Humorseobia la media con la conición, la visiones, la conocía, la convención, la conocía de la visita de la Well, we're not going to be able to do that.

I am Reverend Dr.

Jacqueline Thompson.

I'm the senior pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church, and it is my honor, my privilege, but moreover, my moral responsibility to stand before you this morning.

We gather here this morning, not out of fear, but in faith, faith in one another, faith in our community, and faith in the values that make Oakland the resilient, compassionate, I will add justice loving city that many of us have come to know and love.

And so in these times of uncertainty, we don't turn away from our neighbors.

This is who we are, and this is who we have always been.

And it must be made clear that this is who we will continue to be.

Today you will hear from leaders all across every sector of our community, from city hall to our classrooms, from labor unions to our legal advocates, from business to community, and of course, from the faith community as well.

All of those who stand on the front lines doing work on behalf of protecting our residents.

Each voice you will hear today represents thousands more standing in solidarity.

So we are unwavering in our commitment to send a clear message.

And now, of course, it is my pleasure to introduce a leader who needs no introduction, but we are blessed because she has dedicated her life to fighting for justice and equality and dignity for every person.

Please help me welcome the honorable mayor of Oakland, Barbara Lee.

Thank you so much, Pastor Jackie, my pastor, and I want to thank first our Allen Temple Baptist Church family for once again bringing us together and helping us navigate this very serious moment here in our community.

And I want to thank everyone here, our local, county, state partners, community leaders, our neighbors, everyone who continued to stand up for Oakland's immigrant rights.

And I think Pastor Jackie framed this message exactly what we're here about today.

And I want to thank the press for being here also and for listening and covering the fact that we're united front, first of all, elected officials, faith leaders, community partners, all of us delivering action over anxiety, and protection over fear, as our democracy faces new tests.

Now, recent uh news reports, and I think you all have seen that uh in San Francisco, Mayor Lurie received a call from Donald Trump indicating that uh San Francisco is no longer on his list.

That does not mean we are not prepared, we have no idea.

This is very fluid, and so there's no information we can bring to you today to bring you up to date on what plans they have in place, but we are moving forward with our plans and we are prepared.

Uh, the federal administration, of course, has escalated its rhetoric and its enforcement posture in the Bay Area.

We know that border patrol agents are being stationed on Coast Guard Island.

But let me be clear.

Our city, as I said, we are fully prepared.

We're monitoring developments closely and will keep our residents informed if there are any confirmed changes.

Oakland is and will continue to be a welcoming city for our immigrants and our refugees, and our laws and values reflect that.

The Oakland Police Department does not and will not assist with immigration and customs enforcement.

That policy stands firm, and our assistant chief will outline exactly how we are upholding it under tremendous pressure.

Oakland police officers, of course, will protect Oaklanders' First Amendment's rights.

However, we are a city which has always been a peaceful city, and we want to make sure that we don't take the bait and that violent behavior toward anyone, police officers, people, individuals-that's not tolerated in Oakland.

We stand with our immigrant community and with our neighbors no matter your status, and we are coordinating with our local and regional partners to provide support and legal resources.

These federal actions are not about public safety as they try to uh pretend that's what they're doing.

Uh, their political stunts designed to divide and to intimidate.

Oakland will not take the bait.

We will remain calm, focused, and united.

And we all know that crime is down.

Oakland is rebuilding, rising, and on the move.

We will not allow outsiders to create chaos or exploit our city.

Peaceful protest is the cornerstone of who we are.

We will support and protect residents' right, First Amendment rights to speak, to march, and to organize peacefully and safely.

We ask everyone to stay calm, stay informed, and stand together.

Do not let ICE or anyone else provoke disorder in our community.

We know that this moment is painful and triggering for many families.

The trauma is real, but we are responding not with fear, but with collaboration, courage, and care.

So together with our partners, of course, uh last month we launched the Stand Together Bay Area Fund to support families impacted by aggressive immigration enforcement.

In Oakland, we will show strength through our compassion through our justice framework and lens and through equity.

So the progress, of course, in Oakland is ongoing and it belongs to us, our city, not to outside forces.

We will protect it and we will protect one another.

We will not let anyone bring or wreak havoc or turmoil in our city.

Whose motto, and I hope you remember this during this period.

Our motto is love life.

So thank you again, Pastor Jackie.

Thank you, mayor, as always, for your steadfast leadership and for your unwavering commitment to the values we have as a sanctuary city.

And so we know that protection under the law and justice are cornerstones of this community.

And so I want you to welcome at this time our district attorney who's going to come and share how that office stands with Oakland residents.

Help me welcome Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dixon.

So good morning.

You know, I had I was blessed last night to have a conversation with Mira Lee.

And I had to remind myself and her that we know the playbook.

There's nothing new under the sun.

We know that they're baiting Oakland.

And that's why San Francisco all of a sudden is off the table.

So I'm not going to be quiet about what we know is coming.

We know that their expectation is that Oakland is going to do something to cause them to make us the example.

That's not what we're doing.

So the reason I wanted to come here today is that I can tell you what the DA's office can and cannot do.

The one thing I cannot do, and law enforcement really cannot do is stand in the way of a legal warrant.

And nobody I don't think expects us to.

But we we can't violate the law in that way, but we don't assist ICE.

The DA's office does not do that.

In a public space, we can't stop people from coming in, but they cannot come into the DA space.

I think we are oftentimes considering the fact that there are people who are allegedly charged with a crime who they are looking for, ICE, federal agents.

Our victims, our witnesses fall under that category as well.

And we're being hit pretty hard because people don't feel safe coming into court to testify.

It's our job to make them know that we protect their rights no matter what their immigration status is.

I don't need to know what your immigration status is.

What I need to know is that, what I need them to know, I should say, is that we have their back.

So I'm explaining to you all that my hope for all of us is that we don't take the bait on this one.

I'm hoping that there is not the pitting of county and state law enforcement against federal law enforcement.

That's how I see this picture.

But we can't have it.

So we know that peaceful protest is what that's the foundation we stand on.

That's why I stand here now.

I'm the queen of a protest at the University of California at Berkeley, so don't check my record.

So my point is we want to support that, but we also want to encourage people to not engage federal law enforcement.

They want to make an example, and they specifically want it for this city, and that is clear based upon what I heard from San Francisco this morning.

The other thing that I wanted to make sure that you know is that as we meet we move forward in supporting victims of crime as well as people who are charged with crimes, we need to be really honest with ourselves about the fact that these are complicated times.

Things are moving very quickly.

So if you get something from us, and then two hours later you get something different.

Don't think we're moving funny.

We just want you to know information as it comes up because everything's new right now.

Everything's new.

I want to leave this meeting to go to another meeting so that I can speak radio, whatever.

We need as much press as possible so that people know that we stand united in the city of Oakland and the county of Alameda.

So I'm not stepping out on you.

I'm going right over to KQED to do this all over again.

But I want you to know that the DA's office stands with everybody.

We protect everybody's rights and we seek justice on behalf of everyone, no matter their immigration status, that won't change.

So I'm asking you all, please today do whatever you can peacefully, calmly, proactively to make sure that you stand in the gap for people who can't stand for themselves today.

I just want to thank all of the electeds and everybody, labor, everybody who's here.

This is the way we should be doing this every day, standing together.

So thank you, Mayor.

Thank you all.

We thank District Attorney Dixon for her commitment to justice and protecting all of our residents.

And so we know all too well in Oakland that in moments like these, it is critical that we underlie the trust that is needed between the community and the Oakland Police Department.

And so we are glad that the Oakland Police Department is here to share with us their plans and how they intend to help keep community residents safe.

And so Assistant Chief Beer is coming at this time to share with us their commitment to serving all who are protected under the law.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm assistant chief James Beer.

First of all, I want to make it totally clear that the Oakland Police Department does not participate, assist, or enforce civil immigration matters.

Our officers will not ask for anyone's immigration status.

We will not share personal information about our residents with federal authorities related to immigration.

The Oakland Police Department has no authority to oppose or prevent federal authorities to conduct immigration investigations within our city of Oakland.

However, the Oakland Police Department, our police officers, are always clearly identifiable by our official police uniform.

And or we will provide our law enforcement credentials.

I want to make it clear if anyone attempts to enter your house or detain you and they are not in uniform or they do not show official credentials.

Please call 1911 immediately.

Again, I'd like to thank the mayor and her team, everybody here behind us, and we'll stay united to make sure we keep our community safe.

Thank you.

Thank you, Assistant Chief Beer.

We know that we can also help the Oakland Police Department by making sure we are keeping one another safe.

One of the ways that we can do that is to make sure you are sharing this information with those in your community, with your families, and with those that you love.

So we can make sure this message gets out to all those who need to hear it.

One of the questions that I've been asked and the concerns that have been raised has been around our children and how they will react in this moment.

And so we are grateful to have with us Superintendent Denise Sadler, who is going to come at this time and share with us how they intend to help our children continue to feel safe, our teachers feel safe in the environments where they learn, and moreover, to give parents and family the comfort that they need.

So help me welcome at this time Superintendent Denise Sadler.

I'd like to have my board members join me, stand with me.

Today I want to reaffirm what Oakland has long stood for: our unwavering commitment to be a sanctuary district and a sanctuary city.

We stand proudly with our students, our families, and neighbors, no matter where they come from or what language they speak.

Let's be clear.

We do not need outside troops or agents coming into our city to intimidate, bully, or separate our families.

Oakland has never been a place where fear rules.

We do not tolerate the kidnapping of children or the tearing apart of communities.

In Oakland, we take care of our own.

We educate, we nurture, and we protect.

Our schools are places of safety, belonging, and hope, not fear.

Every child who walks through our doors deserves to learn, to dream, and to thrive without the shadow of harassment or discrimination.

To our families, I want them to know you are seen, you are valued, and you are part of this community.

To our staff, I want to thank them for standing firm in our mission to serve the whole child.

And to everyone who believes in justice and humanity, we must, as our Mayor Barbara Lee has stated so perfectly, we must move forward together.

Oakland will always be a sanctuary.

We all understand what our children need.

We all understand and value our children, our families, and our shared future.

Thank you, and I want to ask my board member to speak with them.

Thank you.

I think what you see behind us is really the power of the city and the power of effective leadership.

Mayor Barbara Lee has brought together NGOs, child care workers, our physicians, our faith leaders, our local and county and regional and state elected to come together in one voice to say that we support the residents of Oakland, one voice.

And so I want to be clear just quickly about a couple of things.

This infrastructure that you see behind you, from fire to our sworn officers, to our community health outreach workers, to our mental health specialists.

They are working day in and day out to create a safer Oakland.

And from a federal perspective, I believe wholeheartedly that Oakland is far beyond what folks understand and know about our city.

This is a beautiful city full of opportunity and full of strategic thinkers.

In this moment of fear and speaking to folks in our community, I want you to know what my job is.

My job one is to go to work.

Unfortunately, unfortunately, as we speak right now in the dome, in the Capitol, the doors of the House floor are closed.

For over four weeks, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has closed all business of the United States Congress.

So a majority of that four weeks, I, along with Democratic colleagues, have been inside of that dome, ready and willing to negotiate to open this government back up, but they refuse to come to the table.

So I get to be here in my town, Oakland, California.

While in the middle of a government shutdown, I want to be clear that what is being threatened by the administration is not about public safety.

Not for one minute.

If it were, the president of the United States would have been in long-term conversations with the leaders of our great cities in the East Bay.

Members of the Oakland community, I want you to know that our job collectively here today is to do a few things.

We will work to protect every single member of this community, every single law-abiding member of this community.

We will protect children, we will protect our elders, we will protect our officers, we will protect our protesters who come into a city to lift the voices of humanity.

We're clear about that.

We will also make sure that information that you deserve and that you need is consistent and ongoing.

Be on the lookout for what's coming out of the mayor's office, my office, and other members of our elected family, your faith communities, your pastors, your imams, your temples.

They will all have information about your rights.

So I want to make sure you know that we are collected, we are collaborating, and we want to let you know that we're here to support you.

And I want you to know that I am, I am outraged at an administration that would rather terrorize communities than fix a broken immigration system.

We will moreover together and collectively stand by our beliefs that terror and that violence inflicted by the Trump administration upon this community are unwanted, unwarranted, and illegal.

We come in peace, and even as we protest today, there will be members of our community who will lift their voices.

They know as we know.

We don't need violence.

We need the mirror of the truth.

And the truth is that we keep us safe.

We in Oakland keep us safe.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Congresswoman Latifa Simon, and for your commitment to be consistent and making sure we get accurate information for protecting us in all of our iterations and moreover for committing to use your voice on behalf of justice.

And so coming from the state, from our state capital, representing us with courage and conviction always.

We are grateful to have with us Senator Jesse Arragan, who's gonna come at this time and share with us.

Well, thank you, Pastor Thompson.

I'm State Senator Jesse Edigan.

I'm proud to represent Oakland and a resident of Oakland.

I'm joining my colleague State Senator Aisha Wahab, who represents Southern Alameda County.

We're here united to say that the East Bay and the State Senate stands united with the East Bay community at this difficult time.

That we stand for the right for peaceful protests and we stand to say that ICE and federal troops have no presence in our communities.

The state of California has been preparing for this moment for the past several months.

You know, one of the first actions we took this year was to allocate uh millions of dollars of funding for legal defense and to allow our attorney general to be able to take legal action against the Trump administration.

To date, over 40 lawsuits have been filed by the state of California against the Trump administration, and the state is ready to submit another lawsuit if Trump attempts to deploy the military here against our own citizens.

We've also passed a series of laws saying that secret police, mass agents have no presence in our communities, that law enforcement needs to do their operations with full transparency and accountability.

We've passed laws to protect our schools and protect our health care spaces, and we're here to say that the state of California stands with you.

We saw what happened in Los Angeles and what Trump is trying to do in other cities.

Now he wants to do that here in our own home here in the East Bay.

We will not allow it.

We call on the community to not fall into Trump's trap.

He relishes at the opportunity to be a wannabe dictator, and he wants to sow chaos as an excuse to send in the military to Oakland Streets.

To your residents, we stand by your right to peacefully protest, and we call on you to peacefully protest.

Our nation was born from the ideals of standing up to authoritarianism, and it's our obligation to continue that legacy today.

Thank you.

I'm State Senator Aisha Wahhab.

I wanted to specifically state again, thank you, thank you to Mayor Lee, as well as every single freedom fighter here in the Bay Area.

This is what it is freedom fighting.

And I want to highlight the topics that weren't talked about.

We've we mentioned the federal shutdown.

The fact that IOUs don't pay grocery bills, the fact that people are struggling already, the fact that we know that the administration wants to hide and shy away from the Epstein files.

We also, I personally would like to call upon all of the Republicans, all of the independent voters and the fiscally conservative.

Where's your voice in this time?

We know that this is morally bankrupt, and we also know this is not just gonna hurt the economy of the Bay Area, it's gonna hurt the United States of America on an international playing field.

And when we talk about making sure that America is the leader in the nation, I mean in the world, what are we doing today?

What are you doing?

You guys have been silent.

Speak up.

You know this is wrong.

Thank you.

Thank you to our state senators for being here and for their impassioned plea, but moreover sharing with us the work that has been done for the lawsuits that have been filed, for the dollars that have been allocated.

I personally, as a resident am appreciative.

And if trouble is what I do.

So let me just take just a brief moment of liberty and remind us we have a ballot that is in our mailbox, proposition 50.

As we're talking about legislation, we are here because this moment proves to us that elections matter, that your voice matters, that your vote matters.

So for those of you who have not engaged, I drop that.

Do not send anything to the mayor, send it directly to me.

We are online, the Allen Temple Baptist Church in Deep East Oakland.

Representing Assembly District 18 with an unwavering dedication and commitment, please welcome California State Assembly member, Mia Banta.

It's wonderful to be able to be with you all today.

Funny thing happened on my way to work today.

I live in the city of Vallamita, went the back way on the service road, past Coast Guard Island to our office here on 1515 Clay Street because I get to represent the beautiful people of Oakland, Alameda, and Emeryville.

And in this moment, I couldn't be more proud because what I saw were people singing.

What I saw were people marching.

What I saw were people fighting for our liberty and protection of every single community member on that service road.

We here in Oakland and in the East Bay and in AD 18 are in a moment of seeking peace, of seeking grace, and ensuring that every member of our community, every undocumented person, every refugee, every immigrant knows that we are standing with them today.

Whether you are a citizen or somebody who was seeking citizenship, seeking asylum here, you know that you have a place of grace here in this district.

That is what I see when I walk around this district.

So let us not be fooled.

Let us not be tempted by the chaos that this federal administration, this Trump administration is trying to have us fall into.

We will defend with righteousness, and we will defend ensuring that we are taking care of our own.

Making sure that the state of California is providing the resources and the legislation and the legal protection to ensure that our community members will be protected.

I'm honored to have been a part of that work, but I need you all to know that as soon as word came down that something funny was happening on Coast Guard Island.

By the way, Coast Guards who are a part of that federal shutdown, whose children are going to food banks right now.

We started to operate and work with the city, our amazing county supervisors and others who you will hear from our frontliners, our community-based organizations, our health organizations, to make sure that we could protect and care for our own.

Today, it is okay for them to racially profile us, to go to our workplaces, to go to our schools, to go to our hospitals, and that's why we've worked so hard, as the senators have mentioned, as a state to prepare for this moment.

But the reality is our families don't feel prepared.

They feel the anxiety, they feel the fear, watching the news, knowing that those ICE agents can come up at any moment and take them away from their families.

We've seen this in Los Angeles.

We're seeing it in Chicago and in other parts of this country.

And what I want to say today to this to our community, particularly to our Latino community, which I will speak in Spanish in a minute, is that we're in this together.

We're united, and that same city that embraced me at three years old, that comforted me and did not put me in a cage is the same city and the same state and the same America that is going to stand up, fight back, and rise to see a beautiful tomorrow.

And so we are grateful that we are not doing this in isolation, but this is indeed a partnership on many levels, and present with us representing Alameda County is Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bass.

Alameda County has been a partner in protecting our communities, and she is here this morning to share the resources and the services that are being made available on behalf of the county to make sure that all of the county residents are safe.

Let's welcome her.

Thank you, Pastor Jackie.

Again, I'm Nikki Fortunato Bass, Alameda County Supervisor for District 5, North County, probably representing Oakland and North County, joining me as Supervisor Alisa Marquez, who represents District 2 and chairs our public protection committee.

Not only am I your supervisor, we are both daughters of immigrants.

My parents came from the Philippines seeking economic opportunity, and my grandparents came fleeing a dictator in the Philippines, a dictator who was ousted by a people's power movement.

And part of my message today is that an organized community is a safe community, and what we have to do right now is organize, organize to keep each other safe.

Here in Alameda County, where a third of our residents are immigrants or refugees, we want you to know that we have your back.

So we want to make sure that number one, you know your rights, and that you have your own family safety plan.

Number two, that you verify sightings of ICE enforcement with our rapid response hotline, and number three, that we all defend our constitutional rights.

And so you heard from our uh you heard from our district attorney.

Our public defender's office, together with several legal organizations, is defending our constitutional right to due process as well as to a right to an attorney.

We also have our county uh our Alameda County Sheriff, Asenia Sanchez, who has reaffirmed that the sheriff's office will not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

And I want you to also know that our board, together with our county council, has joined numerous lawsuits to defend our rights and our resources under the constitution.

So our communities have overcome repression and violence in historic and current movements for civil rights, for workers, for immigrant rights, and we will continue to keep that tradition alive.

Lastly, as you heard from our congresswoman, we are in week four of this federal shutdown.

Our communities need a functioning federal government that will deliver on our safety net, not a militarized presence.

And at your county, we are working fiercely to defend our safety net in the midst of this dismantling through the federal budget and the shutdown.

Just last Tuesday I pushed for 10 million dollars for food security, and our board agreed to that amount.

We will make it official on Tuesday.

So know again that Alameda County has your back.

You are not alone.

We have a great coalition of organizations who will stand with you to ensure that we are all informed, prepared, and that we are organizing to defend our constitutional rights and our democracy.

Thank you.

So my faith tradition teaches that people perish for lack of knowledge.

And we know that part of this moment is to institute fear so that people forget what it is that we actually really know.

But we are grateful for Lotus Martinez who was coming to share with us about free legal services that are available, as well as rapid response services that are available.

So she's coming from the Alameda County immigration legal education partnership.

Let's welcome her.

Thank you very much.

My name is Lourdes Martinez.

I am co-director of the immigrant rights program at Centro de Legal de la Rasa, one of the organizations that thanks to the support of Alameda County elected officials and a group of funders, has been able to relaunch the Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership, a CLIP, which is a rapid response network in Alameda County.

First, as an immigrant woman, I just want to say humbly thank you to everybody.

I am so deeply in gratitude, and I feel privileged to live in the East Bay of California during this time of political crisis for immigrants and in particular for Latino immigrants, brown skinned immigrants who are feeling now completely unprotected by what we had hoped would be constitutional protections in the land of liberty.

Thank you to our elected officials, but also thank you to organizers, activists, organizations, the schools, everybody who is standing in solidarity with immigrants.

As we've been operating the hotline over the past few months, we have been witnessing how our neighborhoods become destabilized, our families separated, and we have seen the cruel, the cruelty of the federal government become a reality for our communities.

I want to say very clearly, we are a county where one in every three of us is foreign born.

And that means that almost all of us are at least in a mixed status family, or we are somehow connected to the story of immigration.

Especially now that the federal government has made it um okay to racially profile and to stop someone because of the way that they uh the language they speak, the skin color, or our appearances belonging to a certain sector of the economy, it's just really important that we understand our cultures and our heritage are not political and they are not woke.

They are reality, they are who we are.

They are our heritage, they are our families, our ancestors, they are our identities, and it is what makes us strong.

And we must continue to stay proud and united in who we are, individually and collectively.

These raids that this ICE activity has already been happening, but with the with the recent threats, we are anticipating an escalation, and it is what's happened in other cities such as Washington, DC, Chicago, Portland is that if there has been deployment of additional federal law enforcement, it has really strengthened ICE and their ability to execute more detentions.

So that is what we are bracing for.

And we just, you know, we want to ask that the community help us by calling.

If you see something, please avoid spreading any unverified reports, but call us and let us actually verify.

And if you want to join our team of verifiers, and it does take a village, we are having a training this evening and will continue to do so.

We already have a large group, and thank you to all the volunteers and all the activists on the ground who are helping us verify immigration enforcement activity in Alameda County.

We also not only want to verify and be in constant communication with you all, please confirm on social media.

We also want to be tracking immigration enforcement in Alameda County and make sure that nobody disappears.

And so we also have attorneys, constantly present and part of our regional effort to have a constant lawyer presence at 630 Sansome in San Francisco.

Please call us, preferably the day of, but it really doesn't matter when a detention happened.

Please report it.

And I don't want to go through the guidance here, but we have it on our social media on our website for the kinds of things that we want to ask that we all be preparing to look to be on the lookout for so that we can report ICE activity or detentions.

We know this is an uncertain and stressful time.

This is a mount, but however, this is a moment of unity and power, not panic.

If you or someone you know might be impacted, here are five ways to protect yourself and your loved ones right now.

Know your rights.

We still have rights, and it doesn't matter how that much they violate them, we must assert our rights.

You have the right to remain silent and to not open your door.

You have the right to speak to a lawyer.

Know your rapid response hotline number.

A CLIP is 5102414011, and we have listed online all of the other regional hotline numbers.

Be prepared to share as many details.

Like I said, if you can please, this is something important for our personal education.

This would be something good to follow up on your own to learn about all the details regarding location, time, uniform or other garb that law, you know, people executing detentions are wearing, etc.

Create a safety plan, identify who can care for children, pets, or other responsibilities if needed.

We certainly have guides on our website, and you know, we are also conducting trainings.

We have an event coming up next week.

We may be moving it to to provide more such events online because we understand people are afraid.

Memorize important phone numbers, and if you are an immigrant, memorize your A number.

Share key information with trusted loved ones.

