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00:00Hello everyone. We gotta get better than that. Hello everyone. Yeah! So we just had a
00:09conversation about affirmative action, about D&I, and now we're shifting and
00:15having a conversation about policing and criminal justice reform. And to have that
00:21conversation we have the one and only Angela Yee. Media personality Angela Yee,
00:28the one and only, who has graciously agreed to moderate this panel. And joining
00:36her on this panel we have Marc Morial, the president of the Urban League, and of
00:50course, the one and only, the Attorney General, as he's often called, Ben Crump.
01:03Okay. Thank you so much, Ben Crump, Marc Morial, who I never get to see dressed down.
01:12All right, well it is a pleasure to be here today alongside Ben and Marc. Thank
01:17you guys so much. Thank you. Amazing panelists for us to have with us. And as we know they
01:24have spent their entire careers fighting for social justice, and there's no issue
01:29more urgent than policing and criminal justice reform. Here we sit. It's been
01:34three years since George Floyd was brutally murdered, and that did shine a bright
01:39spotlight for the whole country to see. A lot of people did think this might be a turning
01:45point when the nation was finally forced to confront the policing crisis that
01:50community as a color face every day. But right now, as we sit here, this crisis is as urgent
01:56as ever. As a matter of fact, data is showing the number of black people killed by police in
02:02America has actually risen every year since George Floyd's murder. So this is a very urgent
02:09conversation for us to have. All right, so awareness is not enough. And what we want to do today is,
02:15while we're aware there's a major crisis, there's a state of emergency, what can we actually do? That
02:21is the mission of the Global Black Economic Forum. So let's talk about this. All right, let's start with
02:27you, Ben, three years after George Floyd. Have things changed, and is it better or worse?
02:33Well, like everything, progress is something that is measured one day at a time. And we have made
02:43great progress since George Floyd was tortured to death. I mean, when you think about it, Marc
02:51Marielle, Angela Yee, 20 years from now, police killed us unjustifiably, unnecessarily, unconstitutionally,
03:02and nothing happened. Absolutely nothing happened. And because of you all being my co-counsels,
03:12we were able to get, for the first time in history, a police officer in the state of Minnesota
03:20convicted for killing a black man of guilty, guilty, guilty. But it didn't stop there, Angela,
03:29while we are making progress. And I know I'm singing to the choir, but the choir has to sing louder.
03:35We have to keep pushing because Breonna Taylor, our black sister, was killed just as unjustly as George
03:45Floyd. But yet, there still hasn't been justice for her as there are not for many black women. I mean,
03:54when you think about what Malcolm X said, Angela Yee, he said that the black woman is the most
04:01disrespected, neglected, and unprotected person in America. And so we think about, you know, Sandra Bland,
04:10we think about Antionna Jefferson, and we then look at Breonna Taylor, and we can never ever give up the
04:21fight for our people because when we fight, we win. Breonna Taylor killed us for the first time in history,
04:32thanks to Kristen Clark, a black woman leading the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department,
04:40for the first time in history, brought federal charges for police officers killing a black woman.
04:48Think about how many black women police killed in history. Never once have they been charges bought.
04:55But because we're standing together and we refuse to let them sweep it under the rug, that's why we're
05:02going to win and get justice for Breonna too. And so whether it's Ahmaud Arbery, Andre Hill, all these
05:09people who have happened since George Floyd, they have been officers charged and convicted. We didn't see that.
05:17So we're making progress. Now, what can we do? What do we have to do? Angela says they're not going to pass
05:26the George Floyd Justice Policing Act because of the political gridlock in Washington, D.C.
05:32D.C., homework assignment. Y'all can say, you know, black American attorney general gave us a homework
05:39assignment in essence. You all got to go to your cities and you got to see in your city, has the choke
05:49hole been banned? I bet you all will be surprised to know that the choke hole is still legal where you live.
05:57So don't worry about what's going to happen in Minnesota. You need to worry about what's happening
06:02in your own hometown. Go to City Hall and say we're going to ban it. And I'll say these two things before
06:10I pass it back, Angela. You all do understand, and I don't think Minnesota is different from many places
06:19in America. Over 90% of the time when the police applied the choke hole in the state of Minnesota,
06:30it was against a man of color, even though black men in Minnesota only made, black people in Minnesota
06:38only made up 6% of the population. Think about that. 6% of the population, but every time they say they're
06:45going to choke somebody, it's a brother. No knock warrants. Breonna Taylor.
