Minority enterprise across the country. It is educational, it will inform my work going toward and im grateful for it. Im delighted to be in the city, a traili lightfoot, blazer and inspiration and congratulate her on joining the community of u. S. Mayors. [applause] im honored to be in the presence with James Clyburn who has a kind of biblical favor on him, because at the fish fry he hosted they did not run out of , fish even after feeding literally thousands of Democratic Candidates for president , so congratulations to you. [applause] if you leave this hotel and pick up lake shore drive and take you down Stoney Island to the skyway and across onto the indiana toll road after , about an hour and a half you will come to my hometown, south bend. Our mid western city in between the factories and the fields on the bend of the st. Joe river. Diverse from day one, south bend saw an industrial hay day that lasted into the 1960s and then , like so many cities to have like so many cities of the socalled rust belt we experienced a crushing decline as the auto factories left. By 2011, the year i ran for mayor the National Press said , that we were one of americas 10 dying cities. I ran for mayor saying that the old economy would not come back, but we would if we had the courage to reimagine our future and i am proud to report to you that now south bend is back, our city is growing, more people moving in than we have seen in a generation, thousands of new jobs, billions in investment, we are a good city, a proud city and a growing city. We are also a city that has known its measure of pain , especially recently as was mentioned 2 weeks ago a member of our Community Man named eric logan, black man lost his life at the hands of another member of our community, a white police officer. Our citys hurt has gone even beyond the grief of the family that lost one of their own even as we wait for outside investigators to deliver their judgment on what took place, we have a pain now that reminds us that our community lives around a chasm. A racial gulf in which black residents and white residents experience every facet of life differently. At a time like this, i might point to all of the hard work we have done over 7 years over things like Police Professionalism and accountability, things from bias and deescalation to changing our approach to officer recruitment, training and promotion but events compel me to acknowledge that whatever weve done has not been nearly enough. As long as a traffic stop is a completely different experience for a black driver than it is for a white driver, we know we have not done nearly enough. We know that as long as Police Departments and this is true of my own do not reflect the community they serve and their in their makeup, we have not done enough. We had an emotional town hall meeting and one woman told me that her 7yearold grandson has already learned to fear the police. She said thats not whats supposed to happen in america or in indiana or anywhere in 2019. And shes right. We accept responsibility. I accept responsibility for the work that is left to be done. So, in the wake of that tragedy, we have been redoubling our partnerships with community and civil rights leaders, tearing down walls of mistrust, reassessing policing and oversight, redesigning training, reimagining recruiting, and transforming relationships. We are underway on that right now. I believe in our plan and i believe in my city and i believe we will come together to struggle and repair, and come out stronger in the broken laces. [applause] this will be a painful process, not only for black residents who feel left behind and lied to far too many times, but for Law Enforcement community that is going to have to face some hard truths. Recently, i warned newly sworn in Police Officers that their work takes place in the shadow of systemic racism, and the union felt it was disparaging. I intended no disparagement. My point is that every police officer, every citizen, and every mayor lives within this shadow, which means everyone has to be part of the solution. When a white elected official or politician is confronted with racial concerns, pundits often go right to the political terms, and we see articles about white politician, black problems. I am asked how im going to earn the black vote in the polls 10 times more often than i am asked how my policies will actually benefit black americans. Its as if i am being asked how more the how to deserve to win. That is our focus. [applause] this is deeper than politics. This is not just a political problem and it is not just a Police Problem and it is not just my problem or my citys problem. It is not just a black problem. It is an american problem and it requires nationwide american solutions. [applause] i am running for president as mayor of an american city, admittedly, not a traditional move, but im doing that because we need National Politics to rediscover its local basis. To recognize that the toughest local issues both cause and reflect our most Urgent National needs. We are living in shadows cost cast throughout time and through the country. Policing is only part of the story. Yes, the uniform is burdened by racism, but it goes far beyond that. Our Health Care System is burdened by racism. Black women are dying three times as often from maternal complications as white women. As we just heard here in , chicago, there is an an enormous disparity in life expensive Life Expectancy from one neighborhood to another. Housing is burdened by racism, the result of intentional policies local and national that segregated neighborhoods by race, and when they could no longer be enforced by law, they were enforced by bureaucracy and by intimidation. Our schools are burdened by racism, not just through the history