Cofounder of the black voter matters organization, and shes here with us today to talk about the black voter and the 2020 elections. Louisiana dash shah latasha, good morning. Guest thank you for having me. Vo host first, tell us what the black Voters Matter Fund is. Guest the organization started in 2016 because we wanted to shift the dynamics around how we were hearing the National Media talk about black voters. More importantly, we wanted to build more power in our communities so we could have more influence on policies impacting us. So we started the back Voters Matter Fund because what we felt is that in order to really have a robust democracy, you have to have an edge gauged electorate. And engaged electorate. And we would do work to engage voters on the ground level, on the local level so that they should shape policies and representation for their communities. Host so wt did your organizing approach look like this year . What didin you do out on t ground to get mor black voters
About her new book the great secret the classified world war ii disaster that launched the war on cancer. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. I also want to thank the museum for inviting me to be with you tonight, alas its virtually but i will do my best. It is my first soon presentation so bear with me everyone. Ive had a lot of coffee and im thinking about now i shouldve had a lot of wind, but anyway here we go. Im going to start us off with a quote from winston churchill. He had a way with words. He once observed, may occasionally stumble across the truth, but most of them picked themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened. Lieutenant colonel stuart alexander, the remarkable hero of my book, did not hurry off. In fact, he refuse to leave the scene of the military disaster even when churchill himself warned him to. He stayed, he paid attention, he investigated, and as a result he recognized the never before seen symptoms in a group of dying sailors that might have lifesaving
So delighted to be with a retreat for artists on a 400acre estate in new york by providing an opportunity for artists in a supportive environment and its a huge part of the local Cultural Community and worldwide through Cultural Community. For those of you who dont know this the fall benefit is coming up next week so theres a link in the chat box so you can find out more about that. Tonight our guest author is going to be interviewed by Garrett Graff a distinguished magazine journalist and bestselling historian covering politics and is a contributor to wired and the author of multiple books including the Number One National bestseller the only plane in the sky and oral history of 9 11 as well as inside Robert Muellers fbi about the governments cold war escape plan. Hes at memorably did a great interview in february in the manchester when we could do things like that are hopefully will do that again. Im so pleased to welcome tim weiner into the virtual setting. He has got events in verm
Have seen it coming. In theory i would like to start with what was my personal favorite moment in the book which is the first meeting between donald trump and steve bannon who would become a very influential political strategist in his world where he explains to trump that if hes thinking about running for president , he cannot do as a traditional republican. Can you describe the scene. Sure, thanks for having me, i was fascinated buy the book, it made no sense by this, one of the reasons you have to remember donald trump did not, as a bolt out of the blue, he had been speaking for years for running for president but he was not quite sure how he would really have an identity, sometimes he was a democrat, sometimes he was a republican, he flirted with the idea of running in ross perots at one point but in 2012 he was getting serious about it and david bossi, a conservative activist a hardline conservative activist was a friend of Donald Trumps and he decided to talk to him about running
We were hearing the National Media talk about black folks. Vote but more importantly we wanted to build power in our community so we could have impact on policies that were impacting us. So we started black voters find and black in order to have a really robust democracy you have to do work to engage voters on the ground level, on the local level so that they could chip the policies, and take a chip representation for the communities. Why did your organizing approach look like this year . With did you do at on the ground to get more black voters to not only register, but the show up and vote. A couple of things. When we did start this, year we started into thousand 16 and we never stopped. One of our things is cant, stop wont stop. Oftentimes in the black community you often see people come around election time, right, and its not like if a friend who only close when they want something, you never excited to see them. But for us the way that we felt we would build power is that we woul