06:54Y'all do understand that Louisville is about 30% black, but almost 95% of the time when the police said
07:07they're going to execute a no-knock warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment constitutional
07:16rights against unlawful search and seizure. It was against a black person, a black household.
07:22They weren't kicking in our white brothers and sisters' doors at 1 o'clock in the morning. So it was
07:28foreseeable that you were going to have somebody innocent like Breonna Taylor when they kicked in
07:33her door at 1 o'clock in the morning. And you think about it. Well, everybody's saying they have
07:38a right to guns and people kicking in your front door. You don't know who it is? You right. Her boyfriend
07:45Kenny had an absolute right, Mark, to try to defend his home and defend his castle and defend his woman
07:53when they came in and kicked in the door. So you got to also go back to your city and say,
08:00do we have a ban against no-knock warrants? Where's Breonna's law in New Orleans? Where's Breonna's law
08:07in Birmingham? Where's Breonna's law in Atlanta banning the police from executing unnecessary,
08:14unjustifiable, unconstitutional no-knock warrants? Because they ain't kicking in white people's doors.
08:21They kicking in black people's doors. So you all need to ask that question. And so that's what we can do,
08:27Angela. We don't want to wait on the Supreme Court to save us. No, we're going to save ourselves.
08:33Well, we definitely can't wait on the Supreme Court to save us.
08:36Mark Morial, I want to ask you this. Since you talked about local laws and what's happened locally,
08:41you are formerly the mayor of New Orleans. And when you came to New Orleans as mayor,
08:46the police department was terrible. All right. Can we talk about some things that you did
08:53locally? Because that's something that we're talking about right now. What did you do
08:57to actually improve the police department? Well, thank you very much. And it's good to be
09:01with you. Happy Essence to all. So I took over as mayor of this city in 1994. I was 35 years old.
09:10I was elected on a wave of young, new elected officials. And we had a situation where we were
09:19having, we had 421 murders in the year before I took office, more than one a day in a city of about
09:28500,000. And number two, we had the highest number of civil rights complaints against the New Orleans
09:38Police Department. So I decided from day one that I needed to institute significant change. So I
09:46literally bulldozed the operation, bulldozed the operation and completely overhauled it. What did
09:54this mean? And let me tell you the lesson. And Ben has made this point. The power to change policing
10:00lies in city hall. Mayors choose police chiefs in most cities. Mayors can hire and fire police chiefs.
10:13Mayors can set the budget, can set the policy. Police is a function of local government. So apropos to
10:23what Ben has said, we can't wait for Congress or anyone else to fix this problem. We have to apply
10:32pressure. And yes, that means on black elected officials, on white elected officials, on friend
10:39and foe alike, pressure to bring about change. So we overhauled the New Orleans Police Department.
10:46First thing we did, I cleaned house. We fired almost 100 officers over a period of 36 months.
10:54Number two, we changed the philosophy of policing to a community oriented policing system, which means
11:02police officers were on patrol, on foot, on bikes, and made relationships with leaders in the community,
11:11with ministers and community leaders. And we brought the crime rate down while reducing the number of
11:18arrests. This is important because we went to a preventive model, a preventive model of policing
11:26involving community policing. I put into place a public integrity division, an internal function which
11:34could in fact investigate officers when there was a citizen's complaint. I took the public integrity
11:41division, moved it out of police headquarters, put it in a neighborhood so people didn't have to
11:47feel intimidated by going to the police department to file a complaint against the department. Number
11:53two, if we found a rogue cop, we turned them over to the FBI. We turned them over for prosecution. There are
12:02two former New Orleans police officers today on death row. Two, Len Davis and Antoinette Franks. Two on death
12:14row for killing people and in one for ordering a hit on someone that filed a complaint against him. I,
12:25in a short period of time, in a short period of time, in five years, reduced the murder rate by 60%,
12:30the violent crime rate by 60%, and brought the complaints down. Now here's the point.
12:38My police chief, Richard Pennington, the late Richard Pennington and I, when we left office in 2002,
12:47it took two years for the department to retrench to the way it was.
12:52The people that succeeded us were not committed. They were not committed. I took the position.
