about it. So thank you so much again for that. Like to thank all of the sponsor who is are here, the coke foundation, thank you for what you do. Maybe about a month or so ago my i, sons wife and i, went to the africanamerican museum, which is just fascinating. Just a stunning, startling,. Ompelling experience what made it even more compel were theret we. Ith ruby bridges my sons still see their grandmother as a kid. Up in there caught fact that they were talking to rudy bridges. One of the curators said to them maybeknow, one day your dad will be here. And they were like, no, he wont. Hes not really that important. But ruby bridges. Probablyre right, im not. But what they did talk about was the we went through africanamerican History Museum we saw controversy. I must be because becoming more visible. Because as i come to speak, more soen people ask me to not be controversial. Im not saying anybody here asked me to do that but im just that to point out sometimes our friends are afraid of what is really the in convenient truth. And i dont know what it is that is so controversial except for the fact that i am aware that black people are as group. S any other that latinos, that people who are equally intelligent got the gene pool lottery. Everybody has access to. Same capacity is given the same opportunity. And here we are having a about brown v. Education 63 years later. And the reason were having that conversation is because the persist then are here today. In fact, there are segregated schools. I appreciate people, you know, smart people that come up with new definitions for the same old thing. You just pick em called prom bacon. T its still there is segregation. We need to understand that real. Ation is segregation is limiting someone s access by virtue of fact that they are different in this country what that latinoly means is black, or poor. There is segregation in the United States. There absolutely is. And what becomes controversial much in the say way as charles houston and, i dont know, Thurgood Marshall were controversial, is that they inconvenients truth and said, well, wait a minute, why then should my children not have access to the education as everybody else when theyre the same . Arent they american . See, whats so troubling to me in our conversations we often overlook the obvious. The obvious is that there is a system in the United States of america that is designed to poor people and black people in particular, but people of color in general, do access to the quality of life that chief justice about. Talked earlier dr. Smith talked about a book written by another controversial figure. Have heard of him, dr. King. Here . Re do we go from community chaos. He did talk about a lot of things but it was at the end i found the most compelling. In the final chapter, the final book that dr. King wrote, he education. T saidartin luther king jr. That american schools do not know what to teach or how to teach. Dr. King. I guess hes controversial. Because he pointed out something should have been obvious to many of us, that this system is broken. We keep referring to the Public Education system is broken. It aint broken. Working the way it was designed in 1635 to make sure that white kids from small gain access to the power that was believed to be to hold. In annie grayian society, in an egragarian calendar. Its doing what it was designed to do. So we say its broken. Maybe we dont understand the definition of broken. See, something thats broken means it doesnt work. Its working. The same system was designed to as anothere time system that we offer refer to as broken, the justice system, also sure that black people in particular dont gain freedom. Theyre the same system. Ugly system as one another. The same system designed to produce the same results theyve been producing since they were designed. And the reason why in this day age they persist is because we are unwilling to have the honest conversation about why were here. Its very easy to have a dale,rsation about garden alabama. Come on, how hard is it . Right . We know our friends, southern racist, ham, they bumble, fumble , they dont even try to dress it up. Look, we are seceding they even said seceding. Are you bugging . Seceding today . Youre not even going to try to come up with a different word . Exodus. Redistrict. Come up with something. No, not them. Secede. Going to see, thats easy for us. Hanging real easy, low fruit for us, these highminded northern easterner northeasterners to discuss how dare they secede. Thing. E they do such a its so racist. Its about as racist as teachers black,to make sure latino and poor kids cant get to school. Thats racist, too. Anythingnt call it other than what it is. When one group does not want a of children to go to school and gain access to a down southion we call it racist. Oh, theyre racist. Racist. Yeah, they probably are. Frt about as racist as those enemies as yours, yeah, the , gotho is drive the subaru the hillary bummer sticker on to whole foods, saying they want to support Public Education. Public education aint the same as your Public Education. You cant support mine if mine yours. Erent than if i dont have access to the same thing that you do, then you and i are not supporting the fight. When you are fighting to make sure that we focus on the teach ers more than we are the children when you shifted the focus of education around to make sure that we focus on the , not the students, then you, my friends, are walk ing really close to that line of racism. Want to call our friends racists because its like throwing water on a witch do. Thats what i be, i dont have the time to polite to yall. I got a couple of school as to schools to run with real kids in them. Im not a public speaker. I work in education. A real job where i tomorrow morning will be back in connecticut, where we started a school where over 85 of the children could not on a write, or do math grade level. 