- 46 minutes ago
In this moment when Black lead organizations are being threatened, what it looks like to lead a high profile, mission critical organization under intense public scrutiny and keep the community's trust; The economic and civic stakes of grassroots fundraising, organizing, and coalition building for Black communities.
Monique Pressley, Trial Attorney, Television Legal Analyst And Contributor, Crisis Manager, Radio Host And Certified Leadership Trainer
Damon Hewitt, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Melanie Campbell, President & CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
Regina Wallace-Jones, President of Act Blue
Monique Pressley, Trial Attorney, Television Legal Analyst And Contributor, Crisis Manager, Radio Host And Certified Leadership Trainer
Damon Hewitt, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Melanie Campbell, President & CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
Regina Wallace-Jones, President of Act Blue
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00:00Welcome back. Next up, we'll be discussing how black-led institutions and leaders are building and sustaining the infrastructure that
00:09shapes American democracy.
00:11Joining us on the Global Black Economic Forum stage, host, executive producer, the Monique Presley Show and CEO of the
00:20Presley Firm, LLC, Crisis Management and Strategic Communications, Monique Presley.
00:27The President and Executive Director, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Damon Hewitt.
00:38The President and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Cemetery Participation, Melanie Campbell.
00:47And CEO and President of ActBlue, Regina Wallace-Jones.
01:02Greetings, everyone. How's your Saturday going?
01:08I would say happy fourth.
01:11But I'm thinking more today of what Frederick Douglass had to say about the fourth and what it means, as
01:21he said, to the Negro, but what it means for our purposes for us today.
01:26And so this is a time where the conversation that we are having could not be more critical, could not
01:34be more important.
01:35And I am thankful that the three panelists that I have today are on the front lines of what it
01:42means to build community, to organize, to be activists in this moment.
01:49And frankly, you'll hear that they are sustaining some of the most important and mission-critical work of our times.
01:56But I don't have to tell you that these organizations, black-led organizations and companies who do this work, are
02:05under attack.
02:06Does anybody know that?
02:08Where's my audience? Y'all out there?
02:10Hey!
02:11Okay, I hear you.
02:12Do you all know that these organizations are under attack right now?
02:17And so it's more important than ever that we not just lean in to what these leaders tell us about
02:25what can be done about that, but also that we learn from them, that they are examples that we emulate.
02:31So what I want to do first is give each of them an opportunity for about 60 seconds to tell
02:38you what their organization or company does and why it matters,
02:43starting with the lovely, oh, we're going gentleman first today, all right, the ESQ himself.
02:53Damon, talk about it.
02:54Thank you, Monique.
02:55How y'all doing?
02:56All right.
02:59So I'm Damon Hewitt, president of the Low-Risk Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an organization founded in the
03:06hot summer of 1963.
03:07Nine days after Megan Evers was assassinated and the driveway was on home, President John F. Kennedy pulled together a
03:15group of black lawyers and white lawyers and said,
03:17we need to come together to get in the game on civil rights.
03:2163 years later, we have leveraged millions and millions of hours of pro bono time from law firms, and we've
03:28won dozens and dozens of really important cases.
03:31Our mission statement is that we work to ensure that black people have voice, opportunity, and power to make the
03:38promise of democracy real.
03:40Otherwise, democracy is just a word on paper.
03:42We do that by suing white supremacists, by suing the Trump administration every chance we get, and by holding accountable
03:49anybody, government, individuals, corporations,
03:53that is violating our rights and isn't allowing us to achieve the future that we deserve.
04:00All right.
04:02How you doing, New Orleans?
04:04Y'all all right out there?
04:06Well, I'm blessed every day to lead an organization called National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.
04:15We were founded 50 years ago, May of 1976.
04:20And the reason we were founded was because 11 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed, the black community,
04:28we were not fully engaged in exercising our political power through the power of the vote.
04:37So we built a coalition.
04:38I wasn't there, but my predecessors built this organization 50 years ago so that we could maximize our collective efforts
04:45as an organization.
04:46So we have over 80 national organizations that are members of the national coalition.
04:53We have 12 state affiliates, inclusive of Louisiana, many of them in the south.
04:59And our primary mission is to maximize just that, build black political power, protect the power of our vote, but
05:07also empower our young people.
