The Television Companies and more. Including cox. Ask homework can be hard. Squatting in a diner for internetwork is even harder. That despite we are providing lower income students access to affordable internet. So homework and just be homework. Cox connect to compete. Cox come along these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. I am so excited to have this conversation withui you. I followed your political career and you actually represent the district i was raised in. Oh wow. [laughter] yes, yes. St i have heard. So im just excited so lets just dig in. Talking to you about your new book. I want to talk about this the opening. You go in really deep really quickly with the book about some of the paint and the trauma you have experience in your life. What made you decide to open the book with what many could consider one of the worst experiences you had had in your life up to that point. But you know, it is something that i am still working through. But it is also something that affected me so deeply. The Sexual Assault that i experienced, it was like my early 20s, late teens early 20s. It was when i was still trying to find myself quote. And im blamed myself. I went to the next 20 years of blaming myself every single time it was because my shirt was cut short and my shorts were really, really short. It was because i was out walking with friends when i met them and i was stressed a particular way. Eythat is why it happened. When they took me out on the date they assume thats what i wanted. I made all of these excuses for what happened to me and all of the blame fell on me. So when that happened back in 2016 how the book begins, i was wearing scrubs. Just come from work. Until i was 40 years old. I just turned 40 i believe. It was just the mindset that i blame myself because of all these things before. But this time those things were not in play. Im really trying to dig through that prism port to start with that. That also happened right after mys first run for office. Much of my life was changing i was just getting my life together and moving forward and things were starting to make sense that just crashed everything all at once. But so much of the book, specially talk about your experience with sexuals assault as a young woman. And years later after your first run, i was saddened but not surprised because your experience as it lived experience of so many black women who have been touched by trauma and violence and abuse and Sexual Assault. During the chapter talk about your route use you talk quite a bit about how black women are sexualized and an early age breed is what happened to you. As you said you took on a lot of blame for your self older men or boys wereen coming on to you so hard or reacting violently towards you. How did you get out to the other side . How did you come to the conclusion these instances were not your fault . These were not about how you were dressed or were at the time. Its about toxic behavior in the men who perpetratededah it. I think some of it came from over the last several years highlighting out prevalent Sexual Assault is. The work of organizations. Even when people have become public speaking out against you know, people who areo celebrities. Or our politicians. Just hearing that rallying cry that has been pushed forward. Those advocateses speaking out just putting it in front of us more. But it was not until i went to therapy. I dont to therapy immediatelyin following. I think the following week or the week after i was in therapy at least one two times a week. That is where i learned the most. A its my therapist started to dig through that saying hey, why are you thinking question what she help me too see that i was holding onto it and how much i had internalized. Everything that happened to me. Even down to the catcalls. I talked about in the book this older man, i was a teenager sit of your old enough to pee you are old enough for me. That was the mindset. Ier would encounter a lot it was just the usual regular thing. And now i understand that is not okay but were to be speak out against it . How often do you hear that spoken out against like thatt is not how you talk to women and girls. That is not how you talk to anyone actually. On so turning it around. That is one thing i have tried to highlight not in my book but just in my work. Where are the folks that are speaking out . Where are the men speaking to boys about where are the conversations . In those things have to happen. Im glad you talked about african and Africanamerican Community can be taboo to talk habout how you need help and sk help for medical professionals. Should you struggle with some of that same mentality where you felt like somehow you were being awake or you are not acting in the best way by seeking out help . Often we are told not to seek help for these types of things. Yes absolutely. For me i grew up in the church. I grew up in the church you know, i am aow pastor even thouh im not pastoring a church right now. Being a k minister myself it waa fight for me. Especially when it was first brought to me. You need therapy. It was my friend i talked about in the book by the name of chris. It wasyo him saying hey, you are not yourself. You need therapy and i knower someone who can help you and i can get you connected to therapy. And he did all the work to get all of it set up forget she needs this now. That is how that happens. So him pushing me. If it was not for him pushing me honestly i would not have ever gone i was having that battle. It was okay you need to go to church. You need to go to church