Sometimes it will be your loved ones who will be calling us on the hotline, and it is very helpful if they know the information that we need and that we are asking them, or that the attorneys will need.

Gather important documents, such as paths, passports, IDs, medical records, keep them in a safe place and make copies.

Minimize your risk.

Follow updates from trusted community organizations.

Weigh your individual risk and just remember that we are living under difficult times where ICE is allowed to racially profile.

And I'll finish in English just to reiterate, we are part of a strong united community that protects one another, that is part of the privilege of being here today.

Together we will continue to defend our rights, our family, and our dignity.

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you for supporting the Rapid Response Network of Alameda County.

Stay informed, stay ready, and stay in community.

Thank you, Lordes, and we'll remind you once again that most of the information she has shared will be available to you once this is over.

Please know that it is not our intent to rush anyone, but we want to make sure that all of our speakers are here in every segment of our community gets their time to speak.

And so with that, we're always grateful for our partnership with Labor.

Labor has always stood for justice for the dignity of all workers, and we are grateful for Antoinette Blue, who is here, and she's going to come speak on behalf of working families across this city from SEIU 1021.

Well, good morning, everybody.

As she just said, my name is Antoine Blue.

I am the chapter president of SEIU Local 1021 City of Oakland chapter.

I am also a 911 dispatcher with LPD.

Our union members are the librarians, the head start teachers, the gardeners, your department of transportation workers, public works workers, crossing guards, and more.

They're the ones that keep this city running and helping the community members live in a lifestyle that they're able to live in and attain.

For the people who don't know in the back, Oakland is one of the most diverse cities in the country.

Our diversity is the source of our solidarity and our strength.

And we as city workers are committed to delivering services to all Oaklanders, regardless of your immigration status.

We are proud to sit to stand here with Mary Lee in defending our community against unwanted and dangerous federal overreach, of which we strongly oppose the deployment of federal agents that target our black and brown communities.

We oppose the Trump administration attacks on programs like Head Start, which care for thousands of Oakland children every single day.

Let me be very clear.

Okay.

So with that, I want to urge everybody to pick a lane.

I know everybody says about changing lanes and staying within their lane, pick a lane in this fight.

That could be text baking, talking to your community members, passing out resources, or being on the front line and actually showing up and showing out.

I want to bring the attention also to my hoodie because it is essentially the theme of what we're doing.

The city of Oakland is the power.

And we are here, and we're all united to fight.

And that's everybody that's behind me, my community members, my members of my union, in addition to the leadership for the state in the city.

So I just wanted to thank you guys for your time.

Make sure you guys get out there and vote.

As you can see, the time is now and games are not to be played.

Thank you.

There are so many one-liners, I don't know which one to pick up there.

Unite to fight, pick a lane, power in the storm.

Yeah.

We thank you.

And thank our labor community for always standing with us.

And so we also want to make sure that we are including members of our Asian Pacific Islander community.

They're a central part of our city's fabrics and coming to share resources that are available and support that's available.

Is Nancy Wong, senior staff attorney with Asian Pacific Islander legal outreach.

Good morning, everyone.

And thank you, Mayor Lee and her staff for inviting me to uh share some words with all of you.

And my family has been my um mixed immigrant family, which includes undocumented people and documented people for four generations here in the city of Oakland.

So we are very grateful to the city of Oakland and the surrounding East Bay and Bay Area for the way that this area has welcomed my family and others within our community.

And I just want to share with you that the Asian community stands united with our Latino and Haitian and other black immigrant brothers and sisters.

We do provide free legal services in removal defense, affirmative filings, we go out into the community and educate all of our neighbors and service providers on the uh rights of immigrants, and we also try to help uh organizations come up with a protocol on how to keep ice out of you know their establishments, whether they be small businesses or social programs, or other uh types of um employer-based uh places.

So I just want to call upon the people in the public general public, those who are both immigrants and non-immigrants, to use this opportunity to uh learn rights of everybody, our constitutional rights.

I know that they're being attacked.

I know that the Trump administration is uh severely trying to erode these rights.

But if we stand up to this and fight back, that's the only way that we're going to be able to retain those rights.

So we would really like people who want to help the non-immigrants who are U.S.

citizens to step up and learn how to go out and teach other people their rights, maybe provide practical help in going shopping or taking their children to the doctor, other things that you could do.

But please remember to protest peacefully.

The people that are adversely the most adversely impacted are the people very people that you want to protect and help, and those are the uh people within the immigrant community.

And okay, and then the final thing I just want to say is we have these red cards, and I brought them, I always carry them with me wherever I go when I see people in the street, or you know, I'm on BART, and maybe ICE shows up, I start passing them out.

So we have these red cards in all different languages, and hopefully we can get them disseminated out to everyone in Alameda County, so that they um when ICE approaches them, they can all they have to do is just show them the red card.

Um, thank you very much for your time and attention.

Thank you, Nancy, and we'll make sure that no one leaves here without a red card.

And so we're grateful for the presence of our city council persons that are here today.

We have two of them that are coming before us at this time, Charlene Wong and Zach Unger.

We're gonna ask them to come forward.

I am so proud to represent uh District 2 City of Oakland.

It includes the communities of Chinatown, Little Saigon, and San Antonio.

Um these are some of the most diverse communities that we have in here in Oakland.

Um I'm also the public safety chair, and I'm proud to stand with the mayor with her leadership in addressing this crisis.

What we know too is that what we're seeing here at the federal level, this is just uh quite frankly, white supremacy.

Let's just call it for what it is.

Um we see racial profiling, we're seeing immigrants of color who are being racially profiled in LA.

It was the it was the LA Chinatown that was being targeted that kicked this all off.

And so uh we are all, you can see the the rainbow of voices that we are standing here in solidarity.

Uh we have a lot of work to do, as uh our congresswoman said.

It's it's time for us to get to work, it's time for us to look at our city policies and see what we can do to protect our communities.

Um, and uh that's um the most important thing.

So thank you, everyone.

I'll keep it brief.

I'm struck that this is happening today, one day after we renamed a street for Bobby Seal.

Oakland has a proud tradition.

We don't back down, we stand up.

Enough said.

Enough said, and let me add, it was a wonderful celebration for the street renaming yesterday for Bobby Seal.

Long overdue.

So we're coming into the home stretch, but we did not want to end this moment without making sure that we heard from members of our business community.

And so we have two representatives that are here, and we're grateful for their presence.

We're going to hear from Barb Leslie from the Oakland Chamber of Commerce representing the business community, and then following her from the small business community, the heart of Oakland's neighborhoods of Tisicia Chavez.

Good morning.

I'm Barbara Leslie.

I'm the president and CEO of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and standing next to me are my colleagues, Kathy Adams, the president and CEO of the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce, and Stephanie Trand, the president of the Oakland, Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

We proudly stand today together in solidarity with our city leadership, our state and federal electeds, our community partners, and the hundreds of small and immigrant business owners across Oakland that we represent, who contribute each and every day to our local economy, our cultural identity, and are integral to Oakland's beautiful future.

We have a long history, as it's been said earlier.

We have a long history in Oakland of standing up and speaking out, and we will, against injustice, and we will continue to support the efforts of every individual to stand up and speak out peacefully against injustice across our city for our businesses, for our residents, and for everybody here in Oakland.

And we thank you very much for allowing us to be here today and partner with you in this effort.

Thank you.

Thank you for speaking up and speaking out.

Last but certainly not least, where would we be if it were not for the foundation of our faith community, regardless of our faith traditions?

And so coming to us now, because we know faith leaders have been the moral compass of this community, and with us to share a word of strength and solidarity.

We are grateful for Pastor Michael McBride.

I want to uh thank our courageous and righteous Mayor Barbara Lee, who always speaks for me and us.

Uh I stand as a representative of the faith community, and I see my colleagues here, obviously, Reverend Dr.

Jackie Thompson, Bishop Keith Clark, Bishop Keith Barnes, uh the homie uh Brother DeMaria, aka Truck, known in the neighborhood, uh, Brother Ron Mohammed, all of us together, uh, as well as with the credible messengers of our city, uh, the community violence interventionists who have contributed to the historic reductions we continue to see in our communities.

We stand and join the chorus of voices and say we are not in a state of an emergency in Oakland.

Donald Trump, you are the emergency.

We are not a city of lawlessness and chaos.

Donald Trump, you are an agent of chaos.

You are the wrecking ball that has been unleashed in our city, in this state and this country.

Unlike the East Wing of the White House, Oakland's walls will not fall that easily.

We are here to declare that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind or self-discipline.

We are here in unshakable solidarity to declare to you and to remind all of our loved ones and community members in Oakland and the Bay Area that we stand up when repression rises.

We are a city with a superpower.

That superpower is the power of the people.

Whatever problems we have in our city, the people of Oakland will solve those problems.

You can join us in our efforts to solve those problems.

We know you will not, so we will resist your intrusion and your overreach.

You do not stop crime and illegal behavior by unleashing more crime and illegal behavior.

You do not use violence to create nonviolence.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

This administration's effort to bend and break the laws of this country to continue to elevate a manufactured crime and immigration narrative is immoral.

It is wrong.

And we as faith leaders and civic leaders will name it as such.

You are a liar.

Other cities where this federal overreach has happened, has also shown us that black community members whose immigration status and citizenship are not in question, are also being targeted, harassed, arrested, jailed, and brutalized.

With this in mind, many of us who we have already named are launching the Secure the Town initiative to ensure we engage with black youth and young adults in schools and neighborhoods, car and bike clubs, cultural spaces, congregations, and many other places where communities gather to make sure they have the information they need and to ensure we are all standing in solidarity with all of Oakland.

To those who seek support, to those who need relief and protection, reach out to us.

Your clergy member and leader is for you.

Do not surrender to fear to our young people.

We implore you, do not get caught up by engaging with federal officers who often likely are untrained, unprofessional, and unaccountable.

Be wise in your movements, carry your IDs, know your rights by attending the trainings online and in person.

Be where you are supposed to be, and do not be where you are not supposed to be.

Do not get caught up.

Border patrol is targeting and taking our people to.

Truth, justice, peace, and joy.

And we beg the Congress, please release the Epstein files.

In the words of our dear beloved ancestors and champions of Oakland, all power to the people.

And with that, we thank all of the community representatives for being here today and for taking time out of their schedule.

We certainly thank all of you and you who are joining us online.

And so we have heard our marching orders today.

We reinforce for the residents and for all of the people that Oakland is stronger together, that we are united, that we are prepared, and we will protect one another.

I just want to make sure that you heard those resources that were available to you.

So remember the hotline number is 510-241-4011.

You are also able to visit the city's website, Oaklandca.gov for city resources, and sign up for alerts on that same website.

I certainly want to close by thanking our amazing liberation justice freedom fighting mayor.

For not waiting, for not hesitating, but making sure that there was an answer so that there could be peace and calm in the city.

And my particular faith tradition teaches that if you are a person of faith, you ought to desire to do justice.

And to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.

We need to be united for the fight.

And if you do nothing else, pick a lane.

Thank you all for being here.

I'm the council member of Oakland's District 3, and right now we're in Old Oakland.

And I got invited to do one of the oldest strolls that has been happening in this district over nine years.

And most people don't know about the hidden gem that old Oakland is.

So my name is Viviana Rodriguez, and we are at E14 Gallery in Old Oakland.

So it was a pop-up for the holidays, and it went from a one-month pop-up to six months to now we've been here nine years in November.

What motivated us to start the scroll was us coming together as businesses to support one another because we know that in supporting one another, we all thrive.

If we're all doing well, Oakland does well.

If we spend money locally, then it stays in the community longer.

My name is Shem Wien, and we are at the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment.

When we're looking at spots, we're looking for locations that were close to public transit that were really accessible to our community and to the people who would need access to technology education and our collection.

The summer stroll is really important because when we think about nonprofits that serve the community, we also have to think about the state of the community itself.

And when it comes to the surrounding businesses, we really want them to be thriving because that means that it's going to be a better community for all of the children who are coming in for a free Saturday morning classes.

It's going to be safer for people who are coming in later at night after work in order to play video games, to connect with old friends.

Just all of those different things that are important inside of a community.

So when we started, we didn't have the capacity or money to close the street.

So we were doing it on the sidewalk.

We actually started with doing a crawl.

So it was like every business doing something in their business and us encouraging them to walk around.

And then being able to close the streets, then we're able to offer more things for people.

So having games, having face painting, like all of those things allowed for people to have space also to hang around a little bit longer.

If you're not comfortable being indoors, then we have the outdoor space to hang out.

If you have a kid that's energetic and needs, you know, to run around, there's a safe space and place for them to like run around and do some activities and also bringing in organizations that support that.

We have the Prescott Circus, which is an amazing after-school program.

So they come, hang out, and also the youth get to see this amazing area and know that they can come to this area and hang out.

My name is Anthony.

I'm the chef and owner of Papoca in Oakland, and we serve Salvadorian-inspired food.

We are in Old Oakland because it's a beautiful area with a lot of cool businesses nearby.

It is the heart of Oakland.

There's so many great things about it.

There's a beautiful market across the street.

I think the importance of the stroll is to bring people out so they can see what else is here to get to get movement in the area.

It's like I feel like it's an underused area, it's a little underrated, and there's just so much that it offers, and we just want people to come out and kind of see what's in the area.

People want this to be safe when they see people out here.

And I think that it also brings business to the area, which brings more financial wealth, which reduces crime and danger.

So I think that's a really big part of it as well, is just getting the economics working through the city, so that we can really take care of people so that they don't feel like they need to do crime.

My name is Nicole Garay.

I'm the senior director with KC Family Programs, Bay Area Field Office, and we are a private operating foundation that helps to support youth and families that are involved in the child welfare system.

Our mission is to provide improve and eliminate the need for foster care across the nation.

So the stroll is actually a part of what we call building communities of hope.

And it is a way for us to invite networking, community supports, really understanding and knowing that the fabric of a community is where and how people are successful outside of their own small circle.

Supporting small businesses, supporting businesses of color, bringing people out, and also focusing on the whole family, not just like you know, the people going to the restaurants or the bars or whatever.

It's it's about the whole community.

So all the events that we have come together to create have been about that, about having something fun for the entire family.

We are not looking for someone outside of the city to come and save ourselves, it's about Oaklanders, and we can do it right here.

So let's start an old Oakland.

Hello and welcome to Trail Chats.

I'm your host, Autumn King.

Today we are trekking and chatting with Rowena Brown, Councilmember at large.

Come along with us as we search for white butterflies.

So it's been good thus far.

A little chilly today, but not so bad.

Not so bad.

So we are here with council member at large, Rowena Brown.

How are you?

I'm good.

Thank you for being here with me today.

I appreciate that.

How does your Oakland story begin?

Wow, um, to tell a story about me, I have to tell talk about my family.

Um so that would start with my dad.

My dad was actually one of 13.

Okay.

Um originally from Plainview, Texas, Southeast Texas.

Um, and my great uncle was actually the first to come to California.

Um, and he was the first to own a home in East Oakland.

Okay.

Um, right on Olive in 79th, right by a Royal Viejo Park.

Uh-huh.

So he was the first of the family to come, and then eventually my dad and his siblings all came.

All thirteen.

All thirteen.

Okay.

Right?

Two sets of twins in there.

Um, my dad, um, you know, grew up actually, he ended up growing up in Richmond.

Um, and then uh met my mom at community college, uh, culinary school.

Okay.

And um, and then eventually, um, I'm the youngest, I have two older brothers.

Okay.

And um, yeah, it's just really an interesting story.

Like, have you always been, have you all always been in the East Bay?

Always been in the East Bay.

And like the truth is, like, you know, a lot of people ask me, like, Rowena, like, where did you grow up?

All over.

I don't know.

Right.

Like, I I went to preschool and kindergarten in San Francisco, Chinatown.

Went to first through third grade in Richmond.

Okay.

Um, and then for a period of time I was homeschooled.

Okay.

Um, and then ended up going to Laney College for high school.

You know how you could do the homeschool slash community college.

Yeah.

And so that's like that's a little bit of my educational story.

But to know me is to know that, you know, basically the reason why I moved around a lot is because by the time I was 11 months, uh, my mom actually went missing.

And so then my dad ended up going into the the military.

Mm-hmm.

And so my auntie took care of me and my brothers.

And every weekend, she would drop us off Friday, six o'clock at my uncle's house, East Oakland.

Okay.

So from the time I was a baby until third grade, it's that was the that was the routine.

That was a routine.

And so, you know, grew up playing in a Royal Viejo Park, walking the East uh East Mot Mall.

Not so low though.

I was gonna say, I hope your cousins was with you.

Cousins and my brothers, two older brothers, so you know, I was good, right, and also like, you know, in line, if you would.

I like that.

Yeah, so always been in the East Bay, um, and always had a connection to Oakland, specifically through East Oakland.

Yeah.

What made you choose to live, work and play here in Oakland?

Once you got your degree, once you moved on and you were ready for the real world, you could have gone to any of these cities.

Yeah.

What made Oakland your spot?

I mean, yeah, I mean, that's that's that's really uh thank you for asking that.

So ultimately, um, so right before I gr was about to graduate high school, my dad passed away.

And so it was because of my my friends and my church family, they said, Hey Rowena, come come live with us.

And so they live right by um Kaiser Oakland.

Okay.

And so that was really when I kind of was like, Wow, you know what, like Oakland is feeling like home, right?

And and to also to know me is that I from that time I was 12, I always knew that I didn't have the language for it, but I always knew that I was like queer, um, you know, something.

I knew something was something was a little bit different about me.

Right.

Um, and Oakland just had was just this home for me where I could like really like find my belonging and just find community, right?

And so at a time I I'm sure you maybe you've lost someone that you really love, and so at that time, just really being here in Oakland, it is exactly what I needed.

Um, and so um and also at the same time, so after my my dad passed away, um I ended up uh just kind of going uh um into the work into the workforce.

And so I actually spent I ended up going to a trade school to learn how to be an optician.

Okay, right.

So you know how when you go and you get your glasses, um I was that person that helped you, right?

And so I did that for seven years, right?

Trust me, I I also think that my eyeglass style is pretty cool too.

And I I probably got about 25 pairs of glasses, but anyway, that's a whole nother story.

So basically I spent seven years working for like this innovative optical retail company.

They ended up like sending me all across the the United States on like leadership training.

Yeah, and so it was really like so.

While my peers were like off going to college, I'm working in this like amazing innovative space, honing in on my leadership skills, um, ended up getting recruited to work for Kaiser in their optical, okay.

Um, and it was an interesting experience.

So Oakland Kaiser, right?

So I'm there, I'm like, okay, this seems okay, the pay's good, but then eventually, and you know how like sometimes like when you when you kind of lose the people that you care the most about, um, sometimes like you're just kind of stuck in this mode of like, okay, I'm just trying to make it.

Just trying to survive, right?

Just trying to make it.

And different from thriving.

Right.

You're just trying you're just like, hey, like I'm just trying to make it.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the job that I was doing, it allowed me to travel and all of these things, but then eventually there's this point where I said to myself, Well, actually, Rowena, like what's something that you've always wanted to do?

What do you really want to do?

And so then I was like, you know what, I want to go back to school.

And so I enrolled into Laney College.

Okay.

Um, ended up taking further rooting you in Oakland.

Right.

Right.

And so enrolled into Laney College, took my first political science course, and it was really kind of like in that moment, as I'm like connecting with my classmates, like I find out they have like a lot of shared experiences as me.

Right.

I talk about, you know, my mom, yeah.

She went missing when I was just 11 months.

We would wouldn't find out what happened to her.

My dad was in the military when he got home.

Um you know, he ended up getting discharged because he was really sick.

And then once he kind of got things together, he ended up getting incarcerated for a time, right?

And so, and then my brother also kind of dealt with those same things, and I would go visit different family members, and you know, they would be the communities that we lived in, right?

Like not clean, yeah, blighted properties, right?

Um, folks losing their homes, this all of these things, and I would talk to other people and they're like, Yeah, you know, my my pops is incarcerated too.

I don't know my mom, and I just be really beginning to think, like, why are things like that?

Yeah, um, and so kept taking more courses in political science.

I got to go and do a study abroad in China.

Okay.

And so, um, from that, and so uh the when I studied abroad in China, I was studying like governmental systems and how they work, and so when I came back, I enrolled into Mills College for the rooting in Oakland.

Right.

Uh, right?

I love to say that I actually received like most of my higher education right here in town.

Yeah, right.

I mean, and then I think it's beautiful too, because there's a lot of like Oakland grown folks that are teaching in these colleges.

That's exactly why I keep underscoring it every time you say it.

Because again, that shows the fabric.

Yeah, it shows the roots, and it lets you know the intellect and the eloquence that we have around us to learn from and with.

You know, one of the first classes that I actually took at Lane at uh Laney College was this course called the Black Panther Party Strategies for Organizing the People, and it was taught by Erica Huggins.

Uh-huh.

And if that's it, you get into class and you sit down and you're like, this is the Erica Huggins, right?

And so like one of the projects she has, like, so cool.

One of the projects she had had us do was to um think of something in your neighborhood that you would want to improve.

Yeah.

And so we all got to present on these projects.

And so one thing that I um I mean and my group, we created a senior center that had transportation, provided groceries.

Nice.

Right, and and then other folks created like affordable housing.

Right.

And so it's just really it's really clearly see where you get the the foundation for why you ran for office and why you are now our city's at large council member representing the entire city, not just one zone area, one district, but you are at large, meaning that you represent all of us, and so I under I can see now the history, starting as a baby in East Oakland every weekend with uncle through going to college, going living by Kaiser, so that's North Oakland, coming back down, you're in downtown for Chinatown near Laney.

You are truly rooted in Oakland.

Absolutely.

How about we walk some more, chat some more?

I've got a lot of questions based on the things you talked about.

Let's do it.

Let's keep walking.

I'm interested a little bit if you're not there, okay.

It is out here.

I mean, the tranquility, the beauty, the smells, it's so calming.

It's very calming, very calming.

So you touched on some big things.

We were talking about um your upbringing, uh your roots, and how Oakland has shaped you.

Um it makes it pretty clear to me why you went into local government.

Um can you tell me briefly what was that last spark?

What was that last thing?

Was it a camel, a straw break in a camel's back moment?

An epiphany moment that made you say, I can and want to lead my city by being an elected official.

Was there one moment?

I think it's really a collection of moments to be quite honest.

Um, yeah, that's such a good question.

I think yeah, I think there was a collection of moments, and when you end up working for an elected official, you um you're in the work.

You're doing the work.

Yeah, right.

And so um, and so then, and so I got to, I found myself being able to work and solve so many complex problems.

You know, I used to work in Oakland City Hall, left, went to law school, started working in the legislature, and we're working on these big issues that not only help improve the lives of Oaklanders, but throughout the state of California, and so I was doing that, but I think the part that really helped push me actually had more to do with confidence.

Right?

Confidence that like Rowena, you have good ideas, you have good ideas, you're smart, you care, you care for the right reasons, right?

And then also this other piece around like, hey, like people will be motivated by your story, where you've come from and the and the type of impact that you're trying to make.

Um, so just just do it.

And then I think there's also this other piece too that like when you're interested in, I'm the type of person that when I'm interested in something, I I'm not just gonna be like, hey, I'm running for president.

No, no experience.

Yeah, I'm gonna like put myself in these places and spaces so that I can learn from others.

Yeah, um, and so that's what I did, and so literally for about a decade before I even got to 2024, right?

I was in those spaces.

Learning, learning, sucking it up, right?

Okay, but you also chose because you can motivate people, you can tell your story from behind the scenes.

You put yourself out there.

Uh elected officials put themselves out there.

How do you maintain the balance and well-being of your mental and physical and emotional health?

Well, I mean, I focus on, you know, this is a big job of trying to like help change the lives of others, right?

In a positive way.

So I just try to focus on that, not take myself too seriously, and um, and then I guess is maybe just like a balance between like, hey, this is what I'm doing.

I got like I care a whole lot about my work, and also I'm human.

Like, and that's I mean, and and and maybe I made it too broad or too big.

