[inaudible conversations]

>> so we're right back on pace with our program. and the next gentleman who is about to speak, it's such an honor that he's here. i grew up reading about this guy in history books, and just being blown away by the work that their organization was able to accomplish. i think a lot of times when people think of the black panther party ac they see these tough guys with a military berets and the leather jackets and thinks. but what many people don't understand is they were out there putting together programs to eject people and give them breakfast before school. they had their own ambulances and paramedic system set up, and they really out there to help the community to protect their community. so it's such an honor that today mr. bobby seale, one of the cofounders of the black panther party is here today. [applause] i was blown away talking to them

on the phone, just knowing that he's up there in age, and i read about it in my history books. he still so sharp with the stories that he told me. today was my first time meeting him in person. i've only spoken to him on the phone before but he's here together with us all the way from oakland, california, for the black panther party was founded. welcome mr. bobby seale. [applause] >> thank you. thank you, thank you, thank you. civility. i think of civil rights, civil human rights, civility. i think of the first two or three paragraphs in the declaratiodeclaration in the nis america. people don't pay attention that and see what it means. i started an organization in

1966 while i was working for the city government of oakland, california, the department of human resources. they year preceding that a book came out called black power, stoking carmichael. they were hollering we want black power, we want black powder our stand on the corner listening to them and i walked up to them and they said you're not going to get any power until you take over some of these political seats what do you mean political seats? i said city council seats, stuff like that. then the white van seat. i said you better tell them make some black folks seats. because that's where the power is. these people make laws that thee people use the money. they exploit you and do not give

you your basic desires and needs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. you need political power. at that time i did a demographic search across the united states of america to see how many black americans were duly elected to political office to see how many people of color and how many women was duly elected to political office threat the whole of the united states of america. all the political seats come here to imagine every part-time city council seat, every full-time city council seat, every county supervisor seat. every share see, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. and i found out that there were 500,000 political seats that one could be elected to in the united states of america. 500,000 plus seats that you could be elected to. i also found out that there were

only 50, 52 black politicians duly elected at the time. imagine that include a guy named adam powell out of new york. this is what i was looking at in 1966 as a young man. i had a great job. i work in the engine department in the nasa project. i was a worrying about jobs. i had skills. i had abilities. i was raised to build jobs, an architect by the time i was 15 years of age. i had professions and skills. i was lucky. but i quit the job to work in this grassroots community, my community. and i created jobs branscum to guinea and northridge, california, 1964. i didn't create the black panther party to make t6. i worked another program with the city government of oakland. and then i decided to create

this organization black panther party. the things i did with the city government of oakland, i was a community liaison for the community center where i lived in that large community. and i did job placements when we got jobs. i did community service in the community in terms of family counseling. ..

we didn't want to have to be fighting anymore wars. there's african-american people and many others who have fought in every war this country has had from its very founding and very beginning. that platform and program went on to say we wanted an immediate and to police brutality and we wanted fair treatment and the court spread all people who have been tried by white. [inaudible] have a right to a new trial. then i begin to -- after three or four days of outline, i began to summarize this program. we wanted housing, education, justice and peace. in summarizing it, a couple days later, in my office, working for the city

government, i iran across two paragraphs related to the declaration of independence in the united states of america. the declaration of independence and the united states of america. you've got a lot of guys thumb their nose at it and didn't want to hear it. i read it and read read it and it looks like it made a lot of sense to me. i paraphrased it. a lot of people talk about militancy and what that's supposed to be, but in reading this ten-point platform and program, by reading this this declaration of independence, it said when a course of human events becomes necessary for any one people to dissolve the political budget which have connected them with another,

and to assume within the power of the earth to which the laws of nature discard entitlement or decent respect to the humans of opinion of mankind and impels them to dissolve that political bondage of exploitation and healthcare and every issue and every problem you can talk about today as they walk around trying to kill the healthcare program. it is a form of political abundance of humanity, people, whether you're black, white, green, blue, yellow, that's what that bondage is about. how do we dissolve it? another aspect is stated separation of independence

has said when a long train of abuses and patients pursues to reduce the people of their absolute, then it is a right of people to change that government and provide new guards for their future security. now, you, young brothers and sisters, people out here, you are all part of the new guard who are evolving, whether you are playing music or an engineer like i was. you have to forgive me. wow. i come appear. that works. i'm just saying, when i went out there to try to capture the imagination of the people so i can organize them, i was

going to organize a political unity in the community who were miserably on registered to vote at the time because later on, five years later, we registered 24000 people in that community. my point is, that's what i was about. we went out to observe the police, we knew the law and our bill of rights and when the police said you have no right to observe me, we set that all citizens have a right to stand and observe police as long as they stand a reasonable distance away.

we will observe you whether you like it or not. we recited the law back to the cop. it was not some macho crab, it was well-designed. we knew every law, we knew how legal we were and we were very legal. up at took them seven months to make a law to stop us from carrying our legal weapons, and of course we stopped carrying them. my organization became well-known. print i have 22 active members in this organization. suddenly, my organization was on the front pages of newspapers all around the world in different languages,

et cetera. what i was about was not what the newspapers reported. what happened is, i had to reorganize. they put me in jail for six months. , not because of the gun but because they say i disturb the peace when i went into that assembly. that organization, the next year flourished. before doctor king was murdered, i only had 400 members up-and-down the east coast. they kill and murdered doctor martin luther king, young brothers and sisters, all my people and friends and other

liberals, they rallied behind us but the next thing i know, in seven months, i got 5000 members in the black party. i got coalitions with 39 different organizations across racial ethnic mines, et cetera and so on. that happened as part of american history. the struggle continues to this very day. every issue we talked about in the 1960s, other organizations have the same issues. i'm telling you, all organizations in one way shape or form or the other. it continues today from the fact that they hear about repressing the vote of people of color, students and other people, the very fact that they're doing that just to hang onto power to perpetuate their visions and exploitation.

