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Harness Your Power and Take Control of Your Citizenship

2020/9/13
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@Janice Mathis : 本期播客重点介绍全国黑人妇女理事会(NCNW)第59届全国代表大会,该大会将以虚拟形式举行,邀请了众多重量级嘉宾,包括众议院议长南希·佩洛西、华盛顿特区市长Muriel Bowser、芝加哥市长Lori Lightfoot和旧金山市长London Breed等。大会将涵盖多个主题,例如投票、种族正义、心理健康、STEAM教育、校园到监狱输送线等,旨在为参与者提供信息、启发和灵感。大会还将特别关注年轻一代,并促进代际交流。此外,大会还将关注企业中的种族和性别问题,并邀请相关企业代表参与讨论。 大会的成功举办离不开技术团队的支持,以及对财务管理的重视。线上会议的形式不仅降低了成本,也提高了效率,使得更多资金可以投入到节目编排中。 大会还将举办一系列的研讨会,涵盖议事规则、财务管理、沟通技巧等方面,旨在提升参与者的能力。 @Davida Mathis : 作为全国黑人妇女理事会第59届全国代表大会的参与者,我高度赞扬了大会的组织和内容。大会嘉宾阵容强大,内容丰富,涵盖了多个重要议题,例如投票、种族正义、心理健康、代际交流等。大会的虚拟形式不仅降低了疫情风险,也使得更多人能够参与其中。 此外,我还特别关注了大会中关于心理健康和儿童创伤的讨论,以及关于种族和性别在企业美国中的研讨会。这些研讨会不仅具有教育意义,也为年轻一代提供了宝贵的学习机会和职业发展方向。 最后,我强调了全国黑人妇女理事会作为社区组织的重要性,以及其在促进社会正义和赋权女性方面的作用。

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Welcome to Sisters in Law, the podcast. We're Janice and Davida Mathis, real sisters, real lawyers, and we really like to talk. On this episode of Sisters in Law, the podcast, we want to talk about the National Council of Negro Women's 59th National Convention.

September 24th through 27th, 2020. And it's all going to be virtual. You can join in by going to ncnw.org. And now, join us for the podcast and learn more about the dynamic speakers and wonderful entertainment at the 59th National Convention of NCNW.

Also learn more about Adulting 101. Take control of your citizenship, which will be Thursday, September 17, 2020 at 8 p.m. You can join Adulting 101 by going to ncnw.org and register. Registration for Adulting 101 is free.

Listen and join in on all the information and the fun. Now, Sisters-in-Law, the podcast. Welcome to Sisters-in-Law, the podcast. We're talking about the National Council of Negro Women 59th National Convention. It's going to be September 24th through 27th, 2020.

Of course, it's going to be virtual this year, and it's going to be a virtual blast. We are the sisters-in-law, Janice and Davida Mathis, real sisters, real lawyers, with really good talk. The talk is all about the National Council of Negro Women

59th National Convention. Well, it's not just a coincidence that we're talking about it. Janice Mathis, my real sister and real lawyer, is the executive director of the National Council of Negro Women. So we're dedicating this podcast episode all to the 59th National Convention.

So, Jan, I've looked over the list of guests and the list of activities, and I can say it is power-packed and filled with stars, celebrities, great information, great entertainment.

thought-provoking conversations and information. It's hard to know where to start, but I think you picked a really good place. With questions and answers from the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Wow, what a bang. Well, you know, I started to try to schedule a meeting with Speaker Pelosi back in February before the pandemic hit.

And I wasn't thinking about the convention, really, just thinking about the fact of what she means to the country, how much power she has, and how effective she has been in using it. So I just thought I would write her a letter and see if I could get a meeting for her and maybe our board of directors and maybe some of our affiliates. You know, NCNW has a little bit of an unusual structure. We have an executive committee with 30 powerful, wonderful women on it, but we also have 30

affiliates and they are organizations like the AKAs, the Deltas, the Links, the missionaries of the AME Church, the missionaries of the AME Zion Church, National Black Nurses, Zeta Phi Beta. All of those organizations are on our board and they're members of our organization. So I said, maybe I can get together a meeting of black women with the speaker. That would be fun.

Well, I didn't hear anything and the pandemic hit and I kind of lost my momentum. But then as I was putting together this schedule for the convention, I said, let me see if Nancy Pelosi might be willing to come. And sure enough, she was available to be with us on September 24th, which is Thursday at 3 p.m. So we will have a session for all 1,400 of our registered guests for the convention.

Q&A with Nancy Pelosi. I may not get a question in with all those 1,400 women and men, but at least we'll have a conversation with her, and I'm very excited about it. Well, it's an honor to be able to have that conversation

that spot with Nancy Pelosi where she can come on and talk to the NCW members and affiliates and the gentlemen who are also members are what do you call them? They're not women, but what kind of members are the men?

