The general assembly. She is the first woman to lead. She is in her 30s. Derek johnson is the president of the naacp. The ed of the new orleans workers at center for. Mayor steve benjamin, the first black mayor of columbia, South Carolina since reconstruction. The president of voto latino. When you read through what you will see is changes here in the south. We are transforming very rapidly and if more people paid more attention we could transform faster still. The region these days is typified in many ways by Voter Suppression, attempts to put in latino exclusion acts a guild chinese exclusion act that we saw after the civil war. Very targeted bills are put in place to make it more difficult for immigrants of color to remain in the south. The south as an organizer in my opinion, it is a light switch. Use on or is off. You can see it in North Carolina in the last 10 years. Major progressive changes. Huge ultraconservatives pushed back. We say in this country that there are two cliches that are stuck with me. One is it is always darkest before the dawn. When you organize in the context of the south, there is no dimmer. Things are either on of their off. The other is from conversations i have had with people in this town. Why should we invest if nothing has changed . Lack of investment is the surest form of historic preservation. What youll hear from stacy is that things are changing and there is great hope. We now have the numbers to get things change faster still. Stacy . [applause] i wanted to say thank you to ben and to my fellow panelist. I am here to talk about why this matters very why the history of freedom summer remains prominent and critical. There was a photo this year and it is of my father marching. It is a recreation of a march the heated when he was 15 years old and mississippi. It was a march to guarantee the right to vote for africanamericans. He was not going to benefit from that march. Even if he managed to open the doors, he was not going to he allowed to cast a vote. He did it anyway because he understood what he was doing today would benefit him three years later. My mother did not march that day but she was also involved in the civil rights movement. Both of them raised us to understand that voting was a moral obligation. It was more than an opportunistic obligation. I will say this, i also understand acutely that progress is not artisan. Neither party has had a hand in helping and harming the progress of the south. I believe in progress. As such, i focus my attention on how we build coalitions of voters who can change the dynamic and change the trajectory of policy. That change is built and the three things. The first is understanding what you are voting for. Too often our voters do not register because they should bother. That happens because you dont know that your state legislature is not picking up for your trash and the president cant change the lights. You the governor decides how much money goes into your schools. Then you will not understand why to vote. Our obligation is to understand the underlying impact of voting. The second conversation has to be who votes. These conversations focus on one party, whether it is latinos or the africanamericans or the asianamericans. My belief is if we want to transform the south, we have to bring all coalitions together. I have worked very hard to pull together the latino, Asian American, an africanamerican coalitions. It is not a dimmer. It is an on or off switch. When the light comes on, if we are not staying together then we face regression. I started a nonprofit. In 2014 my mission was to focus on voting. That is the third part. Registering to vote is the first clarion call for change. In a state of georgia more than 800,000 africanamerican, latino, and asian voters are unregistered. 260,000 voters can change a state election. We can register them and they can change the country. If you change georgia then you can change the south and if you change the staff to change the nation. The demographics will tell you that the south and southwest are the fastestgrowing parts of this country. If we have to move progressive policies then we run the risk of standing here in 2024 and have a different conversation about why we have the most undereducated, most incarcerated, and least economically mobile population. For me, this is a clarion call but it is also an opportunity. Voting is opportunistic. It is taking that sacred right and transitioning it and turning it into control of your future. The new georgia project has registered more than 23,000 voters in the deep south. We have focused on voters of color because they are the lead. There the fastest changing demographic. , if you can engage them now you can engage them permanently. Investment in the south is investment in change for the nation. It is the change of progress that we are not just talking about incarceration rates seen nowhere else in the industrialized world. The best way to close the gap is to actualize that Human Capital in the community. If you went to see education change, educate the poorest and the kids of color. This can be lived in the deep south. It can be lived in georgia and South Carolina. If they are lived and realize they can be exported to the rest of the country. I am from a southern mississippi. I grew up in gulfport. I moved to georgia and texas and went north to new england and came back. I am a southerner at heart. I dont like being cold. I understand that the south is where change happens. I am honored to be here today because i know