Specifically speaking, I feel that we in Western culture don't speak enough about maintaining and uh our our mental and emotional well-being.

Oh, for sure.

We don't, I think in the black American community, we don't do well about talking about and approaching our mental and emotional well-being and health.

And so I just wanna be blunt and ask.

You are juggling a great deal in the public eye, and you're working on behalf of the people.

What do you do for Rowena Brown's mental and emotional stability and well-being?

How do you pour into you?

Yeah, I think I hope that you know, the the beautiful thing is that I've kind of had certain practices already in the mix, so I'm not starting from scratch, right?

As a youngster, my auntie um had us going to therapy, right?

So I actually started really young, and then even in uh difficult moments of my life, that's always been a practice of mine.

So I kind of have that as a foundation, and I know that that's probably like um that's rare, right?

Um, and then along with that, when I was a student at Mills, um I got into two things, and it was actually courses that I took when I was at Mills College, yoga, and I took an intro to meditation class.

And so, so those are all foundational things that are a part of my like everyday, um, and it's just needed because you gotta be able to let things go, because otherwise you're just gonna be holding on to a lot of stuff.

And I appreciate you being willing to share that.

I feel like we need to destigmatize the conversations and make them as normal as possible, just the same way that we're talking about your everyday job and what you're eating, and talking about how we maintain and approach our mental health and well-being, especially as black women, I feel is just key.

Okay, physically, what are you doing to get out physically and keep yourself going?

So that is an opportunity because you know, I'm in all these committees, I'm in all these uh committee meetings, I'm on these boards and commission, right?

Well, that don't really give me that much, but it's more like you know, I'm not able the my schedule is not a hundred percent my own.

And so I have to really like I'm still I'm only six months in, so I think that I'm still trying to get creative about being more active.

So lately I've I've been into um kickboxing, I've been taking some kickboxing classes.

Um that a few years ago, it's kind of fun.

Um love to walk the lake, um, love going on hikes like this, um, but just gotta do more.

And then are you into the you know about the aura rings?

I've got my biometric.

Um, so that is actually been like helping me, like, know, like, oh wow, you barely moved today, so like let's do something different tomorrow.

I'll just be fighting with mine.

Like, I know I move more than this.

Yeah, I don't I don't I don't second guess it.

Oh my gosh, you have to I'm like it's this is what it is.

Let's let's clearly we need to walk somewhere so we can talk about AI.

No, you need to second guess it, but or else okay, okay, deal.

Okay, let's just walk and see if we can get you to second guess your or maybe I should not.

Maybe I should stop second guessing mine.

Because are you feeling like you're not getting all the steps or like what's I feel like I'm getting cheated?

Like I done more work than I'm getting credit for.

That's interesting, okay.

Okay, let's talk about that.

Let's see.

I feel I've lost too much.

And I don't get my credit.

Because clearly I'm wearing it more.

Let's hope that uh I don't know if I can't like I'm always getting around.

I think that's what's up.

I'm sorry.

No, I'm not the youngest, I don't need a project.

That was like a hundred.

This has been some really good conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

I um we learned a lot about who you are.

I've learned a lot about why you do what you do.

What are we thinking for the future?

What do you see?

What is your vision for the city of Oakland?

Wow, I love that question.

My vision for for Oakland is, you know, I'm only six months in, and so right now I'm just we just passed the budget.

I just got to be in a leadership role for my very first budget.

And so I'm really just trying to learn all that I can so that I can actually make um, you know, help create change here in the city.

Um that was a part of my promise, right?

Um, and you know, I really when I think about Oakland, like I really think that we can create like a city where everyone is thriving.

Not just not just downtown, but like I'm fully you heard my story around like where I spent all my weekends as a kid, right?

Yeah, deep East Oakland.

And so I want to, you know, create like an East Oakland, you know, East Mont Town Center.

Like, what would it look like if we reactivate like that entire space?

It's already on its way with the black.

So we like we we we love to see it, right?

And so ultimately I just really want to create an Oakland where um, you know, maybe like Oakland could be like a model for other places.

It already is.

Right?

But like but like really like, hey, how did y'all y'all were struggling with public safety?

How'd you do it?

And that's what I'm saying to you.

It already is.

Yeah.

Let's take it to the next level.

I hear I hear what you're saying.

And then I think the other thing that I've really been saying consistently, I think that we're we're at a new time, like with leadership within the city of Oakland, right?

You got new council members, we're all working well together.

We got a new mayor.

It is a dream come true to be working with um our with Barbara Lee, right?

Like I've known her since I was a Barbara, right?

Like I've known her since I'm a little I was a little girl, and to be like, I was just on a panel with her, and um, and so it's just been like so amazing to be able to really like watch and learn from her, and then even for her to say, hey Rowena, so tell us what what what was written into the budget, and here I am sharing out like okay, we we did this, we're doing this for small businesses, we're doing this for you know, cultural districts here in the city of Oakland, and so um I can't help but like I'm always grateful.

I'm just grateful for the opportunity to serve, and so um, you know, uh the future, my future, I you know, it's yeah, tell me about your future as at large.

Um, usually when when council members are chatting with me about their district, it's easy to not easy, but it's it's you know, it's now small it's focused.

Um what is your vision for your position as at large taking care of all of us?

Yeah, I mean, I I first off I think of it like a partnership, right?

So whether we're talking about district one, hey, how can I work and support you with your constituency, right?

And so I really want to do that across with every single council member.

Um, but then you know, I I've I've witnessed in the past where you know, some of our colleagues, some of my colleagues, they haven't been able to get things across the finish line, right?

And really show up and advocate for areas of our city city that have been underinvested in.

And so I want to be that I got you.

Right?

Like I'm here, I'm here to support you, right?

And so I really think of the role like that.

And I also think of my role, you know, we're having worked at the state level.

I also think of my role as like, hey, what is happening at the state level?

How can I be a good advocate and continue those like those relationships across across um, you know, one of the things that I studied in school was governmental systems and how they work, and so um I've always been interested in like, hey, how does local government interact with the county?

How are we interacting with the state and at the federal level?

And so that's something that I'm like, I think of it like a will.

We just gotta really gotta get it to turn for the benefit of, you know, Oaklanders.

And local government is really where we can see change.

Um, I tell folks all the time that there are you can get frustrated at the federal level without a doubt, you feel lost.

You can sometimes feel not completely on shaky on solid ground at the state level, but local government being able to have this conversation with you.

Now you know me, you got my phone number and I've got yours.

We can talk in a different way, we can approach issues in a different way, and I appreciate your openness to that.

I I see that you are one who is looking to listen to the community, partner with nonprofit organizations, partner with individuals to move things forward.

I appreciate that about you.

Thank you for serving us in that way.

Yeah.

I like to think of myself as uh just being a really good listener.

Well, let's keep walking and talking some more, if you don't mind.

Let's do it.

All right.

I will say the butterfly conversation that you brought up is ridiculously interesting to me.

I do think that I will just feel so far.

I've never heard of that.

Yeah, and it was like those kind of one of the things like always, like whenever they say it pops up.

What are you doing?

What are you doing in the world?

And I don't know, like it's like I see you.

Hello, and welcome to Trail Chats.

I'm your host, Autumn King.

Today, we're trucking and chatting with District Six Council Member Kevin Jenkins.

Come along with us as we explore these East Oakland Trails.

First of all, thank you for joining us.

I appreciate you spending some time out here in nature with us.

Absolutely.

Thank you for having me.

Tell me about Kevin.

Where does your Oakland story begin?

To tell you about Kevin, I have to tell you who Kevin is, right?

And so Kevin is Elijah's stat.

Okay.

That's my biggest responsibility in the world.

And Elijah's my nine-year-old son now.

And so I am who I am because of him.

And so I grew up in Oakland, ended up going to Oakland high school.

Uh, went to Laney College and College of Alameda, and really embody what Oakland is.

I love being an Oaklander.

I'm so incredibly proud to be an Oaklander.

What does that mean?

What is being an Oaklander mean to you?

So I think being an Oaklander is proud of your heritage, proud of where you come from, proud of the activism that is rooted in our city.

Okay.

It is proud to be where you're from.

Even though the world will say that Oakland is this, and they sensationalize the negative things that are going on with Oakland.

It's remaining and having that pride in your city.

And why did you choose to stay in Oakland?

You said you were born and raised here in Oakland.

Why, why stay in Oakland?

Why live in Oakland?

Why work in Oakland?

So I I said this to some of my residents all the time.

There's no better place in Oakland.

Even though when there are things that are going on that are challenges to our city, we have the best views, best hikes, we have some of the best small businesses, some of the best wineries right here in Oakland, and weather is amazing.

So if it's not 70 degrees either way, people are complaining.

So tell me a little bit about your role as a leader here in the city of Oakland.

We do a lot of talking on this show about the pride that people have in Oakland, and we're talking to Oakland leaders.

Tell me about what that means to you being an Oakland leader and what is it that you do?

Yeah, so I currently serve as a city council member for district six, but I kind of reject the title of leader, right?

It's more of a servant job, right?

And so I consider it like a quarterback.

There's so many multi-levels of government that people don't understand for one reason or another.

So I'll get people that call me and say, I haven't received my mail in five days.

Now we have no jurisdiction over the United States Post Office, but it's our job to point folks in the right direction, right?

So some people will have issues with uh a lady called me about a vector issue, right?

So she was like, hey, there are mice and all these.

Okay, you have to call Alameda County.

What's the number?

I know it off the top of my head.

And so you have to be that person, and then it is a servant position.

You have to really like serving the people.

You have to really have a heart for serving folks.

How long have you felt this way?

Has this some been something that's always been in you that you thought I want to give to my city?

That's an interesting question.

I think it's been ingrained in me since a child.

So I did tutoring when I was younger for my mom, her, she had students that might not have been up to grade level with math or reading, and so I'd volunteer and give my time.

And so I think that's when it was instilled in me.

So can you talk to me a little bit about what does it look like as your purview?

What can you do?

How do we support you and how do we use you in the right way?

We as our residents use you in the best way.

So someone told me either I'm crazy or I like challenges to be on city council, right?

And I've noticed I've had a few more gray hair because I've been on city council, but that comes with the territory.

City Council, again, it's a community servant role, right?

You are an advocate for your community, ensuring that the city is getting resources to your residents, and you're cutting the tape of bureaucracy.

Also, we pass the budget, we also make laws and ordinances, and we work with the administration to just make the city a better place.

Can we get into some specifics?

Give me an example.

So if there is a illegal if there's a legal dumping in a neighborhood, should we call our city council person to have conversation about that?

Let's say we've been calling 311 and we can't get through.

Is that something that you would do?

I see that as a two-pon answer, right?

So if it is continuously happening, I think that causes for a meeting and seeing how we can do a better job of enforcing the illegal dumping.

Normally what we tell people, as frustrating as it is, call 311, right?

And once you get that 311 ticket, if the city isn't responding fast enough for one reason or another, then that's when you contact your city council person and say, hey, I need this illegal dumping mode.

Okay.

And you talked about policy.

So if we're talking about uh where new bike lanes might be, or give me an example of of policy that would be passed and how the council members work with residents to get to that end goal.

That's a really interesting question.

It depends on what type of policy, right?

Let's say there's a policy, and you want new books in the library or something, right?

And so it'll go through committee, right?

And there's standing committees that council members serve on four at a time, right?

Go through there.

Once it's passed there, right, it will go to the full council.

So people have the and residents have the ability to weigh in at the committee level, and they have the ability to weigh in at the full council.

You can send emails, you can call your council person, you can show up to meetings.

There's a number of different ways that you can get involved.

So connecting with you would be a great way to then have my voice heard.

If my neighbors and I were to get together and share some of the issues, kind of have our town, our block meetings, then we would carry that to you and you carry our water forward.

So maybe it's possible, right?

But it the district is very large.

And so you might feel this way, but a large swath of the district might feel a different way, right?

And so it's then on the council member to make the best decision based off of their district and based off of the overall health of the city.

You said the health of the city.

So one of the things that I find that is so fortunate about us as Oaklanders is that we've got this wonderful backyard of nature that we can just go and kind of decompress.

Yeah.

Talk to me a little bit about your mental and emotional health.

How do you maintain and focus on your mental and emotional health?

I have to be very diligent about and intentional about focusing on mental health.

And so what I like to do is go on a lot of hikes, especially through the Redwoods and Oakland, and I take friends on hikes as well, and it's a way for me to meet up with friends and just catch up.

Also, I go to the gym every morning to ensure that I'm lifting weights and focused in on what it is that I need to do for myself for the city for my family.

I do that too.

I like to do checklists in my head as I'm going on my walks and kind of knock things off the list.

Talk to me a little bit about your hopes and desires for District 6 and for the City of Oakland.

Let me turn that around a little bit.

Your District 6 resident.

What is it that you want to see out of the district?

What do I want for my district is health.

Um I want healthy economics, I want healthy environment, I want healthy homes.

That sounds cliche, it sounds big, but I think that it starts with having a walkable blocks.

I love being able to walk from my house to the market to grab things, not having to get in the car.

Um health of my streets, I don't want to see abandoned cars on my corner for months at a time because we're backed up for 90 days.

I don't want to see, you know, dumping on certain corners.

Um I want families to be out in the street walking and talking and waving to one another.

Cornball, cliche, maybe, but I've experienced it here in Oakland.

I've experienced it in other in other when I lived in in a different district.

So that's kind of some of my hopes and and once for my district.

It's interesting.

I was just seeing where we're aligned, you being a district six resident.

So for me, the biggest thing is quality of life issues.

And I think we're talking about the same thing, right?

I know that I'm safe when I'm walking to the store.

I know that I'm safe when I'm at the ATM.

Right.

I am a big proponent of walkable communities, right?

And ensuring that my market is next to me, my bank is next to me, my grocery store is next to me.

Also, just want Oaklanders to really feel safe in their neighborhoods.

Too often I'm getting some of my seniors calling me saying, Kevin, I'm not exercising anymore because I'm afraid someone's gonna knock me over, and they're crying, right?

And so I want that to change.

I want people to feel safe, and so that's my big thing for Oakland and District 6.

So we're aligned in that way.

So quality of life, we're aligned in that way.

How do I, as a resident of D6 and my and my fellow neighbors, support you in making that happen?

I see it as we're a team, and you've said cliche, you said cornball, you said these things.

These are the things that I thought maybe you were thinking about my ideas, sir.

So it it's really we're a team, and systemically there's been disinvestment from East Oakland, right?

And so we have to highlight that there has been systemic disinvestment, and also we have to address that.

We have to address that when the budget comes, and we're talking equity, and so what I need from you and other district six residents is showing up to the meetings, right?

Making sure that your voice is heard because they're about the same hundred people come to a city council meeting, and it's not necessarily the voice of the district, right?

And so, what I need from district six residents is calling in, showing up.

What do you want your legacy to be in district six and in the city of Oakland as council member?

That I was a hard worker, that I served people, that residents were able to connect to with government, that District 6 was able to turn around the historic disinvestment and get the investment from the city.

Um, the Coliseum project is one of the biggest things on my list to get done, and so just ensuring that District six has a place where residents is a place where residents can be really happy with, can go and have a meal with their family, can walk and feel safe for the city.

I think it's restoring the pride in Oakland.

Um turn around this negative media uh stigmatism of we are a crime ridden city, dirty streets and not taking care of our unsheltered residents.

So really getting back into Oakland is a wonderful place with wonderful uh hikes with wonderful people with proud folks.

And so if I could do that, I'd be really happy with my legacy.

Well, cheers to your legacy.

We are in alignment with a lot of things.

I'm really excited and grateful for you for coming out here and chatting.

I'd love to chat some more because as I said, I am one of your residents.

So now that I've got you, I'm gonna chat it up and ask you all the questions that I can.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you for sharing your time and really letting us know a little bit more about who you are and what you do with the city.

I appreciate it.

I look forward to coming back.

Let's do some more walking.

We can chat it up some more as we walk.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

This is this is this is Oaklanders on the line.

Oaklanders, we are so back for another episode, the second to last episode of this limited series, Oaklanders on the line.

I'm your host as always, Noel California, and let's get into it.

Episode one, we got to ask people why Oakland, why they chose to be here, stay here, move here, why they defend Oakland, why they represent Oakland, just why in general.

And on this episode, I want to ask people, what is Oakland?

What does it mean to them?

How do they define it?

So let's pick up the phone and get Oaklanders on the line and have them paint a picture of what the town is.

Yo, who we got on the line right now?

Who we listening to?

Hey, right now you're listening to Corey Johnson, aka Sunspot Jones.

How y'all doing?

Doing great.

Glad to have you on the line.

Well, I got you here.

In your words, what is Oakland?

Please define it for us.

No, I mean Oakland is basically just a magical place that everyone kind of influences the world with.

I feel like there's so many people that know about the bay.

When I go to place I go to Norway, I go to Germany, I go to Australia, I go to Bali.

Like people know Oakland, they people know the music that's come out of Oakland.

They know the art.

They know all the different things that have been created to show the world that it's it's just a magical, beautiful place and celebration of art experience here.

Once again, that's my brother man Corey.

He's a fellow cultural strategist in government, working with the mayor's office and a resident of district eight.

Just think of 2017 Raiders versus Jets.

It's a nice Sunday afternoon.

You got March on on the sideline.

You got Kick the Sneak Plan in the whole stadium, and you got Marshawn tournament at the whole stadium of 60,000 people in the Coliseum.

That's what Oakland is.

I feel like Oakland, you go anywhere, you see it, you smell it, it.

It's the art, it's the sounds.

I feel like that's the real inspiration.

That's the real heart of Oakland.

And like, despite all the crazy shit that go down, there's real beauty, there's real culture in Oakland that people need to put that shit on a pedestal instead of like, oh, businesses are closing down.

Oh, people bipping too much.

Like, nah, you need to put the love for Oakland on a pedestal.

And Marco's right.

I'd bet you five bucks if you type in Oakland news, you'd probably find a negative article.

And while we're portrayed one way, we still find ways to thrive.

It's dynamic.

It's complicated.

It's frisky, it's gritty.

It's uh it's real.

There's a deep sense of beauty and justice that's important to how the city presents itself.

As a cultural affairs manager, I look at like the many ways our cultural community celebrates and honors and brings beauty to life.

That's Roberto.

He works in cultural affairs.

We had a conversation recently, and we both agreed that there needs to be an attempt to revitalize Oakland.

Our next resident on the line is Kev Choice.

He's a former cultural strategist in government.

Create at a high level for such a small space.

We have a wide influence around the world for such a small compact area.

Oakland is rich, culturally rich, often overlooked, often underestimated, but always continuing to grow to grow and evolve.

It's like a mixing pot where people can come.

And if you have an independent and community mindset, you can find a way to thrive.

I feel like it's a place that is often you know looked down on, underestimated, but we always continue to rise.

We always continue to create.

Oakland is in the class of kind of considered second-tier cities.

You have your Baltimore, which would be second tier to DC.

And you have your smaller port cities, Portland, you know, things like that.

These places are kind of forgotten, kind of isolated, kind of weird art pockets.

Oakland to me means Oakland has its own separate from those cities.

Oakland has its own very distinct sort of community soul to it.

That didn't seem to exist in other places as much.

That's Billy Joe Agin Jr., co-owner of the Stork Club.

And he told me a lot about what he thinks Oakland is, and he believes the city can get better.

I think Oakland is that one city that can't really be described unless you experience it.

And everyone that I've ever introduced to the town has always been amazed by what they found.

Because it's never what they expected.

That's Emiliano Via.

He's a producer, model, actor, singer.

And we met through our media line of work.

Something that I think is uniquely Oakland is the sense of community here.

Um it's the number one quality that stands out to visitors.

Uh the friendliness of people in the streets, in bars, at markets and festivals.

Anywhere that you go, that is a social place.

Oaklanders are gonna be welcoming with a smile, dancing, having a good time.

That's just our culture here.

I think that's something that is part of our identity here growing up, and I think it's something that we want to spread to other people.

Dear Oakland, I love you for all your magic, diversity, beauty, and history.

Thank you for being home and always being there.

I'll see you at the lake.

Love, yeah.

Because of the personal attention, given every caller, you might experience a brief delay.

Please remain on the line.

A representative will assist you shortly.

This is Emiliano Villa, and you're listening to Oaklanders on the line.

Oh, key.

Since Oakland is offering uh compost services, they're visible as compostable.

Oh, honey, it's not.

I called the recycling hotline yesterday and asked the same question, and they said dog poo goes in the trash.

Oh.

Things like like uh diapers, hangers, uh garden hoses, um, plastic wrappers, straws, broken glass, they all go in the trash.

Oh, yeah.

How about batteries?

Batteries are special.

You've got to put them in a plastic bag and then put the plastic bag on top of the gray recycling bin.

How about our mattress?

We need a new one.

Ours is as old as our kids.

Well, the city trash collector can pick it up for free once a year.

We get a free bulky item pickup.

Things like like mattresses, refrigerators, old furniture.

They'll pick it up curbside.

Do you know what I love most about you?

You're so smart.

Come on.

To learn more about composting and Oakland's commitment to zero waste, go to Oaklandrecycles.com.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AMLO.

Put your hands together for AMLO.

What a great place this is.

Yay!

I'm Carmen Martinez, the director of the Oakland Public Library, and I welcome you here for our annual authors program.

We usually hold it during National Library Week, but this year we are so happy and so blessed and honored to have our featured author, Ms.

Isabel Wilkerson.

I wanted you to just listen for a couple minutes to some acknowledgments I need to make.

A couple of um very important thank yous.

This is this program is all due in great part to our wonderful friends of the Oakland Public Library.

I don't know where they are tonight.

There's so many wonderful people here.

Yay, Foppel!

Thank you.

Please visit the bookmark bookstore in Old Oakland.

Every single penny, well, almost every single penny that they earn from uh that they make from selling used books goes to programs like this and for other activities that the city can't afford to help us with.

So thank you, Fopel.

I'd also like to thank our wonderful Oakland Public Library staff, Rosalia Romo, Tom Downs, and uh let me see who else is here.

Catherine Cavot, Eka, Eka Schneider, Winifred Walters, and I know I'm forgetting somebody, but I'll remember and thank them later.

Um, so I was reading one Sunday, the New York Times book review section, and I came across um a review of the warmth, the warmth of other suns.

And I thought, well, you know, Oakland just has to be in this book.

It's about the Great Migration.

And so, yay.

The very next day I was with a whole bunch of library director colleagues in San Francisco, and my colleague from Cuyahoga, Cuyahoga County, said we we welcome this fabulous author, Isabel Wilkerson.

She was fantastic.

She talked so eloquently.

Um, perhaps you can get her for your program.

And we called Random House the next day.

She was already on the superstar list, but she wanted to come to Oakland because so much of her research was based here.

So um, yeah, so we were very we were very lucky to get her.

Um, and so I need to tell you a little bit about her.

As you know, she was in Chicago bureau chief of the New York Times, and it was there that she won the first, she was the first African American woman to win a excuse me, a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, and she won it for individual reporting.

The list goes on and on.

She also won the George Polk Award and a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship, and she is currently the professor of journalism and narrative and director of narrative nonfiction at Boston University.

She was born and raised in Washington, DC, and this is her first book.

Oh, yay.

And this is her first book, which she dedicates to her parents, and I love this part.

Her parents whose migration she says made her possible.

Before I go on to bring our esteemed author up, I see that our mayor is in the audience, our mayor Jean Kwan.

Welcome, Mayor, to the program.

Would you like you just want to okay?

Okay, we're giving our mayor um 10 seconds to say hello to all of you.

Let's let's see if she can do it.

Hello.

Hello, how are you?

So let's talk about how we're gonna save the libraries.

Okay.

So first of all, um I I met with other library people this morning, and let me say that Oakland's no different than the rest of the country.

There are some people who think that we have to, after four years of cutting, that the only answer is to have an all-cuts budget, and that that means that all they want to do is cuts, they don't want to consider new taxes, they don't want to consider anything, they just want to cut.