05:09We have a very focused program called Black Youth Vote that's youth-led so that we are able to train
05:15the next generation to be those leaders that they can and must be.
05:21We also focus on women and girls empowerment through something called the Black Women's Roundtable.
05:26And we spend many, many days and hours around that, really focusing in on issues around health and wellness, economic
05:34security, education.
05:35And also we have an international component with the Black Women's Roundtable.
05:40We also have a social justice institute at Clark Atlanta University, where we are also pouring into the next generation
05:49through our Hope and Justice Fellows program.
05:51And last and certainly not least, we have a new initiative that we're focusing in with black men that we
06:00are organizing because we want to be holistic in our approach.
06:03And last, last, last, we are out there in those streets fighting every day to make sure that people understand
06:09that we built this country.
06:10So on July 4th, when we say, say, this is not our holiday, every holiday about this country is our
06:16holiday because we built it and we're not going nowhere and we will not be erased.
06:24Good morning.
06:25Good afternoon.
06:26I'm Regina Wallace-Jones, CEO of ActBlue.
06:30Is there anyone in the audience who has ever made a donation to a candidate for office?
06:37Every hand should be up in the air.
06:39I am the CEO of that organization who, when you touch that little link and make your contribution, it's being
06:45processed on the back end by ActBlue.
06:48We, along with you, have moved almost $20 billion for Democratic candidates in aligned causes over the history of 22
07:01years.
07:02We were founded in 2004 and our key goal was to give access to all of us, to the candidates
07:11that we care about and to allow them to feel specifically and intimately just how much we care, show our
07:22support, and align with very specific candidates that are of our choice.
07:28There are over 28 million donors that have given on the platform, and every candidate knows that they cannot do
07:37it without you.
07:38This is an election year, and we are under attack for very clear reasons.
07:44It's about power.
07:46It's about trying to block interests that are different.
07:50It's about trying to keep us from reshaping the democracy that we all want to see.
07:55Our mission is to build technology that shapes democracy and fuels democratic wins, and I'm really excited to talk to
08:04you today.
08:05Thank you so much.
08:08Attorney Damon, now, I'm a follower and a fan, and so I've heard you a lot of times talk about
08:16how the legal system does not solve for everything, but obviously, you and I both have the love of justice
08:26and of the law in common.
08:27It does, or at least is supposed to solve for some things.
08:32Can you share with us kind of what mission critical is right now, a couple of cases or a couple
08:39of mission critical pieces of legislation, even, that you are working in order to get through the finish line?
08:48Sure, and you're exactly right.
08:50You know, lawyers, we can't do everything.
08:52Lawyers don't usually lead movements, but when a movement needs a lawyer, you've got to know who to call.
08:57So we want you to call us and other people like us.
09:00So a couple of critical pieces right now.
09:03Most of you have heard about this horrible Supreme Court case having to do with Louisiana called Louisiana v. Calais.
09:10This case has further gutted the Voting Rights Act.
09:14This makes it harder for us to prove racial gerrymandering, but easier for people who don't want to see black
09:20community exercise their voice or black people elected to claim that we are racially gerrymandered.
09:26It's completely bass-ackered, y'all.
09:27So what we did was we worked together with other civil rights organizations to bring the first legal challenge to
09:35racial anti-black racial gerrymandering since that negative decision.
09:39We filed a case in Memphis, Tennessee, where conservatives took the only majority black house district in the state of
09:46Tennessee, in Memphis, and they cracked it three different ways.
09:50They pushed black people out to three different districts so black people cannot exercise political power in their way anymore.
09:57And so we're bringing this almost as a test case, Monique.
10:01We're saying, what is racial gerrymandering?
10:03If that's not racial gerrymandering, then what the heck is?
10:06So watch that case.
10:08We also have a case on something that's cutting edge.
10:11Everybody's talking about artificial intelligence, AI, people don't want to get left behind, people want to use it.
10:17Some people are scared of it.
10:18For us, we're focused on making sure there's some meaningful guardrails so that the technology works for our community and
10:24not against our community.
10:26And so for that, we had to step up and sue a big mammoth company called Meta.
10:31That's the parent company of Facebook.
10:33We're suing them right now for algorithmic bias and advertising, for steering ads for certain goods and services away from
10:40black people and inferior products towards black people.