that if we harness the power of the africanamerican community, latino voters, Asian American voters, if we tie them together in an unbroken not and bind them together to look forward to a future, then the center for more American Progress will look no further than the south to see what americas future looks like. Thank you. [applause] we will at the panelists take their seats. I think you can see why i stopped telling her a long time ago what she couldnt do. She told me she would be the first black governor of georgia. She is certainly on her way. I want to get things kicked off here. I wanted to start us off. This summer as the 50th anniversary of freedom summer. One of the iconic visuals that we have of freedom summer is blacks and whites working sidebyside to unleash democracy in mississippi, georgia and throughout the region. Last year was the anniversary of a rebellion against the king that was suppressing the vote. Can you talk about the ongoing work in the south that is building a common cause between blacks and whites in getting people to see their common interests across all racial lines . Thank you for that wonderful presentation. I was elected in 2010. It was by a very deliberate action the people came together across racial lines and across political lines to support our campaign. It was about unifying our city. Our theme was about one columbia. All of the issues that matter to each of us in this room individually matter to us collectively. We focused on the reality that latino families care about environmental sustainability. The group of conservative white businessman cared about black boys. Black families cared about being good stewards of tax dollars. These are issues that mattered to each and every one of us. We were going to run a modern campaign. They were going to see us in churches and social media. We were going to run a modern campaign with tv ads and very active online campaigns. We were going to have direct nail and phones. Running a modern campaign but most importantly running a modern positive campaign that focused on the issues that were important. It is amazing how people can come together. Over the last several years we have seen a mismanagement of our electoral process. This conversation we are having can be a wonderful counter to try and oppose that trend. I believe it is about issues. It is about the reality of ideas and how issues matter. People are more complex and concerned about the fact that in israel and nigeria and the oppression of people in china. If you speak to those issues and speak in a way that brings people together, it is amazing how powerful ideas can be. You are in a state that people consider ground zero for the fight against poverty and for justice. Talk about the need for making what is old new again and getting back to what so many of our family members were doing 50 years ago. He often refocused too often on what is being done and not who is being done to. He was talking about the who it was being done to. 50 years ago the focus of those students and those world war ii veterans who came together and organized in infrastructure in mississippi focused on a few issues. The medical committee for civil rights was established at that time. It was access to voting and free of Voter Suppression and intimidation. What are we dealing with today . Voter id. Education, states like mississippi did all they could to. We are seeing School Privatization take place all over the country. The new orleans public system ceases to exist because of a Privatization Movement that is not shown any Real Progress in providing call the education. Who is that being done to . Access the health care, the Affordable Care act which will benefit many people across this country but the benefactors in mississippi are majority white. It is resisted because you can put a lack label on it. None of this would be key if people were not trying to exploit cheap or free labor. We have a company in mississippi. It allows for workers to collect. In mississippi the workers do not have a chance to collectively bargain. People are seen as affordable and cheap labor. We must focus on those primary issues. If we look at the who and not the what and the who is organizing we can progress the south. If you draw a line from the Atlantic Ocean to the pacific ocean, you are looking at the browning and blacking of america. 52 of all africanamericans live in the south. The increased population of latinos is in the southwest. If you put those groups together we will have a moral majority. We can have an impact on all of our lives and improve quality. I think he set you up any well. We get started soon after hurricane katrina. I think everyone in this room and everyone in the country remembers exactly where they were when they heard about hurricane katrina. It has left an indelible impact on the countrys history. Hurricane katrina was followed by as the water receded Public Policy that deeply divided the city. It locked one group of people outside the labor market and locked one into the labor market. Hundreds of thousands of africanamericans were displaced. They could not participate in the reconstruction of their own city. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants were brought in and sometimes quite literally locked in to horrific working conditions. My organization has started when workers escaped from labor camps and gathered in new orleans with communities around them. They decided in a convention to collectively raised their voices were workers rights. New orleans in the south has been thought of more as part of the countrys past. I would contend that new orleans in the south have a lot more to do with our future at this point. New orleans became a crystal ball. It showed exactly the kind of demographic change that derek was talking about. It also showed that demographics by itself is not destiny. Unless there is a shared protagonist some. Unless there are the freedom summers and the freedom riders, demographic shift can lead to even more intractable inequality. Even greater wealth disparity. New orleans and louisiana show this very well. Louisiana is the 50th out of 50 states to be a woman. It has a 20 poverty rate. There is only a 10 chance that a child that is born in the lower five percent will ever get to the highest five percent. I agree with the mayor. Ideas matter and issues matter. It is possible to build strong, multiracial coalitions out of the basic bread and butter Economic Issues that workers and their families are facing. The importance of dignity at work. The importance of a strong safety net that catches workers in long periods of unemployment. The importance of building some kind of Economic Coalition in the labor market that can change a city and the state. I would say that in terms of the freedom summer applied now, we are up against more than we have been up against in the past. There is collectively billions of dollars of tax breaks being given to corporations for job creation and louisiana. If you look at the proportions of tax break hours to the portion of jobs created, close to 8 million per job is for subsidies. These are the kinds of unconscionable decisions that are made by Public Policy actors. It comes down to we are not going to be able to turn demographic shifts into a proposition for unity and equality unless there is multiracial coalitions and strategy the turn current inequality into real voter rights issues. One of things we are talking about today is the antidote. We learn from freedom summer about massive Voter Registration. What are your plans for places like texas and florida . Thank you so much for having this conversation. I think one of the things that the center always does is have conversations about difficult issues. When we talk about Voter Registration, it all comes back to the basics. You mentioned we have been doing this for over 50 years. While the American People were working all of these voter id laws were passed in seven states. That wasnt by accident. There is a huge demographic shift that we have not seen before. You have 18 of the United States is latino. 800,000 latinos turn 18. That is a Congressional District and it is happening in the south. The Voting Rights act has been gutted. That is not a surprise because Shelby County is the fourth largest county of latino growth. The growth is 300 . Recently, shelby v. Holder gutted the Voting Rights act. Not a surprise because Shelby County is literally the fourth largest county of latino growth. By over 300 from the last census. What is happening, neighbors all of a sudden do not recognize him their neighborhood. The best thing to do is basically suppressed them. We need to build coalitions but we have to build coalitions with likeminded individuals. We need to make sure we are working with africanamericans, latinos, and asians. There is an emerging single white woman feeling under attack, and their friends and family. In 2018, this majority emerging is going to be the largest part of eligible voters. Their participation is close to 12 below the baby boomers. When we talk about how did we create this manifestation of our destiny in america, we have to enfranchise folks with a lot of education. What we find in the work that we do at voto latino, it is not about party, it is about issue. When you talk about the code of immigration, it becomes so personal and caustic, that is what is getting the latino population to participate. They are participating this is where it is very personal. The once participating most are young latina women. Yes, immigration is something that is a problem to them and very personal. It is when the womens right to choose comes on the table that they say not on my watch. Why . The average latino is 27 years old. When we are talking about minimum wage hikes and access to health care and education, the legislation we are seeing in our country directly impacts a generation living at right now. Student debt . They are living it now. The work we are doing in texas is called spread your voice. The idea of building on social media platforms. We are partnering with rock the vote. It is not enough to find a petition. You have to register and participate at the polls. Texas alone right now has over 2 million young latinos that are unregistered to vote. A there are two Congressional Districts to illustrate how powerful this is that were basically won with less than 1000 voters. Congressional districts. Over 60,000 or 80,000 unregistered latinos in these districts. It is all about the numbers. Unless we Start Talking very frankly about the money in politics, and that also the vote is one that affects all of us. Then we have possibility and opportunity. Something i always like to say people say there is too much money in politics. There absolutely is. Rich people vote. They know it does not matter how much money there is, they still have to get up in the morning and go and participate. One last thing we need to address is the time tax. The tax people have to stand in line, unfortunately it is mostly for the working