and we need to pray about it. You need to ask the members need to ask mothers, reach out to this pastor friend you know and have everybody pray for you and you will be okay. But i did go to church. And i remember what to church one and i was sitting in the church and they were talking about god is going to bless you in ten days of this whole thing happening and people are jumping up out of their seats. Theyre like turn around three times and say these words are based turning around. Im sitting there in the midst of it bleeding on the inside. Feeling like i was a bleeding and i was about todn lose it. I couldnt believe everyone was so happy, cheering and praising god around me nobody noticed me sitting in the midst of them hurting. So i jumped up out of that seat and ran out of the church. Id will never forget iran out f the Church Someone stopped me my face is wet and tears are just falling from me and i am running out of the church. Someone stopped me there was out the door and she said hey stop, have you signed up for the Marriage Ministry . And ill never forget you still do not see my face is wet and i am running. Iranan out of there, rent out a parking lot was trying to figure out how i could kill myself right there. I was sitting there thinking if i take my car and i go and stop at this point assumes up all the parking lot there is major street. I could die. The thing that stopped me was i put my hands on the steering will too get ready to pull off. There is a flash before me of the faces of my children. Of my children, them a hearing that i was no longer here. And i cannot bear that, so that is what stopped me. That is an incredible, incredible story. Appreciate assuring that. Its something i can definitely relate too. I suffer from mental illness. Your honesty about your Mental Health journey and the fact you admitted it took believing in something bigger like your family basically too hold you,o keep you as part of this earth is tremendously insightful. I appreciate you sharing that. That is so, so honest. I want to pivot a little, talk about growing up in st. Louis. The chapters about your childhood were so relatable to me. I am theis new girl who also grw up in st. Louis in the 80s and 90s. Watching the cosby show and a different world, eating pizza and the types of music you talk about doing a dance routine to poison, which was one of my favorite songs as a kid definitely got me to the dance floor. But i also found really touching and relatable wish her family taught you your history of the black history of our culture and our struggle here in the united states. Can you tell me a little bit about the impact your father had on you and wanting you to know your history . So my dad for me was the strongman. When i was a kid, i looked up to my dad as this cool kind of like just the way he raised desperate not outwardly use not like inht our thing. It was more the way he raised us and what he taught us inside the home. I will never forget my dad worn effort with a part on the side. He would keep his black pic in his head anywhere that everywhere he was not at work. We had pictures of jesse jackson, doctor king, the get great kings and queens of africa on the wall. We had books on black americans and it wasnt the usual folks that you may hear about when we celebrate black history. It was deeper than that. You need to know when temptation is an fred hampton us were not names we are hearing all the time. Time with dad you are watching, no joke eyes on the prize. Roots, documentaries and stories that was our time with him. Butt it meant so much but did t realize it at the time, i wanted to watch mtv, that was the thing at the time. I had other stuff that i wanted to watch. But for him it was note you do not need to look at those things but this is what you need because you we need to fortify you at home because when you go out there is a different world outside. One thing my dad taught me that i will never forget and it has meant meant two things one that mike black was beautiful. We look so much alike my sister is lightskinned i am dark skinned. But my dad never made a difference. You would not k have known the color m differences. My mom was a different shade than all of us. You would notug have known he taught me my dark skin was still beautiful and to never hold my head down for anyone. But also taught me every day before he walked out of our home now i getet it, he would set us down before walked out the door and say responsibility, responsibility, responsibility, responsibility. You are a leader you will not be a follower. But a good leaders know how it knows how to follow then you can walk outside the door he would pray and then you can walk up the door. I love it, i love it, i love it. I do very similar upbringing. I w watch so much of eyes on the prize, my dad had brought him home from work. And he said to me oh my god youre going to turn into a militant. [laughter] the samed thing watching roots, knowing your history of the kings and queens of africa. Turks really . We had the same poster in our house. I also felt the same pressure that you felt to succeed academically and do wellin school. But i want you to talk a little bit about how unpopular that was in the 80s and. 90s in st. Louis as a young black woman. The fact youre a bit more bookish and more on the studious side did not always work in your favor and trying to fit in but. No it did not. It was being cute being able to wear a, the mood color lipgloss and having the latest gasset jeans and polo close and all of that. That was the thing but it did not matter