it is you, all of you, all you young folks, you have to understand this. you've got to take this legacy. i've been trying to make a film and a movie but the right wing people, the money rich people, they been trying to stop me. they stop me for trying to make my movie because they wanted to take away my screenplay and then they want to put up some crab that leads to the right wing view of what were about. the struggle is a human liberation struggle around the world. we are talking about liberating through policies and amendments, new guards, young folks who take time to

work together and unify and get laws and rules made to protect the constitution's. this is what the struggle is about. we are not disconnected. we are interconnected and interrelated. we are trying, in every aspect of civility, we have to of all a greater amount of people's cooperation of humanism. i publish books, et cetera, brought power to the people, sees the time, and so on, but this is what we've got to do. i say it and i will repeat it again, we need to reach very climbing, recycling and re- evolving, around all peoples

active in artistic, creative operational, humanism, reach, we've got to reach for the future. we have to organize people, get out here and you and many others have got to charge as many people to get out here and be part and parcel of these elections. we've got to get this whole congressional body shifted over to the progressive side. we've got to get more these people so we can control this and make some new laws and deal with the climate change, deal with the infrastructure that's necessary. this is all about your civic

civility and participation. it is empowerment of the people, for the people and by the people. thank you very much. >> it up for mr. bobby seal. [applause] >> our next speaker i met as i traveled last year. so many of us were watching the news and the things that were going on out at standing rock and it really hurt my heart to see there are people being brutalized out there at that camp. as i got there, i was very well welcomed by so many of the natives and indigenous

people that were there, and one in particular, i was so surprised by how calm she was in the midst of all the chaos going on. she help me navigate through some of the things that were happening and she runs an organization called honor the earth. i've seen her spend a lot of time with the indigenous youth council. let's give a round of applause for aaron. >> i guess i should start by saying i work for a woman named wenonah leduc. by her grace i am here. like to begin by acknowledging with great humility that the land where we gather today was once home. [inaudible] i would like to honor the 20th

century civil rights activist, allied with the american indian movement that led the charge to allow indigenous folks to self identify here in this area. in spite of his 16 year campaign for recognition of the united states government, they mentioned, they are still not fully recognize. we are currently occupying their homeland and we may not see them here today, know their presence is in this plan, rivers, islands and coastal plain. let us also recognize that there were nations capital may make a mockery of who we are as indigenous people with their national mascot, we are still here and we have not forgotten that this country was formed on calculated genocide and people wrenched from their homeland. i like to draw attention to the man seated behind me. 1862, abraham lincoln, the great emancipator sent

sentenced 38 dakota men to death in what is still known as the largest mass execution in the united states history. in 1865, two of the men who had escaped the first mass hanging were caught and returned and executed in the same merciless fashion. here before the lincoln memorial, i would like to honor those who died in resistance. as you can tell, when it comes to indigenous people relationship to be treated with a. [inaudible] we have watched the threat of humanity stretch, wayne and tear since our lands were first taken from us spread this past year in north dakota, i was among thousands that joined the youth led resistance against the dakota pipeline. because we exercised our constitutional treaty right, we were met with brute force, militarized police, dog

attacks and non- that cause damage to all those in attendance. more than 800 people were arrested and our sister red font is still being held as a political prisoner, currently on day 331 for a crime she did not commit. is this not reminiscent of the kidnapping and the last 41 years in maximum security lockdown? the remarkable thing about the occupation in north dakota that many people may not know is that we begin every single day in unity. whether it was through prayer, ceremony, song or silence, we reminded each other every day, remember why you are here. you are here for future generations. one of my favorite women in the world, a woman by the name of shug avery once said everything want to be loved. a sing and dance just wanting to be loved. look at them, notice how the trees do everything people do

except walk to get attention. when we began our dates and standing rock, we venerated everything around us. wasn't just those we could see, the people we came from that we rose to protect on the front lines. it was everything around us, wanting to be loved in the here and now but also the glimmer of future generations we could see in the midst that needed us to ensure their very existence. in camp they called me mother. i took care of the international indigenous youth council for almost five months. every day i would hug and pray that they would come home and hug me again. on the front line it was these youth that were the first to receive the staggering might of governing sanctions and it was these young people that we most often hear the words we forgive you, we will pray for you. even in our darkest moments when we cried out to our ancestors for protection, the youth were steadfast and persevered.

many have written off me and my peers as being narcissus. millennial's, they cry when we use social media to document oppression. millennial's they write when we bear the bones of institutional racism that deter success. millennial's they say when we form barricades around our relatives who face unjust treatment. [inaudible] if you are fearful of generations to come, you should be. we are assuring through use of voice, education, exercising of constitutional rights and civil disobedience that there be a world for those to come to inherit. we are doing this with simple acts of kindness, personhood, inclusivity and intersectional organizing.

we are passing the historical. [inaudible] we are learning how to forgive in a way that our foremothers and ancestors were denied the right to do. we are here to take back our languages land and culture, and we are doing so with unprecedented decorum. if you look around this nation and wonder where your leaders are, you need only to look to your youth. we are more than ready to take up the mantle. we do not need to fearmonger, condescend, sexually, verbally, racially or verbally abuse each other to be validated. our very existence as a direct result of the resistance of the thousands that came before us and we are here to honor them. we come only as human beings

and the compassion we carry. if you ever lose hope, look only to the young people and remember although you may not cs we are out there fighting for you although many of us remain oppressed by a system that may benefit many of you. they were raised on a reservation created as an act of war against my people and come stand before you today on unapologetically. imagine what my peers and those that beat us will be capable of. it's an acknowledgment of my generation that i want to) my mama said recently, your iteration doesn't care about sexuality, gender, race, religion or monetary status so what do you care about. i had many answers for her but decided to respond by asking a question in my own. what kind of ancestor do you