poor, minority, and College Campus folks that have to wait hours. Not two hours or three hours. Up to 12 hours to cast a vote. That is a time tax. If theyre going to purchase pay that day were they are making ends meet and putting food on the table. Thank you. Stacy, one of the things we do is we go through and we look at how massive Voter Registration in particular states can change the balance of power. When you are going doortodoor and signing up people, they often say why should i vote yes but nothing ever changes. Could you talk about what is at stake in georgia and what is motivating people to get out and sign up their neighbors to vote like they have not done in a long time. The new georgia project, what we did was ask that very question. I was talking to maria about it. If you are an African American man in georgia who did not vote for barack obama, not partisan that is the closest thing to motivate you to vote. The issues are threefold. One, voter intimidation. They hear about Voter Suppression. If you have never voted you do not know what it means. If you are going to stand in line or lose your job because you went to vote. You dont know what the card is that you keep hearing about, you know you do not have the id they think you should have. Making sure we understand how to talk about voter identification in a positive way. Making sure people understand what they are voting for. Most people have no idea what a Congressional District is or a congressperson does. Voter education is part of it. The third piece is the policy piece. What Stephen Derrick talked about what steve, derrick, and saket talk about. We are trying to bring those together. Voter registration in the context of seeing something happen. As much as there is a time tax, theres a cost to not voting. If you do not know you are paying that cost, it is like having a credit card balance you never look out. If you keep running up that tab, it is going to come due. We are trying to have conversations with neighbors, how do you register your friends to vote and talk to them about why letting matters. Those of us who vote for a living and know how to vote, we assume everybody else does. Talk about it on a granular level and talk about the outcome and you start to see a lot of change. The other piece, in georgia and the last decade, more than 1. 5 Million People moved into the state. The vast majority of whom were people of color. They are new to georgia. For us, the next election is the first time they have had a chance to really see what we have a few more people so we skew the data. We face all of the things that face every other state in the south. If we change the dynamics this year, we sent a signal for 2016 and 2018 and for 2020. 2020 is the year every Southern State should have their eye on. You get to decide who is going to draw the map for the next generation. If we can start that conversation today and start thinking about it today, we sent a signal that ben talked about. Investing in the south makes sense. If you want a longterm return on your investment, this is the year to pay attention. If elections get done well this year and we see the real strong trend, democracy is not destiny. Demography is not destiny. It is a really good guess of what destiny can look like. Get them registered this year and send a signal about how it can be done not just in georgia could be exported to other states. What you are mentioning is the 2020 census, incredibly important for our future. One of the things i encourage part of this work to be is how do we change how things happen when it comes to redistricting. One of the main things, you see the beauty of it in california. They appointed a public commission. It was individual citizens voted in and they got to create a map that reflected california. That impacted across party lines, republican or democrat. All of a sudden you had a chance to craft a not reflective of your community. One of the biggest problems in congress now is that the districts are gerrymandered. It does not reflect the american public. One example where did a lot of , africanamericans in louisiana end up . In texas. In the last census, there were four Congressional Districts because of the boom in texas. That was attributed to three Congressional Districts that should have been assigned to the Latino Community and one to the africanamerican community. That is not how it ended up going down. It is because of the gerrymandering. One of the best ways to go against gerrymandering is to make sure that we are having public commissions. When you look at a 2020 strategy, it is similar to what the right did leading to 2010. In mississippi, we have had the most successful redistricting. We had an explosion from 1965 to 2010, more elected officials than other states. Much of that happened as a result of concentrated Voter Registration, more africanamericans. Followed by 14 years of litigation and nine trips to the Supreme Court, which forced them to open up to due process with the ways in which by 1992, 21 we doubled the size of the legislative black caucus. Currently it is 49. That only happened because of aggressive work on the part of citizens across the state. The shelby decision turned that around. Right after the Supreme Court decision, the voter id amendment passed in 2011, now is not reality. We were able to stop this because it did discriminate against African American voters. Last week in mississippi with voter id, our secretary of state comes out to talk about how they how big of a success it was. Only 300 people were denied a vote. That tells you a lot. Because of the close elections one vote can make a difference. As demographic shifts take place we had to be mindful that the small changes in Voter Suppression laws can have a devastating impact longterm. To put it in perspective, you talked about 17 black sheriffs in mississippi, that is a state that is 35 black. 