Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Welcome, Hey, everybody.
Speaker 4: This episode is a replay of one of our interviews
Speaker 4: from our live stream as a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's
Speaker 4: Annual Legislative Conference. If you want to listen to or
Speaker 4: watch the full stream, check out the links in the
Speaker 4: episode description. You can also find a full list of
Speaker 4: all the guests we interviewed.
Speaker 3: Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 4: We are so fortunate to be joined now by Congressman
Speaker 4: Troy Carter, who is an Annual Legislative Conference co chair.
Speaker 3: He is representing New Orleans.
Speaker 4: And we also are being joined by Congresswoman Joyce Batty,
Speaker 4: who is a CBC Foundation board member. And we also
Speaker 4: see present the extraordinary, extraordinarily brilliant and beautiful Summerly. Congresswoman Summerly.
Speaker 4: We might as well get y'all all up, because you'll
Speaker 4: come to go line up.
Speaker 3: To march across that stage. In just a moment, she
Speaker 3: didn't walk, She floated. She did floated. She elegantly floated
Speaker 3: into conceeats.
Speaker 4: I want to shout out my friends Quentin and Stephanie Brown,
Speaker 4: who are here.
Speaker 3: Also, we're gonna get them on. We got all the members,
Speaker 3: y'all because they gotta go, They gotta go. Line up.
Speaker 3: Look at you.
Speaker 5: You look beautiful, beautiful and handsome and handsome.
Speaker 3: So happy to have you guys here.
Speaker 4: So from vision to victory. We are the last day
Speaker 4: of the conference. How do you think we've done? Are
Speaker 4: we closer to the victory? And this is a non
Speaker 4: partisan question, to be.
Speaker 6: Very We're absolutely closer to the victory.
Speaker 4: Get closer to the mic.
Speaker 6: We're absolutely closer to the victory. When you look at
Speaker 6: the excitement, the energy, the commitment, people see the opportunity
Speaker 6: to save our democracy. And I think while this has
Speaker 6: been a great opportunity to come together, party with a purpose.
Speaker 6: While we're having a good time, we're also talking about
Speaker 6: significant policy. We're talking about making sure that the antidote
Speaker 6: to Trump twenty twenty five is November fifth, twenty twenty
Speaker 6: four vote.
Speaker 4: I want to come to you, miss baby, and I
Speaker 4: also want to defer to my colleagues. But I wanted
Speaker 4: to start here because I heard someone say to me
Speaker 4: the other day.
Speaker 3: They were like, there's a member of Congress.
Speaker 4: She got this short PIXI cut and she had sharper
Speaker 4: and she gave us our marching orders at Black Women's Agenda.
Speaker 4: So I know you can tear the house now. So
Speaker 4: what you got for us, I know you got something
Speaker 4: to say. And by the way, we would not be
Speaker 4: here at this conference without the advocacy, the fierce advocacy
Speaker 4: a Congressman Joyce Bady, and she does it for the
Speaker 4: people every single day.
Speaker 7: So thank you, no, thank you all for doing this.
Speaker 7: And I certainly agree with Congressman Troy Carter. And let
Speaker 7: me just say, we are closer because we have a platform.
Speaker 7: We are closer because we have a candidate fat not
Speaker 7: partisan when you think about we're here for CBC FLC.
Speaker 7: We took fifty percent of little Black babies out of poverty.
Speaker 7: We put thirty five dollars cap on insulin for our
Speaker 7: seniors and others. We put sixty five billion dollars into
Speaker 7: HBCUs and I'm an HBCU see you graduate. And if
Speaker 7: that's not good enough, let's talk about loan forgiveness one
Speaker 7: hundred and sixty seven billion dollars for some sixty four
Speaker 7: million people.
Speaker 3: So we have a platform.
Speaker 7: Economy is better. Fifteen million jobs inflation. Now, if you
Speaker 7: look at the plan of the two different visions, I
Speaker 7: certainly want to be on the sister's vision.
Speaker 3: And so I'm just saying KKK.
Speaker 7: You know what we usually think about when we hear that, Well,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna give it a DEI name on King's Day,
Speaker 7: Katanji Jackson. Brown's gonna square in kam La Harris.
Speaker 4: Right, that's my kkj kk.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm because I got a black job. My black
Speaker 7: job twenty twenty five. As Troy said, it's bad. It
Speaker 7: dismantles everything that we believe in in our values. So
Speaker 7: I'm gonna call it twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Vote.