want to be? i wake each morning with a desire to do good, empower others and preserve what is left of this place for those to come. this is what i think about when i walk into the world. today i encourage you to ask the same of yourself and continue to rise alongside fellow human beings and remember why you are here, to harness your race and love in spite of it. [applause] >> next up, i spent a lot of time traveling around to schools over the past year to talk to young people about how we need to be better and come together, and one school in particular was right here in washington d.c. called the british international school. i was surprised and talking with the students there how much they were familiar with the work that i've been doing

on the front line, and i was shocked because some of those videos are pretty intense and it was interesting to see that the educators are sharing the videos with them. young people are very aware of what's going on in the world around them. today i got my good friend from the british international school to talk about how youth are the future. then we have a young student, not from the british international school, but someone who i met traveling around and doing some work and i've just been blown away by the things she speaks about in her message. first up, welcome. >> good afternoon everybody. in my work, it's interesting, the way that i met ken, we were going to be doing a thing in our class which is a

social emotional aspect where we were going to show little bit about how one person can make a difference, all they have to do is have an idea. i came across his stuff on youtube and someone from our school contacted one of his people, and it was interesting, when he came to the british school, i had two goals and one was to get him to ben's chili bowl which is a local place, and then also to get him to come to the lincoln memorial to take a picture, and obviously we are in a much bigger place and he's created an amazing opportunity for himself. when i work with youth, i was talking to someone, i always had the idea that teenagers and children, they will be the ones that change our future, not just because they get old but because they have the answer. i was asking someone, a bunch of people, and one answer rang out and it was young people are always changing their mind. if young people change their mind, there always learning

they will be the ones who can adapt. we as adults often don't adapt and we think of the word civility, sometimes we lack that when we talk to youth. there's two things in particular i think we could be doing as adults to be working and showing our youth that future one is to create those opportunities for educators that are here, if you can look up the sustainable development goals , that's one way of looking at it, we can get lots of different opportunities. this past year we had a few students we brought to the un with some of their ideas. just create opportunity. the other thing is forgiveness. we make a lot of mistakes, especially in our teenage years and years of the kid and as we walk across the korean memorial and our father fought in that war and my teenage years it wasn't always so easy and there's

people who were teachers to me who showed me love. my mother always showed me love. she showed me that you treat everybody with respect. it wasn't until my teenage years with teachers that show me that love and another teacher, were right by the vietnam memorial because he taught me you never stop loving those who file for your country and here we are standing before this crowd and before all of you with an opportunity. we make a lot of mistakes. show love to those teenagers and those kids and give them opportunities to grow. that's the future. >> can everyone see me? so, first of all, i just want to say thank you so much to the team for giving me the opportunity to speak it today. i really love what's

happening at this event. usually people who come to an event like this one are the people need to hear the message because they all are ready agree with one another. but here, almost everyone disagrees with someone speaking on stage but i think it's cool that we can come together and we don't have to hate each other just because. i like to think of it as the death throes of hate. there's less hate in my generation and there was in the last in the row be even less in the next generation. it's amazing to see what can happen if we take the time to get to know each other, and there are kids were being taught hate, but there are more of us than there are of them. some of those kids will become my friends later and i'll change your mind, just like the work that gerald davis is doing. of course, we won't always agree, but usually what makes us different is what makes us interesting. it is nothing to be afraid

of. it's really scary to see the hate surging in our country, but it's a lot less scary if you think of it as a dying death that is losing this battle. rather than heat taking over our country. that being said, this is not something we can and or. there's a revolution coming in this century. revolutions are bloodless, but there are already people out there who are willing to fight those battles. i'm here because i want to be sure this revolution is less bloodied than the last one and to make sure that were all setting the foundation for us to come together on the other side. i'm so glad there are so many other people here that feel the same way. i'm also here because i want to represent hope for the future. i promise the work you are doing now will be in good hands in the years to come, and i promise that you my friends will continue to

stand up for what we believe in and will do so without hate without violence and with the hope that if we all come together we can make real change and we can create the world that we want to live in. thank you all so much for inviting me out here and hearing me out there that's all work together to make the world a better place. [applause] >> thank you so much. wow. blows my mind every time she speaks. wow. her parents are doing such a phenomenal job with her. i walked into youtube studios in l.a. and met her for the first time and was impressed at how well she speaks at 12 years old, and to know that when her dad started sharing her story with me, by the time she was eight or nine, when the riots were taking place out in ferguson and she told her dad she wanted to go out there to experience what it was like and they went there. i think that is so phenomenal

for someone to want to be able to take it all in to figure out how they can help. it's so amazing. that's her father there. such a great family. wow. amazing job. thank you. our next speaker, lisa parker runs an organization called see jane do. it's about inspiring women to do amazing things and girls as well. young people. it's just phenomenal to know this type of work is continually being pushed so lisa, coming up, and up and we would love to hear your message. >> thank you. >> hello d.c. how is everybody doing. we can do better than that. how's everybody doing. alice walker said people give up their power by thinking they don't have any. now before you start

questioning your power and thinking i don't have any power, i'm not talking about the power over, the philosophy that if white privilege feels on top that when we look at justice, that there is someone else powering over. i'm talking about power with. are you with me on power with and power too? that's the power were talking about. i am humbled to be here standing on the steps of the lincoln memorial and i'm mindful of the extraordinary women and the shoulders that i stand on, and we as women and men in the amazing young women that we just heard are standing on. i know if we look at the washington monument, the lincoln memorial, jefferson monument, there were women who were standing behind them. it was only several months ago that i stood here in solidarity with 2 million other women.

