Hello everyone my name is and Lynne and I teach here at the University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy I'm really delighted to welcome you today to the opening event in today's commemoration of Reverend Jesse Jackson 50 years of civil suits civil rights leadership. When we 1st started planning this conference last winter America was in the midst of the presidential primary season as the steering committee members met and talked about the possibility of this panel one of the people said you know this will be really interesting depending on who wins the election. So I don't know that we expected to make it quite this interesting but if you think about it I'm Jesse Jackson's then again in 1008 have much to teach us today 2016 Jesse Jackson put together a progressive left coalition that let us not forget one of the great state of Michigan in the Democratic primary caucuses he showed that white voters could support an African-American presidential candidate a fact which Barack Obama later confirmed in 20 years later Jesse Jackson's campaign helped to shape the Democratic Party but it's also worthwhile to remember especially in 2016 that Jesse Jackson ran for president without ever having held up another political office that his faith and that his insistence on the importance of black capitalism allowed him to find common cause with black Republicans and that his understanding of social justice always reached beyond the U.S. to Africa and to the Arab world. We're lucky today to have a really amazing panel to help us think about what these lessons and what the legacy of Jesse Jackson's Jackson's campaigns for president were so the full piles are in your programs so I would just briefly say here that Gerry Austin a political consultant and strategist with the national campaign manager for Jesse Jackson 1800 the last being who teaches at Emory University he is director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and different legal right Ricker who teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and I will say that she is also speaking again tonight at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library here on North Campus should be speaking about her research on black Republicans and then finally I want to introduce Lester Spence Lester is from Johns Hopkins University and we are really proud to point out that he's a University of Michigan be A and A and Ph D.. Each of our presenters is going to speak for about 10 minutes Well then give them a chance to start a conversation by responding to each other you can join their conversation by going to the microphone which is over here. After they have a couple of minutes to respond well ask people who want to ask questions to come up and we'll take 3 or then ask the panelists to respond to that group of questions so we can sort of continue that conversation allow them to put ideas together across questions etc At the end of the session we're going to close with a short video with of Reverend Jackson himself talking about his presidential campaign. have box lunches available for anybody who are us to this presentation they were becoming around 11 o'clock feel free to sort of trickle back grab a lunch bring it back you can eat in this room you're very welcome to eat in this room you're welcome to hang out in this room after the presentation and eat but that 12 noon we have our 2nd panel which will be student activists from across different generations at the University of Michigan that's going to be held on this floor within the Rackham ampitheater and you cannot bring food into that room so grab your lunch at some point enjoy it and finish it before you go over to the 2nd panel. So without further ado let me welcome Gerry Austin. Looking around this room. I see a lot of members of my generation extra. For those of you in Generation X. My remarks are going to be you know Mr Alter and. Storch. For those who are not in generation extra This will be some new information and new adventure. When a sailor Reverend Jackson has just walked into the room. With. The Reverend Jackson being here this gives me added pressures I never know whether I'm going to say something he likes or doesn't like but. Anyway I mean we get sort of my premise of all this because I'm a take you back a number of years a lot of you were alive in 1998 I how many people here I know or heard of. A gentleman by the name of David Jenkins. No Jesse Jackson 88 no David Dinkins mayor at 89 how many of you heard of a gentleman but him a Paul Wellstone you know Jesse Jackson Minnesota 1990 I may have heard of Carol Moseley Braun 1st African-American woman ever elected to U.S. Senate no Jesse Jackson 88 bill Carol Moseley Braun in 1902. And no Jesse Jackson and no Barack Obama in 2008 so let me take you back to the 984 was a lection that I was not involved in but I was a a voyeur and very much interested because the person who ran Reverend Jackson's campaign in I want to pick the who also was from Cleveland Ohio where I was from it was it was a campaign that was not viewed as a real campaign it was sort of a protest movement didn't have a lot of money it didn't have a lot of organization most of the state directors were African-American ministers I think the only media that was done was maybe $10000.00 of radio in Los Angeles so on came $1987.00 before $1908.00 and Reverend Jackson decided that he would take a look at running again and what he did was he wanted to put together people who were not with him in 1984. People who were African-American leaders at the time like the officials who had supported somebody else and one of the most prominent ones was then speaker of the house in California Willie Brown which supported Senator Alan Cranston of all California 104 also Congressman Bill Gray from Philadelphia Congressman Mickey Leland from Texas both supporting Walter Mondale and there were a number of others and so when he when he went to the way Brown away Brown said I will become chairman of your campaign if you if you find somebody that really knows how to run a campaign and he said to Willie Brown we'll go find me somebody and that led. Speaker Brown to me but I was not the 1st choice I would not the 2nd choice I would not the 15th choice and when they called me and to a friend of mine in California asked me if I was interested I said no I wasn't interested because 94 campaign was a real campaign and they said Well would you would you come out to California and meet with the speaker Brown. He said sure so I went to California those are you know. Willie Brown he's up there studious dresser and when I came to his office and then waited for him he came out in a white pinstripe suit with green pinstripes and beautiful green tie and white and patent leather green shoes and he said I want to go to lunch and we went outside and he said will take my car his car is parked in front of a fire hydrant and he said this is my space and I got in the car and I looked at it and I said this is a beautiful car he said you know it's a Cadillac a lot day which is the 1st year and maybe the only of the Cadillac made sports cars and I said the beautiful car is again it's a state car is that going to have a state car that's a sports car it's in California all legislators get state cars it's American Car and Driver on day we went and we and we met and we talked for several hours and he said would you would you meet would Assemblywoman Maxine Waters before she became a congresswoman and Los Angeles I did that the next I went to Chicago and I met with a bunch of supporters in Chicago and Willie Brown said we'd like like you to take this take this position and I said that's great is one thing missing was that as adamant Reverend Jackson yet they did a good idea they said a good idea so I went to New York and I don't know if he remembers this but we met briefly in a hotel lobby and he said come on we get in the car we've got to go down Wall Street I'm speaking to a bunch of. McDonald's executives and I got in front of the car he was sitting the back a car in between 2 women who were both economists and talking about economic issues and you know I doubt you know Reverend Jackson other than what I'd seen on T.V. like most of us and went to this. Meeting to meet the McDonald's and I was blown away by a smart he was and and B. how we hate had these McDonald's people in the palm of his hands we went back and we we talked and. I basically you know took took the job moved to Chicago and in the 1st press conference we had announcing my appointment as campaign manager and Willie Brown's appointment as as a campaign chair the reporter for The New York Times this asked Reverend Jackson that isn't it true that you hired jury Austin because he's Jewish and you've had a problem with Jews and since 94 and I interrupted and said Let me let me answer that question and my response was that if I were in the N.B.A. you would give me business I would put in my resume a long time ago we would begin the campaign and then I want to take a couple stories which really pit in my eyes is what that campaign was all about it was about winning the nomination goes about a lot more. Jesse Jackson went places over his career than nobody else ever went to you know where there was a fire in Cary North Carolina or there were my workers here or there were people protesting this here he was there many times any any publicity so the 1st vent that I went to him with was an A.F.L. CIO convention in total and up part of that of that event was a meeting at a high school with was called Booker T. Washington High School and intones Oklahoma and here all these high school kids integrated high school and he asked for the basketball team to stand up was best of all season and he picked out a young man and he asked the young man. How often does he practice basketball answer every day how many hours a day or what else why spend hours so working my own skills how many hours a day the study. You know it's like a pause. In our. Study was headphones on this in music yes the study talking to your girlfriend Well yes and he went through you know talk about how important education was in that famous attention to the education party like his as a school party light. Because. There were no fact that he was a great athlete when he was in high school and was offered a contract but his emphasis of giants to pitching wound up at university on the end of a football scholarship we we then. You know when 2 in a bed in Minneapolis speaking at the Humphrey they did it he was one of them but the main speakers and what was amazing about about that was not just the fact that the speech but as I was sitting there in the audience I watched as people came out of the back the people who worked in the kitchen the waitresses and waiters and stood there and watching you know him speak and it obviously occurred to me that this was a historic moment for them to see somebody you know who was much more like them than anybody else was speaking about you know what what was important to them and that he possibly was going to be a presidential nominee but he was running for president of the United States we in order to put together a campaign. We had to basically have a campaign strategy and my strategy was and I'm a sports nut My