Speaker 7: I just need everybody to vote. But let's not get
Speaker 7: over excited. Let's not think the job is done, because
Speaker 7: we are a long way from it until we get
Speaker 7: to election day. So I just want everybody to take
Speaker 7: the energy and double it for the next fifty some
Speaker 7: days and then I'll be really happy to say I.
Speaker 5: Love that congress Woman Lead, thank you so much for
Speaker 5: joining us. I love the margin orders we just got
Speaker 5: from Congressman Baby Jotaka Edie, who I'm sure you guys.
Speaker 3: Know her, one of my dear friends.
Speaker 5: Yes, we love Joe Teka and her work around one
Speaker 5: with black women. She addressed the conference this week and
Speaker 5: one point that she made here in DC inauguration weekend,
Speaker 5: there is no accommodation. Hotels are sold out. That is
Speaker 5: how confident people are about this election. And so I
Speaker 5: hear your caution Joe Taka's marching orders, where if you
Speaker 5: have a hotel room booked here, but you ain't registered
Speaker 5: nobody to vote.
Speaker 3: There, then you ain't been doing your job.
Speaker 5: So Congressoman Lee, I'm curious what you would say to
Speaker 5: people out there who are rightfully celebratory of this moment
Speaker 5: after what we've been through as a people and as
Speaker 5: a country. What are your marching orders to our audience
Speaker 5: watching right now?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so listen, I'm in Pennsylvania, So I always take excitement.
Speaker 8: I take joy that I see especially in these places,
Speaker 8: right because when we gather, we bring this sort of energy,
Speaker 8: but when we go home, we forget sometimes that we're
Speaker 8: going back to people who are.
Speaker 2: In these circles.
Speaker 8: Yeah right, they're not getting dressed up tonight. They haven't
Speaker 8: been able to hear all the inspiration from these panels.
Speaker 8: They haven't absorbed all the black excellence that we've been absorbing.
Speaker 8: So we got to go back to the states just
Speaker 8: like mine, to western Pennsylvania, and we actually have to
Speaker 8: talk to people who are not as tuned in as
Speaker 8: we are, and that's not as easy. And it's okay
Speaker 8: to admit that when we talk about what solar Baby
Speaker 8: said that we have a plan, we have to take it.
Speaker 2: That's our responsibility.
Speaker 8: We have to go on doors and we have to
Speaker 8: let folks know what's that stake and what we can
Speaker 8: do to address that.
Speaker 2: We have to let people know.
Speaker 8: That hope isn't something that is just a word, but
Speaker 8: we have a belief in each other and ourselves, and
Speaker 8: when we step up for ourselves, we can get those
Speaker 8: things done. But you know, that is translating all of
Speaker 8: this into some actual action. We always get folks who
Speaker 8: say they want to, you know, go go to the rallies.
Speaker 8: And I love rallies, y'all, I do. There's a lot
Speaker 8: of energy out these rallies. But the reality is is
Speaker 8: that the people who we need are not the rally
Speaker 8: We need to go and get.
Speaker 2: Black folks on college campuses.
Speaker 8: We got to go and get young folks who are
Speaker 8: reasonably concerned about a lot of stuff. We need to
Speaker 8: take that concern and we need to help connect them
Speaker 8: into the system. We need to plug them in, and
Speaker 8: we got to be patient with them. So I'm seeing
Speaker 8: this and I think that this is a really good foundation.
Speaker 8: But we know in these fifty something days, we have
Speaker 8: work to do still.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's so.
Speaker 5: It's kind of like an analogy for the kids who
Speaker 5: show up to the guidance counselor's office because they want
Speaker 5: to go to college. Those are not the kids who
Speaker 5: are in the most need. It's the kids who are
Speaker 5: not participating. So I love that you made that point.
Speaker 5: I think that's a poignant.
Speaker 9: I don't want to be a Donald downer, but I
Speaker 9: do want to say a lot of people elect people
Speaker 9: to public office and then they start to criticize those
Speaker 9: individuals basically saying, well, they didn't get done.
Speaker 1: What it is that they said they would do.
Speaker 9: I often try to remind folks, look, we came here
Speaker 9: under ball and Chain had to endure, you know, four
Speaker 9: hundred years of servitu before even being legal, then having
Speaker 9: that taken away before then we're still seeing laws that
Speaker 9: are passed that bring us into our full existence. What
Speaker 9: does Kamala Harris. In addition to folks going out and
Speaker 9: voting and organizing for her, what companionship does she need
Speaker 9: in order to facilitate the movement of an agenda that
Speaker 9: makes life different for people in the streets.