who else was at the women's march. something happened that day. it happen that moment when for many of us as women we recognize that it was not the purpose for me to be there to celebrate one person, it was more so to recognize that all of these extraordinary women and men are stepping in, engaging into our full power to make a difference. our power to love and show up with justice and compassion. i like to say there was a spell that was broken monday and while some of us might have felt devastated, a spell was broken when many of us recognized my sisters of color have been living through their entire life and lives prior to that. as we woke up we recognized that i matter, i have a voice

, i'm here on purpose. know that you are here on purpose. i know sometimes it feels a little crazy or a little while. i look up in the stars right now and i look at the stars swarming like a nebulous birth out of chaos. it seems wild and crazy but there's a star being created. there are possibilities in imagining that we can never met him before. 5million people rose up around the world. even today. i would've never imagine this was possible.

i come from a small town in california. we are called the world north. it's like when we have an issue of restaurants, we show up together and have spaghetti feeds and pancake breakfast. we put aside our political differences and say you matter to me. we show up for each other. i would like to believe that as we are showing up here today, civility and love that we can have this huge pancake breakfast for all of us to say we all matter and that we all have value and worth. the town i live in, nevada city california, the birthplace of the 19th amendment, women's right to vote. it then took over 90 years for women to get the right to

vote. we want to wait that long to see civility and justice? no. i realized that it goes far beyond. we are carrying this message across the world that we will not stand to wait for 90 years to see the humanity in each other. we stand for that? will we stand for justice? what we stand for love? i often say there's a moment like we saw at the women's march when you have a choice in thinking what will i rise for. you never know when you'll be called to rise. i remember when i was 20 years old and i lived in san francisc francisco, i looked over and saw a woman getting beaten by a man.

as people started walking down, putting on their blinds to ignore it, i stopped midsentence with who i was talking to-hey you, leave her alone. in that moment, he dropped his hand, he got the car and left. you never know when you will be called to rise. in that moment, we rise up. when we see children who are going hungry, will we rise up. when we arrived and here brothers and sisters at standing rock, know that we are connected. when we see our brothers and sisters in puerto rico and florida and the virgin islands were suffering from floods in this dynamic force of our only planet called earth, we rise up. when we as women see other women and we start to judge

each other or compete, i'm even saying when you're saying look at what she's wearing. when we show up for her and rise up for her? yes. we rise up for her. we have a moment here. we have an opportunity. there's a reason you showed up today. there's a reason we show up. let's think about this moment and think about how we are going to rise up and see the value in myself and the value in each and every one of us. take a moment, it's free hug project. take a moment and look at the person next to you.

you don't have to touch him. feel free to give them a hug, connect with them and look at them in them i and say you matter to me. thanks ken. it's so important that we drop it and love it. i have two teenage daughters, and i remember, ladies, growing up in middle school or high school, how often would we look at a woman standing in her power and say she is so full of herself, but what if we shifted that. shouldn't we be full of ourselves, should we be full of love and compassion. should we be full of justice, shouldn't we be full of good health, what else do you want to be full of. shout about.

we should be full of hope, love, face, peace, what else you want to be full of. civility. take a moment just to prevent. empathy, compassion, to be full of ourselves in that way. if we are not full of ourselves in that way, how can we imagine that we will be able to give any of that to anyone else. if you are not holding that anything that within yourself and holding the love, compassion, empathy within yourself, how can we give it to somebody else? that is our moment where we are asking each and every one of us to step up and engage and do something you've never imagined before. to be courageous and say i am the one we are waiting for. we are the ones we've been waiting for. while it might seem crazy and intense and wild and sometimes it feels very hard,

but to know that we have each other's back and there is a reason why you are here today. i am so deeply in gratitude for all of you for being here today. as we move forward, doctor martin luther king jr. said i have a dream. we are that dream. as the young lady said before, we are the change we been wanting to see. the question is, will you embrace that? will you take that in being full of yourself and move forward to create a dream and a world that so many who stood in the spot for hundreds of years are saying the time is now. will we rise up west mark thank you so much. i'm alisa parker. it's been an honor to be with you. [applause]

>> when we were out on the marc march, it was beautiful to see all the flags and the different people merging together and as i have the bullhorn and i shouted out, i've never been to a protest where i've marched alongside so many police officers, with activists, with civilians, and everyone being able to come together and shut out the same chance that we are supporting unity and love. i just want to thank some of the officers that are here today that really support unity and do amazing work in the community and one of our next police officers that i'd like to bring up his deputy brian to come up and speak about some of the work he does by sharing in the community. come on over.

>> good afternoon everyone. i am deputy brian, i'm representing dallas county texa texas. i'm deputized under raven nichols, located in texas and i traveled all the way from texas to be before you today. before i say anything, i want to go ahead and let everybody know to make sure what i stand for, to let everybody of all colors, all race, all nationalities, all genders, wherever you are, whoever you are, you matter. everybody matters. another word for everybody is all. all lives matter no matter what you've done where you've been or if you been in trouble before, you matter. the march of civility is a

march of peace, march of hope , a march of love because that's what we need in this world today. we need to bring love back, peace back, love back and one thing about love is love is universal. it doesn't matter who it affects. love affects everybody. that young man that has a problem or is being disrespectful, a lot of parents want to give up on their children. guess what. god still loves him, i still love them and i know you still love them. people who are having a hard time being on drugs or being strung out, they think nobody cares about them. they've given up hope. god still loves them. i still love them and i know you still love them. even behind the prison walls were people have made mistakes because nobody is perfect, just because you been to jail does not mean you are a bad or evil person. i want to make sure everybody understands that because the world is so quick to outcast

you when you do one thing wrong, but they forget about the love within you. there are a lot of people out here today you don't even know who have been through so much and you don't even know their story. you will be quick to go and judge them before anything, before you love them. one thing god tries to do all the time, these hurricanes are going on. destruction, riot, and speaking of the hurricane, asian bring a hurricane to bring people together because whenever betty came together, nobody was worried about confederate flags. everybody was worried and concerned to love each other. no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what your religious background is, no matter what kind of group you are from, nobody focuses on the negativity. today when you look on youtube, look on facebook, all kind of social media,