strategy was based on the Indianapolis 500 motor speedway race and if you know anything about that there are 33 cars in that race and what normally happens is that the car gets in 1st place and never wins it's always it's always a car that basically survives and that was the pope premise of the campaign that we had to do well enough in the early states Iowa New Hampshire to basically surviving get to the states where we could do a lot a lot better when the things we had his advantage was because he ran in results in 1008 to 94 for instance in Iowa in 1904 I believe one percent of the vote in 1810 percent of the both. Huge huge increase we call that a victory in 1984 you got 4 percent in New Hampshire 98 percent again a huge victory one of the other things we had to do was to show the press that we were real campaign and the credit the press is easy very easy to basically. You know. Show evidence of and press them with a real campaign what are they looking for. They're looking for a campaign that sort of runs on schedule they're looking for a campaign that has a T.V. spot on the air and I were even though we had no chance of winning Iowa and. What I decided to do was to put Reverend Jackson on T.V. We went to do more in the studio and recorded a spot and I realized after several takes that Jesse Jackson's forte was not speaking to a camera for thousands of people for 20 minutes and so the kid that spot never went on the air I went back to Chicago I already bought the time and I was thinking what am I going to do it on my desk and in the way I had seen this before was a tape I put the tape in and the tape was of 2 farmers at a rally and I was talking about why Jesse Jackson was a candidate for president to white farmers who probably would 64 and Jesse Jackson why he was their guy for president I went to an added suite I edited it never did any voiceover never had anything other than the logo at the end and put this on the air in Iowa and it became the campaign spot that ran all over the country. And in places where there weren't farmers and clothing Puerto Rico where the one of the people in Puerto Rico got to some free time on T.V. I sent the tape there and pay the Fed Ex charge and we won Puerto Rico for $15.00 but what what happened was that this campaign became a little bit different than most campaigns we didn't target states we targeted congressional districts because one of the things that Reverend Jackson accomplish in 84 which has not been given enough credit was pride in 1984 if you want to congressional district running for president you got all of the delegates after 94 he petitioned the D.N.C. and they changed that to proportional which meant that you got a proportion of those votes no congressional districts based upon the vote you got if not for that Barack Obama would not have won in It states and if she would have if that would prevail she would have been the nominee because we want to take all that was really very important so we targeted some where they were 100 congratulations over the country also we need to have a plane because that means you know that if you're real campaign we have a plane and I won't bore you with it with the story about how I got a plane but what happened was that we had to be able to call for this plane. By having installment payments because they wanted $320000.00 a month for a plane that the $707.00 had a 100 passengers and in order to do that we had to raise money and the difference between $1908.00 and the days of Reverend Jackson running around you know the South the civil rights movement was they were passed I had to raise money to get gas to put in the car to get to the next county we were raising money to put it into the tank of the plane to get to the next state and we were able to do that for 2 reasons one that in 1988 we became the recipient of matching funds remember when we actually gave money and got matched up with $1.00 of the $250.00 in cash it was Matt was matched and so we had that money coming in plus anybody who rode the plane and those were press people and Secret Service contingent we can charge them 125 percent of a 1st class ticket so we were we were able to you know to accomplish that and therefore had to have the commensurate. Staff people to basically process all that in addition we started to get you know contributions small contributions and the most important part of the contributions was to get it recorded turn it around file it at the Federal Elections Commission and start to get the matching funds we wound up having $24.00 hour operation with he able to do that Jesse Jackson out raised Mike to caucus from the last 4 months of the campaign Dukakis who won the nomination history. As he was the last white man standing he felt that if it was he against Reverend Jackson that he would get the majority of those votes in a 2 way race our. Strategy was to be you know one of 3 or congressional most congressional districts that we sort of and that worked up until New York and when New York I came about which Reverend Jackson won the city $50.00 to $37.00 and the coalition he put together when he New York one year later elect elected David Dinkins the 1st African-American mayor in New York we won 5037 the open lost state and Al Gore dropped out of the race and with that we had 2 people in the race and so we're getting 37 to 38 percent every week but Mike to caucus was getting 62 or in that race with the. Opportunity to actually win the nomination fading because we had enough money to do it and Reverend Jackson said to me the campaign may be over but the crusade continues and that crusade obviously these kids continued you know to to this day. Barack Obama you know one in 2008 and if you remember who he beat in 2008 the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party Hillary Clinton and why did he beat Hillary Clinton in 2008 he took a Hillary Clinton because he was a he was new he was fresh He was articulate he was smart and he put together an incredible campaign we are a country just a comment about what happened last Tuesday we are a country if you excuse 4 years of George H.W. Bush that had Richard Nixon as president who resigned followed by Jimmy Carter who wanted a more gentle and friendly America followed by Ronald Reagan who wanted to basically change America almost to make America great again followed by a Bill Clinton a neo liberal. Followed by George H.W. George W. Bush a neoconservative by Barack Obama by Donald Trump I mean this country not schizo frantic I don't know what I don't know what it is. And so it's you know if you look at history it should be a big surprise that Donald Trump one of the words that was there was a big surprise I let me let me end by by making it you know a couple of comments here that are that are important to the Jackson campaign in in 88 was a coalition of lots of different groups that you know will lead to in later years election David Dinkins and for those of you who don't. Know or don't remember Paul Wellstone Paul Wellstone was our Minnesota coordinator. In $1980.00 and he helped put together when the largest rallies in the history of above politics which is on the Minnesota Wisconsin border where it was basically a farm ralliers huge huge rally in 1990 I called Paul up because. I'm keeping contact with folks and I said what's going on he said I'm going to the Senate and I said what district he said no you more on the U.S. Senate I said U.S. senator I said what I want to I want to help and Paul Wellstone. Former wrestler be a 2 time Republican company Reebok shorts and in Minnesota. There's an ingredient in politics that's very important it's also a green light it's called Luck sometimes good luck sometimes of bad luck and Minnesota Paul Wellstone was Reagan's really by choice only time in history Minnesota the 2 Jews are going to use it against each other in a state that a one percent Jewish population. had budgets ahead by 8 points he had $7000000.00 Wellstone had $700000.00 and for some stupid reason bad luck for budgets good luck what was done by Frist wrote a letter to Jews in Minnesota one percent population stating that Paul Wellstone was not a real Jew because he was married to a gentile all hell broke loose. Became the dominant story. By France's own rabbi go to go to a letter at a press conference and what happened on election days post on won by a point half. And just historic that that post and I are a bit Humphrey type of young Hubert Humphrey type of liberal was going to the U.S. Senate 2 years later. A woman named Carol Moseley Braun who was Cook County Recorder. Was asked to challenge Allen Dixon a 2 term Democratic incumbent congressman sorry senator from Illinois who never lost a race why was she asked to challenge him because he had voted for Clarence Thomas confirmed terrorist Clarence Thomas he had voted against Judge Bork. Now it's hard to explain how you can vote against Judge Bork and for Clarence Thomas Well the reason he did that was he made a deal with the Republicans that if he voted for Clarence Thomas they would have a very weak candidate against him for reelection but Carol Carol took on the challenge that never expecting to win and again you know right prevail because a 3rd person entered the race and that person's campaign consultant was some guy I never heard of named David Axelrod and what happened was the 2 white guys with a lot of money down in the media Carol Moseley Braun you know just stood there always are a consultant and we did one T.V. spot the Thursday before the election. That cost $1012.00 which case we said that that Alan Dixon thought he owned a seat hellhole field one of the by the seat Carol Moseley Braun and want to earn the seat it went on the air we had about $300000.00 of media in Chicago and lo and behold election night Carol Moseley Braun not soft democratic 2 term Democratic incumbent named Alan Dixon the point of all this is that with those races and Reverend Jackson's race in 88 gave him hope to folks who didn't think that they ever had a chance to run for office or could win against great odds and that led you know the years later to Barack Obama I mean not only did he win in 2000 a pretty one reelection 2012 and as we look forward you know to and I don't use the word forward an affectionate way to trump administration you know it's it really means that that we need to be shaken up and waking up again I've done a lot of fun. With missing of elections in foreign countries in the Philippines and in Chile and other places what I've always seen is an incredible passion for politics and passion for people to get involved in. Voting because they've been countries to where the voting was either suppressed or never happened where in a country where are eligible to register to vote have not registered to vote did not participate so we're electing a President when are the people of the country could vote electing a president forget about the people who who voted on on Tuesday and I didn't both president or or you know didn't vote at all because they stayed home so you know in times like this it's an opportunity to basically you know come back together and say we still want to fight start over the fight continues and it's important that we move forward Thank you. Thank. Good morning thank