10:44So that's algorithmic bias.
10:46If you can't have a white-only and a color-only sign on a water fountain or on a bus
10:50stop, then the algorithm should not do that behind our backs without us knowing it.
10:54And so we've also proposed legislation in Congress, the AI Civil Rights Act.
10:59They'll be the nation's first comprehensive guardrails at the federal level on what AI is so that AI can actually
11:06work for humans, work for our people, and work for all people.
11:10Thank you so much for that.
11:11And we're counting and depending on you in that work.
11:15Regina, that brings me to you because a lot of people sometimes get frustrated with the system because it seems
11:26like there's a movement, it seems like there's a coalition, and then it passes like a fad.
11:32And then we see something hot, something that gets us worked up like Louisiana versus Calais, and then it seems
11:40like it passes.
11:41Like I was just looking at some data the other day that said less and less people are talking about,
11:49posting about our voting rights and our voting rights being on the line,
11:53even though the case is just as hot now as it was when it first happened.
11:58The situation is just as dire.
12:00What is it that you suggest we do in order to build coalitions that are not just a moment but
12:10bring lasting change?
12:16In general, and this is speaking both from personal experience as a former elected official and also as the CEO
12:26of ActBlue,
12:28the things that we observe about coalitions are that they are built on shared beliefs, not on common enemies.
12:40So when you see a coalition that fractures or that dissipates, typically it's because what brought the coalition together is
12:51no longer there.
12:53The common threat that they were organizing around is no longer there.
12:57And once that common threat is gone, the coalition no longer feels that it has a need to exist.
13:05Conversely, the lasting coalitions are built on beliefs.
13:10For example, when I think about beliefs that Democrats and those on the left are fighting for,
13:16we might together say that we are fighting for economic security, better jobs, lower costs, affordable health care.
13:25We might also say that we are fighting for personal freedoms, reproductive rights, et cetera.
13:32We might also say that we're fighting for equal opportunity, better education, et cetera.
13:39These kinds of coalitions that are built around shared beliefs, these aren't things that you achieve overnight.
13:47They're not things that come and go.
13:49They're things that you're constantly building an arc towards trying to achieve for all of us.
13:56When we lose sight of those things, we lose.
14:00So the thing that we're really focusing on is trying to get us all back focused on what are our
14:06shared beliefs.
14:07We can't focus on fighting on a common enemy, a common candidate, a common anybody.
14:13We really have to focus on enabling what we all want to see together.
14:18And that is what creates a lasting coalition.
14:21I appreciate that from you because we have learned, haven't we, in the last few election cycles,
14:26that it's not enough for there to be a boogeyman on the other side.
14:29It has to be that we stand for something and that we stand for it together.
14:32But I can't talk about coalitions and not bring a similar question to the one we call the coalition builder.
14:40Melanie, I would like you to talk about it, though, from the aspect of our youth,
14:44because you were just explaining that you're doing huge initiatives to build black political power with our youth.
14:51How, with an organization that's been in existence for 50 years, do you keep it fresh?
14:56Do you keep it sassy?
14:57Do you keep people wanting to come in?
14:59How do you build coalitions in that backdrop when we see our youth disenfranchised with the system?
15:06You make sure, one, you have a table for them and with them.
15:11Don't, when you're organizing, it can't be, oh, do we have any young people at the table?
15:17Young people should already be at the table, right?
15:20So when you're organizing, when you're hiring, when you're setting up any coalition that we set up, that's automatic.
15:28When we do things with our Black Women's Roundtable, we have this big national summit we do every year.
15:34It's a requirement that you bring a delegation of young people under 18, right, so that they learn about what
15:42their power really means.
15:44So that's the simplest answer to it.
15:47But I also want to kind of piggyback on what Regina was talking about, because really, this is the time
15:53that y'all not going to see everything.
15:55We're not going to put everything on social media.
15:58We're under attack.
15:59So people say, well, the movement has stalled.
16:02No, it has not.
16:04You may not see everything that we're doing, because we have a different enemy.
16:09Enemy is important right now, because you have an attack on every aspect of our lives.
16:15Going after black women when it comes to our jobs.
16:19Going after our organizations.
16:22How many people have anybody who's been impacted by unemployment?