They're associate members. Associate members who are men. It's so exciting. And something else that I noticed about National Council of Negro Women, they're not all Negro women. We have a section, which is what NCNW calls their, what you would otherwise think of as chapters, but our section here in Greenville, South Carolina, we have a lot of white women. And they are very active and very dedicated. You don't have to be a Negro woman to

to be a part of NCNW. So for all of us to have an opportunity, an audience with Nancy Pelosi, and for her to be able to talk to us is fantastic. And that's just the beginning. I see the Honorable Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., is also going to be a part of a later session on the very first day, September the 24th.

Yes, at 7 p.m. we'll have Mayor Mariel Bowser. Of course, everybody knows she's the mayor of Washington, D.C. But we learned in the last couple of weeks since this schedule was printed

that we will also have Mayor Lori Lightfoot from Chicago and Mayor London Breed from San Francisco. So that will be quite a session. You know, there's been some talk about cities and cities not being up to snuff and Black women not being able to run cities. I want these women to talk about

the challenges that they face and the opportunities that they have when it comes to infrastructure, when it comes to jobs and housing. You know, running a city is no small task. You've got everything from

the garbage collection to the bond referendum. And so it is complex, but these women are doing an amazing job. So Muriel Bowser, Lori Lightfoot, and London Breed will be our guests at 7 p.m. on Thursday, the 24th of September. And thanks to our friend, Roland Martin, who has a million followers or more,

That session will be broadcast, will be live stream. So we're very grateful for that. Registration, we closed registration on Thursday the 10th. And at that point, we had about 1,300 people registered. Well, when Mr. Glenn, who is our membership director, and I woke up Friday morning, our mailboxes were full of requests for late registration requests.

So we opened it back up today and it will only be open for about 48 hours. So if you want to register, please go to ncnw.org today or tomorrow because we will close it and that will be the final close because we have to get ready.

But so far, we had another 150 people sign up. And because it is virtual and you don't have to get a hotel room, you don't have to get an airplane ticket, the registration fee is only $50. No, I'm sorry, it's $100. It's $50 for our students and young adults.

Well, I wish I knew some students that I could pay for because it's so filled with information, star-studded, informative, inspirational, and every other kind of information that you need that I want to help some young people go if they need the help to go.

And I'm going to give my email address in case some young people are listening and want to go but cannot afford to email me at dmathesattorney at gmail.com. And I'll see if I can make it happen for you.

I was so excited about talking about that first day, the opening of the 59th National Convention for NCNW, that I failed to say that this is all virtual. You know, Jan, you and I talked about it several months ago, several months ago, early in the pandemic.

And we both said that having a live conference would not be feasible in the middle of a pandemic. We had no idea, at least I had no idea what we were really saying.

But as it turned out, it was a very wise decision on your part and the part of the board of NTNW to go on and plan a virtual conference. Wise for two reasons. Number one, we need to come together in this election year. We need the information that's going to be disseminated. And number two, we don't need to put ourselves at more risk by trying to fly, drive, stay in hotels, etc.

mingle with a thousand women to receive this information. Yeah, it just seemed irresponsible to me that we would ask our guests to travel from all four corners of the nation to come to Washington in the midst of the pandemic. And it turned out to be a wise choice, but it was a little bit risky though, because we had already signed a contract

with the Gaylord Hotel, the fabulous Gaylord out at National Harbor on the water for the convention, but they were kind enough to let us out of the contract and give us two years to perform it. So we didn't face any penalty. That made it possible. And then our board was somewhat a little bit skeptical, but they went along with Dr. Cole, our president, Dr. Janetta Cole, and some other members of the board.

saying that we're going to try to do it this way. And so far, it's working out very well. And I do think we made the right decision. Absolutely. I am a very proud member of National Council of Negro Women. And I feel like I'm in the forefront because my organization, National Council of Negro Women, has stepped out on a technological front.

Because, you know, I've been to the convention before. I've been to a couple of huge nationwide events for NC&W. And it seemed far-fetched six months ago that all of this could be done virtually. Well, you know, it took a lot of faith. The magic of technology. And it wasn't completely faith. Because as you know, twice a month we do webinars.

And a webinar is nothing but a virtual, it's a conference call with video and sound and chat. And so we had some experience, but I never tried to do 50 webinars in the space of four days. And essentially that's what it amounts to. But we had a little bit of experience and we found a wonderful young black man down in North Carolina. And his company is called Tech Factory.

And he has some experience. He'd been a television news producer and he was an event planner. So he seemed like the right person for us to hire to help us put this together. Well, you know, while you were talking, I was writing Tech Factory. I not only want to give a plug, but, you know, this won't be the last virtual convention or conference.

And as African-Americans, as women, we need to get on board with technology so we can function because we got a lot to say and we got a lot to do. So I was right in tech factory. One advantage of it is that because when you have a convention in a hotel, obviously there are meals that go with that. And of the money that we raise from registration and sponsorship,

About half of it goes to pay for food that people don't really like and don't always eat. So this time we raised about the same amount of money in terms of registration, but we're able to put more of it in programming. As we go through the program, you'll see that we were able to spend more on entertainment, more on live streaming. So from an economic aspect,

It made a lot of sense to one, but I didn't realize that until we got into the planning. Let me tell you who our three honorary chairs of the convention are. They are impressive women in their own right. Dr. Kim Jeffries Leonard is president of the Links. Martha Dawson is president of the National Black Nurses Association.