you for coming I want to thank in for the invitation and it's an honor to present to you and to Reverend Jackson as well I'm going to talk about leverage politics and put it into context using Jesse Jackson's candidacies for president in 194988 I mean hopefully by the end will be able to talk about some applications to this most recent election cycle so I come at this from an academic standpoint and I'm grounding my understanding of leverage politics and Ron Walters work black presidential politics in America and of course Ron Walters was a key advisor to Reverend Jackson and his 988 campaign and it provides a nice entry point into understanding leverage politics as Professor Walters explained it in an era when an African-American was probably not going to be elected president he still argued that it was important for blacks to run for president because there was something to be gained from running for president even if one didn't necessarily win the office he argued and Jackson's candidacy in $88.00 in particular shows that you can run for president and create opportunities. To change partisan politics as a result of one's candidacy and this helps to address certain issues that were raised about a decade later by our colleague Paul Farmer at at Princeton where he talks about the notion of democratic electoral capture for those who aren't familiar with that concept we understand in African-American politics that the reason why African-Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic had doesn't necessarily have to do with them believing lock stock and barrel with the Democratic Party platform but that there's a recognition that there are a perceptual differences between the parties particularly on issues with respect to race and ideologically speaking though the Democratic Party's platform is not completely concurrent with the interests of blacks it is closer to the interests of blacks than the Republican Party and so even though many African-Americans ideologically speaking are to the left of the Democratic. Party the Democratic Party is more closer it's closer to their interests than the Republican Party and it explains the overwhelming Democratic Party identification and voting behavior but it also creates this tension and it also creates the problem that the Democratic Party could look at African-American voters as a base vote and this use that as an excuse to not campaign in African-American communities or not to address issues because they don't have to worry about losing those votes so Jesse Jackson's campaign becomes a laboratory to develop and test this notion of leverage so in 1904 of course he runs for president it's on a wave of black dissatisfaction with the Reagan administration there is a recession during the 1st half of the 1st term there are cuts in aid to federal cities and the development of the block grant program which really hurts cities where African-Americans live and Jackson's candidacy does spur excitement Arlie colleague Michael Preston notes that there's a 5 fold increase in the number of black registrants in Chicago for instance compared to whites and we see in the 1984 race that Reverend Jackson was able to consolidate African-American support not in the way that he'll do it in 1988 but it helps to set up that 88 campaign it nicely and we know from working Catherine Tate that the Jackson coalition in 1984 included younger college educated affluent blacks while there was some opposition from older blacks and while he didn't necessarily consolidate the support of black elected officials and civil rights leaders he makes an important impact in running in 1988 he wins 3 primaries that year overall it's about 77 percent of the African-American vote which translates into 18 percent of the overall delegates or the overall delegates with that percentage of delegates that's not necessarily going to get the same type of leverage that we're going to see in the 888. So in 1988 with the foregrounding of the Rainbow Coalition Jackson consolidate his support amongst African-American voters went by primaries percent of delegates and from this he is actually able to leverage certain concessions from the Democratic Party the notable ones that we talk about in political science often our delegate allocation and proportional representation we talk about the notion of adding an anti-apartheid plaint to the Democratic Party platform and using leverage to ensure that Ron Brown is selected as the Democratic National Committee chair and there is even this discussion in 1988 about in the mid black turnout in the general election hurting Michael Dukakis the sending a message the Democratic Party about ignoring African American voters we know that Reverend Jackson isn't the only person who has attempted to use leverage candidacies but the success of his 1988 campaign shows the importance of making sure that you're able to consolidate a critical mass of voters in your constituency group and that you have a strong showing in elections and so where we have seen other presidential candidates try to mount leverage candidacies they haven't been as successful because they haven't been able to be a successful in winning the black vote or also in winning a large number of primaries and we can sort of juxtapose as an example both Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun's 2004 candidacy for president. So the lessons of leverage are that there are multiple ways to win there is winning the election right but then there is also winning by making a point and by having a long term impact on the structure of one's particular party but in order for blacks to have that kind of leverage you have to have some skin in the game you have to run to win and so the takeaway is that a strong losing performance actually can help shape or Party's agenda and lasting ways and I'll echo Gerri's point about the delegate allocation changes that Reverend Jackson ushered helping Barack Obama win the candidacy in 2008. That in their applications to the selection I think the most obvious. Connection to the $1988.00 campaign would be Bernie Sanders campaign this election cycle if we look at the similarities between the 2 of them there are many They were both insurgent candidates they both ended up in 2nd place in their party's primaries and they both withheld the indorsements their endorsements of the eventual Democratic nominee and tell they received the platform concessions that they knew they were going to get and in some instances they were actually arguing for similar types of platform concessions so the notion about how delegates are allocated was an issue that came up during Reverend Jackson's candidacies and of course is an issue that came up in 2016 and it's an issue that's still being discussed and debated today. If we look at the notion of who is going to be the D.N.C. chair Ron Brown becomes the D.N.C. chair as a result of Reverend Jackson's candidacies and now there's a strong push to put Keith Ellison in as a progressive and as a Sanders allied in and at the home of the D.N.C. and of course this year we have seen the movement of marijuana decriminalization and a $15.00 minimum wage becoming part of the Democratic Party platform and those are directly attributed to Sanders campaign now there are some limits. In terms of what you can do with candidacies and so you know I would argue and I'm surely is going to touch on this in a minute that Republicans could also take some lessons from Reverend Jackson about how to run a leverage candidacy and I think their failure to do so in some instances may explain some of the party dynamics that we've witnessed over the past year and a half I would argue that never trump had the opportunity to mount a leverage campaign maybe not by running an insurgent candidacy but by withholding their own votes they could have consolidated around the candidacy of Evan McMullan they could have the window the field and decided which of their candidates was actually going to be the one that they would field against Donald Trump and and they could have withheld votes from Donald Trump in the general election to teach the party a lesson and to have a hand in reshaping what the party would look like in the future but they chose not to and so by choosing not to exercise any leverage over Republican Party politics they find themselves in a pretty precarious and vulnerable position at least in the short term Now there were a number of factors that could potentially explain this one the never trump camp was never particularly unified and they had different interests that they never seemed to be able to reconcile and Donald Trump was able to reach out to individual never trucker's and co-opt his opposition So for instance his tete a tete with Ted Cruz whatever was promised was also a way to reach out to evangelical voters and to promise Supreme Court nominations as a result. Being able to minimize opposition that was coming from some evangelical camps not all about Trans Canada see his vulgarity except her and then also if we look at Paul Ryan's decisions his equivocation on whether he would support Trump versus not supporting trump every time Trump said something that was racist or completely sexist so that they were interested in short term power but that they didn't recognize that sometimes you win by losing. So I think one of the big lessons that you can learn from a leverage candidacy is something that's actually really ironic that sometimes you have to be willing to lose in order to win it that the focus isn't necessarily in the immediate future or the next election but that there may be long term goals to be gained by running a protest candidacy or by consolidating a vote a gets a particular candidate or you know against voting in a particular election as a and I do want to go back to standards and talk about some of the ways that you know I would caution the standards camp about interpret ing the election results so I'm going to show a couple of slides and so this is my back of the on the Lopes scatter plotting that I did this morning using Michigan as an example so you know there definitely is an argument that Sanders might have been a better candidate candidate than Hillary Clinton and that she might have been able to get white working class voters we're going to be studying that for a long period of time there are survey questions that we have yet to examine that will actually help us gain some leverage on this issue but let's just look at the vote now so if we look at the percentage of the primary vote that Sanders got in this state versus Hillary Clinton what we'll see is that there really isn't much of a correlation there at all so just looking from a by a very good standpoint and we know that in general Clinton's performance relative to Obama's performance is that the county level is correlated but of course Clinton just gets fewer votes and she gets a smaller percentage of the votes than Michigan those and this is why even though it has been officially projected yet we will predict that Michigan votes red this time around I'm going to skip these but I want to look at actually I do want to go to because one of the other things I want to talk about is this notion that Sanders voters might have actually been willing to vote for Clinton