instagram, social media, i can name all of them. every time you turn on one of those pages, all you see is hate. somebody fighting each other. somebody getting into it with law-enforcement officials. somebody killing their own family members are killing each other. crimes being committed online. that's what the media is showing to our children and everybody along the world and that's what they think people are and they think law-enforcement, they think are evil when were out here protecting. it's all about what the media is showing you and what you're watching. it's all about what is on your tv or what you're seeing on youtube because the news gets all the negativity from social media. today, no matter who you are, i am going to ask you to do this. the news is here. we are going to give them something to know about, something to love about

because love still does exist. that person sitting next to you, you don't know them, you don't know their story, how that person. this is a free hug project. i want to see everybody getting along. you don't know this person, they don't know you, give that person a hug for being here. they want to be here for the same reason i want to be here. my motto that i always say on every page is i refuse to see hate live while love dies and all that is saying is i don't want to see all the negativity that's going on in our world today versus all the love that's going on up there. i want love to prevail. we need to bring love back. [applause] all the negativity videos, all the videos of them fighting in the street, i refuse to see hate live while love dies. are people killing each other's on the street and putting it on facebook live, i refuse to see hate live while love dies.

all the hatred groups that hate one another and on understanding what love is, i refuse to see hate live while love dies. i'm deputy brown waters. thank you so much for having me. god bless you. i love you. thank you. thanks again. [applause] we are going to cut to some music really quick. we've got naomi who will play some music for us today. >> it up for naomi. >> how's everyone doing today. how is everyone that afternoon.

it is such a privilege to be part of this event. i am a woman who is determined to make this world a better place with my words and my guitar and my music and so, i'm going to sing a couple songs and i hope you are inspired empowered, you reminded that your good and you came from love and that you are capable of being so much goodness in this world. first i'm going to do this song called were in trouble ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ [applause] thank you. this next song is called up in flames. it was inspired by the baltimore riots a few years ago. the question is where is love, where's kindness, where's empathy and i believe those are the things that will save the human race. this is up in flames. ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] ♪ ♪ >> thank you so much. the next song is called beautiful human. regardless of where you come from or what your sexuality is, i believe everyone is sacred and beautiful and deserves to be celebrated. the sun is really about that. i'm celebrating all of us.

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>> thank you so much. i'm from kenya and i'm proud to be here. this is my last song called afghan girl and i couldn't think of a better song to sing the song other than this place. i know so many women have been here in this incredible space and i'm honored to share my words in this space. peace and love to all of you. this is african girl. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thank you all so much and hope you have lovely afternoon. thank you. [applause] >> wow. that's a beautiful voice, a beautiful voice.

sounded amazing, naomi. her song about say, that will play in my head for a while. our next speaker, she was sharing with me actually just recently about how faith got her through a tragedy that her family experienced, and to know that carried her through so much as she started an organization called faith always wins. and today we have mindy corporon here to shovel bit more about her story and her organization. [applause] >> can i get a step stool? thank you all for being here. thank you do ken, thank you to be just as well for sponsoring this event, this civility

project. restore civility. that's why we're here. i want to tell you that one person can make a revolt for bad or for good. i flew here from overland park kansas where three and half years ago my father and my son were fatally shot in a religioue crime. in april 2014, a 73-year-old man claiming to be a white supremacist murdered my father and my 14-year-old son at a jewish community center. he then left the community center and went to another jewish location and murdered another woman. my father and my son were at the community center for a singing audition. when the shooting happened i was

one of the first on the scene. and when i arrived and i saw my father already deceased from a gunshot wound to the chest, i knelt and heard the words, your father is in heaven. go find reed. i found my son only a few feet away from the truck hit driven and he was in the arms that too good samaritans who were trying to save his life. evil hates and all the negativity from our world never entered my mind that day when ii gave him a hug as they left my house for a singing competition. i had no idea that religious hate still existed, and that it was in my own community. of course it shattered me and it shattered our family. i hope that you cannot imagine how it tore my heart out, and it

took my soul away. even though i believe and i believed then that they were in heaven, i struggled with my face and i struggled with faith in god and faith in humanity. a few months after the shooting i was then invited to a mosque. i've never been to a mosque but i was invited to a mosque by the family of a 15-year-old boy, a 15-year-old boy who had been run over intentionally by a man in an suv with anti-muslim writings on his windows. it was another religious hate filled murder, and again it within my community. it happened near a somali community center in kansas city. i went searching after that, after i spoke at this vigil, i went searching for i searched my own faith. i search christianity. i searched judaism and i searched islam, and i was really

looking for why, why is there so much religious hate that it would lead to these two distractions so close to my life? and what i found instead of hate was i found love. i found that many of us are dealing with the loss, and many of us need to be connected and find one another in faith and hope and love. i found that these other people that i was now engaging with, that we had so much in common. we had ripples of commonality, and i found that faith transcends religion. today, three and a half years after these murders, i have been through the seven stages of grief, and i continue to go through them. together with family, friends,

and our new community, we created a foundation called faith always when. then our foundation cratered an event called seven days, make a ripple, change the world. seven days full of kindness works seven days full of positive ripples. seven days to overpower ignorance, fear, and hate. we can make enough ripples of kindness to redirect someone who might be considering hate. we have that capacity in each one of us. there are seven days of an experience. seven days with the unique focus. they are love, discover, others, connect, you, go, onward. love, extend a hand, a heart, a smile or a hug. discover that others have so

much more in common with us than we realize. others, others who are different. we need others in our lives so that we can learn from them, and grow. connect, connect with those that are also dealing with losses. you, you must take care of yourself to take care of others. not selfishness, but selflessness and self-care. and go, go and actively make a ripple. know that you have that in you. and then onward. some of us like myself have had evil thrust onto us. and it is very difficult to find a way to go onward. i did survive because of my faith, and where helping other people go onward through seven days. after the religious hate filled murders that crushed our family, i had no idea if my faith would