Priscilla Murphy is president of Chi Ada Phi. All three of those organizations are affiliates of NCNW and they are what Dr. Cole calls our tri-chairs. They are not co-chairs, they are tri-chairs because it's three of them. They will be there along with delegations and each of the affiliates is entitled to five delegates to the convention.

So about 150 of our guests will be representing the various affiliates.

Well, you're living out what Mary McLeod Bethune envisioned with the National Council of Negro Women being an organization of organizations, not just in name only, but also indeed, because you have these representatives from each affiliate, which means something. It means that women across a wide spectrum of interests and abilities and professions, ages,

and circumstances are brought together under the umbrella of NCNW. And I'm not advertising, but that's just what it is. But Janice, I noticed that all the way through your programming, you have not only information, but you also have inspiration. I see a lot of inspirational words and one that has really caught my attention

is healing our children from trauma in the age of COVID-19. I haven't heard anybody else talk about that. Healing our children from trauma. And I would add on to it, healing their parents as well. Because there's a whole lot of trauma to go along with COVID-19. Absolutely, it is. I mean, the decision whether or not to send your children out of the house to school.

whether or not to even take them to the grocery store with you. I mean, every time you leave your home, you're facing the possibility of serious illness or death. And the children know that. Seven-year-old Chandler, who is, you know, my special friend in Georgia, said to me, well, we can't go but so many places because of the pandemic, Grand Jan. Mm-hmm.

And I said, well, out of the mouths of babes, we cannot assume that these children don't understand what's going on. They are much more sensitive than sometimes we give them credit for. But we've got four excellent presenters for that. Kimberly Underdue is a licensed clinical social worker with a wonderful practice down in Atlanta. Tarika McCall is a PhD candidate who's done some interesting research about mental health

and Black folk and stigma and whether we might be more willing to engage in mental health counseling if it was done virtually. And then Serisha Olatunji is a very experienced practitioner. I think she's from New York who will be on that panel, and it'll be moderated by Tamara Wiles Lawson, a remarkable

She's a remarkable young doctor. She worked for Al Gore. She worked in the Democratic Party. She's on the board of several other organizations, and she's on our board. She co-chairs our program committee. One thing I can say about our board, they roll up their sleeves and they help us get the job done. So I'm sure that that will be a good session, that healing. And it's not our first one on trauma. We started doing webinars on trauma from COVID

starting with a male perspective on COVID back in April. So it has become a little bit of a signature trademark for NCNW. You can't be under this much pressure day in and day out without it taking a toll on you. And so you got to acknowledge that and deal with it. And you're the one who helped me to the importance of mental health. You know, you always talk about how it's one thing to talk to the pastor about

And if he's a licensed social worker, that might be all you need. But sometimes we need a little bit more help. And there are all kinds of professionals out here. And they're black, they're women, they're men, they're white. You can choose whatever kind you want. But if you're feeling stressed out, depressed, uncertain, confused,

Don't think you just have to suffer with it. Reach out and get help. And that's the message of business. It's aimed at children, but it's really for all of us.

Well, Jan, being a lawyer, you can't help but run into a whole lot of people who are having mental health issues. It just goes together. People with mental health issues often have legal problems. And I see it a lot, particularly in our African-American population. We think that if we go to church, if we believe in Jesus or believe in Muhammad,

that we won't have mental problems or emotional problems. That simply is not true. And I would like to see the paradigm change rather than say the pastor may not be able to do it. We should stop assuming that pastors and spiritual leaders are equipped to deal with our mental health problems. They're not. I know where we got that from because for a long time, African-Americans

weren't able to afford psychiatry or psychologists or even social workers. We didn't have access to mental health therapy. We didn't have access to insurance that would pay for it.

And so out of necessity to a large part, we denied that we needed it, but we do need it because we are under a lot of stress, especially now. That's my little sermon about mental health. But I find more people with mental health issues who are trying to doctor on themselves by using alcohol or drugs or trying to shout it out and you can't do it. And now in the pandemic,

Most of us don't even get to go to church. And so we really need to address our mental health issues. I noticed you have five concurrent workshops and I can't talk about all five of them, but I'm going to talk about a couple of them that mean a lot to me. Developing STEAM programs, science, technology, engineering, arts and math programs and the school to prison pipeline.

needs to be discussed. And I would love to be in all the workshops, but they're happening simultaneously, I think. Yes, those five are in competition with each other. And let me just say a word about Dr. Alotta Taylor, who is doing the STEAM workshop. She works at NASA.

here in Washington. She's one of the leading Blacks at NASA, Black people at NASA. And so she's putting together that workshop. We've got one on school to prison pipeline. And that is being presented by a mother-daughter team who have a specialty in talking about how to make sure your children don't get in that pipeline.