as opposed to voting for Trump here's where I don't want to because we still have to examine some things a little bit more I. I want to look at this idea and kind of question it so Michigan has an open primary system where Democrats and Republicans are free to vote in each other's primaries if they choose so it's not a question of hard already registration if we look at at these voters and I'm going to go back to this one we can actually see how many votes absolute in absolute terms. Bernie Sanders got versus the number of votes that Donald Trump got and in most instances Donald Trump actually won more votes in counties than Bernie Sanders did so even though Sanders is going to win the Democratic primary more people turned out to vote for Donald Trump and in some instances turned out to vote for Donald Trump and he ended up in 2nd or take the outliers out so those are the big counties like Wayne and Washington. And we look at the smaller counties where the margin in terms of the absolute number of votes per candidate is going to be less than a 1000 votes Well we'll see is that there are more bold above the line above the X. axis than there are below the X. axis and what that means is that those are the counties where Donald Trump in absolute numbers had more people turning out for him in the spring then turned out Poor Bernie Sanders So that still addresses this problem of what does the Democratic Party stand for and in particular what does that multi-racial coalition look like are whites going to be a part of that multiracial coalition so. To conclude I want to reaffirm the impact that Jesse Jackson had on our national politics I think he teaches us that there are multiple ways to win of course you can win if you outright win elections and you win primaries but you can also win concessions from your party that can have a lasting structural impact on the party and can have an impact on what parties stand for in the issues that they take up so if you're going to have leverage I think we need to realize that some people aim to have leverage and don't succeed so they're just a couple things that you have to be clear about and in particular candidates and their bases have to be clear about what their goals are and they have to be consistent in the execution even if in the short term it doesn't look like it's going to be fruitful So with that I will close and I look forward to the rest of the panel. Thank you. All right so. Thank you to everyone for having me here and friends writing me to this symposium it is a pleasure and a real honor to be here today and to actually be speaking in front of Reverend Jackson I have to say that actually it was Reverend Jackson who gave me the idea for my 1st book the loneliness of the black Republican not because he is a Republican because he is not but instead because actually while I was here doing some research at the Ford Library I came across a document featuring Reverend Jackson that I really couldn't make heads or tails of. That ended up becoming really the meat of my book and much of my research. Know recently I've been wrestling somewhat unsuccessfully with the notion of democracy and black political power I think it's particularly urgent that we think about this in this in this particular historical moment that we're in right now over the summer a colleague for me and it afforded me a note from Reverend Jackson entitled Democrats don't get a blank check from black voters within it he concluded that Democrats are going to have to work to earn black votes again not simply inherit them now I was intrigued because one this is not necessarily a new idea either in black political thought or within Jackson's political thought but I think it's one from at least from a historical lens that we've both focused on and haven't really devoted too much attention to now as a historian and again I'm really intrigued by this idea of what can history help us think help us focus on within the present within power and within democracy. And to quote I think to quote Reverend Jackson here shunning both the Republican in the Democratic party parties or not having actual true democracy for black voters thinking about how devastating that can actually be to the broader political process I think we saw that play out a little bit in the 2016 election which I think I know I'm happy to talk about I'm sure all of the panelists are happy to talk about as well. So I just want to start off my remarks really focused my remarks around a quick story this is also the story that really launched my book as well and it's rooted in a meeting that happens in January 1998 we see Republicans from across the nation traveling to Washington D.C. National Committee now upon their arrival a few delegates or visit with a shot to see Reverend Jackson standing behind the main podium minutes after the session was called to order Reverend Jackson desolate his audience with nearly an hour of political gospel rock and tasting the Gelly delegates with the notion of an influx of millions of black voters for the Republican Party and future political elections now I just want to read a quote here from the speech black people need the Republican Party to compete for us so that we have real alternatives to meeting up for meeting our needs I'm not just speaking theoretically when I say blacks will vote for the Republicans who appeal to their vested interests and engage in recipe prosody and just a quick note this is actually true we see this on a state and local level even to this day particularly amongst candidates who are Republican candidates who are strong on issues of civil rights and managed to divorce themselves from the overarching identity of the Republican Party as we understand it today. Not just another quote I think that is important to consider here from that speech African-Americans must to pursue a strategy that prohibits one party from taking us for granted and another party from writing us off the only protection we have against political genocide. Is to remain necessary now it's this kind of rhetoric that I really want to explore in my remarks and it's also one that resonates amongst the Republican delegates in this meeting this 978 meeting it brings the leaders to their mark and by our leaders to their feet and by all accounts Reverend Jackson received a 5 minute standing ovation. I think just kind of to summarize that remark. To summarize the moment and see Chair Bill Brock would later remark I really really wish we had Republicans who could talk like that. No I don't think this moment is necessarily as shocking as it feels right now it feels surprising because of the context of Donald Trump but it also feels surprising because of the context of the modern Republican party right the way in which we understand it and the way in which we understand black partisanship and kind of black block voting behavior but in that moment 1978 this kind of behavior these kinds of attitudes were well within the context of black political decision making and behavior the idea of using black folks has as under just reminded us as a bludgeon to shift the balance of power for African-Americans to force the parties to compete for their votes and in the way we see the party in much the same manner that we see the see parties compete for the white that's for the votes of white swing voters white suburban voters white rural voters. Now part of this is really wrestling or grappling with the power of the black vote as Reverend Jesse Jackson stated in that same speech that same 1708 speech hands that pick cotton in 1966 did pick the president in 1976 and could very well be the difference in 1980 I think this is very much a sentiment that remains true even through the president at the present day part of what gives African-Americans or would gives black voters their power is the fact that they vote as a bloc at the same time this is also what I think mentioned and I won't necessarily revisit but this is also kind of the root of this captured constituency model where one party takes you for granted in the other party ignores you or is actively hostile to your interests. Now there are moments of pay a payoff in this kind of approach in their notes in their private notes Republican officials explicitly observe that they model many of their initiatives many of their programs after several of Reverend Jackson's programs one initiative for example is modeled after Jackson's Excel program later it's amended this is interesting and I think we can maybe get into this in the Q. and A Conservatives amend it and expand the program but not in the way that we would actually think it becomes the basis of the Republican Party's educational tax credit program and voucher program now this is again not to suggest that Reverend Jackson is a conservative or even a Republican we know that to not be the case that whatsoever. Holds liberal and progressive ideas. But instead this is a reaction in response to negotiating the confines of captured constituency status and the Democratic Party's Turner shift in the mid 1970 S. to deemphasizing racial and identity politics now to give you a very specific example I'm sure African-Americans who had overwhelmingly helped elect Jimmy Carter in 1976 found themselves frustrated and stymied by. The administration almost immediately entering into. The 1st few years of the White House the National Urban League for example pointed out that black unemployment sat at among black teenagers and young adults the number sat at 40 percent. Much A There was much anger over failure for promised job opportunities to materialize. We also see that Urban League the N.W.A. C.P.T. and summer all the organizations argue that Jimmy Carter's approach to inflation would destroy the gains of the black middle class there's also considerable anger about Carter cutting federal funding to historically black colleges and universities at one point Reverend Jackson. Expresses the following sentiment by accusing the administration of gutting domestic social programs and describing Carter's approach could the White House's approach as an all out assault on labor blacks women and the poor and calling on African-Americans to fight back politically to protest to force negotiations with the president with the president so disenchantment and disillusionment is so high in the 1970 S. And I think a number of people actually consider both the 3rd party movement and independent political thrust but also consider the merits of 2 party competition and casting votes for the Republican Party they lament that the Democratic Party can and does assume that blacks have no place else to go but again this is a hard nearly impossible prospect it's exactly the reason why both we see that Reverend Jackson meets with the R. and C. in 1978 he's trying to influence and tip the balance of power in the direction of a black agenda. It is an attempt I think really to maximize this idea of freedom of choice and to exert broader political leverage there's a real threat. To really capitalize on the threat that black votes could decide in the national election and therefore both parties should be working to pursue those black voters and satisfy the needs of black voters now for the sake of time I'm going to wrap up my remarks and I'm happy