13:01I took the position that I would not be intimidated by any police unions. I would not be intimidated by
13:08any right-wing politicians. I was not going to be deterred in carrying this out. And I told the public
13:16that if you want a thriving community, we had to have a safe community, and we had to have a just
13:24community, and we had to have a police department which respected the people. This is an example. Now,
13:30I did this without a consent decree, without the Department of Justice oversight. I did it because
13:37I was committed to it. And I left office here with a 70% approval rating, right? So what I did was not
13:46only effective, but it was popular. And I was very upfront in saying to people, we're going to clean
13:55clean up this police department. And we're not going to brook any opposition, and we're not going to be
14:03intimidated by anyone. I told the business powers that be that they needed to support me. I've enforced
14:12a city residency rule that required police officers to live in the city. I withstood lawsuits that
14:22challenged that. I took the position that if you're going to work for us. Now, I did some interesting things. I
14:29raised the pay. I upped the standards. I changed the training. I allowed lateral hires. But I did that only after
14:39two to three years, I put in place a reform system. What's the lesson? Go to the Urban League website
14:46and look up the 21 pillars plan. We have promulgated 21 ideas that mostly can be implemented at the local
14:57level, at the local level, with local energy and a commitment from public and elected officials
15:05to do the absolute right thing. So policing, while we need the George Floyd bill, while we need an
15:14aggressive Department of Justice to prosecute, while we need all of these things, there is a lot of power
15:21in City Hall. There's a lot of power at City Hall to make a difference. So we have to be in this moment
15:27with this state of emergency on affirmative action, this state of emergency on black history, this state of
15:34emergency on the justice system, this state of emergency with the assaults on black America. We have
15:42to use our power and our pressure locally, locally to bring about these sorts of changes. And so I just
15:51want to encourage that to each and every one of you, because sometimes we think and sometimes we have
15:57some elected officials, and I can talk about some politicians because I used to be one, right? And
16:04that is they sit on their hands, they make excuses, and they're afraid to be assertive. I was assertive
16:14and I never ever had an approval rating below 60% in this town, because I went all through the community,
16:22community meetings, churches, and told people exactly what we were going to do. And if someone
16:29challenged me, I said, where is your plan? Where are your ideas? Put it on the table. One of them
16:37admitted, I have no plan. So if you don't have a plan, get on out of the way.
16:45And that's what this is about, tangible things that we can do.
16:49Now, Attorney Ben Crump, I know we have some people here also who have joined us.
16:54Yes, we do. And just like Mark was saying, it's up to all of us to use our collective influence.
17:02Our friend, Reverend Al Sharpton, always says one of the hardest things to do is to preach the eulogy
17:09of an insignificant Negro who had influence and could have made a difference, but chose to play it safe.
17:16So I'm real proud when we have brothers and sisters who have influence, not be afraid to use that
17:24influence when it matters most. And we have a couple of them with us today. Our good friend actor,
17:30Jonathan Majors, is here with us at the Essence Fest. And Mark Mariola, Angela Yee, we have a sister
17:41who's always been using her influence. You look at her social media, she's always there fighting
17:48for us. Well, that was back to Trayvon Martin. And so we grew up with this sister. We first saw her
17:55in a movie called Ease Bayou. And then she was in a movie called Stomp the Yard. And then she was in
18:03Think Like a Man. And now she has an award-winning show, Harlem. Y'all give it up for y'all home, girl.
18:12Y'all stand up for Megan because Megan is doing this from her heart. This wasn't planned.
18:29Megan. She was just enjoying Essence Fest and said she would come up here and talk about
18:37what we can do to help our people. So thank you, Megan. And Angela, I'll turn it back over to you.
18:43Yes. And by the way, Megan, this was totally for her. She just was back there doing her own makeup.
18:49Like, I got to go out there even though I'm not on the... So part of it is for us knowing what can
18:54we do as people who are individuals that are not in politics. We're not attorneys. But what is it?