that led to brown versus board, but in the fact that in the years since, our schools remain segregated. All American Life takes place under these shadows. Not as a distant artifact, but as a burning reality that hurts everyone it touches. If we do not tackle the problems of racial inequality in my lifetime, i am convinced it will upend the american project in my lifetime. It brought our country to its knees once, and it could again. I believe this is not only a matter of justice but a matter of national survival. For some time, most of the policy debate around race has taken place under the polite assumption that if we simply delete racist policies and replace them with neutral policies, inequality will sort of work its way out of the system and take care of itself. It doesnt work that way, does it . Left without remedy, an injustice does not heal. It compounds. Since this is a business audience, i am going to take the liberty of discussing math and compound interest. Everyone here knows Business Leaders know that a dollar today, if we assume 5 interest, will double into two dollars and in less than 20 years. By the same law of compounding, after 50 years, one dollar is 10. After 100 years, its more than 100, and after 150 years, its more than 1000. That one dollar, by the magic of compound interest. This is true of the value over time of the dollar saved. That means its also true of the value over time of a dollar stolen. Every dollar plundered 150 years ago costs the descendents of the victims 1000 today. Each year we do not act, the bills grow larger and the costs cut deeper. Contrary to what some are saying in politics, what this means is the fact that some, and only some, but the fact that some of this theft came a very long time ago doesnt make it better, it makes it worse. The policies that created these inequities were put in place intentionally. That means its going to take intentional action to reverse those harms, bold and meaningful action that addresses not only the question of safety, but the question of prosperity. Knowing the two cannot be separated one from another. I agree with reverend jackson when he said Police Reforms can only be meaningful if they happen in the context of a comprehensive policy. Its also why i believe we need to invest in the future of black america with a plan as ambitious as the Marshall Plan to rebuild europe after world war ii. We could call it the douglas plan. The values that motivate my campaign, freedom, security, democracy, these values will not be real for any of us until they are realized for all of us. Its going to take extra effort, applying our deepest values and our biggest ideas to drive out the darkness. And it is, candidly, particularly important that we hear this from any candidate who runs for office with the benefit and privileges of whiteness on his or her side. Lets talk about freedom in its truest sense. I want this to be the election when we finally break the spell that has many believing that freedom is a conservative value. Freedom is an American Value. With progressive implications. Because freedom entails having access to health care. You are not free if you cannot start that Small Business because you are afraid that leaving your own job would mean losing your health care. You are not free as a woman if your reproductive rights are being dictated by male politicians. [applause] you are not free if you are not well educated, which is why the next president needs to appoint a secretary of education who believes in public education. [applause] free unlesst everyone who seeks to go to college can afford to go to college and everyone who doesnt go to college can still afford to make a good living, which is why we need to raise the minimum wage. And of course we are not free if not everyone experiences justice from our justice system. No one is free if any among us are urgently policed and locked up. If an american can be released from incarceration only to find himself confined in a paperwork checkbox that boxes you out of housing and employment, all of us are worse off. I believe we can and must achieve a 50 reduction in incarceration in this country without an increase in crime. [applause] we can do it by legalizing marijuana and eliminating incarceration for simple drug possession. We can do it by abolishing private federal prisons and putting an end to petty fines and fees that criminalize property. You should not be locked up for being poor and no one should become rich by locking poor people up. [applause] so, lets invest in rehabilitation and reentry, ensuring that incarcerated americans have Quality Health care and grants to access education, that they can access housing upon release so they can get back on their feet. That is an investment not only in them, but in all of us. All of us would be better off. [applause] and yes, we will do everything in our power to ensure that police are professional and accountable, with a Civil Rights Division at the department of justice that is reinvigorated and empowered in civil rights. This is part of what 21stcentury freedom must look like. But its also a question of economic freedom, not just freedom from, but freedom to. As important as criminal Justice Reform is, we have to outgrow a policy debate that sometimes reduces the black experience in our country to encounters with the justice system. For every mention of black victimization in the justice system, we should be speaking of black empowerment through education and entrepreneurship, like people work on here everyday. For every discussion of black problems, there should be just as much discussion of black solutions. [applause] the communityre gathered here comes in. Those gathered here know that Economic Empowerment requires everything from a good start in life