to again answer talk about a lot of these points in the Q Q A Now I but I just want to go through a couple of points pointers that I think are important for us to consider as we move forward we have to think about the notion of what it means to be a captured constituency where one party takes you for granted and the other ignore sure existence or is actively hostile to your presence I think particularly in this moment it is more urgent than ever to consider access to power and forcing political parties to work for votes it also is in the best interest of political party use right if we take them at face value not taking into account things like voter depression or voter suppression but it isn't to the advantage given the changing demographics of the nation at least on the presidential level to work for the votes of these same groups so whatever the mutually beneficial areas that black voters in the 2 party system can come to in order to benefit African-Americans. We also have to consider the drawbacks of balance of power theory and what are those drawbacks is it realistic to believe that black voters will support Republican candidates if the $2016.00 returns are any indication no it is not realistic for those of you who do not know right now the exit polling is suggesting that about 8 percent of African African-American voters that voted supported Donald Trump at the presidential level this actually has a gender divide only 4 percent of black women supported Donald Trump 13 percent of black men supported Donald Trump and there is interesting questions that we can talk about there too in terms of this gender this gender divide. But even as it's not realistic maybe it's something that we should be thinking about at least when it comes to 3rd party movements were young people have expressed considerable enthusiasm it's also an area where we should be thinking about the impact of non-voting or low voter turnout and and what we see least in 2016 we're still getting returns back but actually looks like African-Americans not showing up in particular places could have made a difference in specific swing states Michigan for one has been pointed out as one of those areas now the other point other take away that I want to think about is that black Republicans have been trying to leverage their power and black voter power for decades since at least the 1930 S. and they've never quite been able to do it the exceptions might be the early years of the Nixon administration and maybe the early years of the bush the George W. Bush administration at least prior to Hurricane Katrina but they certainly weren't able to leverage it in 2016 it's also incredibly hard to take that risk and the risk of and I think under the mentioned was having some skin in the game so this idea of African-Americans being willing to pull the lever for a candidate that they feel is a point it is is brutal it's cruel where they see no kind of commonalities. Instead what we end up seeing more often than not is that African-Americans either reject the G.O.P. or the ones that work within the G.O.P. make severe concessions to the administration in the hopes of advancing their agenda and they rarely advance their agenda again there are certain there are certain areas where they have really had mannish advance an agenda but all too often. They find that their agenda. Subordinated tossed out and that the the ideas that really walk hand in hand with whatever the party mainstream are the ones that are celebrated we're actually seeing this now I think there are a number of people who are talking about taking positions within the Trump and ministration who are doing so in the hopes of pushing through an agenda not quite optimistic about them actually being able to push their own agenda given the nature of. Our president elect historically this also really works because not enough people are willing to take that risk so not enough people are able to are willing to speak out but not enough people are actually willing to engage in order to give a kind of real political power to these marginalized groups. And then my last point that I just want to make is that even as we move forward and as we think about power and as we think about the function of power and as we think about pushing for agendas I still think that it's worth thinking about the balance of power theory and as we understand it to be flawed. It's worth revisiting at least within our political imagination the ways in which we can challenge the boundaries of American democracy in the limitations of American democracy what those challenges are I think remain to be seen but it is worth considering in thinking about historical examples including that of Reverend Jackson as we think about a way forward so THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. So. When they asked me to come and speak at this panel. I jump every chance every chance I get to come home I take it. I consider this yard mine and I mean that in a literal sense I tended undergrad here from going to grad school from remember talking to my mom fall of I would have I was like Mom I don't think I want to be here anymore and. Probably exhibiting a type of brilliance that was really subtle she said Wow Well you know what just come back home and you can stay home and go to Wayne State which he said that I was like OK I'll stick around. But I thought Here I thought consistently to make this space better for black people feeling fought and made a space better for black people be better for everybody in 87 we came and. We had to deal with a Dean Dean Steiner who in a public meeting of department chairs actually said out loud he didn't want Michigan to be a place where blacks and other minorities would naturally flock to. Because he kind of attached in that moment statements of quality statements of quality and race right so for to be a school that was a welcome to black folks and other folks like them meant Michigan wasn't a quality institution several more than almost 3 decades later no more than you know almost 3 decades later of the Dean is actually a friend of mine we started as professors at Washington versus St Louis and both the dean and the president is challenging this moment is actually argue that diversity is what makes Michigan great right. So I got all in my mind you know my son is here as a 1st year student I hadn't seen him since he came on the yard my parents lived 35 minutes away I got friends any ideas I got people who taught me here when I was a kid so I got all that my mom when they asked me to do this panel right on top of that I have in my mind the fact I'm here in large part due to Reverend Jackson's actions and I mean that in a couple of different ways in one part. I like I said I'm part of a wave of there's I was black band want to 6869 1st black jack the 1st black action movement Bantu is 7677 Bam 3 is 86 to 87 I'm here is a direct result of Bantu which created the competence of studies program help to create and then indirectly as a result of band 3 which called for more undergrads and more black folk graduates to Reverend Jackson was deeply involved and bam 3. So when people take over the university they reach out to Reverend Jackson and he actually agrees and he helps to broker a deal between activists and. And administrators right. On top of that tomorrow's founders day Jesse Jackson and I are members of the same fraternity. Along with my dad and Professor chafers there are at least 4 of us in the room recognize so I'm thinking of all that stuff when they holler at me right but I'm like you know a critic of Jackson right. I was like you know I'm actually a critic right they're like Yeah we actually want somebody who can give a critical voice of like you you sure they're like yeah I'm like OK So Reverend you can haze me afterwards it's all good. But this is the do. What I want to do is complicate. What we see in everybody who's spoken up today is a conception of black politics that's pretty uniform right you've got black people on one hand and you've got the white power structure on the other you've got the black vote and then you've got the white power structure right and that's real. Except black politics has has maybe a 2 fold problem one of those problems is the reality of of racism of past racism of current races my embedded in structures and embedded institutional. Individual practice and attitude right but then there's a 2nd dynamic that black folk also have to deal with and that black attitudes black political preferences black desires black interest are actually more complicated that the very least they're bifurcated like maybe For example we can agree that public schools are in places like Detroit function how they function as a result of institutional racism right you probably have group agreement on that maybe we have google green it that in general black politics should have kind of progressive agenda but when you actually boil that down you find a lot of differences right a lot of differences right but in part because of Jim Jim Crow era those differences and because of racism those differences get smushed right so one of the challenges so when I talk about the differences get this much as relation to Jim Crow what happens as a result of Jim Crow is we create a political culture in black communities where where we can't really rely on the vote because we're not able to vote right and because the blacks chosen to manage white black life particularly in the south were chosen by widely. Right and they couldn't really be trusted right so that dynamic of the lack of being able to vote on the one hand the lack of being able to trust the blacks that white Elise shows on the other and thirdly the lack of spaces where black people could actually you know kind of debate and figure out the way to go based on argument all that stuff is kind of smushed and its place what we have developed is the of the Orotate of black leaders that black leader is often is often male that black leader is often charismatic that black leader often but often comes from the church and a many cases at least in that Jim Crow period particularly the civil rights movement started actually right ran churches right on Martin Luther King Jr stands out. As a result of that die and now now. As a result of that dynamic node so there's a question about how that dynamic relates to the day because we can actually we've got the vote now we actually have a significant rise in black elected officials since 1970 or so how does that dynamic end up generating problems today right what we end up doing and Jesse Jackson is probably the most powerful example of this is we've got a dynamic where on the one hand we've got black political officials who are fighting for constituencies but they're resource poor because the places they are they places of the cities that they run the district they represent are themselves resource poor and can't get ground from the state right we've got that and then we've got this black leadership strain on the other hand that largely uses protest and charismatic speech in order to generate resources now the thing is is that protest that once that dynamic takes hold and is forced to kind of force to compete against that that political against that explicit vote dynamic that one