- Hi, everyone.

Steve Adubato.

You're about to hear an important conversation on making a difference.

Making a difference in the lives of others, particularly as it relates to social justice.

Service to others.

We feature two winners of the 2023 Russell Berrie Award for making a difference.

We're honored to be joined by Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber.

He is chief activist and founder of the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice.

We're also joined by Dr. Norma Bowe, as Director of Be the Change NJ and Professor of Public Health at Kean University.

I wanna thank both of you for joining us.

- Thank you for having us.

- Yes, indeed.

It's an honor and pleasure, Steve.

Thank you.

- You got it.

Robt Martin, do this for us.

As a student of the Civil Rights Movement who knew of Bayard Rustin way back, tell us what, other than the fact that he worked closely with Dr. King.

1963 March on Washington and Bayard Rustin.

Who he was, why he matters so much, so people understand the context for the name of the organization, please.

- I appreciate the opportunity to raise up the name of such an incredibly important civil rights hero, queer Black icon.

He was, when I speak about Bayard Rustin, people think I'm engaging hyperbole.

And I often do, but not when I'm talking about Bayard.

Bayard Rustin organized the march in '63.

He inspired the Freedom Riders.

He sat down on a bus before Rosa Parks did.

He spoke truth to power.

He coined that term.

He was the godfather of intersectionality some 20 years before Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term.

He did all these things and so, so, so much more.

But he was lost to history.

He was edited out of history books, excised from the stories told, because of who he loved, who he was.

- You were at the march?

- Was I at the march?

Actually, I marched on Washington in the Womb a few years later, but not at that one.

- Okay.

So, and your name, Robt Martin.

Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Robt Martin.

- Yes, indeed.

Robert F. Kennedy, the good one.

And Martin Luther King, of course, a king in all sense of the word.

It's a mantle that I hold proudly.

My parents named me, gave me this mantle, gave me this honor, gave me this privilege, and I carry it forth every day in the work that I do.

- Thank you.

Dr. Bowe, explain to us, Be the Change.

What is it as we put up the website?

And also make it clear that Kean University, one of our higher ed partners, please, Doctor.

- Yes.

So Be the Change was largely a student activist group.

About 14 years ago, we started doing things like going down to the Gulf after the BP oil spill.

The students here, they didn't wanna meet about it, they didn't wanna talk about it.

They wanted to do something.

We completely made over a teen homeless shelter, and then brought nine of 12 teens here to Kean University as students.

And then that just lit the fire for everyone.

We realized we had something really big going on here.

And in 2015 we became a nonprofit.

Our name Be The Change, of course comes from the famous Gandhi quote, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

- Be the change you hope to see in life.

- And yeah, be the change.

So we believe that you're not who you say you are.

You are what you do.

And when we see something happening in the community, we wanna do something to make it better.

We work in partnerships with dozens of other community-based organizations.

We have things like garden projects.

We've completely homicide mapped all of Newark, for instance.

We take empty lots and we turn them into garden projects.

We are embedded in the community and we love the work we do.

- And real quick, before I go back to Robt Martin.

That food insecurity, as you and your colleagues see it, is in fact an issue of social justice, please.

- It is a social justice issue and it may, Steve, be the greatest social justice or civil rights issue of our time.

So many people are food insecure.

Be the Change gets food from the Community Food Bank in Hillside and we deliver food every single week to two to 300 families.

And every time I think our list might get smaller, Steve, it gets bigger.

There are so many people hungry.

And especially this time of year with school closed.

But we're very dedicated to food security.

We also feed the homeless at least once a week.

And we're very involved with homelessness relief as well.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

Robt Martin, do this for us.

Your organization, dedicated to creating safe spaces to assist people who are homeless, food insecure, as Norma mentioned, victims of violence, and are members of the LGBTQ plus community.

Talk about the last part in particular.

- Indeed.

Well, first of all, if I may, much love and respect to Dr. Bowe.

What incredible work you're doing.

Thank you for doing it, my friend.

That kind of angelic troublemaking is what we all aspire to.

And I believe that the work we're doing together, we are the first responders.

Now we are the ones that are hopefully heading off crises, rather than putting people into them.

So thank you so much for all the work you're doing and the kids are doing, and your organization is doing.

It's an incredible honor to be on the program with you.

And Steve, - Right back at you, Robt.

- Thank you.

And Steve, to answer your question directly, yeah.

I was a public school teacher for almost 25 years.

I taught in the same school I went to as a student.

In that time, in middle school, I created the first Gay Straight Alliance in a middle school in New Jersey.

And it was the continuation of my journey.

Understanding that these kids and our families needed these safe spaces.

And that's not just a term that we bandy about lightly.

This is something that's lifesaving, that is life-affirming, that shows people and gives people the recognition and the respect they deserve, they need.

And we're so honored to provide it.

We have dedicated trained volunteers here at the center every day to make sure that we're open for folks who need or want a space.

And that might be a conversation, might be a meaningful moment shared.

It might just mean that they want to come in and read one of the thousands of books we have in our dedicated social justice library.

- Real quick follow up.

And I see the Russell Berrie Award for Making a Difference over your right shoulder.

And meeting both of you and the other honorees.

I've said this many times, I've been honored to emcee, to host that extraordinary event, the Russell Berrie Awards for Making a Difference, the annual event at Ramapo College.

It is great to, it is powerful, impactful to see, to be with all of you.

But I want to ask you, Robt, real quick follow up on that.

Being acknowledged with your colleagues, you're talking about Norma before.

And Norma, I'll ask you the same thing.

What impact has that had on you?

Why does it mean so much, Robt?