if youre smart or not. People didnt care about that in our age group. It was about the look. But for me i wanted both. I want to look this way because i like it. But i also loved books. I loved school, i love the knowledge and learning for that was my comfortable place. It was like i could relate to the books. I do not know how to best articulate that. I felt like i needed to attain as much knowledge as i could. What are my favorite things was learning vocabulary. It was its own class in Elementary School and i loved it. But it b was not always it ws more like being singled out though. Because in class to be oh cory, answer this. Cory knows that. It started to make me feel like i just want to be like my friends we do not single me out. And it was like i just wanted to be like everybody else. But i still pushed on and excelled because i knew that was expected of me as well from both of my parents. But if you couldnt be also it broke my mommys a call at ms. Papa you could not be the ms. Pop then you are peers would not necessarily see you. Exactly. You talked quite a bit in the book about when you started high school and racialized bullying and hatred you often receive from other students that was just part of school life as opposed to something people felt compelled to actually do anything about. Can you talk a little bit about that . Yes, i was totally unexpected. To this school thinking what i saw before me and Like High School nights we would have students coming from other schools to talk to us about our schools. All of the love and the school pride, that is what i thought i was going to be walking into. Never once did it cross my mind that i would endure something completely different. Especially because most of the racism i had seen in the archivals that i watched and all of that. It wasnt because i was young. So by the time i got to the point to where i was going to high school i just did not think that was something i would see in high school. Because it basically racism its almost like racism was over. Or the part of it that was so over it at least was over. But walking into this school was a completely different thing. I just remembered not understanding what was happening to me when the administrator, talk about in t the book i tooky Entrance Exam just like everyone else. We went into this big auditorium, all the freshman, we took it together. I know when they called me back and said you need to come back and retest i did not understand but i will never forget i walked into the school the day to retest and the administrator of looking up at the administrator i remember he was taller than me. He looked right at me and he said we believe that you cheated. We do not believe you did this well on your own. And sent me back into that same huge auditorium to take it again by myself. And how unnerved he was when i walked back out and they scored it. He said to meet you know that i better. But the way he said you could tell he was a little pissed off. I got to stay number one in my class. We feel isolated didnt just feel discrimination from my peers. I felt it from staff, felt it from administrators. I was a 149 just turned 14. What kid should have to go through that . I definitely agree. You predominately when you talk going to catholic and religious schools in st. Louis. I actually went to Public Schools in st. Louis and had similar experiences. But what you just described was the hardest for me it wasnt teachers did not believe me orf listen to me because i was specifically a young black girl. I would like to hear talk a little bit about how adult choosing to not believe you or question you when you do well on a test. And how that trickles down to her interactions with the Healthcare Industry as a young woman. You talk in the book about ending two pregnancies and the dismissiveness and harshness you receive any medical professionals who worked with you. Talk a little bit about what that does to a young black woman when you are repeatedly not believed and dismissed. I think part of it goes back to as use we are seen or treated as overt sexualized. It starts so early. And then that matriarch and not matriarch in a respectful way necessary we are seeing so early as this grown woman at 14, even at 12, at ten. You are seen as basically a grown woman. And i think that plays this part of i dont have to be soft with you. Ty i write do have to treat you with dignity. I do not have to treat you like you are deserving of peace. I can treat you like you are. Basically i think a lot of it comes down to not knowing, not understanding the core of us. As i got older from that moment id started to really understand things that i had heard in my childhood at school. Wait a minute, i remember feeling this way when the teacher said this. And now i realize what that really was. And years later the whole idea of not being believed. Notr being heard or being tread like you are automatically less than meet your automatic less than us. That was the thing when i was in that Abortion Clinic on the person that was supposed to counsel me instead of her speaking to someone that was in the situation that was really, really tough for her. Instead of looking at that like this is a way for me too help this person to help give them whatever they need in this moment they took it as the moment to knock me down and back me into a corner to test how i was not enough. And how i would never be enough. Because when we are given the opportunity to shine, or when we take by force the opportunity to shine, our brilliance is so amazing people cannot connect and