And it's no secret that I've had a little fight with the city council because had they at least given the voters the chance to decide two months ago when I asked them, we would have known by July 5th whether or not we had a parcel tax, and that that would have made sure that not only the libraries but many other programs like our senior programs and our rec centers would have survived pretty much without major cuts.

And so what I'm asking people to do, there's a budget hearing tomorrow, and to talk to your council member, at least let the community decide.

So why do I need this money and do you want to talk about really quickly?

We've gone from four years of cuts.

This will be the fifth year of cuts, and last year in particular, we were hard hit because if you own a house, how many of you bought a house within the last five years?

anybody here?

You got an automatic property tax deduction, right?

Well, that cost the city 28 million dollars.

Um, that means in one year we had to cut 28 million dollars, and we have to find a way to let the recession end and get our property taxes back up so we can maintain services.

It is so bad this year.

We've cut so many things that we may not be able to meet the minimum of major Q.

Now, I wrote major Q, so this is like deja vu for me.

Um, when my first meeting as a city council member, Robert Bob said he was gonna close, I think a quarter of all the rec centers, I know, and and and and uh and all a third of all the libraries.

So, major q needs to be protected.

The only way it can be protected is if we do the parser tax.

Secondly, I just want to say AMLO is an amazing institution because of what it does.

I spoke at the ethnic studies graduation yes uh last week at UC Berkeley.

Their archives are not as complete in some areas as ours are, and so we do need to work and we need to protect it.

And the way you can do that is join the friends of this group to help increase the activity and the usage of this institution, and secondly, help me get the parcel tax on the ballot and vote for it.

Thank you.

Okay, without further ado now, I do present Miss Isabel Wilkerson.

It means so much for me to be here in Oakland because this was one of the cities that I went to when I started working on this book.

You know, I spent 15 years on this book, as you all probably know.

You probably heard it over and over again.

And as you probably heard me say, if you've heard any of my talks, I always say that if it were a human being, it would be a live and dating.

That's how long it took to finish this.

It's a good thing I didn't know it would take this long because I probably would not have even begun it, and I am so glad I did.

I'm so glad I did.

Um, thank you.

All of you turned out today are representing some ways a celebration, not of certainly not of me, hopefully in some ways of the book, but more importantly for all of the people who may not be with us today who are the reason why we are even here, which is what propelled me to write this book to begin with.

I wrote this book because I am a child of the very phenomenon I've written about.

I'm sure that the room is filled with people who are children of the great migration or of a migration from someplace else.

How many of you are?

It is all of our stories.

The book is putatively the subtitle is the epic story of America's Great Migration.

But in many respects, the book is not about this great migration truly.

It is about the longing, the fortitude, the faith, and the courage that is the responsible for all of us being here right now in this place, in our space right now.

In other words, somebody had to do what these people did for us to even be sitting or standing here today.

Truly.

And so the question was what did it take?

What did it take?

What did they leave?

What did they give up?

What were the sacrifices that they and so many other people made in order for us to be here today?

And also it was written with such a in such a way as to ask the reader to think, what would you have done?

What would you have done had you been in the same place as the people in this book?

As the people who, you know, we're talking about this as a book, but this is not just a book.

This is people's lives.

These are real people who are the ancestors, the parents, the grandparents, the great grandparents of pretty much everybody in this room, because we all are descended from people who came a long way away to get here.

To get to California means you came a long way away.

You had to cross an ocean or you had to cross a continent, but you had to come a long way away.

And I have to say, just to give you a little background on myself, if you don't know, I am the product of a mixed marriage.

My mother was from Georgia, father from Virginia.

I call that a mixed marriage.

My mother was from Rome, Georgia, and I love to say that she's from Rome, Georgia, because I'll just say she's from Rome, and they say, Wow, she's from Rome.

And then I say Georgia, they say, Oh.

And my father was from Virginia, and they came, they went to Washington, DC, which was the beginning of the end of Jim Crow, you might say, on the East Coast.

And they came in different years and they met and they married and they had me.

And as a result of their participation in the Great Migration, which is similar to the migration experiences of so many other people, who are American, I wouldn't even exist had they not done that.

How many of you would not have existed had someone not come a long way away from far, far away and met someone who they never would have met otherwise, created whole new lineages.

In other words, half the room would disappear because we wouldn't even have existed.

And so that's why I approached this book, this project with such a tremendous sense of gratitude.

Gratitude that I exist, gratitude that they made the great sacrifice in order for this to happen.

Now, I want to talk a little bit about what the migration is because you know, no discussion of this is complete without recognizing the magnitude of this thing.

This migration began during World War One and did not end until the 1970s.

Didn't end until the 1970s.

It meant that six million African Americans, and this is just one wave of migration, one kind of migration that has occurred with throughout the world.

But this was the largest one that occurred within the borders of our own country.

This is the only time that people who were citizens of their own country, the United States, had to leave one part of their own homeland for another part of their own country in order to experience the rights and privileges that they had been born to as citizens.

That's astounding.

That is astounding.

And yet that is what they had to do.

This migration was so massive that when this migration began, 90%, 90% of all African Americans were living in the South.

By the time that it was over, half were living everywhere else but the South, from Boston to Chicago to Oakland and down to Los Angeles.

They were all over the country as a result of this.

It was a relocation of an entire people.

That is a lot of people who had made a decision to leave the only place that they had ever known for a place that they'd never seen in hopes that life might be better.

That takes a lot of courage.

It takes a lot of foresight.

It takes a lot of vision and it takes a lot of faith to essentially jump off a cliff into the unknown with no guarantees of success.

And so that's why I wanted to talk about, I wanted to understand what propelled people to do this.

What was it that inspired them to make this great leap of faith?

Ultimately, what this was was in some ways a defection.

This was misunderstood movement of people.

This was not people just being uh, you know, uh getting a transfer for a job.

In fact, they many of them did not know what they were going to do ultimately when they arrived.

Bear in mind that in some ways they were seeking political asylum from a caste system, which is almost impossible to comprehend now.

So you know I have to talk about that.

That caste system was something else.

That caste system had been carefully uh calibrated and designed to maintain an oversupply of cheap labor in the South, keeping them virtually imprisoned so that they would not have the options to go anywhere else.

And in order to do that, they had to make it so such that everyone understood that everyone had a role in that caste system.

And this hurt everyone, black and white.

It meant that it from the moment you woke up until the moment you went to sleep, there were rules, laws, and protocols that you had to have memorized in order to stay within the bounds of your caste and ultimately, particularly for African Americans, to stay alive.

It was a matter of life and death.

A matter of life and death.

So some of the examples are, um, as you may have heard before in any of my talks, um, that it was actually against the law in Birmingham for a black person and a white person to play checkers together, merely to play checkers together.

Someone must have seen a black person and a white person in some town square in Birmingham, and they were playing checkers together, and they might have been having too good of time.

Maybe the wrong person was winning.

Maybe they were laughing.

Who knows what they were doing.

But someone saw that, and they decided that the entire foundation of Southern civilization was in peril.

We cannot have this.

And so someone went and wrote that down as a law.

So that that meant that the black person who might have enjoyed playing checkers, and the white person who might have enjoyed playing checkers with their friend couldn't do that anymore.

They could face prison time, and you wouldn't want to face prison time, hard labor in Alabama at that time, I can assure you.

There were in courtrooms throughout the South, and it's still hard.

As many times as I've said it, it's still hard for me to believe there was actually a black Bible and a white Bible to swear to tell the truth on in courtrooms throughout the South.

A black Bible and a white Bible.

And the way that I found out about this was through uh all the research that I had to do.

There are no references to water fountains and restrooms anywhere in this book.

For any of you who've read it, you know that.

If you haven't read it, don't think that you don't worry that you're going to be reading about something you've heard about already because we know about that already.

There's no need to put that in.

No reference to right restrooms or water fountains, because we know that already.

I was looking for all the other things to make it come alive for people.

I wanted people to be able to really understand what these people had to live with day in and day out.

Black and white, actually, because we often talk about the, and we all know how limiting and restrictive it was on black people, and it certainly was.

But it also meant that white people were restricted as well.

They had created the caste system, but it was a caste system that restricted everybody's movements.

So everyone was hurt by it.

And I would argue that for those in the up putatively in the upper caste, what they lost was a spiritual loss.

They lost a piece of their own of their spiritual selves because, and also the unmet potential.

Because if you're spending so much energy holding other people down, it means that you there are other things that you're not able to do.

Because it takes a lot of energy to maintain a caste system, as I've described.

So back to the Bibles.

I found out about it because it was in an article in a North Carolina newspaper.

And it came to light, it came and made the newspaper not because anyone said, Well, this is an absurd ritual.

Why are we doing this?

Because people accepted this as the norm.

This is the way it should be.

It came to light because the uh during the middle of a trial in North Carolina, the trial had to be suspended because they couldn't find the black Bible.

A black person had taken the witness stand, which was rare enough to begin with, and they couldn't find the Bible that this person was supposed to touch.

It turned out that they that it was not acceptable.

It was against the law for a black person and a white person to touch the same sacred text.

How ironic is that?

And so that meant the bailiff, the sheriff, and all the court officers had to go all over the courtroom trying to track down the black Bible for this person to be able to touch in order to swear to tell the truth, the truth and nothing but the truth, so help them God.

And that is what they had to do.

They finally found it, and the trial could resume.

I've been asked since then, well, were was it a different version of the Bible?

Like, did the white people have the King James version and the white and the black people had the American standard maybe?

But it turned out it was the same Bible, it's just they could not touch the same sacred object.

Now, you know, I've been all over the country.

In fact, I just got back from Italy, where believe it or not, there's great interest in this great migration, and I think that's a beautiful thing.

Beautiful thing.

Isn't that amazing?

And they have been reading the book in English, and they've been studying the book because they're facing great migration issues themselves, and so they want to understand it.

But um, as I was uh as I was there, I've been all over the country, and my toughest audiences are always high school students.

So I've I've been I've been through that, and I have been searching for ways to make this come alive for them.

You know, most people seem to be seem to really understand it when I describe the two things I've described for you.

But with the high school students, I have to come up with something else.

So I finally figured out what gets through to them.

Now, before I tell you what that is, I want to first ask for a show of hands as to how many people in the last week have passed someone on the road, yeah, every hand goes up, yeah.

There's I I'm always surprised that there's a delay in the answer.

So I'm like, people think, is there a new law that says we can't do this anymore?

So they're hesitant.

Maybe she won't think so well of me if she knows I passed somebody, but you know, and it's it's perfectly legal as far as I'm as I as far as I know.

Uh, and in fact, you probably pass someone on the way here, truth be told, if you're if you're being honest.

Well, if you were African American in the South during much of the time period I've described, you couldn't do that.

You could not pass, a black motorist could not pass a white motorist on the road no matter how slowly that person was going.

No matter how slowly that person was going.

And you know how when you're behind someone who's lost or they're they're from out of town and they stop every 10 feet thinking that this is the turn, that might have happened to you yesterday, and you want so badly to get around them, and if you can, you will.

Well, you couldn't do that if you were African American, and I would argue that that is so frustrating to people that that alone could account for probably a couple million people to leave right then and there.

How they bore up under that, I'll never understand it.

And yet that was the law.

That was the law, and it and and when I describe this, I mean, we all um, you know, it seems so absurd that we can now kind of chuckle at it, but this was actually life and death.

It really was life and death.

Every four days, every four days during the time period in the decades leading up to the migration and the decades immediately following the migration, an African American was lynched every four days somewhere in the South.

So this was truly life and death.

And the reason I say that is because we know about the more commonly um uh the commonly associated reason for lynching, having to do with uh generally a black man's uh an accusation that a black man may have made some untoward uh remark toward a white woman.

That actually was not the more common reason, however, when you look at the statistics of the lynchings.

Lynchings most likely occurred because a black person had been accused of trying to act like a white person.

That was the general accusation, meaning they were stepping outside of their cash.

That's how big and significant and enduring and the and oppressive this caste system truly was.

They would be, they would be, that meant that they had been accused of of not stepping of not stepping off the sidewalk fast enough, of of speaking in a way that was not appropriate to their caste, of looking straight into the eye of someone.

It actually turned out that that the uh that the protocols were so strict that an anthropologist of that day said that the majority of people of diff of each race had not ever shaken the hand of someone of the other race because that was not allowed.

So this shows you that it was a nerve-jangling experience just to make it through the day.

And these were the kinds of things that people had to live with day in and day out.

And so ultimately, this was in some ways a search for political asylum.

Now, how and why did this migration actually begin?

There are many reasons and discussions as to why, but ultimately the precipitating event was World War I.

And during World War I, during World War I, the North had a problem.

African Americans have been wanting to leave for a long, long time, but there was really no option other than to stay there because the caste system had created a limit, so many limits and restrictions on them.

And so during World War I, Europe was at war, and that meant that all of the Europeans who had been coming in, the European immigrants who had been fueling the factories and the steel mills and the foundries were no longer available.

And the North needed labor.

And where did they look?

They looked to the cheapest labor in the land, which was African Americans in the South.

The South was the poorest region of the country, and these were the poorest paid people in the South.

Many of them were not paid at all for their labor.

They were they were working merely for the right to live on the land that they were farming.

They were sharecroppers.

So they were quite ready to be recruited to go north.

So this is a reminder for people who may not have understood much about this migration.

African Americans, most African Americans in the North and the West, arrived at the invitation, the express invitation of industries that wanted their labor.

The interesting thing about this is that they often wanted the labor.

They wanted the workers but didn't want the people.

So how do you manage that?

You know, how do you manage that?

That's a conundrum.

In any case, they've set about trying to do what they could to get them.

So they went and actually recruited, recruited people to come to these places to work.

So you have unusual combinations of cities where people, where people in the North went to recruit.

Beloit, Wisconsin went to the people there went to Mississippi, for example.

And so what happened was you have these connections.

Finally, the door opened and the people began to answer the call.

But when the South found out about this, the South did not take kindly to this at all.

They did not take kindly to the poaching of their cheap labor one bit.

And so they began to take action to stop this.

There was a great deal of hand wringing about what to do about it, and they began to do uh make great efforts.

They did they they they tried to fight it on both levels.

One, they wanted to deal with the supply side, meaning the people who were trying to leave, and on the demand side, meaning the people who were trying to recruit.

So on the supply side, what they started to do was they would arrest people on the railroad platforms when there were many, many black people waiting with set with northbound tickets ready to leave, trying to leave.

They would arrest them from the train seats.

Once they were on the train and they thought they were handing the ticket to the conductor, they're actually handing it to a sheriff who was about to arrest them.

And that was that was all these efforts to thwart their effort to get out.

And then when there were too many people to arrest, they would wave the train on through so that people who had been saving for months and months and months for that ticket to go north had to watch that train pass them by, that train to what they felt would be freedom.

And that was what they ended up having to do.

On the on the demand side, they would start arrest, they would arrest people, northerners who were who were caught recruiting without a license.

They set these incredible licensing fees.

One fee in Macon Georgia required that anyone who wanted to recruit a single black person had to pay $25,000 licensing fee.

Now, the equivalent in 2011 is half a million dollars to recruit one black person.

Who in the world would play pay that to recruit one person?

And so that was definitely going to be a dampening effort.

One would think, but actually the uh the reverse occurred.

But I want to tell you, uh, give you a little sense of what these people, what the people were thinking about, what were the Southerners thinking at the time that this was going on?

And this is a quote from Macon Telegraph, an editorial, which says so much about how the South was reacting.

And so this editorialist wrote this.

Everybody seems to be asleep about what is going on right under our noses.

That is everybody but those farmers who have waked up on mornings recently to find every Negro over 21 on his place gone.

To Cleveland, to Pittsburgh, to Chicago, to Indianapolis.

They hadn't gone to LA yet because this is World War I.

They hadn't gotten to California or Oakland yet.

And while our very solvency, our very solvency is being sucked out beneath us, we go on about our affairs as usual.

So this gives you a sense of the hand-wringing and the uh questioning and the wondering and the effort to try to keep the people from leaving, and yet every single thing that was done actually only fed the desire of the people to leave.

It had the reverse effect.

All this hand-wringing and wondering what to do, the arresting of the people on the railroad platforms only made the people want to go all the more because it gave them a sense that this was not going to be a place that was going to change anytime soon.

Now I want to talk a little bit about the uh the work on this book because you know it's been a long odyssey.

Um I talked to seniors here in Oakland, I talked to seniors in Los Angeles, I talked to seniors in uh in Chicago and New York, all in Milwaukee, all over the country, and I set about trying to talk to people in order to find out what the stories were, and it turned out that you know these people often did not perceive themselves as being a part of any great wave, which is one reason why I described this book as an this migration rather as one of the greatest underreported stories of the 20th century.

It was underreported because the people didn't talk about it.

Any of you who have had this in your background know that the people didn't talk about it.

My own mother was probably the toughest interview of all.

She was saying, you know, she was saying, Well, why do you want to go about that?

That's in the past.

That's in the past.

That's in the past.

Let's let that go.

In fact, she, you know, many people changed their name.

My mother added an E to her name, it's Ruby.

She added an E to it to change her name.

There's someone in the book who changes his name, people changed their name, they didn't look back.

In some ways, when they arrived here, it was like they had a new birthday.

Nothing that they had been through in the past had even happened.

They were starting anew, and they didn't want to think about it.

They also wanted to protect the children from whatever it is that they had gone through.

They many people have carried this to their grave and never told what happened.

Ultimately, it was just too painful.

It was much too painful.

There was a great deal of shame uh associated with what they had gone through, and why?

Why should they feel ashamed of what they endured?

The goal of this is to turn that paradigm around and to say that what they went through, we should be, we should be joyous that they survived at all.

We should, we should we should express gratitude.

I'm I'm personally feel filled with a sense of both sadness that they had to endure it, but a sense of gratitude that they had the fortitude in order to live through those times.

And this is a this is an effort to try to embrace that and learn something from what they had endured.

Learn something so that all that they endured does not go in vain, so that we can exact in fact gain strength from the strength that it took them in order to survive it.

That's the goal of all of this.

Now, in order to go out and uh write about this uh this huge phenomenon, as I told you, I went all over the country.

I came here and I uh interviewed so many people, interviewed over 1,200 people.

And what that meant was I had I ate well.

Let me say this.

I ate very well.

I ate very well.

And actually, you know, I I like to say that it was an experience of doing that.

So let me give you a little sense of what this migration has meant for people.

The South is huge.

Each state that the people came from is distinct from the other states.

It's not just one monolith.

So people who are from Texas came from a very different culture than people who are from Virginia, which is totally different from Alabama, which is totally different from Florida, which has very little, it seems to do with Tennessee.

I mean, all of these states are very different.

And when they left, they transferred their culture with them.

And we, in some ways, are the bearers of that culture in the same way that when you go to certain parts of uh the lower east side of Manhattan, or you go to certain parts of Chicago and you find that there's a little Italy, or you find that there's a Ukrainian village in Chicago, and that in Minnesota, there are a lot of people from Scandinavia.

Well, the same thing goes for this migration.

It was not a haphazard unfurling of lost souls.

People made made individual, well thought out, planned decisions as to where they were going to go based on the bus routes, the train lines, and the already uh well uh well-trod road that had been developed for them from where they were from.

And that is the reason why.

I'll just ask here how many of you have forebears or had people from people from uh Louisiana or Texas?

Yeah, Mississippi, Arkansas, yeah.

But you see, the over all the hands most of the hands go up for Texas and Louisiana, because that was the route that was taken to get out of Texas, and Louisiana primarily was to come to California.

So they're they're all over California.

The people who really wanted to get away went to Seattle.

They're stupid.

One of my mother's cousins went there from Rome to Seattle, she really wanted to get out.

When you're looking at uh the Midwest, though, you're looking at people who went from Mississippi, Alabama, uh, Tennessee, and uh Arkansas often to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis, the entire Midwest, and then the migration stream that that I my family was part of took people from Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas up to Washington, D.C., Detroit, uh, Washington, DC, to uh Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.

So those were the routes.

Those roots are beautifully defined.

It means that the people were not just just scattered to the wind.

They were thinking about what they were going to do.

They were planning, they did a great deal of work.

There are many telegrams that went back and forth, letters back and forth, letters of the Chicago to the Chicago defender, letters to a great aunt or a minister's son who was up in the north or out here in the west.

A great deal of planning went into this.

And that is also one of the myths that that had often prevailed that they just people just landed here out of nowhere.

That was not the case.

You don't just land in California by accident.

You have to think about it.

You have to really think about that.

Um, and so the process of going out and doing the search for the people and doing the reporting for this book was quite interesting because I was running into the very manifestation of the differences between these migration streams.

Beautiful differences.

Meaning the people had many and mostly left for the same reason, but the roots meant that a different culture uh sprang out of the migration stream that I might have been visiting.

So uh I'll tell you a little bit about the three things that I ran into that were quite interesting.

One is that when I went to uh Chicago, when I was in Chicago, I found myself on a bus that had been chartered by some seniors who were going to be going to a floating casino, meaning they were going to gamble.

It was early in the month.

It was early in the month.

They met at a, they always gathered at a uh parking lot outside a jewel food store at 87th and the Dan Ryan.

Anyone from Chicago knows where that is.

Yeah, see if you hands.

And it was always early in the morning, it'd be lots of buses, and it was just a question of where they were going.

Got on the right bus.

And as soon as I got on the bus, there was a commotion actually, because someone had brought a cooler which contained a delicacy from the old country.

A delicacy from the old country, and everyone was in an uproar when they found out it was on the bus.

Now, I had never heard of this delicacy, and I've I'm wondering how many people here have heard of it.

I will tell you what it is, but first I wanted to say that the people in the back were quite anxious to make sure there was enough left for them.

They said, make sure to save some for us.

They were very gracious, and they decided to offer the guest, meaning me, uh first piece of this delicacy.

I'd never heard of it.

It was called hoghead cheese.

How many of you have heard of hoghead cheese?

How many of you call it South Meat?

Okay, that's interesting.

That's a reflection of the migration stream right there because some people know it only as that.

How many of you actually had hoghead cheese?

Yes.

Notice, however, that there were fewer hands of people who had actually had it than had heard of it.

Interesting.

I had neither heard of it nor had it.

And so when they offered it to me, well, I have to say, my Georgia born mother never made it, and my Virginia born father never required it.

And so therefore I never had it, and I'd never heard of it.

And so when they broke it out, um, there was a great deal of excitement about it, but I I didn't know what I was going to do because I didn't really.

Look, all I knew was all I knew was it involved a hog and a hair.

And you know, neither one of those was working for me.

This was a worker for me.

And so I had to find a way to demure graciously.

And so what I did was I told them uh that about some, told them I had blood pressure, high blood pressure to worry about, which I did not, but which they accepted as a perfectly reasonable reason to uh forego the hoghead cheese.

And then they decided to set about uh carving out the hunks to spread out as you know it's in hunks, right?

And so that's how that was the experience there.

Uh now when I came to the West Coast, I found that it was not easy to necessarily make my way because it's very complicated, it's much more complicated here.

People are coming from Louisiana, there are multiple kinds of Louisiana, it's not just one Louisiana, there's Northern Louisiana, which is closer to more Delta.

There's Southern Louisiana, which is you've got uh New Orleans, you have all kinds of experiences here in Louisiana.

I spent so much time on every permutation that you could imagine.

I was Zydeco got exposed to that and never heard of that.

Zydeco.

Um I learned that, you know, the the spellings and and and pronunciations of many words, which I'm convinced are a way of exposing people who are not from there.

That's what I've convinced that a lot of things are.

We know you're not from there.

And I I had to work very hard to get in the good graces of people who uh recognize, well, where are your people from?

That was a question that I got a lot of.

And no one had heard of Rome, Georgia, so that didn't go very, that didn't help me very much.

But the people were very friendly and very gracious, and I managed to find that there were multiple clubs for and many of the groups.

There were Monroe, Louisiana Club.

There were there was Lake Charles, Louisiana Club, all kinds of Texas clubs for days because Texas is a country unto itself.

Yes, and I found my way in.

I had every permutation of red beans and rice with sugar and without.

There's a whole issue with that.

And you know, those are, you know, cooks might leave the kitchen over the issue of sugar in both greens and and red beans and rice.