19:00What are some things that we can do? Because the main question people ask is, well, how can I assist
19:05and how can I help? And we don't want to ever feel helpless, right? And so attorney Ben Crump,
19:11you know, we are seeing a huge rise in the number of stand your ground defenses
19:16as an excuse for killing black people. So how can we reverse this? And I know you have something
19:21really important you want to talk about. And I think people like Megan and Mark Marielle and others,
19:28because we all have to educate ourselves. We have to engage ourselves and we have to empower
19:34ourselves in our communities. And I mean, Trayvon Martin was killed by citizens. We can't just say it's
19:44the police killing us because they have laws like stand your ground that are encouraging people to
19:52be violent against black life. We start with Trayvon almost 11 years ago.
19:59We start with Ahmaud Arbery, you know, when he was lynched for Jogging Wild Black, not in 1940,
20:06not in 1950, but in 2020. We start with our own eyes and they still didn't arrest his killers. They went
20:13home and slept in their bed at night, just like Trayvon's killer. And most recently, we saw a black woman
20:21in Ocala, Florida, who was going to get her children's laptop after a white 58-year-old woman
20:33called them the n-word, called them little slaves, and that this isn't the Underground Railroad,
20:41and she knocked on the door. And the white woman shot through a locked metal door and killed A.J.
20:50Owens in front of her 9-year-old and 12-year-old little boys. And now more than ever, we got to have
20:59people like Megan, who got influenced just like we did with Breonna Taylor, say her name, A.J. Owens,
21:06because if not, they will sweep it under the rug. And yeah, and before I pass it to Megan, if I could,
21:13Angela, I want to acknowledge the mother of A.J. Owens, who's present with us, to just stand and be
21:22acknowledged. Pam. Pam, here, where are you?
21:34We love you, Pam. Thank you. Thank you.
21:43Thank you. It's so sad that I'm here meeting you, speaking in front of you under these circumstances,
21:50but I appreciate each and every one of you. As Benjamin Crump said, my daughter was shot
21:57and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her, simply just to get an answer as to what
22:04happened, as any mom would do. Now, she leaves behind a 12-year-old son who had to make the necessary
22:13calls, 9-year-old who was standing next to her, a 7-year-old granddaughter, and a 3-year-old.
22:23I am now the primary caretaker. And it is a senseless act, but this is where we are in 2023.
22:31A single mother gets shot for simply knocking on a door. It's sad. But I thank you all for
22:41acknowledging this and for not letting it be swept under the rug, as Marion County O'Kellan
22:48We love you. We love you. Thank you. Justice for AJ. Justice for AJ. Justice for AJ.
23:05I think the biggest thing, the place that I come from, is that many of us feel like we have no idea
23:11how we can get involved, what we can do, if our voice can be heard, if it makes a difference.
23:17And the biggest thing is that I want to encourage you, the more that we band together, the more that
23:21we constantly project and make noise and share these conversations and educate ourselves and
23:28educate each other, together we can actually do what we've been doing and we continue to go in the
23:34right direction. And so, you know, I can't say that I'm the most eloquent speaker on this. I can't say
23:39that I know everything. I'm constantly learning and evolving. And because of that, for a long time,
23:44it made me feel very insecure about getting involved. You know, can I make a difference or
23:48should I just be quiet? I'm just an actress or whatever it is. But learning that simply even me
23:53just amplifying my voice, the way that I can amplify my voice is if you amplify my voice and then this
23:59person amplifies your voice and this person amplifies your voice. And I can't do it by myself,
24:04but if we all do it together, that's how we're able to support Attorney Crump and support Mark and
24:09support AJ's mother and really, really make a difference. The same way that we did with
24:13Breonna Taylor, where, you know, again, we were talking backstage. This was a case that had happened
24:18months prior that we weren't even aware of. And as soon as we got activated and as soon as we all
24:23started talking and marching and doing everything that we can within our personal power is when we
24:30gave people who have more power, the power to do the things that need to be done. And so for me,
24:36the biggest thing is I just want to encourage us to know that every single one of our voices,
24:40it really, really does matter and it really, really does make the difference. And we need each other
24:44in order to force the hand and to make the change that we have to see. Great. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
24:53And Mark and Ben, I want to ask you both, when we think about solutions, what do you think about
24:59community policing? What role does technology play? How are these things that can be game changers?