38 africanamerican. 33 of the legislature is africanamerican. You have about 82 counties . Yes, 82 counties, 17 africanamerican sheriffs. 15 now. Two of them are no longer in office. That shows what a hard push it is. As a high water mark. You look at mayors, we were up to 81 mayors at one point. After the shelby decision, were going to begin to see a reversal of those reductions to ensure protections to ensure that all citizens are able to cast a vote. That is why Voter Registration become so important. People want to say progress in the south is shortlived, look at the 19thcentury reconstruction. Change dies a quick death. Look at the new salvo in the 1970s and 1980s, dies pretty quick. It is different this time. We are not just coming out of slavery or segregation. We are much more sophisticated than we were 50 years ago or 150 years ago. The other big change is that the numbers have changed. That also presents a challenge. Getting people to see the one as being bigger than we have been struggling to. Can you talk about people who are in office, what it is like to get people to see themselves as one . We are not just dealing with black and white in the south. Just in the 27 years i have been in South Carolina, it has changed dramatically. South carolina we talk about some of the tax breaks it has the largest percentage per capita of Foreign Direct Investment in the u. S. People come in from all around the world. Not just from south of the border, but from canada, france and germany, and japan. We are seeing a very multiethnic, very positive growth. Columbia is becoming a very cosmopolitan city and it is exciting to watch that. We are talking about trying to ingrain in the future of the south and as a result america, we are talking about playing chess rather than checkers. Longterm strategies that allow the true america that we all believe in to emerge. That comes down to the issues and the ideas that cut across every line we have dividing us. At some point, we will talk about the fact that registering and organizing requires capital. It is message, money, and i would love to say manpower, but it flows better. But we know it is womanpower. My wife, all the other ladies someone complimented my daughter. Told him how impressed they were. She said i get my looks from my mother and my brains from my father. I was impressed until she said my mother still has all her brains. [laughter] money and women power. It really is playing chess, being thoughtful and deliver it. Deliberate. The spirit that we are building a country together. Preparing our country not just for being equal and fair also competitive. Because of the challenges our country is facing and has faced over the last 50 years, for many of us i will think it is by chance that this is being released 50 years after the deaths of chaney, schwerner, and goodman. It will continue to dramatically affect the competitiveness of america as this world continues to become flatter. That is something we have to continue to keep our eyes on. We have to play chess, not checkers. It was in our hearts that this is the 50th anniversary of the lynching in the midst of freedom summer in mississippi. We have a great debt to them. Many of us worked closely with their families over the years. Also in pushing to open up our , democracy, they are opening up our economy. Voter suppression and poverty go handinhand at the end of the day. Stacey, can you talk about what you are trying to do in georgia just to make not just our democracy work for everybody but our economy. Have the two things are tied together. It goes back to immigration. Distinction of being legislator of the year for the Hispanic Chamber of commerce. I let in immigration around immigration reform. Too often, the bifurcation is black and white. The reality of the south is black, white, brown, yellow. And every other shade. We have an obligation to think about it that way. Immigration reform was an economic issue. You had black farmers, latino workers, white farmers, folks who were going to lose restaurant workers who were losing economic capacity. 300 million in the First Six Months of a terrible bill that was completely dismantled by the Supreme Court. Except for the show me your papers peace, which we are still working on. What that meant was that we had to not simply have this is not a latino issue. This was a georgia issue that require that every person who thought that jobs were important had to come together. When you talk about workers rights, those are Economic Issues. The Human Capital lost every single day when we undereducate our population. When we do not pay a living wage. When we do tax breaks that only break the back of workers and do not create revenue. Every day we do that undermines our longterm capacity as a state. If it happens in georgia, it is a state of 10 Million People. If we do it poorly, think about every other Southern State that is smaller. If you do it right, you send a signal, it is proof of concept for what can happen. The other part of the new georgia project is talking about Economic Issues. I like what steve said about being fiscally conservative. Truly conservative means you do not change