You notice a lot of this is focused on the family. NCNW's mission is to lead, advocate for, and empower women of African descent, their families and communities. Because you know if our families are okay, we can manage. But if your family is in trouble, that means it's hard for mama to be content if the babies are not content. So we've got to-

We've got parliamentary procedure. And, you know, some of this is internal because we do have 320 something sections all over the country. And they are like organizations in their own right. So we provide them some technical assistance on things like parliamentary procedure and financial management bylaws, that sort of thing when they come to convention. And of course, everybody needs communication. If you don't know

know how to operate a Zoom account, you may be being left behind. That's part of bridging the digital divide is being at every day. I don't leave my house. I have not gone to the office for about three times since March.

But I'm busy all day long. What am I doing? I'm on Webex. I'm on Zoom. I'm on BlueJeans. I'm on Microsoft Teams. I'm on Google Meet all day long. I think I'm busier now in the house than I was at the office.

Well, Janet, we're even having court on a Zoom-like app called WebEx. It's just like Zoom, but it's supposed to be more secure. And WebEx is very popular now. A lot of the corporations use WebEx because of the security aspects.

Well, if I were not able to use my computer or not willing to, because a lot of people are afraid to. And so demystifying it will help a lot of people. And I know Mr. Kevin Johannes and Arianne Jamison will do a wonderful job on that.

I wanted to mention this financial management. Financial management. Is that financial management for people or is that for the organization? That's for the NCNW section leaders. You know, they take in dues. They have events of their own. They sponsor different kinds of programs. So they have to manage their own financial house. And we want to make sure that they know

you know, proper procedures for use of a credit card or checking account, how to keep good financial records. That's aimed at our membership.

And I tell you, it's very important for the integrity of the organization. You know better than I do. But the way, let me just break it down like I feel it. And this is just me. The way black people fall out is over money. It doesn't have to be a lot of money, especially when it's group money. And there may not be anything, there may not be any malfeasance going on.

but it may not look right. And so it causes, could cause confusion. So financial management is key in keeping an organization

on a local level or any other level together. And we want to stay together. The way we're organized, each one of them has their own 501c3 number and they have to file a 990 report at the end of the year. So it's our responsibility because they are subdivisions of NCNW. We have to take measures. You know, it's prudent for us

to take measures to ensure that they're in compliance, because if they get out of compliance, that could throw in CNW National out of compliance. But for the most part, they have a lot of integrity and they understand what the responsibility is and their checks and balances. But this is just a way of reinforcing that message. The main reason we get together is to talk about what's going to happen on November the 3rd.

And the next session, 7 p.m., is a town hall meeting Friday night. We call it Protest in Our Voices, Power in Our Votes. That is a session all about turning out the vote. It's moderated by Paulette Norville Lewis, former executive with the U.S. Department of Labor. We've got Melanie Campbell, Marsha Fudge, of course, is a congresswoman.

Sherrilyn Eiffel, I understand, and Hillary Shelton from the NAACP. We invited Congresswoman Val Demings, but so far we have not heard from her. So just pray that she is able to join us because I think she is an up and comer. If you don't know who Val Demings is from Florida, check her out, look her up. She's the real deal. She was in the running for vice president along with Kamala Harris. I think Kamala Harris is a great pick.

But I think that we are blessed with abundant talent among these black women members of Congress.

Well, I've always been impressed with Val Demings ever since I've known who she was. I knew she was in the running, well, being considered to run for vice president. And it's an honor to be considered. But this is not the last time we're going to hear her name in that context. She's outstanding and charismatic. And she's from Florida, which is a very important state. It is. But, Jan, this is...

a really powerful town hall meeting with some powerful women that are going to discuss really the big topic for 2020, the election. Oh, and Kwaise Mfume is going to be there. You remember him from the march in Greenville?

For the King holiday? I remember him from the NAACP and from the Congress and the King's holiday and all of the above. Well, he was elected to fill Elijah Cummings. After we lost Congressman Elijah Cummings from Baltimore, he has stepped in. He has been elected to fill that seat.

And he's a good friend of my vice president, Dr. Thelma Daly. A lot of deltas know Dr. Thelma Daly. If you're a Catholic woman, you know Thelma Daly. If you're from Baltimore, you know Thelma Daly. If you've ever been a school guidance counselor, you know Thelma Daly. But she is our program chair. And she said, I think I get quite easy to come. I said, well, why don't you do that, Dr. Daly? That would be wonderful.

It's good to know connected people, isn't it? It's wonderful. And that's one thing about NCNW. We have some very influential Ingrid Jones, Janetta Cole, Dr. Thelma Daly, Honorable Alexis Herman. So many women who have made tremendous contributions, not only to NCNW, but to the country. But the other thing I like about NCNW, there is no initiation program.