85 . But yall say you want the parents to be more involved. Well, 1,000 of them applied to our school. Thats pretty damn involved from where i sit. Feet. Oted with their my good friends, the dems in connecticut are choice. School 850 of them went right back to their old school. We cant change this until we change how we look at the problem. If we can always pass it off on a convenient enemy, the person were used to blaming for these things then well never hold ourselves accountable. Sons to any my school. Because i know the game. And i can make my way through a system and show people how to be successful even in the worst School System. Find the aalways nominally. Theres always some school with a Large Population of africanamericans with a strong history that we can focus on and talk about. To send oure want own kids to that school. But you cant disavow yourself that youadvantages already have today. Your understanding of the allows you toem beat the system. But thats not whats going on sister who is raising two, three kids by herself while her husband sin cars rated. Thing. A different theyre fighting a different fight. They need school. His is all they have they cant all augment their Academic Experience because first they have to learn what they are. They have been done wrong by the now forced they are to send their children to. The reason there is still segregation is because we still that black people and poor people deserve access to the same education. Because if we did, we would do away with school districts. [applause] dont worry, yall aint got to clap. You. Cant hear if we wanted every single child that had access to a quality education in the entire state, the state would take on the education responsibility of education. It the way wedo it the way we do is it because thats how weve done it because in when we first set it up for a small group of white people, i mean, doing it in they glendale dish mean the same way its happening in manhattan i happeningame way its all over this country. See, the deal is the system is doing just fine. Public Education System is doing just fine. The reason why its doing fine because weve defined Public Education as the product not the process. See, the product of Public People is ar many school that they refer to as a Public School, a Public School building. A Public School. The process of educating the public. See, when you educate the public , you do not care what method they are educated by whether its charter or traditional. Person. Or in neighborhood or magnet. Vocational technical or yet to be designed. Why we care what type it is is because we care about the product and the product is by, again,arge part our good friends in the union. Can garnish the wages of the teachers who work a publicen its education. But if they cannot garnish the wages of a Charter School principal or a private school , then its not a Public Education. Public go there . Arent the public being educated it would seem, because i current ly run a Charter School, that im a Charter School advocate. Im a good school advocate. I dont care what kind. See, because ive seen most specifically the black community , cordenned off to the educational scraps that this to offer. S had i seen us claw our way through find atem to try and break in the matrix to try and find a way to teach children to read. Or like many of us who find ourselves teaching our own. Randparents to read my grandfather was born in 1918, 1999. N he was illiterate when he passed. See, you cant tell me about segregation. Because segregation is very real today. Terrible that our concern is more so about the controversy of the conversation the violence that it pushes upon children. Are we not running into the streets . Ourare we not hurting in very soul . Why are we not crying out when we see a child who is 7 years old says i hate school . Why doesnt that rip us to our core . Afraid of . Are you scared of grown people . Kids. Ared of the reason im scared of kids is because the way you create a perfect weapon is not to put a gun in a childs hands. Its to take education out of. Heir future look around. Look around. The reason why brown v. Board of decided the way it was in large part, was because the Supreme Court realized that you could not fully participate in america if you could not. Ully be educated shocker. Manyranklin said that years before. In fact, its been said over and over in every continent that in order to fully participate in whatever country you are