understand like how is that . Especially when you look at black women being the most educated group in this country. And allll of the struggles and hurdles that we have to get past. Wewe have to be three and four times more better and everything we are working on to at least b considered average. And for us to do even greater textbook to who we are. You got to be strong, youve got to be the matriarch for you are the matriarch at ten. But speaking out hopefully will help future generations. I definitely hope so. I hope that when other black women read your memoir here they will feel seen as i felt seen reading it. One of the parts in the earlier chapters really resonated with me was how open you are about the relationships you have had. Learning is earliest when you were in junior high and high school. In those first heartbreaks for those first feelings of not being enough in feeling disrespected. You had a story about your first boyfriend and how you were a cheerleader and you do a special jump whenever hee would score if he was an athlete at your school. Then to find out hes seeing another girl the same time he was seeing you and feeling crushed and internalizing that as i am not enough. Can you talk a little bit of the feeling of i am not enough is repeated over and over and over again often in your relationships . Especially with the long term once you had as awi young woman with the man terrel that would eventually develop into an abusive relationship. Next it is funny because at home myo father made a point in my mother made a point to make sure i knew my brother, my sister, we knew we were enough. Made a point. But that was at home. Once you cross the threshold of your house then it was whatever the streets say. I think that is where it started to be snatcher me bit. Especially in school at that time if you were dark skinned i dont really talk about this in the book but if you are dark skinned like you were the ugly knones. A shout out to my family about that was the thing. If light skin with wavy hair was aan thing. Its called their girls are cute thats who they wanted to be a girlfriends and all about. The dark skinned guys the guys would run up and hit you on your behind. They didnt want to be your boyfriend. They want a life unchecked light skin. All those pieces pulled away selfesteem early so i started to believe that i was not enough. With my very first boyfriend with him doing that to me that happened in a matter of months. It was so fast. There was nothing to combat that. There is nothing to come at the same time the child might note you areha enough. That never happens. It was the next guyen who did te same thing. But where is the piece that a tells us . People dontou talk or 12 years old if got a boyfriend youre 14 got a boyfriend, people try not to talkk about that because youre too young. Telling somebody or two young does not stopp it. Are we putting measures in place for youth to be able talk about their heartbreak . To talk about whats actually happening to them . Totally. Not to beat over the point there were lots of points especially the early chapters of this book were eyes like the she actually has a mirror into my life how do we live such a similar life . You talked about the times the boyfriend you were with five other women pregnant. I was disrespectful. Sc and he didnt show up for you. He did not show up for School Dances and was not a really loving caring boyfriends that you had pictured on the tv shows and the films you had watched like sweet 16, 15 candles and things like that but i relied so much of that because i too had a similar situation happen to me in high school where i was in love with a boy. He never made me his girlfriend and eventually got some other girl pregnant after one of theut college. I was devastated and complete heartbroken. But there is no one to talk about it with because of the fact that when you are that young people do not want to talo about heartbreak and how it actually influences you. The old message you get is a black neural dont ever have. Yes. Dont do it, dont date, dont not talk to a boy. Just dont do it very. Dont bring a baby home for. Exactly, exactly. So i really appreciate your honesty in these chapters. Our special about the abuse youu suffered. I feel like that happens to so many women. Our entire lives abuse and society imposes on us as black women we are told repeatedly we are not worth as much, we are not as a valued we are not as lovely. How have you countered that narrative as an adult in your life . Some of it came from a lot of it came from me finally giving my life to christ and learning just going to church, hearing the word, soaking up into the word comes who i am as a human being. And as a child of god. That helped to give me strength as far as i am a worthy because a brief type of thing. Just starting with that. That healed certain parts of me. Then i had to also contend with but youre still this black woman living in the world and raising a black daughter. I had to then soak myself into some stuff i learned when i was in high school actually. It was a college prep. Its still amazing now theyve got like 40 i think its like 40 black teachers at that school or something likeoo that right now for. Is the school you attended after you left the school for this happen . Yes. Its all black College Preparatory catholic school. But they have this Leadership Class for the Leadership Class you learn so much of your history. Its all about leadership, black excellence. Though i went back to that that i had learned about davis. About so many others. About