16:26Anybody in the audience?
16:28Anybody businesses have suffered during this time, right?
16:32Anybody know that they've attacked our history?
16:34So you can go along, and I'm talking about from the federal government, that they is the federal government, and
16:40this current regime that is under attack.
16:43So I think part of what we're having when it comes to the voting rights attack more specifically is depending
16:50on where you are.
16:51I was in Georgia when they pushed back a few weeks ago on the state legislature.
16:57That's organized and still going.
16:59But you also have a regime that's coming after our lives, literally.
17:03So some things we have to organize offline.
17:06Some things won't be on social media, and it has to get very granular where you are locally.
17:12When I go to jail, because I've gone to jail for our community before, I know to call on the
17:18lawyers' committee to get me out of jail.
17:19But right now, I'm not going to jail.
17:21Is that all right?
17:21Because they might not let me back out.
17:23All right.
17:23Right?
17:24So being able to understand that this is very different than the 60s movement, this is a very different movement
17:30that we have to have.
17:31So that, for me, coalition building has to also adjust to the times that we're in.
17:37That's fair.
17:37And it can't be what I did five years ago.
17:39It has to be different.
17:42Thank you for that, Melanie.
17:44Damon, I've got to be honest with you.
17:47And I'm pitching you the question because I already know you want to answer it.
17:50There are people who believe that the Constitution in total needs to be picked up and thrown out and another
18:03one put in.
18:04And as much as I am an attorney with a bar card who swore to uphold the Constitution of the
18:13United States, when I see the Supreme Court and the way that they are conducting themselves, it makes me wonder
18:20if we need to be back at the drawing board.
18:23Some people call it Third Reconstruction.
18:26I know you have thoughts.
18:28Well, look, we've had two reconstructions in this country.
18:31The first one after the bloody Civil War that brought us the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, ending chattel slavery,
18:38equal protection under the laws, and the right to not have your vote impinged because of race, color, or prior
18:44slavery, and condition of servitude.
18:46The second Reconstruction at the height of the Civil Rights Movement brought us the Civil Rights Act of 64, the
18:51Voter Rights Act of 65.
18:54All the fruits of those reconstructions are being taken away.
18:59Some of it was slow, now it's really fast.
19:01And what it tells us is the Constitution, the laws we have, they're more fragile than many of us were
19:08willing to believe.
19:09But if we believe in a dynamic Constitution, if we believe in an evolution, the fact that, you know, black
19:16folks have paid the cost and the price for this nation to evolve for so long.
19:21We're paying the price right now, too.
19:23I do not want that price to be in blood.
19:26I'll take the sweat and tears, but I don't want the blood.
19:28But we have always paid the price.
19:30And now we're paying the price again to force a reckoning for a third Reconstruction.
19:35We need a third Reconstruction that is a fundamental realignment of the legal, political, social relationships between and among people
19:43in this country and a realignment between us and the government.
19:47Because government simply is not working for people.
19:50This system is not working for our people.
19:53It's not working for a lot of people.
19:54And so that third Reconstruction may very well mean new constitutional provisions or amendments.
19:59It may very well mean new laws, but it's also going to mean all of us have to put even
20:04more on the line than we ever imagined.
20:08Sometimes we're putting our time on the line.
20:10We're putting our safety on the line.
20:12But I want to talk to all of you.
20:13You have at least three forms of capital.
20:16You have your human capital.
20:17You can volunteer.
20:18I encourage you to volunteer for Election Protection, the coalition that a lot of us are a part of and
20:23works in league with Melanie and others.
20:25I encourage you to use your fiscal capital to give to organizations that are doing work on the front lines.
20:32But I also encourage you to leverage your reputational capital.
20:35That's when you take your personal brand and voice and you say something and you do something and you let
20:41everybody know what you are saying and doing.
20:44Because we cannot do this work in the shadows all the time.
20:47Sometimes we have to be out front, too.
20:50Thank you, Damon.
20:51Appreciate that.
20:53Deserves a hand for that.
20:55Regina, just even listening to what Damon was saying, we're seeing right now candidates and campaigns that look good on
21:05paper, but they're not moving people to the polls.
21:08They're not moving people to give, which is necessary in order to move people to the polls.