And so I had all kinds of wonderful experiences just learning my way around.

I went to all kinds of Juneteenth parades.

I had a booth at a Juneteenth parade.

So I did all of this in order to learn the experiences of that.

But each migration stream is distinct, and I'm so proud of the experiences that I had here.

But when I went to New York, just to give a sense of how beautifully predictable each migration stream is.

When I went to New York, as big as New York is, I went to senior centers there, and at one of the senior centers there, I actually ran into not just people who had heard of Petersburg, Virginia, which is where my father's from, but they actually knew him.

They actually knew him.

That shows you how beautifully predictable this migration stream was.

And the migration exists and lives in all of us, even to this day, because there are connections in all of these places, and I'm so grateful for the people who invited me into their stream, even though I was from a different stream.

I'm so grateful to that.

Now, to tell you just a little bit about the three people in the book, those of you who may have read it, you know that it's about three people, narrowed down those 1,200 to three amazing and beautiful people, complicated people, not predictable people.

And each of them represent the three streams.

So one of them represents the stream up the East Coast.

He came from Florida and went to uh Harlem.

He had was leave basically fleeing for his life because he'd gotten on, he tried to earn a little bit more for the people he was working with in the groves.

He'd had a little bit of college, he was good with math, and you could see how the people were being cheated out of what they were supposed to be making.

The work was dangerous, they were having to climb these 40-foot trees, taking their lives in their own hands, and then they were being paid nickels for a box for fruit that would go and sell for four dollars a box.

They weren't asking for four dollars, they're just asking for a few more pennies more.

For doing that in the 1940s, uh he had to flee for his life because that was not acceptable for an African American in that caste system to do that.

That just was not, you just that was just not possible.

So he had to flee for his life.

Um he ended up becoming a railroad porter.

The second story was of a woman who had been a um uh sharecropper's wife in Mississippi, but she was terrible at picking cotton.

You know, that's not a good thing to be a sharecropper's wife, meaning that's your job, and you're terrible at it.

You know, you're just not good at it.

And you know, actually, that's a lesson too.

Just think of all the people who had to do this because that happens to be where they were born, they were born into a caste system.

But maybe they would have been better at um chemistry.

Perhaps they needed to be bookkeepers, maybe they would have been really wonderful um uh horticulturalists.

Who knows what they might have been, but they were they were consigned to a world in which all they could do was a particular thing.

In fact, in the state of South Carolina, it was against the law for a black person, uh, a black person had to actually get a license, go to and petition to do anything other than agricultural work.

That's how difficult and controlling this was.

That means someone who actually should have been an opera singer was gonna have to go and work in the fields because that was all that they could do.

So uh, so that was one of the people that was one of the things that she actually was not good at, and it was kind of refreshing to hear that, you know, actually I hadn't even thought about being good or bad at it, but there were people who actually were bad at it and actually felt bad about it.

Um but that wasn't why they left, they left because a cousin of her husband's had been beaten to within an inch of his life, and um her husband said to her after what he saw it happened to his cousin, this is the last co-op we're making, and they had to set about getting off the land of the uh of the planter, and they couldn't tell anybody.

This they uh she told me years later, she said, You didn't tell people you were gone until you were gone.

You couldn't let people know what you were doing, you couldn't trust anyone.

So she just told her mother and one of his trusted nephews, and that's how they got out.

And then finally, the trial the the the uh the migration to California was represented by a Dr.

Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, who was from Monroe, Louisiana, and I got a question earlier before arriving that I was gonna have to discuss how he came to make the decision, and I'm not saying I agreed with it.

I'm just saying this is decision he made to go to LA after having seen Oakland.

I did not make I didn't make the decision.

It was his decision.

I can't say I would agree with him.

I'm just saying this is a decision he made.

I love the Bay Area, I love the Bay Area, one of my favorite places ever to come.

And I will come here willingly, happily, any time because I love it.

Um, yes, um, but uh he made the decision because well, if you know him, if you read about him, you'll know he was a flamboyant surgeon who had uh performed in the army as a surgeon, but it turned out he couldn't practice surgery in his own hometown of Monroe, Louisiana, and so he set out on this journey to get to California.

He had to, it was a perilous journey that meant that he ended up having to drive for three states of the West without being able to stop because it turned out that Jim Crow had extended farther than he had anticipated.

He just did not realize that.

And it was a quiet kind of Jim Crow.

It wasn't in your face, there were no signs, it's just that no one would take him in for the night.

And he had to make that drive.

And I attempted I recreated that drive myself at my parents in the car, and um he had rented a buy he had driven a Buick, the Buick was uh he had a Buick Roadmaster in 1949.

He said if you'd seen it, you would have wanted it too.

That just tells you what he's like, and so uh I rented a Buick in his honor, and I was driving, and my parents were in the car, had them with me, and we came to the part of the road.

And how many of you made the drive through the mountains to get here?

Then you know, even now it's it's perilous and treacherous.

Imagine not being able to stop.

Imagine you have imagine having to take those hairpin curves at night through the mountains through the desert, no cars in the road.

Um, you know, the road is so mean that it's going north and south as much as west, and that's what we were going through.

And I began to get sleepy.

I began to veer from the road, and my parents got worried for us, and they actually said, You really need to stop the car.

You know, you really need to stop the car, stop the car.

And if you won't stop the car, let us out.

And they said, they said basically, you know, if you want to know about Jim Crow, we will tell you.

If this is a way to get us out, we'll tell you about it.

We'll talk.

So we stopped in Yuma, Arizona, where we had no trouble at all because it just shows you how far we've come.

We have a long, long way to go as a country, but we've come so far that we had no trouble at all.

It was a choice of which one, which which in uh did you want to stay in, Holiday Inn, Keita Inn, all the different ones.

Which one did you want to stay in?

And we had no trouble at all.

And that actually made me feel more empathy for him because it showed you that as tired as we were, uh, we had options that he didn't have.

He did not have the option in 1953, and that was not that long ago.

Not that long ago at all.

And um I I am tempted to read you something about him because I would love to, but I don't want to take up any more time.

I want to make sure I can answer your questions.

I want to close with a couple of things.

Um, oh, you want to.

All right.

All right, well, this is um Dr.

Robert Joseph Pershing Foster.

Um I'm just gonna say one other thing.

You know, I keep feeling the need to defend uh what he, his decision, even though I didn't make his decision.

Now, the thing is, he had a father-in-law who he was trying to also run from.

He was running from Jim Crow, he's running from the father-in-law.

Father-in-law was a very powerful man in Atlanta, he was president of Atlanta University, and he was a very uh uh powerful uh uh overwhelming figure.

And so uh before he left, before Robert Joseph Pershing Foster left for this drive, the father-in-law said, uh, you need to go to the Bay Area.

I love the Bay Area.

You will love the Bay Area.

Go to the Bay Area.

At that point, that pretty much sealed it for the Bay Area.

He was gonna choose something no matter what, as long as it wasn't what his father-in-law wanted.

But let me read this to you.

This is Los Angeles, 1996.

This is the day that I met Robert Joseph Pershing Foster.

The panel door rises a story high and would befit a museum or government office, but is actually the front door of a Spanish revival south of Wilshire.

The door opens, and there stands a one-time bourbon swilling army captain and deft-handed surgeon, who now in his later years is a regular at the blackjack tables and the trifectas at Santa Anita.

But he is at the heart of it all, and perhaps most important, a long-standing, still bitter and somewhat obsessive expatriate from the 20th century south.

The heartbreak Jim Crow land he chose to reject before it could reject him again.

He is a Californian now, this Robert Joseph Pershing Foster.

He is the color of strong coffee and has waves in his hair, which he lets grow his untamed as Einstein's, but then brushes back like the boys in the band.

He's wearing a white cotton island shirt, loose slacks, and sandals, the uniform of the well-to-do LA pensioner.

He has the build and bearing of a Sammy Davis Jr.

and not a little of a showmanship and delightful superficiality that seemed to grow on people in certain circles of LA.

That's LA, she says.

Now, you know, I've read that in LA, and I started to think, oh, I meant to edit that out.

But you know what?

They loved it.

They said, yep, we're superficial.

We're superficial.

Well, they loved it.

And you know it's right, don't you?

Yeah.

He walks straight back and slew footed into the foyer, past the curved faux gone with the wind staircase, and the East Asian pottery.

He gestures toward the living room and imposing ballroom of a space that dwarfs him in its volume, fairly frozen in the sea foam carpet and hot pink tulip chairs out of a Sherbety Doris Day movie from the 50s.

The whole effect is as starched and formal as the tuxedos he used to wear to the parties he threw for himself back when his wife Alice was alive and the money was raining down like confetti.

He seems accustomed to people fawning over the place, and with the prim air of leading men of his favorite movies from back in the 40s, he insists on serving his guests a slice of lemon pound cake and vanilla ice cream on Rosenthal China, whether they would like to have it or not, which I did not.

I'd already eaten.

He sat and watched.

He is a physician or was for most of his adult life, and by most accounts a very good one, and is prone to pontificate like a man of his years and accomplishments.

But he is just as likely to interrupt himself and check the time to see if he can still make the one o'clock at the Hollywood Park race track.

His photo albums are filled with an unlikely assortment of bookies and blues singers and dentists and fraternity men and surgeons and society people whose approval he craved even though he knew they were too pretentious to matter, really.

He doesn't say it because it would be gauge and hardly worth mentioning from his point of view, but there happened to be a lot of little Roberts around town due to the fact that over the years he delivered a number of baby boys whose mothers were so grateful for his firm hand and calming reassurances at the precise moment of truth that they named their sons not after their husbands, but after the doctor who had delivered their babies, before he begins his story, he tells you it's a long one and you can't get it all.

He's lived too many lives, done too much, known too many people, ridden so high and so low that there's no point in fooling yourself into thinking you can capture the whole of it.

You could try, of course, and he agrees to give as much as he can.

I love to talk, he says, a smile forming on a still chiseled face as he sits upright in his tulip chair, and I am my favorite subject.

I just want to close with these thoughts and before taking your questions.

And that is that this migration, you we've talked about the joys of of reporting it.

We've talked about the origins of it and how we all owe a debt of gratitude to the people who made it possible for us to be here.

In fact, many of us wouldn't be here if they hadn't left and met the people who would ultimately become our grandparents' parents or whatever.

But this migration has a lot of lessons for all of us today.

Remember, this migration was a leaderless revolution that changed the country.

That shows you the power of the individual.

One person multiplied by millions ended up putting so much pressure on the South that it forced the South to change.

And the ways that it forced the South to change was this.

One, it showed the South and also the North that the lowest caste people in this country had options, finally, and were willing to take them.

Wasn't sure, it wasn't clear whether they would take them or not.

This is the first time in American history that this low the lowest caste people, African Americans, took this huge step to leave the only place that they had ever been for most of their history and set out for courses at places unknown.

Secondly, it exposed the people who stayed to options, other ways of being.

In other words, they would come and visit their cousins and their great aunts and the neighbors who moved up north or out west, and they could see how the people are living.

And they could they wonder to themselves and said to themselves, why can't we have this back home?

Why can't we walk freely down the street without fearing that we might somehow offend and get on the wrong side of a caste system that is so hard to to figure out that we just basically shrink from everything?

Why can't we have that here?

And that helped to feed and fuel the uh what would ultimately be known as the civil rights movement.

The civil rights movement would have happened eventually, but it was it was accelerated by the mass departures of basically half of the black population from the South.

That's massive.

That's power of the individual.

And then finally, those people were sending money back home to help uh support the effort.

So there was all of this back and forth going on.

It took people in the North and the West and people in the South to make this happen.

Remember that whenever there's any kind of turmoil anywhere in the world, usually the United States gets more involved if there is already a contingent of people from that part of the world here in this country.

And that's because those people can put pressure on the United States to at least cover it and pay attention just by being there.

Not having to necessarily even protest, just by being there.

In other words, the North and the West having such a large percentage of black people that they'd never had before, had to take note of what was going on in the South.

They hadn't been paying attention before.

It should be remembered that resistance to this caste system, resistance to what is known as uh, whether you want to call it slavery, uh, the Jim Crow caste system, whatever you want to call it, resistance had been going on since 1619.

There had been resistance to this uh to the oppression that African Americans have been living under for the entire time was going on.

But these were people who were dying or attacked, lynched, but they were like trees that were falling and no one was hearing them.

Finally, there was when there was a large enough contingent of people in these big cities where all the media were, where the cameras were, suddenly people were taking notice, and it was then and only then that all of this these resistance efforts were getting attention, and that is what helped fuel the civil rights movement, what I like to consider the human rights movement forward.

And then finally, I wanted to say that what is the result of any migration experience?

What truly is a result of it?

People who migrate often don't do it for themselves.

It's almost too late for them sometimes because they've already suffered whatever the indignities are, the um the lowered uh experiences with education, the limits on their education.

Some could only go as far as the eighth grade.

That was as far as you could go in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, for example.

Others could only go as far as the 11th grade.

That was a standard for many, many uh people uh at that time.

They had already suffered the lack of nutrition, whatever it was, they had already suffered.

But it wasn't too late for the children and the unseen grandchildren and great-grandchildren, meaning us.

It wasn't too late.

So ultimately, when they made this decision to leave, it was not for them, but ultimately it was for us, all of us.

I mean, this is for I always say that this was not unlike any migration, the people who migrated across the Atlantic and Steerage, the people who crossed the Pacific Ocean, and those who crossed the Rio Grande.

Everyone who does such a thing is doing it for the unseen children and grandchildren who might benefit.

And what happened?

What happened to those people?

Those people, um, this was the first time that people in this lowest cast had an opportunity to become their truer selves.

And those children, once they got the opportunity, not all, not everybody in any group is going to go off and become Nobel laureate.

But this was the first time that you had an opportunity for Tony Morrison to exist the first time, and that is because during the time that her parents migrated from Alabama to Ohio.

Had they not migrated, she would not have been able to do something that we take for granted, and perhaps today we're not taking it as granted as much in this particular moment here in this building.

She would not have been able to go to a library and take out a library book.

It was against the law for African Americans to do that.

And if you're gonna become a Nobel laureate, you kind of need to be able to get a book now and then, and she would not have been able to do that had her parents stayed.

She would not have been able to do that.

When it comes to music, music as we know it would simply not exist.

Uh, much of the music as we know it.

Motown would not have existed at all.

That's because Barry Gordy migrated from George his parents migrated from Georgia to Detroit.

There when he got to be a grown man, he looked around him, he wanted to go into music.

He didn't have the money to go scouting out the best talent, so what did he do?

He ended up looking around himself, and there were these children, the children of the great migration, children who were listening to gospel music at home and spirituals at home and the blues music at home, and they were playing it out for themselves, and he saw these three girls.

Um, one of them was full of personality but didn't have the strongest voice.

I think you know I'm speaking about.

We would not even know her name, Diana Ross.

Her, and that's because her father migrated from West Virginia, mother from Alabama, met in Detroit.

She wouldn't even have existed had there been no great migration, much less to be, you know, to be discovered by Barry Gordy, who also wouldn't have existed, but you just keep going back and back and back, and you realize that this is an American story of so many people who wouldn't have existed, and we wouldn't even know their names had they not migrated out and taken this act of courage to leave.

He also heard about this very large family in Gary, Indiana.

Nine or ten kids, uh, five boys, the youngest one was the one who did all the dancing and singing.

We would not know Michael Jackson's name.

We would not know Prince's name.

All these people are individuals who were products of people who had migrated from different parts of the South to the North, met in the north, had the children, and the children had the opportunity to be exposed to and to be to be discovered.

The talent was within them all along, but it was latent and undeveloped because people were stuck in a caste system.

And when it comes to jazz, um, Miles Davis simply would not have been able to become the person that he did had there been no great migration.

His parents migrated from Arkansas to Illinois, where he had the opportunity to develop his skill, the luxury you might say.

Delonius Monk, his parents migrated from uh North Carolina to Harlem when he was five years old.

He too had the luxury of being able to spend time developing his his in his God-given talent instead of uh picking tobacco, which is what the family would have been doing in North Carolina, and John Coltrane.

John Coltrane.

He he migrated himself at the age of 17 from North Carolina to Philadelphia, where believe it or not, think about this historical uh fact, that is where when he got to Philadelphia, that is where he got his first Alto Sachs.

He had not touched an Alto Sachs until he got to Philadelphia.

And where would where would jazz be?

Where would music be?

Where would culture be?

And not just American culture, but world culture, all of these names I've given you just a few of the names.

This is just, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I have a long list of recognized household names from August Wilson to Michelle Obama to James Baldwin and Richard Wright, all of these people who would never have been able to become the people that they had had someone not made the decision to leave, simply to leave.

The power of the individual decision could lead to so much that we now, in some ways, just it's so embedded in our culture that we don't often realize that this is actually the culture of a people who had left and made this big decision to leave.

Now, I want to end with uh with this quote from Richard Wright, because you know, we're we're in difficult times overall as a country, as a planet on so many levels, and yet, you know, the human story is one of which in which we truly have so much more in common than we've been led to believe, and we have so much more strength because it's embedded in our backgrounds.

We need to recalibrate what it means to be a hero.

Our young people need to recalibrate what it means to be a hero.

We have heroes in all of our backgrounds, all of our families.

We need to know the family story to realize how did we as individuals get to this point.

These people who made this sacrifice have left us in some ways the code, the answer to a lot of the questions that we might ever have.

They left us not through their words but by their actions as to what we should do even today.

We have the strength within us to overcome anything because these people had to overcome so much more than we can even fathom.

And these are people who we're we're talking about we're in a great recession.

These are people who were who survived the Great Depression, and this is not to compare it, you know, our expectations are different now, but the reality is these people had so little compared to what we have.

The poorest person has a cell phone.

It may be Metro PCS, but they have a cell phone.

They didn't have a cell phone.

And so they have left us, they have left us through their actions, and also in our our very, our very DNA, you might say, as as people who are descended from people, all people here in the United States for the most part, are descended from people who came a long way away just to get here.

That makes people different.

There's something different about people who make this leap of faith.

And so they have left us the answers.

And I want to leave with end with this quote from Richard Wright, where the title of the book comes from.

In some ways, it's a prayer.

It's what he said to himself as he was about to leave Mississippi for uh Chicago.

And it's a it's a lesson for all of us to, you know, whisper it to ourselves in moments of darkness where we're wondering what to do.

And he said, I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown.

I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and perhaps to bloom.

They have left us the answers to almost any question we might have.

They may not even be here to tell us what it is, but they have by their actions.

And that means that if they could do what they did without cell phones, no Skype, no email.

Think about the moment of departure.

Think about the moment of departure for all of them, which is how we all got here ultimately.

There's a moment of departure in which all of our, somebody in all of our backgrounds had to look into the face and to the eyes, the teary eyes, truly, of the parent, the person who had raised them, the mother, the father, the grandmother, the grandfather, the aunt, whoever it might have been.

And they could not be assured that they would ever see this person alive again.

This is not, this is not an exaggeration.

This is the reality of life at the time that I'm talking about.

Remember, there was no email.

There was no Skype.

There was no, there were no cell phones, no reliable, even long distance cell, long distance telephone service.

So when they were leaving, if they were getting on a on a boat from uh from uh Europe to here, if they were getting on a train from Florida to Seattle, there was no guarantee that they would see this person alive again.

No guarantee.

And that person, that that older person who could not make the crossing, because this is a young person's thing, really.

They were too old to make the crossing.

They had lived their lives, and they had to look into the eye of that person that they had raised and wonder if they would live to see them a lot, see them again in their lifespan, and not know if they ever would.

Think about that.

Think about the sacrifice that they had to make at that moment the the heart wrenching moment of departure.

And when you think about what they had to do in order for us to be here today, you re you realize that if they could do what they did with absolutely nothing but just grit, fortitude, faith, and hope, and a belief in something that they could not even see, but believed had to be better than what they had there, then that means that there's nothing that we, the heirs to all that they did, cannot do.

So thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

I've been told that we can take about 10 minutes for questions if there are any.

Yes.

Nowadays.

Yes, the question was do I travel to the South to deliver the message to talk about the book?

And yes, I do, and I've I was surprised that actually the very first place that I was invited to speak.

This is before the book came out was the University of Mississippi.

Yeah, and I I uh uh wondered at first at certain point to remind them, you know, the book is about the people who left.

This is about them now.

And they say, yes, we understand, we know that we want to hear about it.

And the reason is because actually the the uh I should say that the turnout, some of the best turnouts are in the South, and that's because these are their people.

These are their people.

These are their cousins, their uh their aunts, sometimes their grandparents, sometimes their parents.

These are their people, and so they feel a deep connection to this, a deep curiosity.

More, you know, I'm I've been really gratified to see that.

I love that.

Yes, I was at the University of Virginia, and um it was a great turnout, and um I was in that particular setting, I was the only person of color in the room, which is very which is which says a lot about the appreciation for history overall, um, and I was very I was gratified to see that as well.

So uh the and in some ways, this great migration, the people who were part of this migration, in some ways were unwitting ambassadors of southern culture because they brought the culture with them.

So Southerners, if they look at it and and really uh take note of what happened, then in some ways the way that they probably that I gather that it's being uh understood and appreciated is that these are our people who went to the north and the west and carried the culture with them so that in some ways we can take a part of that, we can we can take joy in it.

We've come a long, long way.

We really have come a long way, and the turnout has been phenomenal in the South.

It has been yes, my name is Malcolm Westbrooks, and my father JB and my mother Videlia migrated to Oakland 1937 from Jasper County, Texas, and he did it by freight train.

But uh I know how many for you a photo of them on the East Shore of Lake Mirror 1939, and some video.

I began uh videotaping my father in the late 70s, early 80s, and he has some wonderful stories that I think you'll enjoy.

So I'd be honored.

Oh, thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Hi there.

I am just absolutely so moved by this book.

I'm a I'm an avid fan of history and history of real people, and particularly of the migration coming to California.

My family settled in Arizona and up in the mountains of McNary and Tucson and Phoenix and Yuma and all of those places in the middle of the desert.

Yeah, it's and I mean it's a fascinating stories of how black folks got to be in the middle of the desert in the first place.

But one of the things I wanted to ask you was about the process.

I also work with senior citizens to get them to tell their stories about settling in places like Cochrane and those places like that in the cotton fields and fruit farms that are here in uh uh the Bay Area or in Northern California.

I was just wondering what kind of questions did you ask, and when you went through the interview process, and I know that this was a 15-year process, and old people do love to love to talk.

They love to give them an opportunity to tell their story and they're ready to tell it.

So I was just wondering what what kind of questions would you ask?

Well, when it comes to the 15 years, the 15 years was in segments.

The f you know, it was about two years of just interviewing the 1200, going all over the country and going into senior centers and uh ARP meetings and uh Baptist churches in uh in New York where everybody was from South Carolina and of course Catholic churches in LA where everybody was from Louisiana and on and on.

So there was a lot of places that I went.

That's one of the things that took the time.

Another thing that took the time is that uh people have to tell the story in their own time.

And for many of the people, remember, many of them don't want to talk, have not wanted to talk.

Um my mother was, as I said, one of the toughest interviews I had was my mother, um, who I am convinced still has not told me everything.

Um, but uh one of the things that I did with her, for example, was I I actually read every word of the book to her.

My father um passed away and did not live to see the day.

He would have been so proud to have seen this book.

Um, but I did read it to her, who was then widowed, and um, and what happened was I would read it, and she would start uh interrupting.

I mean, I couldn't get through a page because she said, Well, in Rome, you know, there goes Rome again.

And so that was one way to get her to talk.

So, one of the challenges is just to make it comfortable for people to talk because a lot of times they don't want to talk.

It's too painful.

When you describe these things, and we we talk about the absurdity of not being able to pass somebody on the road or that sort of thing.

But this was their lives.

This is what they had to live with for uh until uh they made the passage uh out of the South.

And it was it was uh it it scarred them, and I think that a lot of this is almost like post-traumatic stress.

So it takes a lot of time and patience, which is one reason why it wouldn't be just one interview, it would be many, many, many visits.