harriet tubman. I want back to that and was able to see likee myself and them i whole different way. That is helped me over the years. But also i kindd of had to put n the back burner for a while even caring about how i was feeling in my focus turn to keeping my self alive and raising my daughter keeping my daughter safe. I dont like hyper focused on that bird after Michael Brown was killed in ferguson in 2014 i was through movement building. It was learning together that we put so much back into one another. F as were fighting for black lives were fighting for accountability for every Single Person f wantse live the hands of police for refining for thate were fightig for ourselves. I was able to see this is what you need because i understand as a black robe. Because angie brown was a black woman. Because weve got to remember we can get lost in this conversation. You have got to be whole two. Exactly, exactly. This pivots nicely to what i want to talk about next which is about the ferguson uprising. And you talk a little bit about our hometown and how segregated it is with the history st. Louis has with Police Violence . Give people some context as to why it happen the way it did. Often people dont realize the long history of discrimination, racism, segregation and you go into a little bit of that . Yes sure. So, st. Louis city ending up st. Like this is st. Louis city and this is all st. Louis county. Then have the river on the side of us. St. Louis is a made up st. Louis city but st. Louis county has municipalities within it it. Over 98 municipalities somewhere 92 or 93. And many of them have their own government. Many have their own police department. Our member back during the protest went Michael Brown was killed i lived only six minutes from where he was killed. But i travel through threeth municipalities to get to the protest. And that six minute drive if i had a broken tail light or Something Else wrong with my car. If i did something wrong with my windshield that would flag a Police Officer to stop me i could get stopped and each one of this municipalities but that means i could have a ticket h1 if i could pay the might have a warrant in each one. Through the years, us having issues st. Louis having issues with policing is not anything. I know one thing about that is there are two police unions. There is a police union that is majority white i would say then you have a black police union called the Ethical Society of police. Step tellsls you already a lot about what policing looks like in st. Louis. But i grew up thinking that because in my neighborhood for such a a long time my dad was in politics. So the police would come into our home all the time. They came by once a week to drop off a letter to him. And they just knew us in the neighborhood. We grew up with the police knowing who we were. But that was us in this Little Community of 5000 people but once you step outside of that which i did not do a lot of that without my parents at a young age, i did not see a lot. But as i got older and spent more time withou my friends outside of the community that is when i really started to see policing being different because now i have Police Officers that do not know me. But youre still made to feel like if someone is brutalized by thee police it was their fault. They automatically had to be doing something wrong. It was all of them. And then years later i started to see my friends that i knew. I know these folks. I started to seeol them brutalid by the police. They were getting shot at getting stopped all the time sitting on the side of the road. I would see so much and they werent doing anything. Thats whentt it started to shit and he started to wake up just a little bit. So you were also abused by the police during the ferguson protest, during the year. There so many black lives matter spread across the country. After what happened to mike brown in ferguson. If you could just talk a little bit about how that experience personally impacted you. L but also talk about it within the context of st. Louis history. The often racist history against any type of t protest. I help people growing up i never saw anything like what happened in ferguson the entire time i lived in st. Louis as a young woman. And my parents before me had never seen anything like that before. If you could put all that into some context . So, by the time that you didnt happened when i was a fertilizer by the police we had been protesting on august the ninth 2014. This was november 24 when this happened. We had been waiting to find out if the ferguson Police Officer who killed Michael Brown would be indicted. We knew this answer was going to was going to cause wide spread protest or it was going to may be finally give us in the family some type of release and maybe things are starting to change. So be prepared for it. And that night i decided to not just be out there as a protester because i knew thered be so if people from all over the world that would be there that had never experienced teargas before. I had all of my stuff. I had a bookbag, took all types of medical supplies and everything. And a bunch of stuff in the bag. And anyway, i remember just feeling like i need to take care of whoever needs help out there. And when it came time to actually help someone i remember anish i did know it to help them i thought it was an ambush. Bid dealt with that before many times someone would call your name out or lure you into an area and things like what happened. So i just did not think it was real. But helping some and helping the swords in the book but