There are no large initiation fees. You don't have to have a college degree. NCNW is truly for every woman who wants to make a difference in her community. Every man who wants to make a difference in his community.

It's a wonderful organization. It tickles me to see the self-care coloring and cocktails with the facilitator, Dr. Tony Lewis. Now tell me what does self-care have to do with coloring? I can figure out what it has to do with cocktails. Who in the world is Dr. Tony Lewis and what is her doctorate degree? Dr. Tony Lewis is a medical doctor who specializes in health disparities.

If you look her up, she is really very accomplished. And Dr. Janetta Cole was not tickled when she saw that self-care coloring and cocktails. I get my coloring book and my cocktail, and I can't wait to hear what Dr. Tony Lewis has to say. There is a whole movement that I was not aware of among Black women to use coloring books as a form of stress relief.

And so Dr. Cole named it, she renamed it, what did she call it? Self-care, meditation, and joy. So she didn't like the cocktail reference in it. So we're going to have to change that. Meditation and joy, okay. Believe it or not, NCNW has published a coloring book. And they tell me the coloring book is full of images of Black women.

including Dr. Cole and all the former presidents of NCNW. And there's a picture of me in there that you can color. And it's also got meditations in it. It's got scriptural references in it. It's got affirmations in it. So it's kind of a mindfulness. If you're feeling stressed, I used to love to color. Coloring was one of my favorite activities. So you can go to ncnw.org. You can register for the convention and you can buy the coloring book.

They tell me the people who color say that it's hard to find a coloring book with black people in it. We've got a hundred page coloring book full of images of black folk that can be colored. And you go to the back of the book and there's places where you can do affirmations and read some scriptural references that are inspirational. So it's meant to be inspirational. What can I tell you?

Well, I can't wait. I did not see the coloring book on the website because I registered so long ago. I felt like this convention was going to fill up and I registered myself. Oh, you did? Very early. The first deadline. And then there was a second deadline and now there's a third. Third deadline. But that's it. Because we got to get ready. We can't keep it open because there's some things we have to do

I mean, for example, you have to give everybody the link so they can sign in, you know, and you have to make sure that your bandwidth is sufficient to carry all that traffic. Matter of fact, we had to up the bandwidth of the office internet connection in order to host this convention.

And we had to do it. You know, sometimes going to conferences and conventions, I feel kind of guilty about the amount of, well, let me just say it, the amount of money that's spent on hotels and accommodations, food and the like.

I feel like the money could be better spent in programming. And because of the pandemic and because of the way NTNW adapted, you are spending that money in programming. And we're getting a whole lot out of it as a result. Now, nobody wanted a pandemic, but...

we're getting a lot more out of this convention than perhaps we could have just a regular convention. Think about what it costs to travel across the country and stay in a hotel for four or five days. You're talking about it somewhere between $1,000 and $1,500 plus your registration fee, which in the past had been somewhere between $300 and $500. We were able to charge $50 or $100 for this convention

You get as much content at much less expense. So I think I don't think even when the pandemic is over that we will go back to every convention. There'll be times when you want to get together and see each other and hug and all that. But I think that this new way of doing things is here to stay.

I think so too, Jane. I think we've learned a lot of lessons that were good lessons. And we've done all of this and we're just getting to day three, Saturday. Yeah, we're going to be tired by the time it's over. Not necessarily because we're not running from place to place. We're not running around a hotel. We don't have to grab meals in between things. I think we're going to be more informed and more relaxed in this setting.

But day three features intergenerational perspectives with Alexis Herman. Now, if you're not familiar with Alexis Herman, Alexis Herman was the secretary of the Department of Labor under Clinton, wasn't she? That's correct.

She is an outstanding person, along with being a person with great experiences and the ability to communicate. She is going to be on that panel with Arianna Brasher, Dr. Janetta B. Cole, the Chairman of the Board of NCNW and President of NCNW, and Leah Levi, moderated by Thelma T. Daly, who you were talking about earlier.

Yeah, now, Dr. Cole, when Dr. Cole was elected president of NCNW two years ago in 2018, she made an acceptance speech. And it was very simple. She basically said that there were two goals that she had for NCNW. One, if social justice was on the menu, we would have a seat at the table.

And two, that NCNW would become more intergenerational. Now, granted, we have 80 college sections of NCNW, sections on college campuses. But we had not really developed and attended to the younger folk in NCNW the way we needed to, so that when they graduate from college, they stayed with NCNW.

So that's been her goal for these last two years. And that's what you're seeing with this intergenerational perspective. Ariana Branson is a PhD student. She was president of the Spelman section of NCNW. She's working on her PhD. Her PhD is in play therapy. So she knows all about coloring and cocktails and such. And she's going to represent the youth. And Leah Levi is a college student.

So they're going to talk about the ways that sometimes we unintentionally block the young people from taking a real road. They said, look, we don't want to just take names and hand out name badges and do the grunt work. We want to be involved in thinking about the programs and activities.