25:06Community policing is important. It can make a difference if it is defined for what it really
25:14should be. Community policing puts a focus on prevention. It puts a focus on working with
25:23and building relationships of trust in the community with the idea that you can prevent
25:29violence and prevent crime and that you can also focus in a community on the things that the people
25:36want you to focus on. In most communities, people do not want to see a focus of harassment of young
25:43black men, arresting people for minuscule and minor things, which is what I call lazy policing. What they
25:51want is a focus on those things that really hurt people, shootings, violence, sexual assault. So what
26:00community policing does is it centers the work of a police department around the things that people
26:07assign as priorities, and it puts a focus on prevention. To do it right, you have to train officers
26:14how to talk to people. You have to train officers on how to respect people. You have to train that a
26:21police department is not a military occupying force. Protect and serve means something. Number two, I think
26:31today, community policing does not go far enough. I think you have to have mechanisms that address
26:40other challenges we have in the community, like unhoused people, like people with substance abuse and mental
26:47health issues, which can be responded to by people who are not armed, people who are trained as social workers
26:55and psychologists. We have to do things differently than perhaps even what I did in the 1990s with the
27:04focus on community policing. If I were leading now, I'd place great emphasis on non-violent dispute
27:11resolution. So Roz Baraka, the mayor of Newark, anybody here from Newark, anybody here from New Jersey?
27:19So Roz and Newark have put into place, and other cities have done it, a non-violent
27:25dispute resolution system, where you have brothers and sisters, sometimes they were formerly involved
27:33in gangs, whose job it is to diffuse the kind of beefs, rivalries, and disputes that create the
27:41escalation of violence and retaliatory violence. So we have to address today's problems with new
27:49strategies. Community policing, yes, but we need to do it right. It's not a slogan. It is a comprehensive
27:58approach to how you do policing. And I'll talk about technology. The George Floyd case was made possible
28:06because of Darnella Frazier's courage. Now let's understand. This young woman had the presence of mind
28:19to coolly and calmly turn on her phone and record the entire incident from beginning to end.
28:29And let me tell you what that meant. If this case had occurred 15 years ago, it would have been,
28:36he say, she say, we say. You'd have heard that George Floyd went to grab my gun. You would have heard that
28:45George Floyd resisted arrest. You'd have heard all kinds of things. And it would have been, as it always is,
28:53a dead black man's word against living white police officers' words in front of a jury or in front of
29:01a grand jury. So that instance, so we have to make sure, and there are efforts around the country to
29:10suppress a person's First Amendment right to tape interactions in a public space between the police
29:17and citizens. That is our right. All the phone is, is an extension of my eyes. And all I'm doing is
29:25recording what my eyes see. So technology, body cams, and the use of technology can be an important tool
29:36if used right. But do not expect any type of technology to, on its own and by itself, to solve
29:45what is essentially a challenge of human dynamics and human behavior and institutionalized racism.
29:53It has to be much more. So I embrace technology, use right with the proper safeguards, but I don't see
30:02it as a panacea. But that video made George Floyd. That meant people in New Zealand, Austria, Mexico City,
30:13and all across the United States could look at that video and on their own make a judgment that what
30:21they saw was the murder of an innocent man. It made all the difference in the world, all the difference
30:31in the world. And we've got to recognize that and understand that a simple device like an iPhone can be
30:37very, very, very instrumental. I'll tell you one last story. I was in the train station in Newark.
30:45And all of a sudden, there was loud noises. An argument began to ensue between a man who was, I think,
30:56had some mental challenges, and about six police officers. Almost instantaneously,
31:05there were half a dozen black women who moved on this site and every one of them was there with their
31:12phone. Every one of them. And I said, this is such a powerful thing, right? They're going to record what
31:18happens in terms of this incident. And so the power of our ability to be watchdogs,
31:26uh, to be observant, and therefore to be part of this accountability. We cannot miss miss,
31:33we cannot underestimate the value of it.
31:35You know, I want to say about technology, and then I want to talk about community policing. But
31:46more importantly, Mark and Angela and Megan, talk about community. You know, when I think about
31:53technology, obviously, you think about George Floyd, you think about Ahmaud Arbery, where we
31:58capture it on video. And you really, I remember I got asked this question a lot after George Floyd
32:04did interviews. They said, what's the difference, Attorney Crump, between Rodney King, who was killed
32:11in the 80s, or brutalized in the 80s, by cops in Los Angeles, and George Floyd? And my answer was
32:19always very simple. The quality of the iPhone. Because the video was better. Because black people
32:27have been saying for decades, the police brutalizing us. They using excessive force. Nobody would believe
32:33us. But now we get to see it. And y'all, just like we said on January 6th, if a picture is worth a
32:42thousand words, then the videos were billions. Billions. And that was George Floyd video, Ahmaud,
32:51and that was Tyree Nichols. Y'all think about that in Memphis, Tennessee, how that narrative would have
32:57went. Right. You know, he was erratically driving. He was not complying. He assaulted an officer. And then
33:07when we saw the video, Jonathan, man, Tyree couldn't have been more compliant. What did he say?