helping this woman about his having a heart attack come her daughter thought she was having a heart attack by the people around her thought she was having a heart attack. As i was standing for this woman trying to help her i just remember not realizing not knowing the police had picked me up and threw me inn the air. Art were saying to the place, yelling at the Police Officer i am a nurse and im trying to help her. I need a paramedic. You are not skilled to help her i think shes having a hearted peck can you get me the paramedics were buying literally right behindd. Them. Iem am looking at the ambulance, would you geti them . I said i am a nurse im trying to help her. Th next thing i knew i saw stars. As how the night sky and stars. And i remember wondering why do i see stars . I did not feel the left. I realized when i started to come back down like the gravity i was like ointment stars oh my god im in the air. And then i started to come back down and i just member the impact of started to the ground coming towardsdo me and there is nothing i but brace for the impact. And then when i hitun the ground meat going from one to the other because i am being kicked by these Police Officers, law enforcement. Then they teargas us while i was still on the ground i believe lisas surname. She had to be right there on the ground next to me. It was but the fact i told that story after words, i was most often told you should not have been there. You should not have been there, that was your fault with the stuff i heard out on the ground, you are a terrorist, go get a job. All of those things. We wouldwo talk to the police ot there on that front lawn we would talk to the police and say hey why wont you listen to us . Moment to do anything . Why are you standing for help protester brutalized out here . What were hearing is its a job and i do not want to lose my job for this is how i take care of my family and iow have to keep y head low. The fact we heard from officers that it is because who is the higher up. Not that i agree i with this tht is part of that history that we have in st. Louis. The leadership. That is the training it teaches you to keep your mouth closed if you want to keep this job. Ask exactly, exactly. And so one of things i was struck by in hearing your story youve been a victim of Police Violence pretty been a victim of Domestic Violence but you are a victim of assault pretty dealt with so much insurmountable very debilitating racism towards you. You have done medical racism. In your car at one point being under housed. I thought what more perfect person to run for congress. She has experienced everything. Its about Howard Government often fails us. Yet when you decided you want to run for for the senate good pushback from other protesters and the organizers in the community can you talk a little bit about, that . It came out of left field for me just as it did for them for i know theres probably tough for them because we had been angry a local politician saying why arent you out there with us . Why arent you out here . Though for them, for me too run i know it seemed to some of them like you are just trying to become one of them now. You just want to become some celebrity. And so it was hard for me. And let you all know me pretty note my character is pretty you know who i am why would you think i would try to become something other than somebodys actually trying to change his community . Though it was tough. At first run we did not have a lot but there were a few that supported us. And work with us but for the most part many were not. I even had some come to me and say i cannot believe youre doing this but we dont do politics. Tough. S but, when people started to see how much and only me but there were two other activists who ran who were from the ferguson up rising. And also aldrich later took over seat. Dress is seeing we held to our values free to be held to the reasons why we ran. And we were able to at least affect change locally. And even for me some ice on National Scale because of Bernie Sanders did open up some doors for me. People were able to seat wait a minute you are right. People who wrote were right these bills cannot come from your community. They can be like you and me and support the things that advocate the things the Community Wants and needs. So that started to turn the tide. An it made sense. You know, you talk in the book about fathers past political ties and how in his how active he was in the community and the impact that had on you. And so to me, it was like when you started talking about both starting your own ministry in the book and then later getting involved in the protests movement out of ferguson like this. Just seemed like a natural extension of your efforts to try to make the world a better place, not just for saint louis as a whole. Yeah, but for women and girls like you who look like you had similar experiences to you of your own, but you wanted to basically represent the people. So that really struck me. But you were up against quite the machine since as we have already discussed, were both saint louis and youre actually my fathers representative. Oh, my god, yes, i bet so you were up you were up against sam lacy clay the son of bill clay who was the representative for a long time one of the founding members c of the congressional black caucus. Can you talk about m the machine you had to go up against as a grassroots organizer . Yeah, so it was first of all, i had no desire to run for office again. I was still recovering and still in treatment after the Sexual Assault, so the Sexual