Dr. Cole said, okay. Our board met Thursday and she appointed Ariana and two other brilliant young women to a committee on young adult affairs for NCMW. And so this is an important milestone where we're institutionalizing the involvement of young folk in NCMW. I'm excited to hear what they have to say.

Well, it certainly means that NPNW will survive because, you know, the old folks have all kinds of experience and all types of wisdom, but the young folks are going to move this organization into the future. And I look forward to hearing what they have to say about intergenerational perspectives.

Jan, we got so much on the list that we can't get it all in, but one thing I want to get in on day three, which is Saturday, September the 26th, is the race and gender in corporate America. Oh, yeah. Now, this is basically comprised of representatives of some of our sponsors. Teresa Roseborough, who is one of the panelists, is general counsel for the Home Depot.

Donna Michelle Fields represents Colgate-Palmolive. Alva Adams is an executive with Toyota. Gigi Dixon, many of us know because she's with UPS. And Nicole Clifton is a lawyer with responsibility for all the government relations for UPS.

Now, wait a minute. Gigi Dixon is with Wells Fargo, right? Gigi Dixon is with Wells Fargo. Okay. Did I misspeak? I didn't mean to. You said UPS, but I knew you meant Wells Fargo. But Nicole Clifton is with UPS. Now, I smile every time I see Nicole Clifton's name. Nicole is a lawyer. She's about, maybe she's in her 40s now. But when she was a teenager, she was a Dell team.

Do you remember something called Jabberwock? Do I remember the Jabberwock? Okay, yeah. Do you remember doing the choreography for the talent show we called Jabberwock, sponsored by Delta Sigma Theta in Athens, Georgia? Not only that, Jan, I remember Nicole. Well, Nicole Clifton is now a grown-up lady with teenage children.

And her mother, I don't know if your mother was online. We play it together. I remember her mother's a school principal in Athens. This young woman now is one of the most powerful women in Washington, D.C. And she is also a benefactor of NCNW. And she's going to be on this panel. What we hope to accomplish are a couple of things. Corporate America is very concerned about the pandemic.

The pandemic has revealed things that we've known all the time, that there is still institutional racism in the United States. And it's in health care, it's in education, it's in policing, it's everywhere, including corporate America. So we want them to talk about what can we do as a community organization to help them overcome some of the barriers that they face.

But the other thing which is most important, too, is to show our, we probably got 150 of our college students coming to this convention virtually. We want them to see what the path looks like. If you want to be general counsel of Home Depot, this is what that looks like. If you want to be chief government affairs lawyer for UPS, this is how you get there.

So it's an opportunity for them to see real live role models. This is one that I spent a lot of time putting together and I'm just excited to sit back and hear what they have to say. Well, we all should be excited, especially young people, because if you want to get there, you got to find out how. You got to find out what you need to do. It's like going to school and taking the prerequisites for a certain class. You need to have the prereqs.

to build a career like these women have built. I'm excited to hear that. I am extremely excited to hear on Saturday at 6:00 PM, that's Saturday, September 26th, Keith Ellison. You may not recognize the name, but Keith Ellison played a very pivotal role in the prosecution of the police officer who killed George Floyd.

Keith Ellison is the Attorney General. Janice, explain how you got in touch with Keith Ellison. Well, back in the day when I was working for Reverend Jackson, we would have conventions for Rainbow Push. And one of the things Reverend Jackson always wanted to do was to gather Black elected officials from around the country to talk about their experiences, share their challenges, their hopes, their successes,

At that time, Keith Ellison was in the state legislature in Minnesota. I don't know how I found his name, but my job was to organize those panel discussions. Keith came to several of them. Not long after that, he went to Congress. Then not long after that, more recently, he was elected Attorney General for the state of Minnesota. It is his responsibility to obtain justice for the family of George Floyd.

You know, we think about, you were one of the first, if not the first, black female prosecutor in South Carolina. And you know how important, you would tell me, say, well, nobody can tap a warrant in the courthouse but me. Prosecutors have an immense amount of discretion. They decide how and what to prosecute people for.

One of the reasons we get the short end of the stick in justice is because there are not enough black prosecutors. And since we've now got a former prosecutor on the presidential ticket of one of the major campaigns, I thought it would be good to have the perspective of black prosecutors. And Marilyn Mosby's name may not be familiar, but she is also, she's the state's attorney for the city of Baltimore.

And so that ought to be a lively session. And I'm looking forward to that one as well. The moderator for that is someone who is second generation or third generation Black royalty. Her family owns the LA Sentinel. You may have heard of Danny Bakewell. Danny Bakewell is still a mover and shaker in Los Angeles. His daughter has recently taken over the publishing empire of Bakewell Enterprises. And she's going to moderate that panel.

You know, I wanted to moderate that one myself, but I said, well, let your guests go first. Well, I was thinking I wanted to be on that panel, but you have the right people on that panel. And thinking about Keith Ellison being the Attorney General of Minnesota, he's not only bringing justice to the family of George Floyd, he's bringing justice to the people of Earth.