things unless they need to change. It is not what has been appropriated to meet. Most people of color are fiscally conservative, we do not have enough money to squander it. We believe in conserving what we got and spending only what we need, but we cannot get to that conversation of thoughtful tax policy, thoughtful engagement on Economic Issues when we are not at the table making those choices. When i am sitting in the state legislature in the ways and Means Committee and there is no one who looks like me, if you are not this is a wonderful phrase. If you are not at the table, you are on the menu. [laughter] with tax policy in particular, people of color are the main course. We pay a lot in taxes and do not get as much back in terms of social welfare. More importantly all of those , decisions are made behind our backs. We talk about appropriations. In the middle of a chess game, you dont care about appropriations. Appropriations matters a lot less. It is a question of where they got the money from. We are not the ways and means conversation where they are making your tax policy. If we are not arguing about why instead of cutting Social Security we are talking about raising the cap. If we are not talking about cutting the payroll tax. If were not having those conversations together, we cannot change the dynamic. If the Coalition Looks Like this panel and you add in thoughtful white women who are also the most victimized by the tax policy, that is when you start to change the political future of the country at the economic. When we have more, we spend more. As a smallbusiness owner, i like people who can buy my stuff. I dont want people who cannot afford it. It is in our best interests to build coalitions, not only voting coalitions but economic partners. We will take some questions. I want to thank my friends at cap. And our friends at the southern elections foundation. The president Marvin Randolph is , here. And i want to thank cspan, carrying this right now. Happy to take questions. Right here. Good morning. My name is curtis johnson, i am from chicago, illinois. I saw at the age of seven when Harold Washingtons campaign completely changed the demographics as far as Voter Registration. I am on board in that regard. For everyone else, increasing the volume of voters is one piece. Making sure that they are actually eligible to vote considering voter id is a different ball of wax. I started an Organization Called aboutface, focused on helping connect voters what their edification. There are three paths to voter id, or to combating Voter Suppression. One is the legislative path, getting a new Voting Rights act. Two, the legal aspect of fighting in court. Three, if neither of those are working in each election cycle, it is connecting voters to their id and helping them get to the polls and doing Civic Education and engagement. Having a hard Time Starting and i wanted to know, from your perspectives, is there room for an organization like mine that simply wants to get the voters what they need to combat these laws . President obama, right before the elections, basically said we have voter id. So you need to find out what it is that you need to get to participate in the polls. I am of the mind of absolutely. Because until we can start beating back some of this legislation and changing hearts and minds, i say that because in the Latino Community when you ask a latino whether or not they should have an id, their kneejerk reaction is absolutely. They do not realize the nuances. Of what that means. In texas, you can have a gun carrying license as your id at the voting booth but your student id is invalidated. So i am of the mind of yes, absolutely. Because one of the things that is by not doing it you are preventing voters until we have the legislation at the national and statelevel that combats it. I think it is incredibly important. I agree. I think it is exactly the route to go. I applaud you and your youth for having the vision to see through this incredible myriad of challenges. She is coming, sorry. I am involved with a number of social justice organizations. Including the American Friends Service committee, which has done a lot for civil rights. A question about the idea in terms of voting by mail. That is done in some states. Early voting, again, a lot of this has been trashed because of the legislation in different states. But are you supportive of these kind of initiatives and what difference would it make in terms of the folks that you work with getting them to vote . How would you do voter id by mail . How would that even work . In fact, it does not, that is why the state of mississippi only individuals who go to the polls in person will have to show id. Folks voting by absentee ballot by mail do not. There has never been any proven case of somebody trying to vote under an ascertained name. We have a history of voter fraud by absentee ballot. Guess to vote in person and by afternoon absentee ballot. So we are supportive of anything that increases access to voting. And anything that suppresses voting, we are opposed. Early voting is a tremendous opportunity for people to have access to voting. We saw it in 2008 in North Carolina. Because of the progressive legislation leading up to the 2008 elections, a number of individuals who had been disenfranchised were able to vote. As a result, it changed the political dynamic in North Carolina. In 2010 and changed again, but access to voting is paramount. While the microphone is moving, i want to thank ben, the primary researcher on