21:13What, in your opinion, as an expert in the polls, is the difference between a campaign that looks good and
21:23a campaign that is a driver that moves people to act?
21:29Ultimately, when we see a candidate that is driving momentum, it's not a candidate that necessarily has the best technology.
21:41It's not the candidate that has built trust and relationship with the voters that are ultimately voting for them.
22:00So even though I run a technology platform, I would not for one minute ever say that the technology is
22:12there to replace that.
22:14First and foremost, the candidate's job is to win your respect, your love, your belief that they are fighting for
22:24what you and I care about.
22:27Where technology, where dollars, where all of the other things become important is what happens after that.
22:39All of the technology that we build is to take the people that you care about most and give them
22:47the best chance of actually winning.
22:51We're here to be an accelerant for the stories that we all want to create together.
22:58So I will always say, lean into knowing who it is that you're voting for.
23:04Get out there and knock on doors with them.
23:07Sit in their forums and ask them hard questions.
23:11Listen to them in multiple different forums and decide,
23:16is this somebody whose head and heart actually align around the beliefs that I and my family are trying to
23:24move forward?
23:25I and my community are trying to move forward.
23:29I and my city, et cetera, are trying to move forward.
23:34And if the answer to that is yes, then I'm going to jump right to my call to action, make
23:40a donation, volunteer with them, talk about them, influence for them.
23:47Because together with our collective actions and our belief in them, we win.
23:55We cannot win without all of those actions together.
23:59And that is exactly right.
24:01We're not going to leave you without a call to action.
24:03I will stop for applause.
24:05That deserves it.
24:06We're not going to leave you without a call to action.
24:09We've got about 30 seconds each.
24:11I know Regina just gave hers.
24:12Melanie, for the voter or the non-voter, tell me one thing.
24:17Tell them one thing that you would want them to do this very day.
24:22How y'all doing out there?
24:24First and foremost, in your home, make sure that everybody in your home is registered to vote.
24:30Make sure that they're ready.
24:32Make sure that they're prepared to vote.
24:34The second thing is get involved.
24:36All that's been said, you say, okay, if I had been living with all that happened in the 60s and
24:43segregation, what would I do?
24:45I wouldn't have taken that.
24:47But this is your moment.
24:48You are the leader you're looking for.
24:50So you have to get involved in your own local community, support those local organizations.
24:54How many people are in here from Louisiana itself proper, right?
24:59So the fight is real.
25:00The fight is still going on in Louisiana as they continue to attack voting rights and continue to attack the
25:08political power in your state.
25:09So I believe y'all sit here for a reason.
25:12And so you've got to take that.
25:13You've got to multiply that and make sure that you do all the things that are necessary to make sure
25:18that you fight that fight here in Louisiana right where you are.
25:22How many people are in the South?
25:26Okay.
25:27All roads lead to the South.
25:30They're going after our political power in the South.
25:33And so those of us, I'm from Florida, and those of us, we understand that.
25:37But those of you who are not from the South, trust and believe the power, they're coming after you too.
25:43So those are the things that you have to do right now.
25:46November is not a regular election.
25:48November will decide if we are able to build this new country we want or whether or not we're going
25:54to be in modern-day slavery.
25:56That's what's at stake.
25:58So get involved, and united we win.
26:01Ten seconds, Damon.
26:02We're out of time.
26:03This is a time to reconceptualize what black political power is and will be.
26:09What I want you to do, when you make your plan to vote and you register to vote, also reach
26:14one and teach one.
26:15Go to 866hourvote.org.
26:19866hourvote.org.
26:21That's the Election Protection Coalition.
26:22You can volunteer.
26:24You can be a poll monitor in your own community and defend the right to vote exactly where you live.
26:30866hourvote.org.
26:31Election Protection.
26:32And I'll add the last one.
26:34Obviously, do that.
26:35Go to vote.org.
26:36Make sure you're registered to vote.
26:37But here's what I'm going to say.
26:39Speak up.
26:40Say something.
26:41If you have a phone, you have a platform.
26:43Do not think that your voice doesn't matter.
26:46Your voice is the one that matters most in your community.
26:50Use it so that you can be heard about the issues that matter to you.
26:54Thank you all for having us.
26:57And thank you to my expert panelists.
27:04What's that sound?
27:08Come on now.
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