There are 120 different events, including panels and trainings, he said, and two-thirds of attendees are women and another two-thirds consist of people of color. This is the present and future of the progressive movement.
Washington, DC's Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, next to speak, first called out "51!!!" to us. What distinguishes Our Nation's Capital from all the other capitals is that we have no voting representation in Congress or the Senate [she is allowed to vote at the committee level in the HR].
Our founders went to war for voting rights, she said: No taxation without representation [this motto you will find on most DC license plates, without the "no"]. We pay the highest per capita taxes in America. We are deprived of equal citizenship.
"Only in America can you gain rights by moving away."
We meet the requirements for equal citizenship rights, she told a cheering audience.
"It's time for HR 51!"
Next to speak was Jess Morales Repeto, founder of the new liberal women's group Supermajority, speaking about the immigrant crisis. "900 victims in El Paso occupy a cell meant for 150," she told us. They took away blankets and mattresses from these people. Two- to three-month old babies and pregnant women are sleeping on the floor. Children have died. Other details are harrowing.
"The Trump government hates minorities," she said. How did this happen? In 100-degree weather, buses of children in cages travel.
"We can't use symbolic actions" [like speaking Spanish at presidential debates] said Repeto. "It took a war to end the last one." Attorneys are leaving their own babies to help out others at the borders.
"There's no such thing as other people's children."
The children are counting on this country to reunite them with their families. We must shut down the camps.
Rashad Robinson, a strategist for Color of Change, asked how we can make black people more powerful. Everything on the progressive agenda includes blacks. We must mobilize the nation. We've made the Democrats nervous and must make corporate executives nervous. Corporate power on Wall Street was just a slave market. They are climate destroyers aiding and abetting privately owned prisons. Blacks are left to die. They're expendable.
"We must stay away from the reality show star."
Racial justice is not charity but strategy.
The statistics recording violent crime have gone down. Some people think it's increased. People are transforming the criminal justice system. We are winning.
We must strengthen movement organizations, invest in the people, promote racial justice.
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