Speaker 3: She needs an.
Speaker 6: Acheen Jeffries to be Speaker of the House.
Speaker 3: We need to have.
Speaker 6: A full complement of democratic senators in the majority in
Speaker 6: the US Senate. We need a patient community, a faith
Speaker 6: based community, an academia, nonprofit and business to recognize that
Speaker 6: the alternative is no democracy. The alternative is a reversal
Speaker 6: of people's rights. The alternative is a total ignoring of
Speaker 6: the Constitution and the rights that we have.
Speaker 2: We cannot go backwards.
Speaker 6: And so when you think about where we are, we
Speaker 6: have a vice president who was a district attorney, an
Speaker 6: attorney general, a United States Senator, and now the Vice
Speaker 6: president soon to be President of the United States, the
Speaker 6: most consequential candidate to have ever served as vice president,
Speaker 6: and no one has had as much experience as she
Speaker 6: does bringing to the oval office. It's ridiculous that people
Speaker 6: will suggest otherwise. Everyone should stand and defend and just
Speaker 6: call balls and strikes.
Speaker 3: The facts bear out.
Speaker 6: Kamala Harris clearly has the requisite skill sets, temperament and abilities.
Speaker 6: What we have to do as a people, as Jesse
Speaker 6: Jackson said in nineteen eighty eight, you can't helpe me in.
Speaker 3: You have to vote me in.
Speaker 6: So we've got to remind people that for the next
Speaker 6: fifty one fifty two fifty three days.
Speaker 3: We got to hump.
Speaker 6: We got to just as as Selig just said, we
Speaker 6: can't depend on the circles that we're in. We're the
Speaker 6: choir preaching to the choir. We've got to go out
Speaker 6: to the communities, into the barbershops, the beauty shops, into
Speaker 6: the nightclubs and the sororities and fraternities, and we've got
Speaker 6: to tell people, yes, your vote does matter, and we
Speaker 6: can't afford to think we've got this thing one so
Speaker 6: we can celebrate. No, No, it's going to be close. And
Speaker 6: in order to make sure that we could defend what
Speaker 6: will happen on election day, we have to make sure
Speaker 6: it is a solid victory.
Speaker 3: You know, I want to flag for you all.
Speaker 4: Of course, the Congressional Black Caucus is known as the
Speaker 4: conscience of the Congress. And with the three of you
Speaker 4: all sitting here, you all have divergent politics. Your politics
Speaker 4: aren't all the way aligned. And what I love about
Speaker 4: this is people get to see themselves reflected in each
Speaker 4: of you. And as the caucus continues to grow, we
Speaker 4: see from how you vote, from the way you negotiate,
Speaker 4: from what you say in committee, the differences. There was
Speaker 4: one moment yesterday that I wanted to mention at the
Speaker 4: top of the show, and I forgot until now.
Speaker 3: But this conference is always.
Speaker 4: A convening for people of divergent opinions and perspectives to share.
Speaker 3: In forums, people get up and ask questions, sometimes want
Speaker 3: a debate with y'all. But there was this really harrowing
Speaker 3: moment last night.
Speaker 4: I was walking out of the Salamander and there was
Speaker 4: a protest, and the protest was for Justin Johnson, who
Speaker 4: was killed at a McDonald's in DC, shot ten times.
Speaker 4: And I was so troubled that it was at a
Speaker 4: black hotel for our black members.
Speaker 3: And of course I was walking with Papa Rye.
Speaker 4: And my dad looks at me and he says, this
Speaker 4: is where they knew they could be heard.
Speaker 3: And so I know that.
Speaker 4: Justin Johnson and so many others, Breonna Taylor and mott
Speaker 4: Arbury have been at the top of you all's minds,
Speaker 4: and you've legislated for them. But I just want to
Speaker 4: say thank you for facilitating this space, for the protesters,
Speaker 4: for Justin Johnson, for the protesters against the Israel Hamas war,
Speaker 4: for the protesters to ensure that black lives matter. So
Speaker 4: for facilitating this space, I just want to say thank you,
Speaker 4: and I want to honor you all for being here.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much. Do we realize that now, I'll
Speaker 7: say this, and I think we'd all agree, we realize
Speaker 7: our diversity. Sometimes people think when you say Congressional Black
Speaker 7: Caucus that we're all alike, and we are not. And
Speaker 7: that's what we value appreciate because that is our strength.