in, you need to have access to an education. And in the black community we talk about preaching the word. Preaching the word and what that means for many of us is connecting to god. We say that in order to truly understand who you are, you must first understand the word. And our word in many cases is christianity. Veryse you connect to your humanity. And then you connect to your humanity, you can be more humane if you are more humane, you can be more considerate of others. And you can live out what it is human, which is to put your own selfinterest aside and be able to look at the greater good. Now is a system that is driven solely by self interests. Interests of organizations and individuals who seek to keep their children away from other jobs. To keep their on on the one side you have the worked throughy these things and find themselves. Ith places like gardendale the other side you have the ones saying they are trying to maintain community. Why dont we maintain communities when somebody is to ang their child off private school who is wealthy and white . Hmm. Their community doesnt seem to be falling apart because they. Ent their child to andover you watch al frankin and he goes hard on betsy de voss. Ask him where he sent his kids to school. Education. Lic not so pro public when it came to his own house, huh . See, im about calling out the hip democrats hypocrite if for it for youe and everybody else you roll with to your house and you try frying up some pork and ask say are you eating, you dont eat that mess, it will kill you. I want what youre eating, chief me what you dont want in your own house. Gets all too easy for us to up, those of us who have options , the opportunity to choose, to say that we choose the neighborhood school. Yeah, you also choose to live there. You also chose so many other things. So you cant look at your choice in isolation. Know that country many of us did not choose. Did i not choose to live in the Public Housing project that i born into. I did not choose to be born on mothers 16th birthday. To an eighth grade dropout. Choose those things. So you cant compare my choice to your choice. Choicet even compare my as a father to my choice as a child. Tell my sons all the time, man , i wouldnt have liked you if i was growing up with you. I would have stolen your bike. They said, well, i just get a new one. And thats why i wouldnt like ass. See, we have to recognize it when were looking at choice, has to be parody. We cant talk about choice because choice aint the same for everybody. Voucher. Now, i know a lot of you like to call them different names to in the echot chamber that is washington, d. C. Not have people say bad things about me. I dont care. Yall can talk about me. Im headed out any damn way. Im pro vouchers. You know why . Because you are, too. You know why i know you are . Because some of yall got called a pell grant. Thats a voucher. Let me take it a little further you just in case you figure, well, my family didnt get pell grants. You. For some of yall may have had some way. On 8 along the a couple of you may know somebody who got some food stamp s. You may not have known that because you were too little but i just want to introduce you to this thing called a block of. Heese youre laughing because you know you cannot make Grilled Cheese with it without burning the entire house down. Those are all vouchers. Medicaid, medicare, all vouchers whenwe understand vouchers we understand, wait, the things that ben mitted me . Yeah, those very same things, there. E right see, the way in which were going to begin to finally end segregation is to allow the people to decide. Allowed to vote with their feet, they will choose the schools best for them the root, it is the root, of how you separate from decision. And theyre very different. You. Gation is put upon more house morehouse is not segregated. Segregated. Not howard, not segregated. Hampton, not segregated. Smith, all women. Not segregated. They chose to be there. A very big difference. Can choose where they go to school. Because thats what this whole point was about. Movement washts about choice. Rosa parks wasnt saying everybody got to sit up front. To sit up front, i want to have the opportunity to. To eat at to want woolworth. But if i want to eat at the lunch counter, i want to be able to go there. So we come back to this notion segregation. The reason why we have segregation is because we want feel comfortable in their space. We dont want people to feel the controversy. Offend people. O well, to me its offensive when in a city like bridgeport, connecticut, which is in fairfield county, one of the wealthiest counties in the , almosttates of america 95 of children in some schools cannot read, write, or do math on grade level. The school that we started in bridgeport, the school that we is not in bridgeport segregated though its almost latino. Black and its a choice that these family ownmade for their future. They bet on a school that didnt even exist. I need you understand how badly our Community Wants out. Not one parent until the entire in the entire city knew even where the school was going yet 1,000 applied, 1,000. We accepted all the students that applied that year