33:14What did I do? He said, I'm just trying to get home. And if we didn't have that video,
33:21those officers wouldn't have been charged. I know I got limited time, so I can't be on my soapbox.
33:25But just like they terminated, arrested, and charged those five black police officers,
33:32that's the new precedent now. So the next time white officers are brutalized and killed us,
33:38we won't deal with the rest of two in five days. We can't have two justice systems,
33:44one for black America and another for white America. And that's what technology has helped us
33:49make the argument even more crystal. I'll say this last thing, because when I think about community
33:55policing, Mark, and you did a great job. Y'all give Mark a round of applause for New Orleans.
34:01I mean, incredible job, Mark. But I think that it can't just be the responsibility of our community
34:10leaders. It has to be each one of us. And we have to, you know, I want y'all to remember this now,
34:19and I'm talking over music, and I'm going to make it loud because this is more important than the jam.
34:26We have to have, understand the lesson of upstream. And what do you say, Attorney Crump,
34:36by upstream? It's this here. It's a great book. It's simply this.
34:41There was a brother walking one sunny afternoon down river, minding his business. All of a sudden,
34:53he heard a young black child in the river screaming, help me, help me, help me, I'm drowning,
35:00help me, I'm going to die, help me. And the brother all of a sudden jumped in the river,
35:06and he saved the young black child's life by dragging him on the river bank. And he said,
35:11my God, thank you. If I wasn't here, that young black child would have died. And just after he was
35:18gathering himself, and he was getting the water off his clothes and so forth, he heard a second
35:24black child saying, help me, help me, I'm drowning, help me, I'm going to die, save me, help me.
35:30And so Mark, the brother jumped back in the river again. And he dragged the second black child to the
35:37river bank and saved his life. And he said, thank God I was here. Had I not been here, that young
35:44second black child would have died. And just as he was trying to get the water out of his hair,
35:49Jonathan getting himself together, Megan, he heard a third black child say, help me, help me,
35:56I'm drowning, help me, I'm going to die, save me. And so the brother jumped back in the river for a
36:03third time. And he dragged the third black child to the river bank. But this time, as he was driving,
36:11dragging the child to the river bank, he said, what I want to know is who the hell upstream
36:19keep throwing our children in the river. Because it's too late to save them once they get downstream.
36:27So we all got to go upstream. We got to prevent them from throwing our children into the system,
36:34getting them caught up in the school to prison pipeline, getting them caught up in the cycle of
36:39violence and black on black crime and street violence and drugs. We got to be upstream and be
36:47strategic and be intentional about making sure we can prevent our children from getting caught up.
36:54It's not just about policing. It's about all kinds of injustices for our people. So if y'all remember
37:01nothing, let's go upstream and prevent our children before they get in the system. Drop the bike.
37:09Okay. And listen, I know our time is limited, but I want to make sure that we end on this,
37:19because I know this is a question that Megan Good asked when she came on stage. What can I do?
37:25For everybody in this room, in this audience that has the question, well, what can I do? How can I
37:30help? How can I support? What are some things that you would say to them that are tangible things that we
37:35can walk away from and say, this is what I'm going to do right now today and in the future?
37:40So I'm going to say, and I'm going to bet that the people who are in here are already involved in
37:47community. So I want you to be a member of the National Urban League. Go to NUL.org. But here's what I
37:55say. Be a member and be a part of something. The worst thing we can be is in the gallery, in the stands,
38:06watching and observing and moaning and complaining and not active and involved. We have to be involved
38:15organizationally, online, in the church, through civic organizations. We have got to be involved.