can argue that that elite charismatic dynamic kind of wins out right once it wins out what do we have we have a couple of consequences and what I'll do is in a cycle time. To show this image of what I'll do is I'll actually bring this forward bring this forward to talk a little bit Obama about Obama a little bit about black lives matters and then back to Jackson and then maybe I'll show you this image right what does it what how does this appear itself in black lives matter right so with black eyes matter we have a protest activity designed or a sign of protest designed to call attention to the police to hope Elise accountable and then to hold the cities and with a police act accountable but there are actually no mechanisms to hold black lives matter activists themselves accountable. Right there are black lies matter organizations are not vote based they're largely based on youth charismatic leaders whether somebody like the right McKesson and bottom or who formally isn't connected to any black lives matter organizations or similar or going to or similar individuals in other spaces that don't actually routinely engage with black publics in order to figure out what the proper a mode of dealing with the police are so here's one way to think about it there are neighborhoods in. Baltimore where not only is the police a significant threat but criminals but violent crime is also a significant threat and because we're talking about hyper segregation we're talking about crime committed by other black youth Now how do those individuals want to deal with the issue some of those individuals actually do want the police held accountable now what that means we don't know but some of them actually want the police to function how they function so while we could talk about the black vote vote while we could talk about the black community on police and other issues there's this bifurcation there's this attitude of difference that protest activity doesn't actually get to right and then that if you've got a charismatic leader who embodies the black hope Oblast hopes and desires you've got this troubling tendency of black leaders black charismatic leaders making themselves coterminous where black people so how does that how does that how does that what how does that play out let me actually be more explicit what I want is what black people. Whatever my desires and interests are is what black people's desires and interests are black hopes and dreams end up getting embodied in the individual instead of being played out in democratic space and that reduces that significantly demobilize as black populations except in very specific instances when you've got charismatic leaders that want to mobilize them for for stuff that may actually benefit them directly and they met that may trickle down right now that brings me back to Obama. I actually write like a newsletter like every Sunday and what I did. This is why when we talk about red state blue state divide what we're really looking at is a red county blue county divide the blue counties are counties that actually turn for Clinton the red counties are counties that actually turned for Truong what you notice is that there's a whole bunch of red and not a lot of blue is actually kind of scary when you think about trying to think about them much. I use photoshop what I did was I actually peeled off the red in the blue this is the Red Nation it actually looks like a nation doesn't it that is you can drive from the from the southwest corner almost all the way to the east without touching anything in between I know I don't know. This is the blue there is no nation that looks like this you've got some nations some states like Iran the Caribbean I think they're comprised of violence but you know anything that looks like this this actually is not this is only a nation in a virtual sense right now what could have generated a map that had of a map that had more blue in this. Obama runs for election in 2008 there are so many people who want to give money to him there are so many people who want to donate donate campaign time who want to organize people to vote never done it but they create a separate organization called Organizing for America the purpose of Organizing for America was a sense ability to get him elected to office but it was more generally to create a 50 state strategy where we could where the Democratic Party could compete in all these different spaces and they run people for office in all these different spaces and then would indirectly actually create competition with in democratic spaces where people would never run for office who have progressive politics could actually challenge Democratic incumbents right this Organizing for America actually helped put Obama in office what happened after he was elected he killed an organization with an e-mail list of approximately 13000000 names and an organization that had approximately interested in running for office he kills it why does he kill it there are a number of reasons but I'd argue that the fund that another fundamental consequence of charismatic authority politics the types of politics that Jackson that Jackson is those are the fundamental representative of is of focus away from institutional development particularly institutional development that builds people's capacity to govern themselves as opposed to concentrating it in a singular individual right so what we have going forward is kind of a question. How do we generate the institutional capacity to empower black people and other people like them to govern them selves charismatic authority may be involved in that but we have to actually move towards a space where to Dick's a charismatic authority exists it exists alongside traditional objective practices of determining what routes people should take that aren't based on claims or racial authenticity but rather based on on on kind of raw a rational discussion of interest and a lot of Monday in labor. So with that said I said again at the beginning I am where I am because of the work of people like Reverend Jackson but if we're going to move to develop a nation we have to move beyond that to a very different model on that note thank you. Thank thank. You from the audience as possible but let me just say that there is anything that people on the panel would like to. Respond to. Well I just have one question for Lester How do you interpret for me that working on. The organizing. So I. So he asked me so after Organizing for America it becomes Organizing for Action and he asked me how I interpret the transition from Organizing for America to Organizing for Action I actually interpret that as kind of a 2 stage move the 1st thing I'd target I'd move we take all that energy from Organizing for America and see if we work with it but given that the Democratic Party itself actually does not want it neither is it neither has the interest of really create becoming kind of a grassroots run organization but also it doesn't necessarily have the bureaucratic expertise and managing an organization like that and it ends up killing it and want to point thing I didn't mention after this organization is killed the Tea Party actually generates right the Tea Party actually generates So the moment Obama moves it to an end a bipartisan incremental approach with charismatic authority tied to black people is the moment that the conservatives generate this counterinsurgency because Organizing for America doesn't exist to get to create a counter narrative the Tea Party ends up winning out in all of those red areas and spreading out into areas that formerly were. Great. For. I thought they organize for that story before. That started after you know his 1st started after he were born reaction you better think Peter Paul who is his campaign manager you know he. Basically started that and it was basically good place to keep the Obama kind of movie going as opposed to that it was something that was still good for news he ended not taking anything away from of the whole affair he wanted man be. Born of being much ado about nothing I end up having opportunity at Johns Hopkins to hear a speech by Terry McAuliffe and because Hopkins don't have that many black people they asked me like to serve to go to lunch with him and with a number of other people and I asked him explicitly about this he'd actually agree with my timeline and he said that that the Democratic Party killed it although he couldn't give me a reason why. Let me invite people up to ask questions and there is a microphone right over here at the window here at the door here in front if you come up that will be great. Sure. It will be one of the 1st questions to see. Him so. This one. Young man. Right now. But just in case you know. What I consider. Transforming Your party. He forced the Democratic Party. Sheer organized to run. Again that was on there. Also. Under. Their own mom the office. But leave it. Legal on. People. In the very ones. That France formed America and created an opportunity for a fresh. Young Senate bill to come. Under this under the new America under the law. We have lost. All the manhunt. That was not. With the argument that yes you can answer him in French form and I will eat the car because I feel. As fortunate as you Mr Austin that all of you for if. He were instrumental in the African-American and very nervous governors around this so I want to look in the city. I want to go to school and torsion your patient id Yes the significance of what we're here to do they did but But what if. She said You look at. Our Watch to be here because the right that was me. But I was just basic training school. Which was almost there for the next generation because every generation has a responsibility or the needs of. The Sunni group and there was an activist in Berkeley there when the campaign against her and I was and she chairs came to my home called it was this where I was aware who the sheep to to lead and then you see Cox who can come home who isn't against her this is Susan on the phone the morgue. Ground. Wire. Taps and sometimes it was only. And nobody spoke about her she really was only Holder and who answering her she could go to prison I mean was it true you can follow and as examples I wish to know Miss some of them who has you really can't know who publishes you. Know simply isn't this is another person the mask who know we are all nice and it will never come out signed it was so we don't see any models around her hind. Hoops to get a. Say. For such a business working at it OK. Thank you for your comments and I think as people try to figure out what happened and about the chasm between different types of left leaning groups you know that was part of the problem during the primary is that what we think about as progressive today is does seem to be inclusive of African-Americans in particular and so that about it's been a longstanding divide between racial progress and the people who are progressive on other movements whether it's peace the environment and other types of issues so I think what the Democrats will be doing going forward is trying to forge a strategy to make sure that we can figure out a way for all of these groups to come together and for no one group to feel slighted at the you know using the rainbow coalition battle