Because you remember when Derek Michael Chauvin was first charged, he was charged with some manslaughter type charge. I talked about how he was charged wrong. The only person in the state of Minnesota who could fix that was Keith Ellison. Because he overruled the county. He overruled the county DA and said, no, we're going to take this statewide and I'm going to charge him with murder.

And he was the only person in the state of Minnesota or anywhere who could have done that. He was the right man in the right place at the right time. And I believe in protest. You know I do. I love to protest. But the reason that Derek Michael Chauvin is charged with murder and the killer of Breonna Taylor is not being charged with murder is that Kentucky doesn't have the right attorney general. And I will say, go ahead.

They have an African-American attorney general in Kentucky, but he is not of the persuasion to want to prosecute police for misconduct. And so it's very important what Keith Ellison does, and I can't wait to hear what he has to say. Thank you.

And, you know, you can't judge people by their color. Just because they're black doesn't mean that they have a philosophy that will benefit most black folk. The other thing I want to say about Keith, I hadn't talked to him in years. I hadn't seen him in years. I'd see him on the news, see him on television, but I hadn't talked to him.

I called, Cole called his office in Minnesota. And I said, tell him Janice Mathis, who used to be with Rainbow Push, would like to speak to him in five minutes. He called me back. Wow. Well, that shows. And if you want to be on that panel, you can facilitate that panel if you like.

You got a moderator. I can listen. It's going to be so worthwhile and everybody who's an attorney, everybody who's thinking about running for public office needs to be aware

tuned in on Saturday, September the 26th at 6 p.m. Got to register first. But be sure to listen to that dialogue on racial justice and criminal justice reform. Well, finally, Janice, we haven't talked about everything, but finally, which is Sunday, September 27th, the final day of the conference. So much going on, but you know what I want to talk about. I'm sorry. I know I'm shallow.

but I want to talk about two things. The Clark sisters and Eric Denae. Tell me about the Clark sisters. Well, you know what? I've watched the Karen Clark Shears reality show on Oprah Winfrey Network. I think it's cute and fun. The family is interesting to me. I was not all that familiar with how

beloved they are and how talented they are and how famous they are. It's hard to think that we grew up in the same home. Yeah, it is. It's like we're two halves of one whole personality. But Michelle Holder, who you know, Michelle works as our office manager. She said, I think I can get the Clark sisters. I said, okay, go get them. Michelle is a good girl. Sure enough, for a very reasonable fee,

Despite all their fame and popularity, they are riding high right now. They will be with us Sunday morning for our devotional service when we swear in our officers. And so we're excited about it. Sunday morning at 10 o'clock. Yes, Sunday morning at 10 o'clock.

The Clark sisters can't believe it. I'm so happy. This just must be devoted to the organization and the mission of NCNW. Well, they said it's a discount. I thought it was, to me, it seemed like a pretty good little fee, but they said it was a real discount because they love the work that we do and they appreciate NCNW and they knew Dr. Hyde. And I said, well, okay.

And every time I mention it, people go, you got the Clark sisters? Well, they've been big since the 70s. They have not gone off the scene since the 70s. How many black women? Well, I'm just going to say not a lot of black women have had a movie, a television movie made about their family, not just a movie, a miniseries. So, yeah. Well, I got to watch it so I can be in the know.

Yeah, it's just hard to believe we grew up in the same home, but you have so many abilities that I only wish I had. Just one thing I like to do is keep up with music, but people are different and I can't wait. And I can, you see, this is the thing I can always depend on. I didn't have to do that. You were better at it. You understood music. You could hear music. Remember we would sit on the piano and say, you don't hear that? I said, no, I don't hear it.

I don't know what you're talking about. I never said that. Yes, you did. Okay, now talk about Eric Benet. Well, same thing with Eric Benet. I called Nicole Martin, a friend of mine in Atlanta whose grandmother taught with Mama in Greenville. She does talent booking. And I said, I'm looking for somebody for my gala. She came, and it was you and she. I gave you that assignment. Y'all came back with Eric Benet. I said, fine with me. I don't care.

He too came up with a reasonable proposal. He's going to do a 45-minute set. They're taping it out in Los Angeles. His people have been easy as pie to deal with. But I found out later, this is not his first NCNW gala. It's not his second NCNW gala. It's his third or fourth NCNW gala. So he too is a fan and somebody who's been in the NCNW family for a long time, but I didn't know it.

So God takes care of babies and fools, right? We need to go back and just mention the where do we go from here session. Now we're talking about Sunday the 27th. Oh, yeah. We left out the important part. Naomi Wadler is a teenager. I think she's in the eighth grade. But if you remember the March for Our Lives about gun violence, this was a little girl who stole the show.