- Oh, it's an incredible, extraordinary honor.

And what a meaningful moment it was.

And thank you Steve, for the work that you've done for so long with the organization.

They've been doing this for decades.

And it seems like a lot of these awards are superficial.

A lot of these awards don't have much meaning behind them.

The Russell Berrie Foundation has been, and Ramapo College supporting it, has been doing this in such a fashion.

It's incredible their vision of who they choose to honor and how they choose to honor these folks.

And, I can say, as a queer person like myself, be honored in this way, it means something to me personally, obviously.

It's a great honor.

I am thrilled.

I'm over the moon.

But it means so much more to our beloved community who sees someone like myself or Dr. Bowe, or all the other honorees and they were incredible.

And every year they are incredible.

To see all those folks honored and the people in the communities they serve, it's such an inspiration, and allows us all to move forward together in that parallel journey we're taking.

- Robt Martin, to your point, we're gonna put up the website for the Russell Berrie Foundation for people to acknowledge and recognize and nominate.

There are different periods when the nomination process is open, but go on that website to find out more.

Doctor, you heard Robt Martin talk about his perspective and his view of that event.

But also winning the award and being with your colleagues, making a difference.

What has it meant to you?

- Well, I wanna ditto everything that Robt said.

I could cry thinking about being nominated by my group, by my colleagues here at Kean University.

I didn't know that I was being nominated and I frankly was quite shocked when I found out that I was an honoree.

None of us do this for the recognition.

We do it because it makes a difference.

And service work is very healing work.

- What do you mean by that?

Norma?

- Well, - What do you mean by that?

- Yeah.

So I teach a course on death here at Kean University, Steve.

It has a three-year wait list.

We have a lot of people grieving.

Our young people are grieving the loss of their grandparents, for instance.

But many of them have lost people to suicide.

Three quarters of my classes have lost people to homicide.

People have been discriminated against, that Robt so eloquently has been talking about.

There's so much grief.

And I find that service work is grief work.

It takes us from feeling helpless about certain situations and it gives us some power over our circumstances.

It gives us some power over the change that needs to happen in some of our communities.

When we go into a community, for instance, and make a garden, especially in a high-crime, let's say, area.

It gives people hope.

It gives people the opportunity to get out and be together, in a different kind of way and to be a real neighborhood.

And so we don't do it for the recognition.

We do it for the work.

It's very meaningful and purposeful work.

But it was just, I can't even describe the feeling that I had when I found out that I was an honoree.

It was extraordinary, especially from the Russell Berrie Foundation, which is just an extraordinary organization.

- Robt Martin, let me follow up with you on this.

You talked a little bit about why you do what you do.

What your parents taught you, gave you, showed you.

Not just simply by what they said, but more importantly by their actions.

For you, with the LGBTQ plus community being targeted by so many by, Talk about what the real human impact has been, not just from a social justice point of view, but from a human point of view on the LGBTQ plus community at this point in time in 2023.

Please.

- Yeah.

This is a dark moment.

This is a difficult time.

This is a tender time in our nation's history and our culture, especially for queer folks.

And for us it's always about resilience.

And we just had our Pride Parade and after party here in Princeton exactly a month ago.

And we had over 4,000 folks marching in solidarity, dancing in celebration, because we have to embrace who we are, how we love.

And that's the way we win.

That's the way we move forward.

And the Center is extraordinary because we get to embrace that intersectionality that Bayard Rustin embodied.

And by doing that, we get to bring together all of these different disparate, beautifully diverse communities.

And we get to do these extraordinary events and these powerful programs.

We have Martha Hickson, who is an award-winning librarian, who is absolutely my North Star.

And she has created our Defenders of the Right To Read program.

And what we're doing there is we are working toward combating censorship, battling book banning, and making sure that our kids and our adults, and by the way, we are just as involved with our seniors and our elders in the community to make sure that when they go to a library, when they go to school, when they're in the greater community, they can see themselves in the stories they read, in the things that they see.

And it's the only way that we can find those windows and those mirrors to be able to move forward and to say, "This is who I am.

And I'm inspired by this person, or that story or this incident or this gathering."

And that's what we do here at the Center and that's what we do in the greater community.

- Well said, Robt Martin.

Norma, I'm gonna come back to you on this.

In a couple minutes left.

In the polarized environment that we live in, and the people can decide for themselves how the political process is playing out.

But this isn't political, it's more human, and in terms of society and the way we interact with each other.

Where is the silver lining, the reason, not even reasons plural, the reason, the primary reason why we should be positive about making a difference, particularly when it comes to service to others and social justice, with all of what's going on.

And it seems like a lot of hatred and divisiveness.

The reason to be positive, other than seeing the two of you and the other Russell Berrie awardees for Making a Difference is?

Please finish that sentence.

- Well, Steve, programs like this.

We're only hearing negativity and we're only hearing about things that polarize us, right?

People are good.

People are inherently good.

And people want to help others.

People want to make communities a better place, a safer place, like Robt so eloquently talked about.

People wanna make a difference.

And that's the real story.

It's not all this negativity.

It's really not about politics.

It's about people.

- Well said.

We'll continue the conversation, I promise, with you and the other Russell Berrie awardees for Making a Difference.

And Robt Martin, to you, thank you.

To you, Dr. Norma Bowe, thank you for the work you're doing every day.

We appreciate it.

We look forward to talking down the road, okay?

- Thank you, Steve.

- Be good, everybody.

- You got it.

We're right back after this.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

Valley Bank.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

NJM Insurance Group.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The North Ward Center.

And by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

Promotional support provided by ROI-NJ.

And by Meadowlands Media.

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