I would call them more visits than interviewing, and we would just talk about whatever they was on their minds at that moment.

I might throw out a topic about you know, tell me about you know when you got married or how you met your spouse, how'd you meet your husband, and then they would start talking, and then we would ease into it, and then over time um other things would come out, and that's how I got the story.

There's a hand right there, right here.

Hi, oh, hi.

You actually uh answered uh the part of my question regarding uh getting those stories.

So I wanted to take a quick second to announce an event I'm doing.

I'm inspired by your book.

Uh, my boss, Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson initiated a program where the last um three months we've been doing genealogy with youth in uh South Berkeley, uh West Oakland, and uh former foster youth.

So uh those uh young people will be uh telling their stories on June 4th at Malcolm X Elementary in uh Berkeley.

So I hope you all will come out and uh support those young people telling their stories, and uh for the record, my family, my mother's side, Appaloosis, Louisiana, and uh Jacksonville, Florida, my father's side by way of Detroit.

I I I have to say that you know, when I started this, people didn't talk like that.

And my goal was to have almost when you introduce yourself to describe what the background is because that is part of the identity, and it's embracing that identity and taking a sense of dignity from what that represents.

That means something, it means something.

Just saying where they're from means they had to come a long way.

That's the story in itself.

There's more to the story, but that says so much, and I I it just it just warms my heart to hear uh that we are embracing it and talking about that in that way.

Yes, um, the question is about the migration from Gorye Island.

I have I have uh I have her obviously heard of at the door of no return, and um one of the things that I have uh come to to embrace with this book.

If you read it, you get a sense of it.

If you heard me speak, you get a sense of it, and I'll say it again.

We all have so much more in common than we've been led to believe.

We are all here because someone made a great leap of faith to jump off a cliff into the unknown.

I view all these migration streams as being reflective of the faith and the fortitude of the forebears who did this thing, and I don't see a difference between whether people came from the Caribbean or whether they came from Alabama.

Um the idea is they all we all came through uh great uh sacrifice and loss and homesickness and all of that, bringing the culture with us, having to recreate the culture wherever we landed, and it's that idea that I uh connect with.

The people in this book are merely proxies for what anyone whoever made the crossing has done.

The beauty of it is it gives us an idea because many for many people the the uh actual migration experience or immigration experience happened a long time ago.

This is so recent and yet it's complete that you get a chance to understand what was it like?

What did it take?

What would I have done?

I wanted it to come alive for readers.

These these people, these people are human beings doing what human beings do when they're faced with the circumstances that they were in, and that's where I take my sustenance from.

And it makes me feel a greater connection to all of humanity because it this to be human in some ways is to migrate ultimately.

Yes.

Yes.

Um, that's so resonant about the experience of reading your book is you are the reader, and communities across the country are inspired by the political women.

What you written.

I'd like to know what's your next project.

And also in your various meetings across the country, what things have jumped off because of people reading the book, the conversations being had because of the book.

What have one of those inspirational things that you see?

Because it's it's certainly there's a wave that your book has generated.

There is.

Well, first of all, this is the book.

This is my book.

This is my version of the book.

This has been with me since September when the book came out.

I had no idea that it was going to that I would still be talking about the book to this degree at this point, eight months into it.

And it doesn't appear to be uh coming to coming to an end because I'm booked through uh spring of 2013.

I cannot believe that.

So, so um when I I say that to say that the uh that it's become in some ways a uh a touch point for many groups to identify with there's a great discussion about immigration in this country.

It helps understand why people do a particular thing.

I would hope that it would help us to recognize the common humanity and all of us.

My name is I would hope that it would help people who are recent immigrants and uh see African American, the African American experience is not as different from theirs as they might perceive it to be, and that for other Americans to also see that that African Americans ended up doing, forced ultimately to do what other groups have uh chose to do.

And so there's so much commonality we have.

One of the things that I do know that it's being um taken up by many, many schools.

Um there are it is crossed the ocean and is being uh read by uh very high level people in Europe who are looking at their own immigration situation with people with all the turmoil in North Africa coming into Europe.

So believe it or not, that's what's going on there.

Uh and I don't we don't know all where it will go because people are still reading it.

I mean, it's a great leap of faith just to pick up the book because it's a big book, you know, and uh but I I hope you find that it is um uh a pleasure to read because I worked really hard to try to make it that.

These people are beautiful people, yeah.

It is.

Thank you so much.

And I think we can do a lot with our children if we talk to them about the situations in which we came from.

Because with my daughter and son, I said, Do you know why you like potato pie?

No, I just know it's good.

I said, Well, because blacks in the South, years ago, they didn't have money for desserts, so therefore they used whatever they had that they had grown and put sugar in it and made it to be what they wanted.

I said that's where you got your potato pie.

That's where you got your bread pudding, that's where you got your rice pudding, and all of those reserves, each cobbler, and all of that was from down south because my parents did not have money to buy sweets, so they made it themselves.

And just one other comment I can um I can um go back because it's very emotional for me, because when you were talking about people trying to act white, my English teacher at Grambling was very light, fair skin, and she had her hair red.

She always colored it red for some reason, and she was very stiff, you know.

She's just very educated.

She was on her way to Grambling to work one morning, and a group of white people forced her off the road between um Grammick and Rustin and beat her up because they told her she was trying to act white.

So it was very emotional when you said that, because I pretty much have lived through a lot of.

It was life and death.

This is real the reality.

And you knew your place back there.

Yeah.

And that's why I didn't appreciate BB King.

Because we used to speak off and go to the game.

Yeah, I wanted to uh I wanted to thank you so much for uh, okay.

Yeah, right.

I wanted to thank you so much for your book.

I migrated to California in 19 uh 51 when I was just 20 years old, and uh last week I got a chance to share my migration story with fourth graders, and they were very much uh very much uh interested in it.

Uh also there's hope after all.

Uh yes, yes, of course.

They were very, very much interested in it with pictures of my family and so forth.

But I wanted to say also that I had the opportunity to connect my migration story and your story with the migration of one of my great grandmothers who came over uh and lived as an enslaved person, and I knew her when I was a young child.

She died in 1939 when I was nine years old.

And so they got a chance to see a larger picture uh of the migration.

But thank you very much.

Well, thank you.

I think we have time for one more question.

You had started out earlier uh talking about how you make this story alive to young people, and I'd like for you to share that with us because I really would like to know because I know we talk to our kids and our grandchildren, but I like to hear how you share it and make it alive.

Well, the the uh well, one of them is to come up with these things that will that are connected to their lives, and one of them is driving is a big deal, you know, especially for for uh people who feel that no one can tell them how to drive.

Uh, and so that I I I've looked for examples such as that.

Um, but I'm I'm struck by the uh a study that I uh came across uh after having completed the book that reminded me of even why I decided to do the book, and that was a study that showed that it was it was uh in North Carolina as I'm recalling, one of the Carolinas, of uh it happened to have been uh Mexican American children, and they showed that the uh the self-esteem for the children rose when there was a discussion of actually their culture and their background.

In other words, once they embraced their culture and their background, recognizing that they were American, but they also had other parts of themselves that could strengthen them in some way, and their self-esteem measurements of self-esteem actually rose.

Now, the thing is that for many African American children, that may not be occurring because the assumption is well they're American and you know they know the story already.

Well, actually, they don't know the story.

There's no way you could truly know the story.

Uh, and I it reminded me of why I decided to do the book to begin with.

The idea, you know, going way back, I'm thinking about how when I was in school, my mother got me in the best school that she could because she valued education, the people actually truly valued education because it had been denied them.

And so she got me in a diverse school, a very good school in Washington, DC, with many, many people from all over the world.

And so there are many of them were diplomats, children, or anyway, they were a lot of so-called immigrants.

And I found myself identifying with the immigrant children.

I found myself feeling that you know we'd open up our um lunch boxes and our lunch boxes were different from the other children.

Other children might have grilled cheese sandwiches.

Well, my mother made um every single day.

She had Vienna sausages on Wonder Bread with Miracle Whip.

Yeah, and she actually pronounced it, it was not pronounced Vienna sausage, they were pronounced Vina sausage.

Yes.

So every day I would open it up, and there was the same thing.

It was Vienna sausages on Wonder Bread with Miracle Whip every single day.

She was, and she was doing this was her understanding her translation of what she thought northerners would be eating.

This was an upgrade in her mind, and so um I identified with the horror of opening this up and seeing what it was, and then I had immigrant friends who were opening up things that might be curried or something else or very spicy with some things that other children were not having.

And so I identified with that, but I didn't realize why.

And that is because we had a similar experience of being newcomers, the children of newcomers in a new world.

And so that's how I became, you know, going, obviously, at the time I didn't recognize that I was gonna go and write a book.

But to answer your question, I didn't realize on certain days where people would start talking about how their grandparents or great-grandparents had come from the old country and done this and done that and made something of themselves.

I didn't realize that the same could be said for people who had done what my parents had done.

I didn't realize that.

I didn't realize I would be quiet on those days and not know what to say, and I didn't realize that we had stories to tell too.

So thank you very much.

From New York, this is Democracy Now.

OHCHR has just a few minutes ago reported on a multitude of reports of salary executions of unarmed men and civilians in Al-Fasha.

The United Nations is repeating its call for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan after the UAE backed rapid support forces seized control of Al Fasha and Darfur after a seventeen-month siege.

Mass reports of atrocities in the city.

We'll get the latest.

Then the U.S.

government shutdown has entered its twenty-eighth day.

Almost a million and a half federal workers are going without pay.

Many are turning to food pantries to eat, as forty-two million people will soon lose food assistance through the SNAP program.

Millions are also facing soaring health care premiums as Republicans refuse to extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.

Some parts of Jamaica could see up to 40 inches of rain.

More rain than typically falls in an entire year.

We have nothing in our hands to live on.

If a hurricane hits, we're screwed.

If the hurricane comes on top of all the problems we already have, we'll simply die.

My kids, my wife, and my family are somewhere else.

We have nothing to eat to survive.

This adds to the problem of bandits shooting all day.

There's no way out except to die.

The hurricane exploded in strength from a prop tropical storm on Saturday to a category four hurricane on Sunday, a rapid intensification made possible by abnormally warm waters in the Caribbean.

Climate scientists say human activities causing oceans to warm dramatically, making rapidly developing storms more common.

The United Nations top officials says the world has failed to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the goal set by the Paris climate agreement to prevent the most devastating consequences of the climate crisis.

Speaking with the Guardian and the Brazilian news outlet, Suma Uma, ahead of next month's COP 30 climate summit in Brazil, U.N.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres said it's now inevitable.

Humanity will overshoot the 1.5 degree target set by the Paris climate agreement with devastating consequences for the world.

So overshooting is now inevitable.

And so it is absolutely indispensable to change course in order to make sure that that overshooting is as small as possible, and this is a basic condition to avoid tipping points.

We don't want to see the Amazon as a savannah.

But that is a real risk if we don't change course and if we don't take a dramatic decrease of emissions as soon as possible.

Democracy now will be in Belem, Brazil, covering the UN climate summit.

In the Gaza Strip aid organizations warn the amount of food and other basic goods Israel's allowed to enter the Palestinian territory continues to fall far short of the 600 truckloads per day promised under Israel's ceasefire agreement.

The UN says the daily number of trucks allowed into Gaza has never passed 200 on any single day in October.

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians are returning to neighborhoods.

Israel forced them to evacuate only to find their homes in rubble, according to the UN migration agency, an estimated 90% of all buildings in Gaza are destroyed or damaged.

This is a Mal Taleb Alian, a Palestinian from the Al-Shahti refugee camp whose home was flattened by Israeli strikes.

We took the house keys.

Here they are, the house keys.

We took them so we would come back and find the house.

But when the truce happened, we returned and we didn't find the house.

We didn't even find the door.

Every day when I come here, I feel like my soul leaves me.

This is where I used to go, where I used to walk.

This is my place, my home, my house.

Here I built my life.

Here I built dreams for me and the children.

It's very hard to lose your home.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian fighters during an early morning raid on a village near the city of Janin.

The raids sparked heavy exchanges of gunfire, prompting Israel's military to call an air strikes.

This comes as the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, is pledging his forces will remain in Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank until at least the end of the year.

Israeli attacks on the West Bank have killed more than a thousand Palestinians over the past two years, including two hundred and thirteen children.

U.S.

officials who closely examine the 2022 shooting death of Palestinian American journalist Sharina Abuakla and the occupied West Bank were deeply divided over the Biden administration's public conclusions, with some officials convinced her killing was intentional.

That's according to the New York Times, citing five current and former U.S.

officials who worked on the case, including a career military policeman with 30 years experience.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Colonel Steve Gabavic said the U.S.

government had soft pedaled the office's findings to appease the Israeli government.

He said he and his colleagues were left flabbergasted by the Biden State Department statement attributing Abu Akla's killing to quote tragic circumstances.

The Colonel also spoke with journalist Medi Hassan of the news outlets at Teo.

My findings were beyond a reasonable doubt that this was an intentional killing of Srinabacla.

This is on the 19th or 20th of May 2022.

Yes.

This is within 10 days, yes, of her killing.

Yes.

You, on behalf of the United States government, are saying that beyond reasonable doubt, that's a legal standard and a criminal call.

Yes, it is.

She was intentionally killed, correct.

Venezuelan officials say they've captured a group of mercenaries tied to the U.S.

Central Intelligence Agency.

In a statement, the government of Venezuela said, quote, this is a colonial operation of military aggression that seeks to turn the Caribbean into a space for lethal violence and U.S.

imperial domination, unquote.

Earlier this month, President Trump acknowledged he authorized the CIA to secretly conduct operations in Venezuela.

On Sunday, a U.S.

warship arrived in Trinidad and Tobago, leading Venezuela to cancel energy agreements with the Caribbean nation.

Here's Venezuela's vice president and oil minister Delcy Rodriguez.

It's not a conflict, it's aggression from the United States, a militaristic aggression against Venezuela.

President Maduro has said it.

It's about Venezuela's oil and gas.

The U.S.

federal government shutdown has entered its 28th day.

On Monday, American Federation of Government Employees, the nation's top federal workers' union, called on Congress to immediately end the shutdown by passing a spending bill that does not include the health care measures that Democrats want to protect.

Everett Kelly, the President of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement, quote, It's time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.

No half-measures and no gamesmanship, he said.

This comes as the Department of Agriculture posted a notice on its website stating no federal food aid will go out November 1st.

Meanwhile, President Trump has stated he will not tap into a contingency fund of five billion dollars to keep SNAP, that's the supplemental nutrition assistance program running.

One in eight Americans rely on SNAP food assistance.

Indiana's Republican governor called for a special legislative session Monday to redraw the state's congressional map, stating if Indiana doesn't take action, quote, we'll have consequences of not working with the Trump administration as tightly as we should.

Unquote.

The proposal could allow Republicans to win all nine of Indiana's congressional seats that follows similar efforts by Republicans to successfully redraw maps in their favor in Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration appointed Kurt Olson, a former Trump campaign lawyer, as a special government employee to work on election issues.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, officials said Olson has started asking intelligence agencies about information related to the 2020 election.

This comes as the Trump administration's instructed the Justice Department to send observers to New Jersey and California to monitor polling sites during elections next week.

Californians are set to vote on a ballot proposition that would redraw the state's congressional districts, allowing Democrats to possibly pick up five additional seats in Congress.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom called the Trump administration's moves as intimidation tactic.

While California's Attorney General Rob Bante said, quote, all indications, all arrows, show this is a tee up for something more dangerous in the 2026 midterms and beyond.

President Trump met Japan's newly elected ultranationalist prime minister, Sinaya Takaichi in Tokyo Tuesday as he continued a six-day trip to Asia.

The pair agreed to cooperate on expanding the supply chain for rare earth metals and promised to expand military cooperation with Takeichi, reiterating a pledge to increase Japan's military spending to at least two percent of gross domestic product.

During their summit, she repeatedly flattered Trump, saying she plans to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

In such a short period of time, the world has become more peaceful.

Earlier today, Japan's first female prime minister joined President Trump aboard an aircraft carrier at a U.S.

naval base in Yokosuka, where Trump told active duty soldiers he plans to keep using the National Guard to occupy American cities and that he might deploy soldiers from other military branches as well.

This comes ahead of Trump's trip to a summit in South Korea, where he'll meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.

It's unclear if he will also be meeting with the North Korean leader on this trip.

In Cameroon, the world's oldest president, 92-year-old Paul Bia, was re-elected Monday to an eighth term in office.

This follows days of protest during which security forces killed four people.

Cameroon's top court ruled via one the majority of the votes, but the opposition contested the result.

Recently, dozens of opposition supporters and activists and leaders had been arrested.

And in the Ivory Coast, 83-year-old incumbent president Alessand Watara has won a fourth term in office after an election that saw two of his main rivals disqualified.

About half of eligible voters cast ballots, far fewer than the roughly 80% who voted in the 2010-11 elections when Wattara was first elected.

And those are some of the headlines.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Juan Gonzalez in Chicago.

Hi, Juan.

Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.

The United Nations is repeating its call for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan after the UAE backed rapid support forces seize control of the city of Al-Fasher in Darfur after a 17-month siege.

On Monday, the head of the African Union called for the opening of humanitarian corridors to allow life-saving aid to reach those in need.

The African Union also condemned reports of war crimes in Al Fasher.

One group allied with the Sudanese military has claimed the RSF has, quote, executed more than 2,000 unarmed civilians, unquote, since taking control of Al Fasher.

The fall of the city is seen as a major blow to the Sudanese military.

On Monday, Sudan's Army Chief, General Abdelfata Obaran announced the withdrawal of a soldiers from their last stronghold in Darfur.

Everyone has followed what has happened in Al Fazir.

Certainly the leadership there, including security, made assessments that they have to leave the city due to the systemic destruction.

And killing of civilians.

We agreed with them to leave the city and to go to a safe place so as to spare the rest of the citizens and the rest of the city from destruction.

On Monday, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Denise Brown, warned of the escalating humanitarian crisis in Al Fasher and throughout Sudan.

A blockade of humanitarian assistance going in for those civilians.

So I just want to reiterate there are civilians in El Fashar.

It is a fact.

And once again, and we've said it dozens of times, the U.N.

calls on the RSF to allow safe passage for them for them to leave, particularly as the fighting has intensified over the past 24 hours.

These individuals are increased risk of being injured or killed.

OHCHR has just a few minutes ago reported on a multitude of reports of summary executions of unarmed men and civilians in Al-Fashar.

The Sudanese military and the UAE backed RSF have been fighting since 2023.

Since then, more than 150,000 people have died across Sudan.

About 12 million have fled their homes.

We go now to Marine Al Neal, a Sudanese activist, usually uh joins us uh from Khartoum uh or in Sudan, but is now in Nairobi, Kenya.

Marine, can you talk about the significance of the RSF taking over Al-Fasher, the role of the UAE, and the level of famine in the city, what it means for the whole country.

The the most important aspect of uh the RSF taking control of Al-Fash is the humanitarian aspects.

We've seen uh the situation in Al-Facet in the months of the siege, which were about 80 months of siege, and uh during that time, the RSF built barricades from sand that just completely surrounded the city, uh, making sure that no one goes in or out except through one um what they called a safe um corridor.

Um, and it was anything but safe.

Um people were facing multiple violations uh through that route.

And during the time of the siege, we've seen the level of fa uh famine in in uh Al-Fashed provided to something we've not seen in other areas in Sudan.

Even just a sack of millet, which is the staple or was the staple in Al-Fashid, rose to over a thousand dollars.

And people started basically depending on animal feeding to feed themselves and their families.

And that has been the situation for months.

So now with the RSF uh taking over the city and and uh entering um the city and taking over the sixth infantry of the Sudanese armed forces, uh the biggest fear is what's going to happen to the civilians.

We know that there the RSF does not uh differentiate between military and and civilians, and they they've been explicitly saying there are no civilians in Al-Fashed, which is uh not um the reality.

Um so this is the fear now what's going to happen to the civilians, and we're already seeing um great violations uh happening to the people, executions, uh detentions, uh targeting of um volunteers, um targeting of journalists.

We've seen the detention of the general journalists as well.

And when it comes to um what does this mean for uh the war in Sudan and in total, um this just shows us that what the Sudanese armed forces have been promising, which is um military victory uh that is going to end the war, is nowhere near happening.

Um and if they keep insisting that they must win with a military victory, then this is just going to prolong the war uh more and more and causing more civilians uh harm because both parties are um indiscriminately um attacking uh without whether these are civilians or or from the other uh war in party.

Um and also indiscriminately attacking infrastructure.

Um they've attacked uh healthcare infrastructure.

About 80% of the hospitals are out of service now and um and let alone all the medical staff that have also fled the country.

Um so we're seeing with um the the harms that the war is causing, we're also seeing the healthcare situation deteriorating very quickly, and this is something that is impacting um places like uh North Darfur very heavily and also impacting uh the rest of the country.

Could you talk uh Maureen about the significance of the city of Al Fasher?

Uh uh to the both sides, why they have fought so hard now for so long uh over control of the city.

Yeah, well, it is the last uh stronghold of the Sudanese armed forces in uh that four.

Um, and this is one of the fears that is um uh also a lot of Sudanese people are are afraid of facing, or afraid that the country will face now is um the prospect of having uh basically two governments because already the RSF have um announced um a parallel government um and now with them taking uh uh control of Al-Fashid and also taking control of about two days ago of Bada, which is um another strategic city in uh North Korea.

Um, so the fear of having two governments uh now uh which will lead to longer destabilization that could um uh not being able to end it, whether military or or through the negotiations, um, since uh SAF was is not um is not accepting any negotiations at the time.

There are no negotiations happening directly or indirectly.

Um so with the RSF taking control uh of Al-Fashed, this fear is growing about having the country destabilized for longer, about having uh two governments um and and also the fear of um the back and forth of RSF taking control and SAF taking control of uh areas which causes more and more violations.

Um every time you have this movement of the two warring parties, um, we you see a spike in in in human humanitarian violations.

You see a spike in gender-based violence and sexual violence, um, and you see obviously a spike in detention and in executions, extra judicial executions that are being done by both parties um uh accusing um civilians or maybe not civilians, we don't know, because there are no trials happening, accusing them of collaborating with the other party and um executing them extrajudicially based on that.

Could you talk about the role of outside powers in this war of specifically the United Arab Emirates or other regional powers?

What do they have to gain from continuing to stoke this war?

Well, the United Arab Emirates is playing multiple roles in this uh war.

We know that it has been backing the rapid support forces, and on the other hand, it still has um relations with the government that is um the Sudanese armed forces.

Um and we've seen how big of a role it plays on the other side as well, uh, especially recently when the uh air flights between uh Port Sudan and UAE were stopped, and we've seen that the uh amount of um gold imports that have been halted uh due to that.

So the uh UAE has a vested interest um in Sudan, uh, has been supporting the rapid support uh uh forces, and at the same time it is continuing to have relations with the Sudanese armed forces.

Um so I think that the lack of stability um does facilitate uh more um uh uh importing of uh gold from Sudan that is not being regulated.

Um uh and at the same time they're still uh also uh importing the the legally uh uh gold from Sudan.

And at the same time it's part the UAE is part of uh the quad that is um trying to lead negotiations between the two uh uh warring parties, um, and the existence of UAE in that quad has been one of the reasons that's being stated by the Sunese armed forces as um a reason that they cannot trust the Quad to lead these uh negotiations.

So we know that the United Arab Emirates can have a lot of uh impact.

Uh it can uh control um or at least impact the flow of uh weapons and ammunition to the rapid support forces.

It can also uh pressure the Sudanese armed forces through their uh economic relationship.

Um and it can um also uh impact both parties uh through its uh contribution in the quad.

Uh so they they're able to influence the situation to something better if that was their priority, but um we know very well that the priority is uh the economic um gains that they have from Sudan.

So finally, Marine Al Neil, um what do you feel um can be done at this point?

What is civil society calling for?

Talk about what the UN, and we're speaking to you from the United States, what the United States can do.

What does civil society want?