we would school inthe biggest the city in just our first year. But i know we tell the story of latinos,anamericans, and poor people dont really care about education. Really . That been riding underground railroad since a long time ago not just to get of of slavery but to get out segregation. Because there are quite a few families who today september their children to a school outside their district. And they said their aunt is keep ing their children. Literally forfeiting their parental rights. Folks, youve got to understand this. Somethings got to shake us loose when a parent will for fit and give herright child to someone else today so that she may say that i am doing all i can. This mother will lie. Will say that her kindergartener lives somewhere that child up in the morning at 5 30 a. M. To put them to herr to take them aunts house to get them on a bus so that the man, yes, the man, can hire offduty Police Officers to go around and check backpacks of children to determine whether or not they live in that community. This is what we have when we are afraid of controversy. This is what we have when we continue to lie and say that the same. Is the its not the same. You dont support Public Education until you support public. G the entire [applause] it is not until you believe that as worthyle child is as every other child. Lie. Nother parent has to imagine any of you i know nobody in this room has to do it will,st imagine if you sit back on this motion notion for a moment and wonder what would the conversation be like sit there with your little girl and shes 5 years old and you getting her dressed her little getting uniform on, getting her ready, backpack. Baby, now, you know you live right . Ur grandmother, you understand that, right . You live with your grandmother. Anybody ask you to see your address, say your address to america, baby. But mom, i live say your address for me. Say it again. Again and again. Yall can get on the donald argue about that fool all you want. Voss,n collar about de cool, whatever. That was happening under obama, too. That was happening under clinton too. As a matter of fact, thats been happening since we got here. Weve been lying about where we live to try and break the back of segregation because weve been trying to get our education way we know how. You see, our kids dont like and our parents dont. Alue education, you say mattersto decide what to us. With about getting along the grown people and not saying anything offensive or is it offended by the fact that our children still go to some of the worst schools on the . Ontinent school in hartford, we atepted five kids from iraq once, a family. Not one of them spoke english when we got them. The oldest one was in ninth grade. And their junior year they took s. S. A. T. S the child who did not speak english performed on the same level as the black kids from , almost identical s. A. Scores i defy you find a community in states in united which africanamericans are not level ofing some interschoolnot just s, interdistrict, im also talking about intra. About you can go to the schools that are supposed to be integrated and see africanamerican children in classes like extended algebra or math anda, consumer some other goofy notion. We fight the only school that have shown any real schools, like charter and voucher programs. The only one that have shown any because the people. Ho work in them are not union hmm. I guess mine is a responsibility of staying controversial then. Because if the only thing that i told say about me is the Inconvenient Truth so be it. To go back to tomorrow. Bridgeport i dont have time to worry about making friends. Friends. Ugh tell middle schoolers all the time, you aint in school to make friends. Aint here to make friends either. None of yall have to like me. But i do know this. You do know im telling you the truth because everything ive said youve seen. Youve seen i need you Say Something about. You call into question the very system that has destroy ed our community that makes parents teach their children to lie. That has mothers being arrested their child to a school that is outside of the. Istrict later were here talking about desegregating schools. As a nation were not even embarrassed. Somebody talked about something 63 years i figured yall should now. Figured that out by we figured it out and we decided were blackildren who , latino, and poor are just. Ot valuable to us i dont know what you believe in and thats fine if you dont believe in anything. This. Do know i believe that the cure for cancer is probably hidden in the heart of a little black girl in newark who goes to a school in read,nobody learns to write, and do math. She just stops trying. I believe theres a fantastic novelist somewhere in baton and people made him like theres something wrong with him for being smart. Hey called him a white boy i believe theres some great kidstors in schools that. Ate school but they hate it too much to believe in it. We, the people in this room, the people who spent some part of our day, even if you were employ here today, trying to figure out how to un this bell of racism, how. O fix this basic notion consider the following. , just upet of liberty , just outside of manhattan, its a request to the entire to bring your tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to break. Ree theyre here. Regardless of who is president , they are here. Here for a while. The question is, do we value them . Do we value them enough to be controversial . Do we value them enough to fight enemies to make a difference . Thank you very much for your time and attention. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] steve questions . Any questions . [question inaudible] steve thank you, brother. I watch and follow you. I really appreciate it. You. thank i just want to tell you how he and i do the same thing. Eddie, right . Quick. Ory real eddie spent some time away. Some decisions he made when he was younger. Changed his life. He deposit just change his life life. Nging his he changed his life by working to change the lives of others. So hes out in the streets for real. Trying to stop cats from hurting themselves and hurting other people. Who youever know sitting next to. Right . Youre eating who one of those really sweet danish es with. Were all here fighting the same fight regardless of which side of the battle we find ourselves. N i appreciate you. You keep doing what youre doing we need you. You. Ed one quick question. Please . Said isve that what you in your heart and in your soul. Steve thats correct. From. Ts where it came but theres another portion of thats been formalized through the Education System. Speak to that, to your am it terms of how you got to bring that wisdom and to fruition to be able to articulate it in the way that you did . , my schools know greatest contribution to the Education Television veryrsation is very, simple. And i really mean simple. A basicols start with presumption that every single. Id has something worth saving so it starts there. All we did from there was copy Successful School. Reason why many schools systems have failed and will is because, one, they operate from a deficit model. They tell you what these kids cant do and why they cant do it. To as our f i refer renemies, they talk about theyre so poor, their families so indigent, they got to take care of their brother and school. Walk them to they come up with every excuse in the world. They shouldnt make them take tests. Them take tests, its going to make them stressed out what theyre really saying thelease dont judge me by performance of these children. They aint that smart any damn push me to be responsible for their perform ance in the classroom. That is what they are saying. If you dont hear that, you are what they are saying. Right . My wife, she bought this new and stood on it i was like , this damn thing is broken. Because that is not how much i. Eigh the fact is that what we did was we copied successful mod else. I can tell you really quick ly, the first thing we did outwe started a parttime of school program, upward bound. So i went through an upward program. Right . Not just the hair Club President minority student who was going to be the first in his family to go through college went through an upward Bound Program. I went through that. Then the other thing, we copied in successful private schools. Went to visit successful private schools. At the time there were not real ly any Charter Schools when started our first school. So we couldnt go visit Charter Schools. Schools were just Getting Started in connecticut. Visit them. O what we found was they were absolutely the same. I need you hear this. Upward Bound Program served historically kids supposed to be not on track to go to college. These elite new england prep schools are supposed to serve just the opposite. They begin with the same basic presumption, that everybody is going to college. The kids at the prep schools, hey, do you want to go to college . Them. T never occurs to they just go. Everything is designed for that. The same is true of the upward Bound Program. Everyone just presumed. Then they do a couple of things that are exactly the same. Are no remedial classes in the elite prep schools. One i didnt say that there were not children who didnt need them. I said that there are no re classes. What we find in many Traditional Schools, especially in urban, failed schools and there is such a thing as a failed school. They are schools that every year, 80 , 90 of the kids cant read, write, do math. Thats a failed school. Rights . If your car didnt start 90 of the time, ok, i know. Right . Irdresser you got to know who youre talking to. Hairdresser messed your hair up 90 of the time. Right . So in this case we took what we successfule very schools, the successful upward Bound Program, then we pulled the two together. We created an extended school year. So our school year is year around. You know youve done well as a school when people say you cheat ed. You know. N thats the honor. Thats the depth of racism. Understand. You the depth of racism is when you that Successful School serves almost entirely black, latino, and poor kids, the only successful is if somehow you pick the right kids the the right families and right way and this magical lottery led the because black people dont know nothing about lotteries and in this rightem place as opposed to looking