At 13, or I think she was about 11 then, she was remarkable, phenomenal speaker. She's going to be giving us some direction on where do we go from here, along with Reverend Al Sharpton and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus from California, Karen Bass, along with Dr. Cole, of course. It doesn't get much better than that. And on that note, we end our 59th convention and go back out to do the work that we're called to do

which is to make sure each and everybody that we can find or think of goes to the polls between now, I won't say on November 3rd, between now and November 3rd, create a plan for voting. Create a plan for voting. That is what we must do. This coming Thursday night, NCNW is hosting something we call Adulting 101. Take control of your citizenship.

So far, we've got about 300 people signed up for that. I imagine it's going to go up some more before the end of the week. But it features Angela Ryan, who is often on CNN. I see her with Mario Cuomo's son. They're going back and forth. But she will be on there along with a rapper from Ohio who's got a song out called My Boat Don't Count.

But the song, the title is not indicative of the message. Named Yellow Pain would have the color of bananas. But he is a talented young rapper. And more important than being talented, he is principled and has a very fine social conscience at 25. So I'm anxious he's going to do Q&A with our audience. And we're going to be encouraging the young folk to get out and vote.

This is going to be on Thursday, September the 17th. Thursday, September the 17th. You can go to ncnw.org and register for Adulting 101. Adulting. Now, where did that word come from? And is that a word or did y'all make it up? It came from Avery Adams. Oh, okay.

I told Avery, I said, I want something that young people will understand about this is their responsibility. It's not because somebody else died. It's not because this is, if you're a citizen in America, this is what you're supposed to do. She said, oh, they're going adulting. I said, what is that? She said, when you behave like a grown-up, that is adulting. Okay. You're accepting adult responsibility. I'm going to go pay my taxes. I'm going adulting.

All right. I'm going to get my car washed. I'm adulting today. It's a slang term, but I thought it was cool. And so that's where it came. You asked me. You didn't know it came from Haven. No.

I get a lot of my stuff from Avery. I get a lot of my stuff from Avery, too, so don't feel bad. Adulting 101, that's going to be on Thursday, September 17th. What time does it start, Jan? It starts at 8 p.m., and we're paying special tribute to two of the oldest HBCUs, Wilberforce and Cheney.

Wilberforce University in Ohio and Cheney University right outside of Philadelphia. Yeah. I call them rival universities. You know, my hobby and my joy is to work with HBCUs. And both of them claim to be the oldest HBCU.

And both of them have rightful claims. Cheney was founded in 1837. Cheney calls itself the first HBCU. They weren't founded as Cheney University. They were founded as the African Institute. Started by Richard Humphreys, a Quaker philanthropist. But it was called the African Institute. And then it has several names.

It's gone through some location changes, several name changes. And finally, it used to be called Cheney State and now it's Cheney University. Wilberforce was founded in 1863. And these years are important because that was why slavery was still going on in the South. In Wilberforce, Ohio, it seemed far-fetched at the time that Africans or descendants of Africans

could be educated. It seemed crazy because we were mostly enslaved in the South. And it was illegal for us to be educated in the South. And it was illegal for us to be educated in the South. But Bishop Payne of the AME Church was the first president of Wilberforce. It's the first college in America to have an African-American president. So

So both of them are stored universities and both of them will be featured in Adulting 101. Yep. So we're proud about that. We're pleased about that. And then on Friday the 18th, we skipped over this workshop about the red card against violence and discrimination. That's important.

The United Nations is an organization that NCNW belongs to. We belong to it from the beginning. Mayor McLeod Bethune was at the very first session of the United Nations back in the 30s.

And we have a desk there to this day. They have a campaign against violence and discrimination against women and girls all over the globe. We're trying to get a million signatures. The red card comes from soccer, which is the most popular sport in the world. If you commit a penalty, if you commit a violation on the soccer field, they give you a red card.

So we're giving a red card to perpetrators of violence and discrimination against women and girls. You can find that link also at ncnw.org. So we got to, but there is a, I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought. On Friday the 18th at 10 a.m., there is a UN conference on violence and discrimination against women and girls, women in the diaspora.

And that is free and open to the public. You can register and go there. So it's just a lot of activity going on. All of it is informative and worthwhile. And we hope that you will visit ncnw.org, visit us on Facebook, visit us on Instagram, and let us know what you're thinking. And we hope that you will find time to join us for some of these events. And thank you for allowing me to take this whole podcast for NCNW.

Well, it's quite worthwhile. I can't wait. We've been talking about the National Council for Negro Women, NCNW, 59th National Convention. We've also been talking about the Adulting 101, Take Control of Your Citizenship. You can find detailed information and register on ncnw.org. Do it. You will not regret it. Well, thanks a lot, Jan. I can't wait.

I want to say one more thing. I want to shout out to Mignon Moore and Donna Brazil and Leah, Reverend Leah Daltrey. Today was, I think it's the third Power Rising Summit. It was virtual. It was fantastic. They had a message from Kamala Harris at the end. Watch that video too. Power Rising. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, we're the sisters-in-law.

Yeah, we are. All right. We're real. Hopefully this is some really good talking. I know you'll get some good stuff for the conference. Register for Adulting 101.

We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!

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