At this moment, what's important, we have an urgent situation uh that is happening now in Al-Fash.

So there is a need for urgent help.

There is a need for for um having that the aid reach the people.

We've had over a thousand families uh fleeing al-Fashid and reaching uh Tawila and nearby uh town.

Um and all of these people are in need of are in desperate need of uh humanitarian assistance.

Um that needs to be organized.

There are um groups that are working on the ground, um, there are community-based groups, uh, there are grassroots groups that are working on the ground, and that can be supported.

Um and when we're talking on the other hand, what what can be done from the United States uh uh I think um, I mean the United States is also part of uh the quad.

So um uh people in the United States can um work on um uh influencing the United States by prioritizing um the safety of the people and the livelihoods of the people.

Um we've heard the special envoy of the US say that uh their main concern, this was before the takeover of Al-Fashid.

Their main concern is that is uh the relations between the Sunni's armed forces and uh Islamic movements, and I think it's important to move uh the main concern from any uh power sharing uh prospects to what is happening to the people now on the ground, especially when we have such a dire situation.

Um, and another area that can be uh also very impossible is uh to see some seriousness in the the um measures that the US is taking.

We've seen them um impose sanctions on uh a number of rapid support forces leaders, uh while at the same time there are reports of um rapid support forces leaders um roaming freedom in uh Washington DC, actually.

Um, so there is a question of uh how serious are these uh uh measures that are are being taken uh against the perpetrators to try to um pressure uh to pressure them to uh prioritize that humanitarian situation right now and and pressure them into at least a humanitarian ceasefire ceasefire, like the pod has uh suggested for three months uh um uh there can be more seriousness taken into these uh uh measures.

Um, so we can see uh the warring parties um uh prioritizing also the safety of the Sudanese people because um at this moment, and as we've seen for two years, um the priority of both warring parties was um reaching power basically um uh while the international atches priorities have been related to um economic uh interests um as well as interest in not destabilizing uh the entire region.

Maureen Al Neon wanna thank you for being with us, Sudanese activists joining us from Nairobi, Kenya.

Coming up, the government shutdown enters its 28th day.

42 million Americans will soon lose federal food assistant.

We'll look at why millions are seeing soaring health care premiums and what can be done about it.

Stay with us.

Tomorrow is coming.

Some new hope is around then, and it's beaming through the land.

I could be all right under the door with the holy line, things have gonna be alright.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org.

I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.

The U.S.

federal government shutdown is entered its 20th day.

On Friday, more than a million 1.4 million federal workers miss their first full paychecks.

Um this is furloughed federal worker, Anthony Spade in line at a food bank in Washington, DC.

So today is my normally I would get paid today.

Um, I don't have no paycheck in my account.

I still have bills that are due.

I have a family that I have to take care of, so it's a lot of uncertainty that comes along with this.

Um, I'm grateful for these opportunities to receive assistance, but there is a lot of uncertainty that comes along with it, and it causes a lot of stress as well.

Now the American Federation of Government Employees, the nation's top federal workers' union is calling on Congress to immediately end the shutdown by passing a bill without agreeing to demands from Democrats to extend health care subsidies from the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire Saturday, November 1st, doubling premiums for some 20 million people, as many federal workers turn to food pantries.

The Department of Agriculture says it'll cut food aid to some 42 million people who rely on SNAP, that supplemental nutrition assistance program, starting Saturday.

President Trump says he will not tap into a contingency fund of five billion dollars to keep SNAP running.

This is Jill Dixon, executive director of the Food Depot, a food bank in northern New Mexico.

For every meal that a food bank provides, the SNAP program provides nine.

There's no way we can replace every single one of those meals.

It is not sustainable for food banks to fill this gap.

We were not built to do this.

On Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders posted on social media, Trump's throwing 15 million Americans off health care.

He's doubling premiums for 20 million Americans.

Now he's refusing to use a five billion dollar emergency SNAP fund to keep 16 million kids from going hungry.

But the one percent keep one trillion dollars in tax breaks, oligarchy and action center said.

We'll look more at health care in a minute.

We begin in Washington, DC with Gina Platanino, interim director for SNAP at the Food Research and Action Center FRAC.

Thanks so much for being with us, Gina.

Lay out what's happening.

What is at stake this week?

At stake, it is the livelihood, it is food on the table for over 42 million of Americans who are going to lose their faith in government if the Secretary of Agriculture doesn't utilize these contingency reserves that she has in place that she has been given the authority to utilize to ensure that SNAP benefits in November are not delayed.

And Gina, the uh the Department of Agriculture, with uh Trump's appointee Brooke Rollins, put out a quite amazing uh statement on their website.

They they they have in a notice to the public quote bottom line, the well has run dry.

At this time, there will be no benefits issued November one.

We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.

They can continue to hold out for health care for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance.

Have you ever seen such a such a statement by a government agency?

No, and and everything's incorrect.

I mean, we can go down the line and breaking down every point and to just say, you know, everything's a lie.

You know what we can throw out data, so much data in terms of who benefits from SNAP, 96% are U.S.

citizens, majority of people who utilize SNAP are are white Americans.

Um the people who benefit from this program are Americans.

Um, but really what it comes down to is unfortunately made um individuals who utilize this so that they can pay for rent um because they don't have enough money.

Majority of people who are in SNAP are working, they live paycheck to paycheck, and this will offset them while SNAP is supposed to be a supplemental program.

In reality, it's their whole food budget.

And when you have to make a decision between making sure that there's food on the table for your child while they may be getting food at school, when they come home, they're gonna see mommy and daddy skipping meals.

Um, so it's just unfortunately that they're utilizing human beings, Americans as a political battle, as a chess pieces, when they are have to they're gonna have to face their landlord and say, I I don't have money for food, I don't know if I can pay my rent.

So we're gonna see, and we're starting to use see a higher utilization of credit card debt for those who still have credit cards.

Um we are going to see, you know, more people going into the food banks, but the food banks do not have the resources and they can't make up what SNAP does, nine meals for everyone that a food bank does.

So we are going to see a decrease in people's well-being, unnecessary mental health and pressure, similarly to what we saw in the previous shutdown under the first Trump administration.

But even then, the secretary appointed was able to ensure that benefits went out earlier so we wouldn't be in the situation where we are now, which is why Congress gave the authority to the secretary through contingency funds that they could utilize them, and they have been utilizing them to pay administrative expenses for the states.

So they just have to tap it into those resources and then the additional reserves, for example, in section 32 that they utilize to fund WIC.

The Secretary can and she utilized this authority and not play with people's lives, their livelihood with their food, particularly when everything's more expensive.

And uh, how are some states responding to this looming uh uh cutback?

Remember that SNAP is a federal program.

The state handles all of the federal money.

So this idea that, like, they are buckets of money sort of laying around, it's it's uh it's not correct.

And states are already have been trying to figure out how to come back from the reconciliation bill signed by Trump by President Trump in the summer uh in July, because they were already trying to figure out how they were gonna continue paying for SNAP because for the first time in history, SNAP has to become a line item budget if people want to continue putting this in the program because um uh the reconciliation law takes away 187 billion dollars from SNAP.

So this is in continuation in terms of what the uh the administration finds.

So states were already dealing with this, saying how we're going to implement all of these changes, how are we going to do this with less administrative resources?

How are we going to put money up front?

And now the shutdown is happening, and people are very, you know, justifiably very angry and and just upset and don't understand that uh the person that can make all of this go away is the secretary is the president by just the secretary utilizing her power, and some states are saying, Should we utilize funding?

They can't do it.

They don't have the resources, they are not additional reserves.

And USCA sent out two memos on Friday.

One of them said that states will not get reimbursed if they utilize this.

So we know that Virginia's governor called it a state of emergency, and they're figuring out how to do this.

We've heard from other states as well.

The um governor of California gave more money to food banks and mobilized the National Guard to help carry the food and make sure that they process the food, but this is a band-aid on a bigger issue, and it just shows the impact that the federal inaction is causing.

So finally, Gina Plata Niño, um, the children.

How many children in the US rely on SNAP and what's going to happen now?

The majority of people on SNAP are children, followed by older adults and followed by people with disabilities.

Um, you know, what's gonna happen now is that these kids are going to school.

Thankfully, there's child nutrition programs, they're gonna get their breakfast, they're going to get their get their lunch, but then they're gonna go home.

And people forget that children don't live by themselves, right?

They have a caretaker.

That caretaker is already incredibly stressed out how they're going to pay their bill and have food on the table.

So, you know, the children are gonna say, you know, mommy daddy, why don't we have uh a Thanksgiving meal?

Why don't we have enough food at the table?

Why aren't you eating?

Um, why do you look so stressed?

And this is unnecessary burden on children to have to deal with everything else that's going on in in their environment.

So we're we're gonna see an uh increase of mental health issues and a lower well-being for many individuals.

And your final comment on the fact that the one trillion dollar tax cut for billionaires remains in place as children go hungry.

Yes, and and that's what people don't understand that this that ceiling issue that would happen in July was a policy choice, right?

It was to extend these tasits to incredibly wealthy individuals, it's not working class Americans, it's not middle class Americans, it is the wealthiest of wealthiest because as all of us are struggling to pay for food that is more expensive, three percent more expensive, three times more expensive than it was uh last year.

Billionaires are spending more money.

There are various stories and and research and studies to show that they have more money to spend because this is what the tax break did.

While the individuals who are working hard, because majority of people on SNAP are working, getting paid less than a thousand dollars.

The same corporations that got large tax breaks are not paying people livable wages, and so they have to rely on SNAP.

And now they're not they may not be able to pay for food, they may not be able to pay for rent because they need to be able to eat.

Gina Plata Nino, and thank you for being with us, interim director for SNAP at the food research and action center, a nonprofit working to end hunger in America.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org.

I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.

As the US federal government shutdown enters its 20th day, we now look at how Democrats are demanding Republicans agree to extend health care subsidies from the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire Saturday.

If Republicans want the votes to end the shutdown, health insurance premiums are expected to more than double for some 20 million people, unless Congress acts.

Many have already faced sticker shock when they received letters about their new premiums.

The enhanced subsidies were first put in place during the pandemic.

For more, we're joined here in New York by Dr.

Steffi Woolhandler, distinguished professor of public health at Hunter College CUNY, co-founder of physicians for a national health program, contributes regularly to top medical journals, co-authored the latest report just out in Lens that headlined health care in the USA.

Money has become the mission.

Welcome back to Democracy Now, Dr.

Wolhandler.

Explain what you mean.

Money has become the mission.

Exactly what is happening, what the Republicans are refusing to do right now to reopen the government, because the Democrats are saying they won't vote for an end to the shutdown until these tax subsidies are uh extended.

Okay.

Well, the purpose of health care has increasingly become profit making rather than a public service.

Uh, specifically, uh Congress and Trump have refused to extend the tax credits, which will double the premiums for 20 million uh Americans who get their coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

Um, that's the line in the sand that the Democrats have drawn on the shutdown.

But the bigger issues include that the one big beautiful bill that Trump signed into law on July 4th is going to cut one trillion dollars out of the Medicaid program, which more than one in every five Americans rely on to make their health care affordable.

Additionally, Trump has been giving uh give a giveaways to the private insurance industries, uh private insurance companies that have taken over the Medicare Advantage program.

Uh, he doubled their pay increase this year, uh, even though we already know that they're being overpaid by about $80 billion a year because a congressional medic official congressional Medicare Payment Advisory Commission says they're being overpaid 80 billion.

Nonetheless, Trump doubled their pay increase, meaning that prices will go up for the taxpayers and will go up for Medicare beneficiaries.

So there's many things that Trump is doing.

The Republican Congress is doing to accelerate price increases and favor the for-profit uh provision of health care rather than thinking about health care as the public service.

And uh Steffi Woolhandler, uh, these cuts will uh affect not just Medicaid, but also many people who are in uh let's say small business owners or the self-employed.

Could you talk about that sector of the population that will be affected?

Well, many people are going to be affected by cuts in various ways, but the refusal to extend the subsidies, which is what what we're talking about with the uh shutdown, uh, that affects uh small businesses, it affects uh near poor people, middle income people the most.

The Medicaid cuts affect everybody too.

That's not just the poorest of the poor.

Um, Medicaid actually provides uh subsidies to many people on Medicare to reduce the price of their medications.

Medicaid is a major source of funding for most uh rural hospitals, uh, many community hospitals get a big chunk of their funding for Medicaid.

So when that Medicaid funding is cut, it's going to be hard for community hospitals to pay their bills, and that will affect uh the health care quality for everyone.

Um, so the Trump administration and Congress are cutting in many, many ways.

And uh you were mentioning also of Medicare Advantage.

We're in this period now with literally on television, cable, social media, all of these uh Medicare Advantage companies are constantly, constantly, every single day advertising uh to uh to seniors.

Uh it's an enormous amount of expenditure just to create more market share for each of these companies.

Why do we even need to go through all of this every year?

Well, you're correct.

The Medicare Advantage program is a giant waste of money.

It's raised the cost to the taxpayers by 80 billion last year alone by over 600 billion over the past 20 years or so, uh, and yet the Trump administration is further encouraging it.

It also raises cost to Medicare beneficiaries through the Part B premiums.

Uh, pushes them up.

So uh we should have never turned over the Medicare program to these private profit seeking insurance companies like United Healthcare.

It was a giant mistake, and we should be trying to reverse that mistake now rather than encouraging it as the Trump administration is doing.

Dr.

Woolhandler put this in a global context um in the industrialized world where does the U.S.

stand I mean in this country I think people overall believe in public education I mean you can go to a private school if you have the money but that everyone should be able to get an education in this country why does that not extend to health care and explain how we compare uh to Canada who Trump is punishing right now to Britain I mean you are the co-founder of physicians for a national health program and w how do you see us getting there from here?

Well every other developed nation has some form of national health insurance or national health service when we compare the United States to those other nations we find that health care costs are more than 50% higher in the U.S.

than they are in other nations when we look at uh outcomes like life expectancy we find that Americans live four years shorter than people in other countries were dying four years younger than people in Canada or France or Holland.

So the the national health programs have been much more effective both in guaranteeing universal access making health care affordable and also controlling costs.

So we really need to be moving in that direction and away from our private profit oriented healthcare system.

Well there have been major movements for uh single payer Medicare for all over time uh that the issue of healthcare affordability and access is not going away and I think that that is the vision that uh Senator Sanders and many others have put forward about where we need to be going and that is what we need to be doing is keeping our eye on the prize creating an alternative vision to what Trump is offering right now.

Dr.

Steffi Willhandler physician distinguished professor of public health at Hunter College CUNY City University of New York co-founder of physicians for national health program.

We'll link to your latest report and Lancet healthcare in the USA money has become the mission coming up David Sorota of the lever unmaster plan the hidden plot to legalize corruption in America stay with us it's Christmas time in Washington.

Democrats rehearse in gear for four more years of things not getting worse republicans drink whisky thank you lucky stars.

They say cannot seek another term there no more FDRs.

And these wondering what it means would a good Christmas in Washington by Steve Earl here in our Democracy Now studio.

This is Democracy Now Democracy Now dot org I'm Amy Goodman with Ron Gonzalez the rights secret plan to help billionaires by elections that's the headline of a recent article by our next guest David Sorota editor in chief of the Lever in the article David writes about how two upcoming Supreme Court cases could turn the country into what he calls a kleptocracy.

The article's based on Sorota's new book Master Plan, the hidden plot to legalize corruption in America.

David's also has a new piece in the nation on the New York Mayoral race the real lesson from Zoran Mamdani's ascent.

David Sarota, welcome back to Democracy Now um why don't you start off by talking about how you define the master plan?

We talked to you when you did this series of podcasts on it.

The hidden plot to legalize corruption in America.

So we're immersed in corruption.

You see it in the headlines every day, and I think there's this perception that this is a uh natural uh course of events in the sense of it's a force of nature.

But what we unearthed in the book, uh, for the first time really ever is the secret plan to make this kind of corruption that we're immersed in legal.

A plan hatched in the uh early 1970s uh to begin deregulating the campaign finance system and narrowing and making essentially unenforceable the anti-bribery laws in America.

It started with the Powell memo.

Uh there was a lot of organizing.

Uh, the this memo written by uh assumed to be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, who urged uh a corporate investment and an oligarch investment in politics and media uh because he was afraid, and corporate America was afraid of the rising tide uh of consumer protection laws and the like.

Uh and and that m out of that movement in the early 1970s came the movement to create court rulings and legal precedents, uh equating money in politics uh not with corruption, but with s with constitutionally protected speech, giving corporations those constitutional rights to spend and in elections and by elections, ultimately culminating in citizens united.

Meanwhile, a series of court rulings starting in the mid two uh mid-2010s uh to overturn corruption convictions, to narrow the definition of bribery, uh leading up to now, as you alluded to in the intro, uh, two cases at the Supreme Court, one spearheaded by Vice President J.D.

Vance, uh, to eliminate what is essentially what was left of campaign finance restrictions after Citizens United and to further reduce the definition of bribery uh to make essentially quid pro quo transactions in politics legal.

This is all part of a plan uh by a corporate movement that sees democracy, uh the government providing what people want, sees that as a threat, and wants to turn the democracy from a one vote uh uh one vote kind of democracy into a one-dollar kind of democracy where money is the decider.

But uh but David, why do you call it a secret plan if it's basically uh a class or a group a group of people within a class clearly operating uh in their in their own interests?

That's certainly true.

What we uncover in the book is from the Powell memo, this memo written by Lewis Powell, uh, came never before revealed uh a series of meetings and task forces by the country's most powerful people.

We're talking about executives at major media companies and Fortune 500 companies forming a task force uh to implement uh the Powell memo's uh demands that corporations invest in and essentially take over American politics.

What you saw in the 1970s into the eighties and nineties was uh the implementation uh of what the Powell memo had called for.

And it it it was not revealed.

It was all much of it was done in secret.

We're talking about uh investments in uh motion pictures.

We're talking about investments in uh media entities.

We're talking about uh uh strategizing for how to implement and put loopholes into campaign finance laws.

One of the first meetings that came out of the PAL memo, let me give you one example, uh, was a meeting uh at at Disney World, where they flew in Gerald Ford, who was soon to be the president, uh, at a time when anti-corruption laws were moving through Congress after Watergate, and they ended up slipping in a loophole into that original campaign finance bill, which created the corporate pack for the first time.

Uh, and of course, from there we get the rulings that I've just mentioned.

Uh, you also uh talk about uh the Mamdani campaign uh and uh a lot of the political pundits uh ascribing his success to his messaging and charisma, but you raise also the issue of how a public financing of elections has made uh Mamdani's success possible as well.

Yeah, to my mind, having worked on campaigns and having reported on uh political campaign finance, there's this d debate, right?

Is it did Zoran Mamdani ascend because of his charisma, his slick ads, uh his message?

I think all of those were factors, but I don't think there really would be a Zoran Mamdani campaign without New York City's system of publicly financed campaigns, a system that offers candidates like Zoran Mamdani, any qualifying candidates, matching funds, public matching funds for their small donations.

So we've seen a lot of oligarch money flow into the New York City mayor's race.

The reason Mamdani has been able to run a well-resourced campaign is because of that public financing system, which gives a candidate like him access to resources that don't come with the demands of legislative favors.

They are not private money uh donations that come uh from donors who want things from from City Hall.

So Mamdani, that system has given Mamdani enough money not to outspend his opponents, but to at least run a competitive campaign.

And so I think people looking at that race, wondering what the takeaways are for democracy.

How can we have more outside the system candidates who can stand up to billionaires and oligarchs and the like, they should be looking at New York City's public financing system as a replicable model in other cities and other states across the country.

If you can talk David Sarota about all the latest news, for example, um the pardons of the Binance CEO and what this means for the Trump family.

Um you have President Trump last Thursday pardoning the convicted founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, uh Chiang Peng Zhao.

Um he pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering while he was uh uh CEO of Binance.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Binance struck a business deal with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto startup, which has generated four and a half billion dollars since Trump returned to office.

And then there's a major uh Reuters expose, the US president's family raking in more than 800 million dollars from sales of crypto assets in the first half of this year alone.

Um, if you can explain how that fits into your uh description of a master plan.

For sure.

I mean, this is this is really the culmination of it.

Uh starting in the mid-uh 2010s, there was a series of rulings.

This is if people remember the uh Virginia Governor Bob McDonald uh corruption case where he was convicted and the Supreme Court, the Roberts Court intervened to overturn the uh that conviction.

That became the Chris Christie AIDS case, uh the Andrew Cuomo AIDS case, uh a bunch of of corruption convictions that were overturned, culminating uh in last year's decision where an Indiana mayor uh was convicted on corruption for delivering a government contract uh and then getting a payment uh from the contractor afterwards, that conviction corruption was overturned.

The court said uh that that it wasn't bribery, it was a gratuity.

So so Trump is operating in a legal environment that has so narrowed down the definition of corruption to make it almost uh unprosecutable and unenforceable.

So I think when we look at stories of Donald Trump uh his business dealings in uh enriching himself uh through his position as president, we have to understand that they are knowingly operating inside of a legal environment that that has made it almost impossible to prosecute bribery, and that was part of the plan to deregulate the campaign finance system and to reduce those bribery laws because reducing uh those bribery laws and deregulating the campaign finance system essentially reduces the power of of people.

It it it rigs the democracy.

How can Trump be held accountable if the highest court in the land essentially says that bribery is no longer a crime?

And David, could you talk about the intimidation and the changes in ownership in the major media companies uh to basically bring them under heel to uh uh this uh authoritarian government we have now?

I'm so glad you asked this.

Uh, you know, one of the things that we uncovered that was kind of, in a sense, shocking to me because it was so explicit.

Back when Lewis Powell wrote his memo in the early 1970s, and there were these task forces about implementing the Powell memo.

Some of the uh this the top executives at the largest media companies in the country uh participated in that endeavor to implement the PAL memo.

We unearthed a letter from CBS uh CBS's president at the time saying not only did he agree uh with the Powell memo's uh directives and ideology, but that he was working to correct the situation at CBS News.

That's a direct quote.

And so I think we have to look at what's gone on in with media consolidation.

We have 30 seconds, David.

With Donald Trump uh uh essentially saying media mergers are predicated on his political ideology, we have to look at that as the culmination of the government uh trying to pressure and successfully pressuring media companies to do its bidding.

We want to thank you so much, David, for being with us.

David Sorota, founder and editor-in-chief of the Lever, speaking to us from Denver, Colorado, co-author of Master Plan, the Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.

That does it for our show, Democracy Now is produced with Mike Burke, Renee Feltz, Dina Guster, Messiah Rhodes, Nermin Shaykh, Maria Terraceina, Nicole Salazar, Sarah Nasser, Trina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tay Marie Astudio, John Hamilton, Robbie Karen, Hanima Sud.

I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.

Thanks for joining us, and the proud of the program.

In this show, we'll meet the volunteer commissioners and board members who provide expertise and guidance in critical decision making that affects our community.

Journey with us as we take an insider's look into the legislative process.

Hi, I'm Autumn King.

And in this episode, we're joined by part members of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission.

Today we're joined by Commissioner Duane Aikins, Commissioner Corbin, and Director Nicholas Williams.

Welcome to you all.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

So first, let's get into what this department is.

Can you tell us a little bit about Parks Recreation and Youth Development as a department?

The Parks Recreation and Youth Development Department exists to create equitable access to parks and recreational programs and facilities throughout Oakland for all of Oaklanders.

And so we have after school programs, summer programs, we have uh aquatic programs, sports programs, cultural enrichment programs, programs for adults, seniors, and youth.

Um our primary focus is youth development, and so our primary focus for programming is for youth, but we have programs for all of Oaklanders.

And what does that look like?

What does that look like as far as the actual programs that you have for youth versus the ones that you have for teens versus the ones that you have for adults?

We have a myriad of programs.

Um we include summer camp, after school programs, enrichment programs.

Again, you know, we have sports programs both for adults who like to get out and and and compete.

Um we have intramural programs, less competition, but we have a variety of of sports programs for for youth as well.