to widespread policy support for minority owned businesses. I was taking notes about some of the different ways that that support does not always come true in our present reality. In south bend, that is why we have been investing in a new generation of entrepreneurs. We started early with digital literacy, access to technology, free wifi in community centers. It is why we have expanded quality for Early Childhood care lifted up Young Leaders tackling , serious issues on our youth task force. We elevated the role of minority owned businesses in driving Wealth Creation and established incubators in historically black neighborhoods. We invested in infrastructure, trained women and minority contractors. We ordered a disparity study in our citys purchasing from minority owned businesses because we know the numbers are not as good as we would like and we cannot reach ambitious targets until we face the truth, make a plan, and make good on our plan. We are committed to using the citys economic influence and taking a clear eyed look at how we can drive wealth generation. We have not solved our issues overnight, but we are taking concrete action and making real movement. I want to bring that same sense of concrete action the federal level. That is why i am proposing that the United States triple the number of entrepreneurs from underserved areas, particularly those of color, within 10 years. This would create over 3 million jobs and 660 billion in new wealth in black communities around our country. I also propose we set up a federal fund. We know it can be done because there are programs in states like maryland that did this to coinvest in entrepreneurs of color, particularly in low income communities. We heard this morning about the ways access to capital are a barrier for what would be viable minority enterprises. Lets reform credit scoring, increase access to credit and support longterm growth. If we do that we can increase , Small Businesses in black communities by 50 . [applause] and we know that the federal government could do better when it comes to its own contracting, which is why we will set a target of awarding 25 of federal business to minority and women owned firms. [applause] freedom is more than freedom from. It is freedom to, and security is more than the kinds of things i dealt with in uniform in the military. It is economic security. That is part of National Security. Security is like freedom, one of those things conservatives talk about like they own it, but in the 21st century, Real Security is going to take a little more imagination than just putting up a wall from coast to coast. We have to talk about cybersecurity and election security, especially when hostile foreign actors are using Racial Division as a National Security vulnerability. It means if we are serious about security, we will name and confront a rising tide of violent White Nationalism taking lives at home and abroad. [applause] it means naming climate disruption as the National Security challenge that it is. One whose impact disproportionately falls on low income communities and communities of color. National security means ensuring that the Second Amendment cannot become a death sentence in suburban schools or on the streets of our cities because washington cannot deliver commonsense gun reform that the American People want. [applause] i am determined that we break the spell that has people believing security as a conservative value, that freedom is a conservative value, and while we are at it, its time to remind america that god does not belong to any political party. [applause] if we really want to walk in the way our faith tradition teaches us, we might want to pay more attention to the command of scripture that says i was hungry and you fed me, i was a prisoner and you visited me. I needed clothes and you clothed me. That should be our northstar whether you are religious or , not. [applause] now for any of these issues to be tackled, we have to Pay Attention to one more American Value that gets talked about a lot but is not always made good on, and that is democracy. Are we a democracy . Are we democratic enough . I dont think we are a democracy if some people are systematically restricted from voting because one party has decided they will be better off if fewer people vote. When a state like North Carolina targeted black voters with what one court described as surgical precision. We need to make it easier, not harder, to vote. That means reforms like automatic voter registration, expanding voting by mail, and simple things like making election day a national holiday. For the 6 million americans denied a voice because of a felony conviction, lets welcome them back into society and restore their vote, without fees, hoops, or what they are doing in florida which amounts to a modern day poll tax. We need to reform a Supreme Court that is looking more and more political by the day. We need reform at a time where districts are drawn so that politicians choose their voters rather than the other way around. I would argue, in the worlds greatest mocker see, if we wish to be worthy of the name we , might just want to start picking our nations leader by counting up all the votes and giving it to the person who got the most. [applause] your vote in illinois and my vote in indiana would count more if we did this. So, we know we have a long way to go. In my community and in our country. To understand the ways in which the political abstractions hash cash out in our everyday lives, to recognize that not only is politics local, it is personal for all of us in different ways. In 1963, on the anniversary of the emancipation proclamation, James Baldwin wrote to his nephew that america was celebrating 100 years of freedom 100 years too soon. I was rereading baldwi