Speaker 7: But what's even better when you put it all together,
Speaker 7: that's the power. Is we can make anything happen, as
Speaker 7: we did with the infrastructure bills, or we can stop
Speaker 7: anything from happening, as we did that.
Speaker 2: We got both parts that we wanted.
Speaker 7: We wanted to make sure that the services were going
Speaker 7: to be voted on and signed, and so we did
Speaker 7: it all because of our unity and our power.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: And if I could add to that, just even with
Speaker 8: what Brother Carter was just talking about, when we think
Speaker 8: about what we are really needing to do right now.
Speaker 8: It is how do we invest in the coalitions of
Speaker 8: the future to see me. You know, I'm a black girl,
Speaker 8: friend Lamond Valley of pittsborgh outside of Pittsburgh, right, I'm
Speaker 8: a progressive and a lot of people for a long time,
Speaker 8: you know, we're told that you couldn't be black and progressive,
Speaker 8: and I actually don't always agree that we differ in
Speaker 8: so many ways. I think that sometimes our politics difference
Speaker 8: in our policies, our goals are similar. We're trying to
Speaker 8: figure out what is the best way to get there,
Speaker 8: recognizing that we're working through systems where there are.
Speaker 2: No clear answers.
Speaker 8: So when we talk about how do we invite in
Speaker 8: these folks who have been disenfranchised, who maybe or are
Speaker 8: feel a little disaffected, how do we make room for them,
Speaker 8: how do we welcome them? And when they see me
Speaker 8: in the place like that, they see that that's possible.
Speaker 8: They see that you know what, even if I don't
Speaker 8: come you know, speaking the same language, I don't come
Speaker 8: with the same background, I don't come from the same
Speaker 8: socio economic status, that my blackness still qualifies me to
Speaker 8: be in Congress.
Speaker 2: That my perspective, my experiences.
Speaker 8: Qualifies me to have an opinion, and that opinion deserves
Speaker 8: to be represented in every hall of power.
Speaker 2: That's what this is about. And right now, when we.
Speaker 8: Think about what we need to do in these next
Speaker 8: forty something days, we need to figure out how do
Speaker 8: we remind and keep our democratic coalition together. How do
Speaker 8: we remind people that even the democratic coalitions of the
Speaker 8: past aren't going to be sufficient right now.
Speaker 2: What we know, what Republicans know, and what.
Speaker 8: We need to know, is that that coalition of black folks,
Speaker 8: of brown folks, of young folks, of progressives, of moderates,
Speaker 8: people who are urban or world and suburban coming together
Speaker 8: right now is what's going to keep us afloat, to
Speaker 8: keep democracy alive well.
Speaker 2: So we need to pull that together.
Speaker 7: You need to go back and tell them when they
Speaker 7: say you can't be progressive and democrat, that they don't
Speaker 7: know our history. If you don't think Shirley Chisholm will progress,
Speaker 7: if you don't think John Lewis was gray, if you
Speaker 7: don't think Charlie Rango was and all of them.
Speaker 2: If you don't think Maxine Waters and Jim Clive right
Speaker 2: not progressive.
Speaker 7: So we have to make sure we keep our history.
Speaker 7: They do that to try to pit us against us.
Speaker 7: When a younger generation comes in and says progressive and
Speaker 7: Black Lives matter, will see I'm from the generation before
Speaker 7: we was raising our fists and seeing black power with
Speaker 7: Jesse Jackson in the eighties.
Speaker 2: So I just want to do it on now, and
Speaker 2: that's what I want to ask.
Speaker 4: This lady said, I have receipts, and on type of received,
Speaker 4: y'all also have time. We have the chairwoman Terry Sewell
Speaker 4: of the Congressional Black Hawkins Foundation who's here, and Nicole Austin,
Speaker 4: Hillary who is the president, who are going to join it,
Speaker 4: And I know y'all got to get ready to go
Speaker 4: meet your president.
Speaker 7: Thank you for letting me.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Congressman Carter, Congresswoman Baby, Congressman summer Lee. We
Speaker 4: are so grateful for your participation today.
Speaker 3: Hey y'all, thanks for listening.
Speaker 4: Remember to rate, review, subscribe, and tune into our regular
Speaker 4: episode that drops every single Thursday, Welcome Home, y'all.
Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership
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