as as as one particular case to say is you know it's a great place to start. And I ended a state. Several higher which has always been thought of as a battleground state presidential election and we're going to stay I am not only with her downtrodden but what they're trying by 8 points a state at Brocklebank who wanted 90 and started in 2008 by almost 8 points and be elected in 2012 by about 4 points. While. If you took a look at an area like the Youngstown Ohio area which is a very blue collar working class area. Donald Trump came there. And talked to. Unemployed steelworkers and said you don't know the steel plants I mean that all the steel plants but he gave them hope. He went down to the coal country where coal mines been closed for years and told me all the coal mines that of the gold mines he gave hope my point is that there's a reason why Donald Trump is president away and a lot of us during the campaign and folks like me were around a long time and have some history of winning in Ohio never once were consulted by the campaign every time. We you know. We thought about the uses of date myself as an old song by a British singer called Dusty Springfield is called the wishing and hoping we're wishing and hoping that what we were seeing was not happening it all started from signs that we saw were real people who you know were in our we can see a lot of American science and I saw tonight in my neighborhood signs for Donald Trump and places read of such signs before and the reason why is that Democrats have failed in terms of the working class folks of this country and Donald Trump was right in many respects in terms of they have not had a wage increase commensurate with everybody else. We had a banking crisis when Obama took office anybody remember anybody going to jail on Wall Street you remember banks being fined millions and millions of dollars when nobody going to jail Meanwhile somebody said I want to find out banks going to prison for On Tuesday was a repudiation not just of Hillary Clinton but of Bill Clinton because when Bill Clinton was president he gave us NAFTA. That are Republican he gave us NAFTA. Barack Obama wants to give us P.P.P. the working class people view their jobs going overseas because in that after and this was the 1st chance they had to vote on Bill Clinton he didn't run for election in 2000 Hillary Clinton was not the nominee in 2008 but Bill Clinton was on the ballot in 2016 in addition so I mean we look back in this election and we see Donald Trump for all his gold Gary and outrageousness which which he was in is he also said some things to scrub home and when he talked about you know that he looked in the camera remember this because it to me it was important moment and he said. When he got to lose. What he got to lose you know you see you know what you've gotten for the Democrats are you really you know he didn't say we better off now they were for we saw something happen on Tuesday which was not so much about who voted. Who didn't vote who didn't think it was a difference and and so we take that going forward and you know in times like this this is a time to basically you know say well he's mean on that but then you know say wait a 2nd you know we got a fight here and we've got a chance because of how many Democrats are in the Senate and how many Republicans there are who got Trump supporters to stop a lot of the things they want to do but we sit back and watch it and and and moan it's not going to happen you know that this is a time to move forward and we need to find candidates for office who are new new blood we don't need any old brother to go on and nothing against Congressman Ellison but we don't need a person of the D.N.C. who's elected official been through that kind of thing I was once resigned taking his position is one thing we need some new blood and I pointed out to somebody who I didn't know this gentleman other than what I saw on T.V. 7 ran for the U.S. Senate in Missouri a state that. Truck was easily seen as Jason Cantor he was the secretary of state and he came within 3 points of beating an incumbent Republican with a very very very memorable ad he's after and better Afghan veteran who basically assembled a rival blindfolded and that was the spark that I'm talking about people going to look at people who didn't win but people who are new generation were things that Jesse Jackson bequeath to us not just me but forever because new people getting involved is all about involvement this is the time to go stick your head in the sand. And they'd like us less than we have you hold your comments for a 2nd and let what people think of the great. Sound. Of those who are here. All night regular at least we appreciate you trying out on and you got to take medication. And here he is in the I.C.U. on my bus in the 3 time zone from now on where we land will not. Be here economists anything coming on tonight exactly and then you eat. Beans out you know I'm here by finding them right now but it's like making my. Own Car thank the panel for. Clarifying the number of aspects of the relationship. You need to meet here and not mine all. Of that. Very much so I want to. Just to be struck by lightning I hear that. Always bombing campaigns. Here's a here are different for different. Aspects of objects and the. Both of which are partial Perhaps you believe the market just for the partial And the actress who just picks up the. the building to connect it to the lower right to do it very much partial after that because I thought. The ones that were put there were the partly what. He brought But all this work started out of course that will just be that knowledge for all factor in all the whole motivation and so I don't want to hear from the last question the finger about as well and I. Get the other you didn't want to kill here one of them and yet for me to bother with it and yet well just give it to. A new leadership and you know you don't do it. And so that I wish because we getting down out there are often all social how those pieces can be convicted or go forward for our books do he's a 19 there's a lot. More. You never know with more of a man who's going to remember reading society. Soon to some movies with me. I think it was in that I hadn't really heard the rest. Really well the politics of them are broken. America was going to be holes through the heart of. This is a war culture war the government we were. None of the. Really. On. Our scene you know because we're. South of the peoples coming together to get there. We never there are these settlers here. We settlers there are the peace to this country the native people or the religious people around the world the fundamental law of all tell that somehow is he'll. Call it a high why do you think he should do that they just balance all that are actually down peacefully and the United States that's what it is the minute various Andrews was available to go there are still very low income inequality and it is it is really really the rest of the world we have been through to just leave it in her own good society here. I think got through the coffin Steves I don't know who's got a good deal of this justice is still the problem has not been dealt with this is a work on should we go here we need to be 5 closing pieces for those of. Us with the right all the people. Who sell through the leaves the military industrial complex who have really done this in their heart of living in this force. So afterwards are going to go all right. Yes you know we're. All really. Partners in this war so there's a lot of the lose of a mother who's losing. So I just want to put 2nd thing over time and then when terrible they're trying to lump all the questions I actually understand that when we say. I mean one of the things that we think about going for my back I think a lot of thinking. We should be rushed necessarily to to kind of assess and then this is exactly what went wrong this is what we've done this is what we're doing this is I mean it really is going to take some time to do our part of that is looking at the factors and looking at the fragility of the Democratic coalitions that pre-date what we're seeing right now are pretty the ninety's pretty pretty seventy's I mean this goes back pretty far one thing I want to be very careful about feeling is that any any kind of movement going forward and particularly looking at working class and working at poor voters has to be very careful about unpacking the racial dynamics that are all too often and we're seeing it in a lot of these discussions is that working class has become part of the white working class we have to think about you know why is it that black Latino Asian working class and poor voters do not vote for Donald Trump. In fact we can look at it I think we can look at the weight working class vote and say that it's put in interesting ways that don't doesn't necessarily translate into this idea that every single member of the white working class went for Donald Trump That's categorically not true. So I do want to be make sure that we are very very careful in that regard particularly as we think about the coalition building and one other thing that I think that hasn't necessarily come up in this conversation is the gender dynamics and thinking about that but also thinking about it as we begin 10 packs kind of the whiteness and it's real. Lation chip to Donald Trump thinking about white women and their role and electing Donald Trump because as we think about coalitions and as we think about kind of minority communities coming together to become a political bloc this is something I think that the Clinton campaign had counted on and really. Let them down and a number and I don't know what the top her proper terminology is but you know when women overwhelmingly went for Donald Trump as well so. I think that you know Obama as an example one of the things one of the biggest problems Obama we had no Obama presidency we actually had no critique of him within black spaces in fact people who critique Obama within black spaces were teen we condemn you can take the example of Cornell West and. Tavis Smiley right I don't want to do that so I am not going to I guess I am here because of jocks I can point that point to that in a number of ways but what we have to do is create spaces in black communities where we can actually engage in critique with our elders right that we have to do that we can't proceed forward without that as far as the comment about the comment about Matthew countries might come from is coming I think what we have interestingly enough is a dynamic where Obama appealed to charismatic elements of the Jackson campaign with out without fully embracing the progressive elements and aggressive elements would include the arguments both for peace and the and it's just general inequality dynamic that Jackson brought to the table but also really a careful attention to people running for office down ballot so I think. That progressive dynamic Sanders picked up that progressive dynamic without also dealing with the down ballot stuff I think Sanders has more of a possibility going forward to do that than Obama does which also suggests that there is this problem with charismatic authority particularly as it ends up connecting to the neoliberal term that