Um and then we have uh cultural artistic experiences, we have reintroduction to nature programs, and so everything that involves green space, outdoor space, reintroduction to nature, um, we have a robust swimming initiative, and then everything that happens in our summer programs and after school.

Excellent.

So how does that tie into the commission itself?

What are some of the work that you do on the commission, Commissioner Corbin?

So some of the work that we do is um policy related, and so we are a volunteer organization of representatives of our community, and so any sort of park issues usually come before the board anywhere from events, anywhere from the re-establishment of like a recreation center, the new buildings, anything that has to do with green space, nature within um the city of Oakland, we have a say on it.

And what's really important about that is for the community to have a see on it.

So we're community representatives working alongside of the government, and what we also do is liaison work with the recreation center so we can have like on the gr on-the-ground knowledge of what our community members are dealing with and their needs and concerns, and we bring that to parks and recreation and hopefully um work out a resolution.

So that's a lot of our work is so you're actually bringing the community's voice to Director Williams and others within the department to help shape the department and how it moves forward.

That's correct, um, definitely that.

So listening to a lot of community members that are dealing with anything from, for instance, the homeless encampment issue to making sure that the parks are safe, providing accessible parks beyond proximity, but where people can actually produce their culture, whether that's barbecuing, whether that's praying, whether that is just enjoying a quiet time, because it's such a shared space, we have to think about everybody, and we want to make sure that everybody has uh a space and a place to feel welcome at all of our parks in Oakland.

So then give me some specific issues or projects that you guys are working on right now, Commissioner Aikens.

So when I when I got to the commission in 2017, it was really more so talking about re-engaging the RACs, and that's the recreation advisory councils for the specific parks.

And so that looks totally different from the MPHCs that are sent around.

MPHC.

The neighborhood associate association groups that normally meet, and they pretty much most times meet at the recreation centers, but they're interested in making sure that their neighborhood parks are strong and specifically the ones with recreation centers.

For example, I'm uh now-assigned to Rainbow, Brookdale, Arroyo, and Golden Gate Park.

So part of my job is developing relationships with those parks.

The easiest relationship to develop was obviously with Arroyo Park because that's where I started most of my work for in this space by being on a on the board of directors for keep Oakland Beautiful.

And uh that's how that's how I end up getting appointed to be on the commission based off of doing that work.

And so the goal there is to all the new faces that's moving into that community to get them more so engaged, have more so like secession planning meetings.

Me and uh Commissioner Corbin actually have the cool opportunity to pretty much develop a RAC toolkit so that we can have uh widgets basically, so our commissioners can go out there and say, look, this is what this is what this part looks like, this is what this part looked like, and just really being strong enough and uh passionate enough to connect people with the things that's going on in city in the city, uh let them know the resources that they have, the grant opportunities that some programs have to support, so really being a voice and uh in a connector.

And it sounds like what you're doing is also finding the thread and keeping the continuity between the missions and the goals of the department and what the public is seeing.

Is that a fair statement?

Yes, Director Williams, can you tell us a little bit about how your role and and staff members interact with the board?

So, as the director of the department, it's my role to direct the internal staff, and so I serve as the liaison between the department and the PRAC commissioners, and so um in those meetings, we we um uh talk about um pre-planning, um, we uh talk about park rules, and then I share the thoughts and the direction that comes from the commissioners with staff, and then we direct the department to to act accordingly to the to the rules and and to the uh established protocols that we put together with the PRAC.

And how often do you all meet?

Once a month.

All right.

This is a probably a good time for our first break.

We'll have some more conversation with our commissioners as soon as we get back.

We're back.

Thanks for joining us.

Once again, we are joined by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission.

In that last segment, we were talking about uh a few, there were a few themes that came up about service and the roles that you all play, and it really got me to thinking about your volunteering.

This is an unpaid position.

Why did you get involved with this commission?

I see you chuckling.

What is that are you questioning your involvement at this point?

What is it that actually drove you to be part of the parks and recreation advisory commission?

For me, uh, yeah, I was laughing because I do a lot of volunteer work.

I actually run a nonprofit organization, but I was on a board of directors for six years for Keep Oakland Beautiful.

So I did my full term in close, near halfway being done.

I just finished the fellowship with organizing for action, which is under Barack Obama regime.

So I was like, it gotta be something else that I can do civically to get more insight information.

And uh I use the green spaces, so I was like, I love going to the parks, I'm always there, why not contribute to the parks and then seeing uh so many of the violent things and stuff that were going on in the park, especially a royal.

I talk about that park a lot because I grew up down the street from it and I work in education, and every time you cut on the TV, uh in recent recent years, you hear about some young person getting killed walking through the park, somebody being found in the creek.

So I really wanted to figure out ways to where I can engage the community on the next level instead of just going out there for Creek the Bay Day, Earth Day and doing cleanup projects, but how can I represent my community, show uh individuals that look like me definitely that there's some of us that are here sitting at the table.

We're communicating for you, and we want to model this for you so you can have the courage to do it too.

And then lastly, uh Donald Trump actually got me fired up to get more engaged because I feel like in cities and in our national government that we have a lot of folks that sent with power and they're not utilizing their voice to directly affect my community.

So I want to be somebody that can definitely say regardless to whatever happened at the end of the day, you'll know that Dwayne Aikins did something for you.

I was valued and uh I was working hard for you.

So that's that's why I joined the commissioner.

Commissioner Corbin, what drives you to volunteer your time serving the people of Oakland in this way?

Well, I grew up in the DMV, which is like DC Maryland, Virginia area, which a lot of our park spaces were free and accessible.

Um the museums were free, and this idea of public space became so intimate in my growth.

I'm a student at UC Berkeley, I'm a PhD candidate, I study race class and access to green space, and I've been an Oaklander since 2011 solidly, but since 2004, I've been between Oakland and and um Berkeley.

And I just realized that I don't think I would be in the position I am getting a PhD if it wasn't for public spaces.

Um they're educational, it's it's fun spaces, it's spaces where you can meet your neighbors and build community.

It it has all these things to it that a lot of people don't actually realize.

It it can bridge a lot of barriers.

But programming is important and the funding is important, and so looking that looking at Oakland and realizing that you to go to the zoo it costs money, to go to the museum it costs money.

Um, I don't know where I would be being raised by a single mom in low income community if I had if the economic barrier was there for me.

And for that, I feel giving back, being a latchkey kid in the 80s, growing up in the recreation center.

So for instance, I'm squaring my dephemory shirt so going there just reminds me of home you know you can just talk you can have conversations you see kids playing and it's not only healing for me you know but it's something that I can do for my community and that's why it became really important for me to not only um volunteer but give back to Oakland um a city that has done so much for me and I kinda use this line that I was born and raised in the DMV but I became an adult in Oakland and that's pretty prideful for me.

So I heard you drop your shirt and we talked about it earlier.

So you want to let everyone see at home what you're wearing and tell us a little bit about it.

So Defemory Park is a historical African American park um that um the African American community that came here during the South during World War II.

Um interesting enough during all the World War II uh shipbuilding and everything that was going on in Richmond the USO soldiers couldn't be there because of segregation.

So the only places that they can actually cut a rug and enjoy themselves as officers serving our country was at Defemory Park.

And a lot of folks don't know that that those USO USO soldiers actually opened the space for the Black Panthers to come in and do their work at at Defemory Park.

So there's this really interesting history of park space culture creation um green space creation in Oakland that I don't think a lot of folks know but all of that history like resides in the community.

So if you just go out there and talk you get a whole history lesson and to support the park we're actually selling two shirts.

So it's two for 25 I believe one for 15 um it will go towards a lot of needs that need to be met for um our kids kids like myself that are low income that could probably use help with scholarships, after school programs and so this is part of the work is also understanding that our park needs support and we can be park pride prideful and we can also fund it through these really interesting ways.

I love that I'm gonna have to get my shirt please.

Director Williams, you are not volunteering this is not a committee that you sit on um just for giggles.

Tell me a little bit about your work with the commission and and what you see as as your connection as the director of the department in working directly with the commission and getting work done.

Well the commission is vital to the forward progress of parks recreation youth development in Oakland.

When we think about um some of the ills that Oakland is facing as a community and as a society and we think about what parks and recreation youth development becomes for so many of our kids um it becomes a safe place.

It becomes a place after school where I can get something to eat it becomes a place where I can get assistance with my homework that I may be struggling with.

It becomes a place where I can um talk to my friends where I can get actually the time and space to be a kid.

And so the work that we do the policies and the rules and the procedures that we put together to operate parks and recreation in Oakland is extremely important.

We're in a royal park.

My dad I learned how to ride my bike in a royal I learned how to hit a softball, learn how to shoot a basket, I learned how to run from a dog, you know everything at a royal park and so I know how important it is and that was like super special time.

And so when we go out to the recreation centers now and we see kids um and they're laughing and playing and smiling and learning and engaging um learning tools that there need to be that they will need to be a productive citizens and we know that we're doing the right work and so it's it's my job to stay connected to the commission to have um to make sure that we have our ear to the community so that we can push forward programs that the community needs, and so that we're always an agency that is providing for the specific needs regionally and around our neighborhoods and then collectively for Oakland as a whole.

And so the commission is extremely important.

There's a lot of work um that goes along with this department, and we couldn't do it by ourselves, and so we're thankful to have the relationship with the commissioners um thank you for your work.

And so um it's we love it.

It's very rewarding um and if you go out to the recreation centers and you see the smiles on the kids' face, you'll we know that you know that our work is meaningful and needed.

Um we also provide opportunities for adults and seniors.

Um this thing about nature and being in green space is so important.

Um there's actually scientific medical data now that says that there's healing that takes place in greenspace.

There's healing that takes place along the waterfront or in the woods, and so we want to make sure that these places are safe and accessible because if you need to everybody should have the opportunity to have these this type of healing quality that happens in our natural spaces.

Oakland is so unique.

You can go to the water, you know.

It's very unique in inner city.

Um you've got the Joaquin Miller, where you can oversee the skyline.

So there's so much that it has to offer.

We want to make sure that our kids get to experience all of it.

Sounds like we need another t-shirt for every single park that we have.

I already hear two votes for Arroyo having their own t-shirt.

And so, next, can we get one for Diamond?

That's my closest part.

Okay.

Okay.

And then we'll do Walkie Miller.

That's another one I go to a lot.

Sign you up for the t-shirt.

Sign me up for the t-shirts.

We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll come back and talk to you guys just a little bit more.

Thanks for watching.

We are inside City Hall, and we are talking to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission.

We'll be right back.

Hi, my name is Yvonne Gusitus, and I'm the director of community engagement with the mayor's office in the city of Oakland.

I'm here to invite you to apply for our boards and commissions.

We have about 35 of them, and we believe there's a board or commission for everyone, and we really want to make sure that our boards and commissions reflect the diversity of Oakland.

So, how do you apply?

You head to our city's website, you'll see boards and commissions, click on that.

That page will have a listing of all of our boards and commissions, and you'll be able to see uh what the requirements are, what the meeting times are, if there are any vacancies, um, read through those, see which ones interest you, and you can apply for one of them by clicking on the green apply button, or you can apply for few all at once.

You'll be asked to submit your resume as well as a couple sentences of why you're interested, and then once you hit submit, we'll get uh the application and you'll get a confirmation that you've applied.

It takes about two to three months uh for us to review the application.

The review is handled by either the staff liaison to the board or the board chair or nominating committee, and they're just trying to see that uh your interests match up and also your qualifications match up with the requirements of the board.

That then gets sent to the mayor and I.

We prepare a letter of appointment, she'll sign it, and then the ultimate approval and vote is done by city council.

Then the city clerk's office helps you get sworn in and sign any necessary paperwork.

So we want to encourage you to apply.

There is a board and commission for everyone.

Uh, we definitely want people who uh want to help local government and believe in local government.

Um boards and commissions work on things that Oaklanders care about, whether it's libraries, parks.

Uh, there are a number of boards that were created by voter mandates.

For example, Measure H created the Sugar Sweeten Beverage Tax Advisory Board.

Uh, Measure L L created the police commission.

Uh, but ultimately uh each board has its own unique set of requirements, and we're really seeking folks from all sorts of uh life experiences and backgrounds to be a part of each board.

So again, we encourage you to apply, and if you have any questions, you can always reach out to the mayor's office and myself.

So we hope to see you and your application uh coming in, and then you'll be able to join the 300 plus team of excellent volunteers for the city of Oakland.

Welcome back.

I'm Autumn King, and once again we are talking with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission.

So in the last segment, we were talking a great deal about your personal uh uh entrance into working with Parks and Rec.

Tell me a little bit about the work that you do that services the actual individual Oakland people.

How is your work servicing individual people in Oakland?

Well, I'll talk about um just Commissioner Corbin, for example.

Um I host my own independent summer camp, but I hit Commissioner Corbin up and I was like, I really want my summer campers to learn more about the commission, learn a little bit about the work that we do.

Can you talk about this just environmental justice because that's what she's getting her doctoral degree in, which is pretty pretty cool, and also for kids to see somebody that looked like them that's a woman getting that degree from UC Berkeley, I thought that was pretty big.

And at first I was like, these kids gonna be horrible, they not go really like this, but I mean the pictures that they drew uh from her uh from her uh lesson was awesome, and they start looking at when we're walking through communities going to parks, they start looking at them differently, even with the homeless crisis that's going on, they was connecting things there.

And uh yesterday I was at Rainbow Park working with uh teen Oakland and we also did an environmental justice urban planning lesson.

So we literally walked from seminary all the way up to 70 73rd to uh and just had a conversation about the community.

What do you see?

What don't you see?

And they was like, we see a whole bunch of churches.

I said, Is anything wrong with that?

One young lady said, the churches look beat up.

Then uh I was like, okay, not good to say that about the churches, but it was a real thing to say.

And then I said, What else you see?

We don't have enough garbage cans.

And I was like, Okay, what else you see?

I see a lot of litter.

And then we got to Haven's Court, and I said, look to the left, because we're on the on the opposite side of the school.

And uh I said, This looked very suburban.

And I was like, why is that?

This and they one of the kids actually jumped in jumped into tax bracket.

And so we had like this really good conversation.

Like it was like everything to the right is really dirty, but everything to the left when you go up that block looks really good.

And um, I think they left feeling empowered and understanding more so why it's important to do the work of Teen Oakland and not just consider themselves just walking around picking up trash.

And uh true story, uh I graduated from Oakland Technical High School, and uh I remember some guys from UC Berkeley, they came to our econ government class.

And so they would come once a week and we would walk to the MacArthur Bart station and we sketched out pictures and all that stuff that Corbyn was doing this summer with the kids about what do a futuristic park look like.

And um we sketched those buildings that's coming up.

And I was like, I wonder is any of those guys that was in there talking to us, was they a part of that cohort of this whole big picture?

And so when you really get the impact youth on a bigger level and let them know that yes, you hear all these stories about gentrification, all these things, but if you equip yourself with the tools and the resources that you can be here in Oakland if you want to stay and you can compete and you can be a part of the change that's happening and have a have your uh feet and be a member of the stakehold stakeholder group.

And uh when you hear when you see individuals, especially the young people, and they really can just hold on to that and remember what you say and then start you start seeing them practice and putting forth the effort and the energy, you're like, okay, this is why I do the work.

This is where I'm gonna go to a commission meeting.

This is why I'm gonna step up and help and do my part.

I like the fact that um you called on your fellow commissioner outside of commission hours for other work that you're doing to help with the community.

Is there a point of pride that you have that you can share with us that uh about your work through the commission, or that's maybe catapulted you into another area?

Well, I think one thing I could say is that being on the commission has given me some wiggle room to really think through ideas and I like to employ like science fiction and afrofuturism, and so the work that we that I did do with uh Commissioner Ankins was I kind of fangirled it and brought all like everything that I owned that was Black Panther.

And um what a lot of folks don't realize, it's like the first Afrocentric green city, you know, and it's it's very different from roots.

It's it's not looking backwards, but it's looking forward, and it really gets people thinking about what does a social a socially and environmentally just future look like for Oakland.

And so, from all of this work, it I am I've again I've nerded out and I've come up with this concept of Jedi.

So environmental Jedi is what I call myself and and our commission was here, which is environmental justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion because you need them all, right?

So justice is looking backwards of all the atrocities and uh a lot of the environmental harms that has happened in the flats of Oakland, but it for that needs that definitely needs to be recognized.

So we need that, we need equity, we need to meet everybody where they are, make sure they have the right resources.

We need to understand what diversity means in our park because everybody gets down in their green spaces differently, and we need to make sure all of us are sharing this, and then inclusion that means different mobilities, different wants, you know, having a multi-generational park system is is very important.

So when you bring that all together for environmental Jedi's, um it's the environmental Jedi way, you know.

Jedi way.

Yeah, and it's kind of a mind trick.

Because people can start talking about parks in a very fun, futuristic way, and we can actually like kind of break free from our past and look at what's possible in the future.

So, how do we Jedi mind trick more folks into joining the commission?

What is the route that people would take in order to join the commission?

I gotta I literally got a Facebook message like here's all the list of the commissions, and they went directly to the uh to the Oakland website, and it listed all the commissions.

You fill out one application and you pick three commissions, and then based on what seat meet filled, uh the mayor, I believe, she looks at all the applications and she pick out the strong ones uh that will be good for here, and then you get appointed, and then your application goes in front of the city council and they vote you in and prove you, and then uh you gotta make sure that you pay attention to your email so you can uh know what's going on.

Do you guys have any openings coming up soon that folks should be on the lookout for on your commission?

I believe we have a couple of openings.

We did so folks can go to the website and look that up.

Definitely, but there's also another layer which um Commissioner Inkins was talking about before, the recreation advisory councils.

So you can actually sign up and be a part of that.

They meet different times each month.

I would say check with the director at the park and see if one is not there, how you can get one started.

But these are multi-layers, and I think it's really important for people to get in where they can fit in.

So some of our community members can show up day of, and some of us can plan a whole year in advance, and we need to find all those spaces for for um connection and to like grow our racks and grow our our residents' connection to our parks.

And it's a good place to actually learn, like, because I came in with a community with a community organizer lens, and I remember telling Corbin this.

I was like, okay, wait, I'm learning how to connect policy with the community and put it together so you can learn how to treat each thing a little differently and be a little bit more open mind to how policy's supposed to be ran versus how you can just get up and say I want to plan the event.

That leads me, and I think it's a very good point.

And what it leads me to wonder, Director Nick Director Williams, is why should anyone care?

Who cares?

Why should our those watching our residents in Oakland, why should they care about this commission and how it functions with the department?

Well, the commission is very important, like we said earlier on how the department um uh thinks about the future and how we can serve um the equitably serve the the citizens of Oakland.

Parks and recreation is the heart and soul of the city.

It belongs to everybody.

It's the place where everybody can be and can be respected and can enjoy themselves, can can it can heal from the natural elements of being outside, um, can be physically fit and and be on a health plan uh with physical activities and programs that happen throughout the recreation center, but it's the place where everyone is welcome and everyone is should be included, and so we want to make sure, as Commissioner Corbin said that the services that we provide um include everyone.

We we want to be fully inclusive.

We we never want anybody to leave the park not feeling like they're a part or not feeling like they're wanted.

This the parks and and rec in Oakland is again the the heart and soul of the city, and it's what brings the city together.

It's where we can come together and be whoever we are individually, but we can be that collectively.

I like that.

We can come together individually to form a collective, the heart and soul of Oakland.

Thank you all for being here.

You guys have been wonderful in sharing your time with the as commissioners, and thank you for sharing your time with our audience today.

Thank you.

This has been another episode of Inside City Hall.

We thank you guys for watching.

We look forward to you joining us for the next episode.

I'm Autumn King.

Thank you.

In this show, we'll meet the volunteer commissioners and board members who provide expertise and guidance in critical decision making that affects our community.

Journey with us as we take an insider's look into the legislative process.

Hi, I'm Autumn King, and welcome to Inside City Hall.

Today we are taking you on a journey with the bicyclist and pedestrian advisory commission.

As a reminder, Inside City Hall takes a look at the commissions and boards that help to shape the city of Oakland.

We like to talk to the commissioners and board members to get a little bit more information about who they are and what they do and why they love to service our great city.

Today we have with us Noelle Pond Danchik, Kenya Wheeler, and Phoenix Mangrum.

Welcome to you all.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having us.

So let's jump right into it.

Tell us a little bit about the bicyclist and pedestrian advisory commission.

What is the commission and what do you guys do?

So the bicyclist and pedestrian advisory commission, we are a commission chartered under City of Oakland ordinance to provide advice and feedback to the Oakland City Council, Mayor, and the administration on bicycle and pedestrian-related policies, programs and activities throughout the city of Oakland.

And we actually have been in operation since uh 2014, February 2014 is when the ordinance was approved to create the commission.

And we actually have a much longer lineage.

The body served as an advisory committee.

So we actually had representatives from community groups, uh stakeholders for certain neighborhoods and um advisory groups like the the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, um Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, that provided advice to city staff on specific bicycle projects and policies.

Um so what does that look like?

Give us a little bit of a picture of you giving advice to or talking about policies with our staff.

How does that look?

Um, just recently in July, um the BPAC, as we call it.

Okay.

Um approved and adopted, uh approved the bicycle, the updating of the of the bicycle uh master plan.

Okay.

And then from there we did advocacy with the planning commission with the uh public works, and we went to the city council and requested uh that they adopt a plan.

Excellent.

So the work that you're getting done behind the scenes, Noelle, what does that look like on the streets of Oakland?

Yeah, so it's all kinds of things.

It's um plans like bicyclists bicycle and pedestrian master plans like Phoenix was talking about, but it's also infrastructure uh projects or citywide programs or legislation and uh we're hearing from the BPAC on all of those things.

So I'm uh City of Oakland staff, um, and other city staff comes to the commission and kind of asks for those recommendations or that advice, and we take that back um to our work and we try and integrate it into the work that we do.

So when I'm driving down the road and I see most recently some new bike lanes, I see new uh uh graphics on the ground um as I'm driving up uh as an example Park Avenue.

Is that something that had to come before you all?

Uh and is that part of the master plan?

Yeah, so I it would it uh definitely um but uh like yeah, so bicycle improvements that you see such as like those lanes on Park Avenue are part of either the citywide master um bicycle plan or um are actually or are delivered as part of individual um city infrastructure projects like our city paving program.

So we currently another big accomplishment that we had as a commission is that we help to provide input to Oak Oakland DOT staff in the development of a new three-year um paving plan, which is actually a hundred million dollar effort to repay um Oakland streets and it's with the real focus on not just the data of where streets are most in need of being repaid, but also looking at um demographics and equity issues around how money is being allocated.

And the in the past we found city staff found that many streets in the Oakland Hills and areas where people were you know asking, making a lot of requests were getting repaid while streets in the flatlands um that weren't major streets weren't being repaid and had some of the worst payment conditions in the in the Bay Area.

So with the work and the paving plan that we have to uh advise city staff on, not only are we seeing these streets be paid, but where there are projects already identified in the bicycle plan to add a bicycle lane or to enhance a bicycle, and maybe taking it from a single lane um to a buffered bike lane, so there's more safer space between drivers and vehicles and uh bikes, those are being implemented by city staff.

And I'm glad you brought up the paving plan because again, I think we get a little bit stuck in the name uh bicyclist and pedestrian advisory commission, but that also has to do with those that are walking down the street and the lights that we see um the paving plan does have impacts on all of us.

Talk a little bit more about the equity um and and the lens of equity that's being used to move these things forward, equity is sort of an after idea to a lot of people, including me sometimes, but that's the that's a good example of equity.

Where as Kenny was saying is a hundred million dollar project, 75 million of that is going to be as Kenya was saying, uh used in in in the communities of concern.

Okay.

That's the word is commonly used, right?

And so that's a good example of of fairness and being just to communities that normally don't uh not regard it very well.

And so do you all take ideas?

Do you do you hear from the public um of their challenges or their successes or things that they really like, and they come to you and then you bring that to staff, or does the staff generate ideas and then comes to you and says, you as the experts help to guide us?