survive. i didn't know if my faith in god or my faith in humanity would be able to make a ripple of bad turn into a ripple of good. but i stand in front of you today, in front of the lincoln memorial, very humbled and very honored to tell you that my faith was strong enough and that your faith can be strong enough, too. you can make a ripple to change the world. you do not have to be overcome by evil. and we will make ripples of kindness, a faith, of hope, and of. so please join me either in our community, in your community or digitally with seven days make a ripple change the world. thank you very much. [applause] >> thanthank you, mindy. our next speaker, he's a

professor of conflict resolution. he's a nonviolent trader and we met through my conscious campus where he traveled around to schools that also spread the message of civility and nonviolence pics or give it up for doctor arthur romano. [applause] what an honor it is to be here and to be invited to speak about the role of conflict resolution now in the united states and in our world. i think one of the powerful things that we see today is that people are doing this work every day. folks are coming together. they come together across religious lines, muslims, christians,, hindus and others working in interfaith coalitions to make change in their

community. folks are working to create a just economy in jackson, mississippi, in the mountains of west virginia, in the heart of detroit. mediators are bringing people together who that parts of their lives shattered and were unwilling to come to the table to talk together again for the first time. and as i stand here it's hard not to think about martin luther king. and when we think about dr. king, i think we often think of this i have a dream speech and almost at the word perfectly chosen, but martin luther king was marty to his friends, right? some of his biographers say that he was notably quiet in class. and similarly with other famous peacemakers we know like mahatma gandhi, they stated he was in order child and what did he mean by ordinary child?

they mean he was scared mistakes and scared of the dark and he ran home multiple times on lunch break for fear of being bullied. that can somebody who faced the british empire, brutal, controlling through military means 85% of the known territory on planet earth, and pushed them out and created self-rule in a little over a decade. so in my own work i do research with my colleagues at george mason university. we study how people learn conflict resolution. the good news is conflict resolution and having difficult conversations and organizing for social justice and change, those things can be learned. it sounds so simple but it's profound, right? if those things can be learned, then we can invest in teaching them. i don't mean teaching the necessary at the university only or in classrooms, but i mean in

our communities because some of the best conflict resolvers and people who are working for social justice don't have official titles that bear that name. they don't have a business card that says i do conflict resolution, or i work for justice. i think that's the good news. on the other side of it, on this theme of civility, we need to also consider that civility sometimes can be used for negative purposes. civility can be used to minimize peoples anger and loss. civility was used in the civil rights movement to say civil rights activists are outside agitators and everything is fine writer in georgia. we know exactly what to do when a white man walks down the street of black folk know to step off the street. it's already piece here, right? that's a negative piece.

that's a status quo piece. so sometimes with peace building, we have to stir the pot. sometimes things that are hidden, i often talk too much to about this. i say how many of you went home for thanksgiving break? , and had a conversation that start something like this, hey, mom, dad, i've been thinking? and how many of you saw your parents and relatives start squirming in their seats as you started to explain to them about how your questioning the world? right? we are not born courageous. we become courageous. and the way that we diffuse defe conflict and stand up for justice can be taught. so then we have this question, then what are our priorities? because as a look past that monument icr congress, and went icr congress, i think about the fact that last week they passed the bill that will invest

$600 billion in the military. that's more than our military budget than every single nation in the world combined. and are we safe yet? do we not feel scared? how many guns, how many bases, into we reach this place where we feel secure? our security lies in our relationships and our ability to have conversations when it's difficult. and what we see our old conflicts, right, that arising back to the surface. this is not new in the united states. i think it's very telling we pull down confederate monuments at night. we have to look. i think it's telling them right over there beyond the monument, we have an african-american

museum of culture, and it arrived here in 2016, even though the mall was built by african-american people. and so i think in conclusion, we have a great opportunity, because if peace can be taught, and these great people, martin luther king and others who have worked for peace are not born on a pedestal, if we are not born courageous but we become courageous, then that means every one of us has a shot. [applause] but to do it where going to have to invest in it. and here comes part of the hard part i think. i don't believe this will change without us really, this investment in war and this investment in the kind of false sense of secret he will change as really rising up and challenging it. these things are not verla totally given. there taken.

-- voluntarily i mean that been much in a nonviolent way. but that we stand up and we say we want to invest. we want to invest in our people so that our people can bring up the best of each other. we know that democracy is not just about a voting booth. democracy is as coming together and solving complicated problems together. so i think, bringing this to a close, i think we are at a powerful moment. because one thing is that when you take that step that sometimes is hidden and the stuff that make you squirm at the table at thanksgiving, and that step is available to see, then that very fact that it is rising means is a chance to del with it. and i'd rather live in a moment where the conflict and be seen, where we have a chance to work with it, then trying to do the hard work of convincing people

who are not affected by it that it is there. so for those of you who have been working to bring people together across lines of difference, those of you put your body on the line in the street from us, i commend you. i thank you. we have a powerful moment i think to build peace in this country. let's demand that we invest in ourselves. [applause] >> amazing. next up is cody blackbird who is a fellow artist at conscious campus where many of us speakers are represented by an agent, greg, who is actually here with us. cody is a native american flutist, and so he's going to play some music force and share a little bit about his work. cody, let's do it. [applause]