at what we do. Exactt took the same model. And then the final part is, when people were not doing a good job , we let them go. Simple. It really wasnt this long, drawnout dance of two years of that. Three years of its like, look, chief, we can be friends from a distance but have got to go. And i never got so caught up in hear peoplet you talk about the color of their faculty. Kids dont care what color the faculty is. Look i have had staff that have been 15 out of black. Trust me, been there. Just want good teachers. I dont care what color they are because the kids dont care what color they are. You can teach a kid how to do math, i dont care if you have a thick so you can korean accent we just hired somebody with one. Thats dope. They should just listen better. [laughter] tripping over that. I just want the kids to learn. I do not care who is teaching them. I really dont. You understand what im saying, right . We did was that all take what we saw work. The reason why many of the Traditional School systems fail almost absolutely to educate black, latino and poor kids, almost absolutely, is because designed to move to consider what the kids need. And inevitably they have the teaching the same this is the dance, right . Muchhire a superintendent, ballyhooed with the right credentials. Oh, my god, the superintendent is coming from this place. Right . And almost as soon as she gets there, somebodys already in the background. Fired from last and it isnt 14 months before theyre ready to run her out of and bring the next one in. When we start our first school in hartford, we ran it for 10 years. I had six superintendents. Do the math. Ix the same teachers in the system. The system. Al is in same custodian is in the system. Same contracts in the system. Same. E rest was the now, always there would be somebody from Central Office who would go to some conference and this goofy new way to do something, and everybody was supposed to learn it this week right before they left because they got fired, too all we did was do the opposite. Up with a lot of people who drank and did drugs and got. N a lot of trouble what i did as a person, i just said im just not going to do what they do. Know what im going to do but im going to avoid that. We took the same strategy when we start the our schools. Just dont do what they do. Whatever you do, dont do that. It hard to fire somebody because thats bad. Hire make it hard to somebody because thats stupid. And make sure that you can bring talented, committed, and oneg people of the benefits of a Charter School, most of my faculty are some are not. Oh, my god, they are not certif ied . Et over yourself president obama could not teach at a Dc High School because hes not certified. Theres your certification, all right . I wanted to hire a surgeon, a biology in aeach heart for the Public School. Shes not certified. Know. All she is is a surgeon. Me i could, this is the solution, because shes not certified, africanamerican who played division i college basketball, then professional basketball, just a high school teach , might hire her except for the fact in a Public School you cant. So they suggest suggest suggest ed i hire a teacher to be the a have her assistants teacher. Be School System could never successful under any circumstances. Its dead on arrival. Sadly, though, children are go down with it. Grown people are not. They are going to live in the suburbs, eight months out of the year, get a pension, send their children to a nice private Suburban School and fight for education, Public Education, that is. Did was avoid doing what weve seen happen for generation s. We dont need to know like there needs not be any more studies on how to run good schools. Wet or fireer is hot. Youd spend more time trying to figure that out. We know how to run Successful Schools. We see them all over the United States of america in some of the poorest communities. Went to visitg, i idea Public Schools, a charter. Etwork in texas idea Public Schools, charter educatesn texas, that i dont want to say their numbers. Its got to be high 70s, 70 minority at least, at least. I dont want to say. Mexico,students from some of the school is so close to the border you can actually cemex co. See mexico. Second Language Group that no ones able to figure out. Spokee able to when they french but spanish we cant figure it out. They have six schools. Ix high schools four of them are ranked in the top four high schools in the periodstates of america, how is that possible . They must be cheating. Right . Let the racists have their do. Theres no way you can educate latinos because theyre too dumb , right . You couldnt possibly give them an education. Them access and they would flourish, right . Thats what they did. Apry single kid has to take courses. Wow. Just place a can kid in an ap course . Yup. Time theyes by the graduate high school. Very single kid theres no parent who has to come in and advocate. Theres no test that they have take. Theres no neighborhood that they have to live in. They dont have to know somebody counselor. Idance they dont have to know the system. If all you do is go to Idea High School youre going to take ap courses. You look atsame way la Guardia High School in new york where they take early like they do at capital prep. Tosent a young Lady Providence college, the first in her family to go to college,. Ith an Associates Degree yes. Be graduating from Providence College where she received a full academic , also special needs, should have mentioned that, all of the things that are supposed to stand in the way when you dont have, right . Fact that they didnt stand in the way because she was in a system where we smart. Said, oh, youre you should take College Classes as a freshman. So there she was. A little girl, 14 years old. First day of work at our school in bridgeport. A social work be er and give back. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you so much, dr. Perry, message. Powerful and thank you to all of our. Anelists and moderator this has been an amazing day. Expectationssed my i hope you all enjoyed it as well. Were looking to have many more discussions like this as we the issues around at thes to Opportunity Center for advancing opportunities. I dont want to keep from you enjoying the food and reception. Note that on the way out you will receive a lapel pin to commemorate the First Official event of the center for advancing opportunity. Standing between you and liquor and food, so im sorry food. Its and i just want to take just before first event. Is our i want to recognize our staff. I walked in the room and saw the beautiful staging and chairs,rcoordinated the little tchotchkes that you have on your chairs, purple, wouldnt have been my color, but, you know, guys, were like, ok, i dont know with thisoing to do book. Give it to your wife. He said ill put it on my tie, right . Ties. Pring ,ut in my team would stand up briefly, with the folks who real ly were the core team for the center for advancing. Pportunity of course, jennifer, please stand. [applause] candace kent. Right in the back. [applause] and lamont rux. Making surey out that your spirits and food hes from our events team. Project manager responsible for all of the work, getting everyone here, helping program, etc. And, of course, jen is the fear less leader who helped create, frankly, the concept of the center for advancing opportunity. Ce often the focus is on the o of the company, da, da, da. But i got to tell you. Guys, you all outdid yourself. I hope each of you will leave we have a big event at the end be ouryear which will state of opportunity in america summit. If you thought this was good, to bring itoing down. So im telling you now. Wear your pins. Tell folks what were doing. Intentionally there are no words say whatsople will that pin . We have some great work happening. By the way, to all of our panelists, every one of you brought so much here for us today. Hope you leave here whether you agree with everything that any particular person said that matter. Our goal is to advance opportunity. And that requires that we ourselves. Right . Challenge conventional thinking. Of lunacy definition or whatever, keep doing the same thing, expect a different result the vision for this. And brendan, i have to thank you again. Partner at the charles coke foundation. And i just want to thank you all everything. Please enjoy. We have some wonderful food out there, some wonderful spirits. Team, beforeof the we leave, please stand you. Stand up. Of my you to know all collectingive collective team [applause] and check out our website for the rest of the information. You. N, thank we want to make sure we get the word out. Our website, advancing opportunity. Org. Spending sol for much of your precious time with us today. God bless. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] dont be afraid of your ambition, of your dreams, or anger. Ur those are powerful forces but harness them to make a difference in the world. Stand up for truth and reason. Remember this nothing worth doing ever, ever, easy. Ame meansing your convictions you must be willing to face lackcism from those who the same courage to do what is right. Felt like tohat it gain that new perspective to understand that new knowledge to master a new to your talent. Mize so that when life knocks you down and i promise you, it you willou down get back up because you know yo. What it takes to rise. At 8 00 eastern, 2017 commencement speeches. Weekend speakers include Hillary Clinton at Wellesley College in massachusetts, President Donald Trump at Liberty University in lynchberg, virginia, senator Bernie Sanders at Brooklyn College in new york, representative love at the hartford inf connecticut, former u. S. Deputy yates atgeneral Sally HarvardLaw School Class day commencement in cambridge, massachusetts, president and ceo of Hewlett Packard at carnegie pittsburgh,rsity in and National Institutes of Health DirectorFrancis Collins at Southern Methodist university dallas. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on and cspan. Org. Willrmer f. B. I. Director testify before the Senate IntelligenceCommittee Investigating russian activities election. T years cspan3 will have live coverage of the open part of that hearing. T 10 00 amp am eastern you can also watch live on line cspan. Orgcom or listen live using the free cspan radio app for apple and android devices