38:24And when we are involved, our organizations have to be relevant in addressing the issues of today,
38:35not just be about social, not just be about platitudes, not just be honorific, but address the
38:44issues of today. Number two, we better understand
38:49that the most precious power we have is the power to vote. Now I'll tell you, because I watched this and I've
39:00watched these mayor's races across the country over the last three years. How can we have these races
39:08and have 25, 35 percent voter turnout? When we made great progress in the 70s, the 80s and 90s,
39:19you look at these historic mayor's races in places like Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Atlanta,
39:29even Houston in the 1990s. You had 50 and 60 and 70 and 80 percent voter turnout. Now I hear people who say,
39:40you know, my vote doesn't count. Man, let me tell you, every time you say that, the right wing is cheery.
39:48Let them be that dumb and that stupid that they think they're the vote doesn't count. Because you know what,
39:54then ours counts for more. We can't, we've got to fight voter suppression and we've got to battle
40:02self-suppression of our own power. So I'm not going to say that voting is a panacea,
40:12that politicians will save you. I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say that voting is a tool
40:19that we have. Protesting is a tool that we have. Being active is a tool that we have. We have to use
40:28every single tool at our disposal to fight and work for the change we need today. And we have to be
40:39active and we have to be involved. And that's the most, some of this is basic. It's not complex.
40:48It's not overly sophisticated. And those who are looking for magic bullets, the fight we had when
40:56we were fighting our ancestors, our fathers and mothers were fighting against legal segregation.
41:03It was about passing one or two laws. In today's world, it is more than that. The problems are far
41:11more complicated and the work we have to do. So I'm going to just ask you, if you are involved,
41:19get your friends and family members involved. We cannot stand on the side.
41:24Let's give Megan the last word. I will say this real quick. What I want y'all to do for me though,
41:35when y'all get that jury notice to come and serve on jury duty, y'all do understand the hardest thing
41:42for a black lawyer is to go in the courtroom with our black client. And the only other thing we see black
41:49in the courtroom is the judge's robes because Negroes got the jury notice to come to jury duty.
41:57And they said, oh, I can't miss real housewives. They come up with every excuse in the world
42:05not to come and serve on that jury. And you know what, Mark? It's so deep because they all say black
42:11lives matter and all this stuff. But the one time they really can save a black life is coming to serve
42:19on that jury and save a black child from becoming a convicted felon. And so that's all I ask. Megan
42:27gonna get the final word back. Y'all please, please, just one of y'all in the room, just one of y'all in
42:35the room. It could be everybody else on the jury could be white. It changed the whole dynamic of
42:42what they gonna do. Make it good. No pressure. Um, and the biggest thing is that I just want everybody
42:53to truly take it personal. We can't just be at home and watching our TV and watching our social media and
43:00having an opinion and crying and saying, oh, I feel like I'm, you know, getting to a point where I just
43:05don't want to see this anymore. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to hear about it and all
43:07these things. We have the ability to really, really be the sad, be the change that we want to see.
43:17It really is that simple and it is, and it is complex and it is hard, but it's also that simple.
43:23We need to educate ourselves on who we should be voting for and who stands for what and who has,
43:28you know, said that these are the things they've been involved with and these are the things they want
43:31to change and all of that. And we do need to vote at the end of the day. So many people are caught up
43:37on, well, I don't think it makes a difference. Well, it's not going to hurt, you know, and,
43:41and the chance that it could make a difference could make all the difference in the world.
43:46And the only way that it matters is not if you and me and me and me and you show up,
43:50it's if all of us show up. And so I just wanted to encourage everyone to just take it personal,
43:55because these are our lives. And so many of us, we're not moving at the magnitude that we should
44:02until it's somebody that we know or until it's our own children or until it's our own father or
44:07sibling or brother, whatever it may be. And so the biggest thing is that we have so much that we can
44:12do. And if we all, as Mark said, use every single tool that's available to us, then we can have peace
44:18knowing that. And we can also have peace knowing that things are changing.
44:24Well, thank you so much. This was an amazing panel to be on.
44:29Thank you, Angela Yee. Pamela, thank you so much, too, for joining us.
44:32Give it up, Angela Yee!
44:37That's right, way up with Angela Yee. And I also want to encourage people to run for office, too,
44:41okay, because you can also run for office or encourage somebody you know who you think would
44:46be great in that position, who you support, who's a great community leader, run for office.
44:52All right. Thank you, Essence. Thank you, Essence.