>> good afternoon, everybody. my name is cody blackbird, and i just wanted to share a little bit about myself and where i come from. my grandfather was about american indian veteran who served in all five major battles of world war ii and was a five ron star -- bronze star award recipient. my parents were romani gypsies who came to escaping hitler's wrath. i'm a survivor of many things in my life. for one thing, proud to be is a survivor of oppression and genocide. because i know what pain is and i know what it is to feel it in your dna and in your blood and in your spirit, to know that at one point your people tried to be, they were almost conquered. but we are still alive. we pushed through today, through efforts of this, through

restoring civility within our communities. change can happen. one thing i've learned is that we don't need resolution. i've not heard one revolutionary on this stage today. i've heard evolutionary. because when we have revolution, fast to revolve. that's to go back to the same, a new way of the old way. it's to go back to a way that is broken, but to evolve, to a change and start within yourself. you change yourself, you change your family, you change your neighborhood, you change your community, you change your city, town, or state, your country. you can change the world. every one of us that his place you on this earth has a building and the power to change the world. but it all starts within yourself. and you can't restore civility without recognizing truth. and you can't restore civility

while believing in understanding thinking you have the understanding of a false narrated history. so awaken yourself to the truth and the realities that surround you here that everything isn't just fine, that we have our work cut out for us. but by being here and by stepping forward and stepping up, you are being part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. just like i said earlier, when we put those positive ripples out there, we can do anything we set our minds to come including conquering hate. thank you. [applause] i'm going to do a song, part of myself, how i found peace within myself an in being a victim of a flawed mental health system growing up was through music. this instrument has taken it all around the world some go to share with you guys a song i wrote for my album, the journey.

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>> this is how they describe the killing of american student, amy biehl. she was attacked and killed from a student organization in augus. this week her murders asked for forgiveness and plant a political motive for the roles in her death. >> twenty-fivthe 25th of august3 start out as an ordinary day in cape town. but the townships around the city are in a state of political tension as result of student and teacher protests. on this day, the student organization is relaunched. fiery political speeches are made by local leaders. emotions run high. after the meeting a large crowd in step in the nearby township.

[chanting] >> meanwhile, american fulbright student amy biehl who worked ass a research at university of the western cape is driving through the town, giving three black colleagues a lift home. then the white woman is spotted by the inflamed group, and two worlds collide. at the end of stonington stabbing, amy biehl is dead. her young killers have maintained their innocence up to now. but this week they told the amnesty committee in chilling detail why they participated in this horrific attack.

>> they ordered us to guard and prepare the groundwork and to make the township ungovernable. i regarded this as an instruction to also harm, injure, and kill white people. when i saw that the driver of the vehicle which wheatstone and which it come to a standstill with a white person, i immediately asked one of the comrades in the crowd for a knife. for me, this was an opportunity to put into practice the slogan one settler, one bullet. >> he admitted for the first time that he inflicted the fatal stab wounds to her heart. in his affidavit he claims that though he is mentally handicapped he was nonetheless a faithful follower. >> even after he stabbed her, i still threw stones at her.

at least another four or five stones. i threw stones at her because she was a settler. >> if you did here from the passengers that she is also a comrade that day, would you have acted any differently? >> i don't think so. >> can you elaborate? >> at the time with very high spirits and the white people were oppressive, we had no mercy on the white people. a white person was a white person to our eyes. >> you see, what i'm going to

suggest to you, that the attack and brutal murder of amy biehl could not of been done with a political objective. it was wanton brutality, like a pack of sharks smelling blood. isn't that the truth? >> no, that's not true. >> when i looked closely at what i did, i realized that it was bad. i took part in killing someone that we could have used to achieve our own aims. amy was one of the people who

could have, in an international sense, worked for our country. i ask amy's parents, friends, relatives, i asked them to forgive me. >> then peter showed little emotion as they listen to the daughters killers. they pledged to support her the truth and reconciliation process. >> we unabashedly support the process which we recognize to be unprecedented in contemporary human history. >> they say they are committed to continuing amy's work for women's rights in south africa, spent most of friday with the mosaics women group. they've come to terms with amy's death but still quite hard to believe she died just two days before she was due to return home to california.

>> when we left them, we came to the site where their daughter had been attacked. only these dried-up flowers serve as reminder of amy's brutal killing four years ago. an act which amnesty committee now has to decide was either a politically inspired murder or a racial one. >> the mother at the center of that story is ms. linda biehl, and i had the pleasure of meeting her yesterday, and it takes a lot to be able to forgive someone that took a member of your family, and to forgive a group of people that took a member of your family. i'm just so overwhelmed by her heart and in meeting her last night, she's such an amazing and sweet person. it's truly an honor that you here today, and please welcome ms. linda biehl to come up and speak to us and share her story about forgiveness.

such an amazing story. [applause] >> wow, it's hot. amamy's story happened 24 years ago this past august. i was 50 then so you have to realize this is not just an immediate thing, and do you get over it, do you, how do you do with it. i really wanted to show that video because obviously this is a more complicated global, international apartheid south africa kind of a thing. are we like that? to have apartheid in a country? do we see similarities? as an american family who were

taken over to south africa to kind of calm things down because the great nelson mandela was starting, it were not yet at the elections. a lot of people, media, white, black, all kinds of people said to our number one, your daughter was crazy and you were crazy to let it go to south africa. you were, you should be shot. we have skinheads, we have all the hate, but we have love and we had the support of amazing people that still remain friends today. i wanted to show you that truth and reconciliation commission, all of it of how it works. it's a little complicated and it's not perfect. archbishop desmond tutu was the chairman. they worked very hard in south africa to bring about a

restorative justice to the country. a healing sort of justice, a justice that desmond tutu always referred to as a person as a person to other persons. they also tried to get at the truth. so a lot of people sat there in that environment with her earphones with language issues and said they didn't tell you the truth. do you know when i heard the truth? when it was said we would not have killed her because she would been better for our cause alive than dead. that's the truth. they didn't sugarcoat anything. at the drc they had to bring forward proof that they were members of a political, i don't know, the pan african congress is more than a political party, more than a republican, more than a democrat, but in movement. and they had to show they were lifetime members. they were supposedly to tell the

truth that what happened. they did not have to ask for forgiveness but they did. so the story is a you after this hearing in 1998 they were released, given amnesty, the four of them. although it's a big mob and big slogans and it still a little afraid of marches and big slogans and mobs, but they actually got out of prison, they were leaders of the group and they came forward at the risk of being called sellouts, et cetera, by their fellow members and said, we see what you are doing. you've started the amy biehl foundation for you started job creation, yet started fiscal programs. we want to join you. we didn't ask them. they came forward. i think their courage was amazing. and today, they speak with me both are in the u.s. and internationally, in island and other places but their living their own lives.