this report at cap. Hello, i am a rising senior at pullman college. As a college student, one of my biggest questions is how do we get involved. As i think about what has worked in the past with students and as i think about the future of who we need to mobilize, how do you think we can mobilize College Students . As a fellow student and someone who is trying to advise administrators on how to mobilize students, what are your thoughts . We will let the former student body president of spellman answer. Stacey abrams. The student population needs to understand the voter id laws. Too often, students do not change their Voter Registration when they go to college even though in most states they can. And they do not put absentee where they are from. The first piece is making sure students on campus can vote where they live. Since they spend nine months out of the year in college, but for they should vote for the communities where they are living. That should be the message you vote where you live, not where youre from. That is the first piece. Making sure they have the requisite id. In georgia, as in Texas College , ids are not voter ids. College campuses are in every one of these communities where you have the largest populations that need access to voter ids. About face is a great idea. If students made it their mission to get every person who needed id, get them identification, that would transform elections. I agree that is the law of the land, voter id is here. Lets stop whining about it and start working. Working towards it is harnessing the power of students to get folks to get their own ids. Put your own mask on first and get everybody else. Make sure every person you talked to has an id. One of the things we are doing, when we register you to go, we ask if you have voter id. If you dont, we need to make sure you get it. It does not matter if you register a thousand voters. If they cannot vote because of a simple piece of paper. I would encourage identifying is it the organization that you can tap into. Voto latino launched an organization where we worked with fraternities and sororities and created a challenge. The sorority that wins, we will do a special treat. Last time we had Wilmer Valderrama to a concert. Try to figure out how you work with existing organizations. I hope i did not beat derrick to the punch he mentioned Civil Rights Advocacy years ago. Many moons ago. The 40th anniversary i was the youngest of the group. [laughter] he was not. I will tell you, if you look at the schwerners, the goodmans and the chaneys. If you look at 25 years ago and the capacity to effect social change that you have now. What we were able to do 25 years ago or 50 years ago pales in comparison. The advent of technology. You are smarter than we are. You are brighter and much more digital. It is amazing what one person sitting in their dorm room, how they can touch millions of people, if not billions, with just the click of a mouse. It is amazing. All of you have wonderful ideas. Think of tapping into existing organizations or starting your own. Whether it happens to be. This is basic math. We have to capitalize on before 2020. Freedom summer was not about a bunch of old men and women. It was about students who organized across states. Hollis watkins was 17. They thought bob was old. The rest were between 17 and 21. At spellman, columbia, usc. We were coordinating across states. Tremendous impact has happened when students are focused on a target. And you will make a bunch of mistakes. Half the things we did we have no clue. But as a result of some of the things, we saved historically black colleges that were publicly funded from being closed in 17 states. You have the power to make an impact. I think that is a good point to close on. We are coming to the end of our hour. I wear thank our panel and all of you. Please pick up the report. If you are in a state that has voter id that stretches from delaware to texas. You are trying to figure out how , do we get beyond this moment . This report tells you how money folks need to be signed up to vote in the communities we have been talking about to change the balance of power. I want to change with this thought from the great republican and civil rights leader frederick douglass. Compositeech, our nationality, his tirade against the chinese exclusion act. He said every country has a , destiny that is defined by its geography and character. Its character is defined by that nation at its best. And the geography of each nation that shaped the destiny is unique. Ours is unique because we are bordered by two oceans that connect us to the rest of the world and two borders that attach us to friendly countries of different races. He said that our destiny based on our character defines us at our best and that our geography is to be the most perfect example of the unity of a human family that the world has ever seen. And the politics of the people on the stage and of this report, that is the promise we are seeking. The promise that united white indentured servants and black slaves to rebel 351 years ago in virginia and united blacks and whites to come together and freedom summer 50 years ago in mississippi. And today, blacks and whites and latinos and asians can come together for a true south. A south in which there is absolute democracy for all of us. Thank you and god bless. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] the ceo of general motors, mary barra, testified before congress this week by the companys recall of a defective ignition switch