Assault happened january 6th lord thats a whole other situation that happened. September 6th, 2014. Ass for the next four months i was in deep therapy. I hadnt gone back to work because i couldnt work yet. I was struggling just to be well at that time and that of january when i decided okay we cantwo give you any more time youre going to have to come back to work i was trying to figure it all out then a few people from the Community Came to me and said we really want you to run for this seat. I was like why. Im still trying to get well but i realizedd that all that i had gone through with my rape kit sitting on the shelf for severao months, with me not getting any kind of justice or any kind of accountability i couldnt even d get an order of protection againstth somebody that assaultd me so thinking about that and how many others go through this hoand have no advocate how do we highlight those things and get help for the victims, what can i do and that is one of those things like have i accomplished the goal. If something happens to them well i then say you could have done more. So i said you know what, im just going to go. Im going to run and i will continue to get help as im running but what people would say as i started saying and running, first thing i knew my dads connection to the family. My dad worked for both and had run on their campaigns. I worked on the campaigns as a kid, not the father, but the sun so i knew the connections my dad had talked about in the book so there is a Family Connection that pictures us together. I knew that may be an issue for my dad, but i knew what i had to do. I knew i had to do this, make this run. About what people would say bifirst of all the thing that kt being tossed at me was your a black woman why are you going to runos against a black man. Youre supposed to be supporting him not running against him. Wheres the support for regular everyday people like me, why was mymy life about always strugglig like who fights for us . I cant afford to take care of my kids without taking out a loan all the time and childcare is expensive for me to go to work and just pay for child care. So who speaks for us. People were like you cant, youre a black woman you cant do this. One of the things also people talked about his dad broke this Glass Ceiling and was the first black congressman in the district in the st. Louis area so why would you mess up the legacy like you should be standing up for the legacy. We have to be people over legacy so that was a big thing so it took that first run for me to see this wasnt about a black woman running against a black man. It was nothing to do with that it was just me running for adults that felt neglected and underrepresented to finally have the representation. But there was a lot of money i wasnt able to raise, it was money and the machine of everybody in place whether its politicians,le business leaders, alll these folks still like even if i like you im not going to go against the machine because it will hurt me if you dont when. Speaking of the machine, when you were talking about this it made me think about how in your book you talk about how you and other protesters were treated by establishment types, more prominent organizers basically came in and told you guys you were not doing things the right way and i imagine you go to some of the feedback on the campaign trail when you are running against William Macy Clay because you are someone of the community and grassroots and you have experienced a lot of the things your constituents are concerned t about so tell me wht it was like trying to counter this narrative that protesters are disorganized and not fit to be leaders. We heard that is so much, you are a Leaderless Movement and it always made me every time i heard that it would take me back to the bible if you take out the king or like looking at david and goliath, if there is only one thats what caused the whole movement to fall apart but for us we had a leader for movement because we all have a something that was our thing and we brought those things together if we had this full movement and it kept going so that was the amazing thing about what we were able to do so it was more than a 400 days of constant protests so if we didnt do everything the way people thought we should do about all so i ask people where is the playbook, wheres the instruction manual because you know all the things why didnt you let us know, many of us had been to the boycott just things locally in the community we had gone to some of those so we had been a part of that but this was something different. This was our own like it happened to somebody during our time bodies lay on the ground uncovered for almost four and a half hours in our communities and to tell us this is how we should behave but what was also said was some folks felt like youre telling us how to behave and what we should do but i dont know you. Ive never met you. Why werent you in the community with us before. Now youre coming out making yourself to be this big person when weve never met you before. You are no greater than i am. Exactly. T well, i truly believe you have demonstrated that the true qualities are for a leader that is so many other activists that were involved in the protest movement out of ferguson show you had a movement that was quite beautiful and was amazing that you took that experience and managed to create something out of it by representing your district so i want to thank you for this book and the great conversationea today that i hope was illuminating for those listening. Thank you so much