they have beautiful children and they first called me the first on a met them at a little house, they called me -- and i said so what's that? they said grandmother here so i am a grandmother to their children, but more than that coming back to the u.s. i've learned a lot about oppression and countless things that what we've talked about here, so similar. i know it's been a long day so i just want you to know that my six grandchildren here call me grandmother and you can, too. thank you. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] server going to wrap this thing of it i would love to be able to get all of our speakers that are still here, i know it's been difficult for everyone to brave the heat but i going to still here, just want to get you all appear on the states to stand together in unity as we close this program out. you want this off? as i break it. ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> this image, it's a powerful tbilisi people that all have really strong stories and

experiences and different things that all gone through in life. we represent so many different groups and organizations and ethnicities and racial backgrounds and religions and genders where we are all able to stand together in peace and unity and love, and this is amazing, just looking to guys. young people people, old people, well seasoned people. i don't like to call old people all people. that's fine. but i just love it. all people, short people, we're all in this together. we're also voted love and hoping this can be a symbol of unity. that was the goal today was just be able to make a bold statement that we're all in this together and we look at all of the division happening in the world and it tears us apart. i've shared with some of the officers as we're marching how much i appreciated them marching out to with th a spirit you rary see that. so many times at these purchases seems like the numbers are so huge when it's a divisive message or when the message is a

call for us to all come together, that those numbers are not the way they are during some of these other protest. this is a call to action for people watching this around the world to come together in their own communities and in the schools and in the workplace for us to all show we don't have to hate one another. we don't have to be divided a aa nation, that we're all in this together. thank you all for watching. cool, thank you. >> thank you. can we give it up one more time for making this happen? [applause] >> we are marching to a movement. >> we love that. thank you. we are good. thank you guys. appreciate you. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> this weekend republican senators lindsey graham and bill cassidy, office of the latest attempt to repeal and replace the affordable care act, made

changes to their proposal. those changes would provide additional benefits to more states including alaska and maine whose republican senators, lisa murkowski and susan collins, are currently undecided on the bill. joint as today when the senate finance committee hears from the bill cosponsors both senators testifying. live 2 p.m. eastern right here on c-span2. speaking of that hearing, just before 9 a.m. eastern, fox mediate tweeted at these pictures of outside the hearing room. they write organizers say approximately 200 activists including approximately 80 in wheelchairs are already outside the room for the graham-cassidy hearing. it doesn't start until 2 p.m. >> taking a look at what's ahead in congress this week, the senate meets at 4 p.m. eastern and will vote at 5:30 p.m. eastern on on the nomination of los angeles-based labor lawyer

william emmanuel to join the national labor relations board. this nomination completes the five-member board and would give republicans the majority. the house returns today at noon for general speeches with legislative work starting at 2 p.m. eastern. members will work on faa reauthorization as well as hurricane relief efforts. watch the senate live on c-span2 and the house on c-span. also today ambassadors and leaders come together to discuss iran's nuclear deal and i will affect neighboring countries our live coverage from the atlantic council here in washington begins at noon eastern on our companion network c-span3. >> tonight on "the communicators," comcast senior executive vice president david cohen talks about telecommunication development,

competition and fcc regulations. he is interviewed by senior editor tony rahm. >> first of all, i feel compelled to say brian roberts pointed this out at the goldman sachs conference last week. we love our company. we post at&t acquisition and nbc universal acquisition, we view ourselves as essentially strategically complete. so we are not out there saying to survive we have to find something else to buy. so just want to make that clear. on the other hand, we have never viewed ourselves as being foreclosed from the acquisition marketplace either domestically or internationally. has to be the right deal, has to be something that we think enhances the quality of the company, enhances returns to

shareholders, has enhance shareholder value as result of that. i think there's no secret that overall this president and this administration is likely less hostile to horizontal growth, or even vertical growth in telecom space and elsewhere. >> watch the community it is tonight at eight eastern on c-span2. >> there is no law that dictates impeachment. what the constitution says is high crimes and misdemeanors, and we designed that. bill clinton got impeached because he lied. here you have a president who i can tell you and continue is in collusion with the russians to undermine our democracy. here you have the president who has obstructed justice, and here you have the president that lies every day thank god that the

special counsel is beginning to connect the dots and understand these books will end it, social medias role in it. when is the black committee going to say impeach him? it's time to go after him. i don't hear you. don't another person come up to me and say you go girl. no, you go. [cheers and applause] >> for the past 30 years the video library is your free resource for politics, congress in washington public affairs. so whether it happened 30 years ago or 30 minutes ago, find it in c-span's video library at c-span.org. c-span, with history unfolds bailey. daily. >> the senate special aging committee held a hearing last week focusing on disaster planning and response to ensure the health and safety of elderly americans during emergencies. this discussion came after sellable residence of a florida

nursing home died after the facility lost its air conditioning in the aftermath of hurricane irma. the committee heard from current and former federal and local officials involved in emergency management. senator susan collins of maine shared a 90 minute event. >> the committee will come to order. good morning. recently hurricanes harvey and irma left a path of destruction along the gulf coast of texas, across florida, and throughout the caribbean. homes, businesses and entire communities were destroyed, and lives were lost. days after erma we learn the tragic news that eight seniors ranging in age from 71 to 99 died in a florida nursing home that lacked air