we have to be leery of. So the piggyback that I would. Characterize rock Obama's 2800 painting as a lever candidacy and so I'm thinking about this in a camera factual term what if Obama had lost would he have gone to the D.N.C. and made demands that would structurally change the party I don't see any evidence that that was his plan going into that bank use going to run to when and you know I do work on black politicians of his generation X. and I know he's a little bit older than that but in the put him in that generation because he emerged at the same time there are certain types of black politicians who lose elections so that they can use that as a stepping point for a future election and so what I think he was doing in 2008 was that if he lost that election he just use that as grounds to kind of be next in line or the heir apparent for future nomination I don't think he was thinking about leverage in the end that way and so I'm not doing this in the same way but I would like in his candidacy more Shirley Chisholm's candidacy in 872 where you just want to run to sort of say that you can add to sort of you know make it more possible for people to do this in the future perhaps even yourself I think Lester has added to the already eloquent comments about the things that we overlook and the histories that we refuse to acknowledge in this country but I do want to address the question about what to do in the future and I want to go back to my water because I think it's really important to to go back to Ron Walters Walters also advocated what he called an inside outside strategy I don't see that actually being affected we deployed right now but hopefully we will learn from this of all those people who didn't vote because they thought that Trump was 6 of one and Clinton's half a dozen of the other and now you kind of realize that you know Jeff Sessions could be your attorney generals like that that's the that's a contrast there. That that we see those differences and so it's not protests or voting you know extra electoral politics and then you know being a political insider it's both there and everybody has to work together so you can assume that just. Somebody is an elected official who has said the right things and it's from the right group that they're always going to automatically do that without outside pressure they don't need to be held accountable or they need some type of affirmation from the outside that says that this is what they need to be doing so they can go to their colleagues and say look there are those people on the street who are clamoring for this so that hopefully the lesson that we learn from this is that our political engagement has to be multi-level that you have to engage state local and national politics and that also needs to use all of the arrows in the put which means that sometimes that is involved in voting and running for office sometimes that is meeting with politicians and lobbying sometimes as being out in the street and it's going to be all in it's not going to be just one thing over another. Or more injuries sure. Where we go sort of prescriptive 98. Reverend Jackson or 3 elected white politicians support through. Her Sanders who has made or broken the law. Already here and carpools the mere Berkeley California Jam I tell her who said Mr agriculture Mr Texas 20 years later Rakhal her to be going to reclaim a good school etc. You know that's important to know what happened though. I really want to thank everybody in the audience for participating in this question for our panelists for starting us off and this is not the end we have a panel at 12 which is going to be teacher. University of Michigan activists across multiple generations of students I hope you'll go to that 12 o'clock in the ampitheater and before that if you'll pick up a lot of us something to eat before you step in thank you so much. OK sure. Good morning. The Christmas things. You do for. Love and bring them to. Say. Give me. Rivers a look back never goes doesn't make you have not. Always a. Good thing to. Listen to the 1st person. And. Obviously knew. That. You didn't play a. Good bit of going to come see. You on. Religious $2000000.00 plus bullied and really. Lucky to have met the issue for me to see you all over the world. So that we acted as a baby and she was like. It was the last time it. Was a pretty black hole. The most. Well this was. All. No. More. Long mistress but. It's like home my. Good slogan of the whole you see one thing the other says of. The author of the Torah with more. Just part of me. In the vision by the Brotherhood both are. The girl. That held the stage prayed about. The phrase a black hole the 8.5 percent. Increase of what it will look for. More on this thing in the March after the mosque itself. Is dismissed the less life is the more she wants a. Good book out called a longer life in the. Precinct OK. She put it in the reader on the 6th of crucifix. And so moved all those caps and I said to the precinct so when the long but still 6 hours to the. Campus through the precincts is no throughout the world and the like. As opposed to the book by. This person like a book in the Torah. Didn't disagree with it being. The stuff it kept on stage right through those of the levels in the book rather like a bull on. Question really why it didn't respond to the black book that the weather. In 2000 she has issued. From a large piece of floor we can see Jesus prayed. For this. We will find a significant fall is pretty black. Sea level because I'm broke through the drill being the phrase to do it. But was told. In Florida. In the local line in this. And then I. Was in the city like this a while they both of us both are in the boat very very good and the one you know. Really had to leave for the who was one of your. Good Will I just massive additional piece where I want to stay with all that mess to go one on one work day to both and I think it will suppress. That course because of the players who were willing to fight all. The protection of the life of. THE PRESIDENT I didn't matter whether you know him because it felt odd Disney or. One reason I feel time to run the electoral college to go. We'll just get a 2000000 make a 3000000 voters feel. And your people we don't know from someone that has a serious aristocracy versus democracy because didn't a crisis fight. That so if you live back to your nose and go through all of the key states did you really lose if you won we would be discussed and. Maybe a little. Bit leader that he was so cool that that had to go more than generous of him or Rick did the homily describing how the more well the longer of we stuck to his along with us than it was we're going to be both. Close to those of the stolen posted pretty good. Images all rolled into people's modeling not look so long of a lead that goes with just death and the. Second piece of it is that. Just like lawful that. Would trigger of course. With no law nothing in the law. That. Case in point here we go on. To the what do I or the right. Here. For what it is about my. Life to heal from the biggest of people dearth of it. Because it just has a fallacious number we've got to stick to 19 cities of the system. Because of years of blacks in the dark. And with violent we're going to hear of the British. Who never come up with a nice piece of the file was this blast couldn't pull just with the foundation of the. Blast of a rifle 65 in the 1st 75 years what with what we've been through winter is a. Fun little bit of a ****. To your good book last book a book that means a. Good book after the last little book came out because if. We're going to we're going both will be more valid So. Did I but I do believe that with. Or without all the data flows Hillary will want to rise or fall the readers will rule life not enough social media vocalist and all that without that we brought along coffee whom we traded. A divorce or the one. We change the rules to that would allow them to just go on the book while I was a bit of all the black for the rest of us go broke my god. We could we never use it when it make it. And then over the phone book walk through the glass at the one thrown off for getting broken home while the rest of the girls in here have been taking whatever has put the gold it clear we go away as a civil rights struggle not fundamentally blue. Cool now this is something something something good we would all be wrong of in the victory look from the Supreme Court we won the Senate as one of those for a while likely and just Democrats would like to get like several with my boy just like the white people did. Not dump a death of a little above those of good living above the called Mr Krugman it really would be to them it was a good Republican that was 3 right away with another way because we have this one from from Jefferson Davis to Franks. Who was the river Republican we were the focus of liberal Republicans and kids often feel great we should be thought out of high and if you're still not just really good at this as a young life on the next and the best luck in California Listen listen just blow. Off the. Good boy hair see go for want of work building the life. And love of. The city. Come for me Miss over Ethernet and record home in the way. These persons all living off the seed sown. Give switching off the record of local river Well I don't like I have my rounds I like to go in the beauty. Shop without my wife Don't look here you know which is the people's house of both. I suppose I hope it. Doesn't one was good enough for the one of the small good good it was and and it will be good back into the camera you said that's a house that I own they come to me and I think they're. Pretty great stuff. I curse of. The day for the little gold. We created we got it for the building he said that about right here for the for the delegates he did a good part of the team leader. Who did it really good look don't use it get it. And I guess it was both come of it thing to me for her. He said I was thinking of the big. Love. Yourself believe in love. And I saw you the very heart of my heart. And thus they. Just didn't have. Their father mission impossible so see the roof through the 3 windows it that part of me we were sick of pain. The floor of the roof. We said to prevent the president goes to the grave with the little good religion life we miss a list of Middle East Coast suppose the privacy of the rubbish and didn't miss it we miss to stop the drug flow. With the center of the house and I may just look up because the lens looks in the right. List just now. But we didn't but also I'm looking close it was all the impact of this campaign the focus of the this just a little. Bit because if this is how. To follow just they both write. They should. And just as Ford made the decision to 3 weeks in spite of it not he was laughable. Big Brother for her. Favorite. And those of those who have a good girl who should be free. From the city wrote if he does not pardon her youngest that. Would serve as a proof of that. And and a very good one for more years. For the 4 cold case rule about books that 1 May go to. Hillary Clinton for the humiliation of this and both of those Americans who have paid the bill do. They will all be demanded by executive order that they did not get revoked. With.