- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

RWJBarnabas Health.

The North Ward Center.

And by TD Charitable Foundation.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com, keeping communities informed and connected.

And by ROI-NJ, informing and connecting businesses in New Jersey.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change presidents in this country is by voting.

- I'’m hopeful that this is the beginning to accountability.

- Life without dance is boring.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I did do the finale, and guess where my trailer was?

A block away from my apartment, it couldn'’t have been better!

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

-_ It'’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it'’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to "One on One."

This is a very special edition of "One on One" with my colleague, Mary Gamba, and also the Executive Producer of "One on One," Georgette Timoney.

Georgette, this is part two of a two parter that features the young leaders in the Stand and Deliver program, our 22 year program, "A Night of Eloquence," where these young leaders spoke and presented, but also on the second half, there's a little bit of a different twist on Stand and Deliver.

Set it up, Georgette.

- Sure.

The first part is these tremendous performances that were done at Nanina's in the Park in May.

And the second half of the show is part of our media skills training for Stand and Deliver.

And the students speak to how important it is to learn these skills, even at a young age.

- Hm, and Mary in fact has been the leader of Stand and Deliver.

If you are used to watching "One on One" with just me interviewing someone, this is different, because there are several other team members involved, Mary, as the leader of the Stand and Deliver program, you got to not only be there for "The Night of Eloquence," but lead that effort.

And also the second half, with the media skills seminar series we ran, we ran three seminars with a range of young people in and around the New York community.

What was it like for you?

- It's all about teaching these young adults to be agile, to have confidence in the message that they need, that they want to share.

And I always remind them, it's not just about communicating to the media.

These are skills that they're going to use, whether it's a job interview, whether it's interviewing for a college admission, no matter what it is, it is going to help them to be confident in their message.

Not that they needed a lot of coaching and training in their confidence, 'cause what you're gonna see is that they're all very confident, but it's the little tweaks, looking into the camera, body language, all of those things that go into being an effective communicator.

- And real quick, Georgette, as again, I said this on the past show, I'll say it again, because you've been involved in the performing arts for years, you've acted, you've been on stage, stuff happens.

You gotta roll with it, right?

- (laughing) Oh boy, does it ever happen!

Yep.

And you have to be prepared for the unexpected, so- - Speaking of unexpected.

Georgette, how much lead time did I give you, asking you to be on camera with us?

How much lead time?

Days, weeks?

- Oh, try maybe 30 seconds?

So yeah.

(laughing) Always be prepared.

(laughing) - Because I know my team, and I know where the talent is, and it's what Georgette, our executive producer "One on One," Mary Gamba, the leader of Stand and Deliver.

This is "The Night of Eloquence," part two.

- So I wanna be really clear.

This happens every year.

You have young men and women, clearly they're all people of color and they share their experience.

And for some of us, for whom that is not our experience we try to relate.

We think we can relate.

Some of it feels uncomfortable.

Some of it feels unfair.

Some of it's like well that's not me.

That was before.

But we ask them to speak their truth, but we also ask them to be the change.

We ask them to be a part of the solution.

Put your hands together for our next group of great Stand and Deliver leaders.

(applause) - Like bullets are to guns, harmless when empty but dangerous when filled.

Each person laden with flaws, pointing hating fingers at others.

We see everything through a blindfold and pretend it's a looking glass.

We act as though we are the purest, when truly we're soaked in dirt.

Hypocrites, the word made for us.

Saying we stand for equality but become the first to reject a Muslim family.

Saying we love diversity but refuse to acknowledge African American history.

Saying black lives matter but refuse to support a black athlete in crisis on the other side of the world.

Saying we don't see color but never forget to ask the race question in every situation.

Saying people of color are idle but deny them the resources needed to move up.

A bunch of hypocrites.

Hypocrisy is now our inherited trait.

A society that will keep moving backwards like a reversing car with no breaks.

And yet you ask me how do we change?

Change.

Easy to say, but difficult to do.

Change, a word that we just never seem to understand.

You know for change to occur our supposedly way of life must evolve.

We must take off our glasses of ignorance.

We must reflect on ourselves.

We must view things in a different light.

You know I see a world where our actions speak louder than our words.

I see a world where movements do not become a quick trend on Instagram.

I see a world where hashtag blackout Tuesday becomes hashtag blackout every day.

I see a world where our talking becomes showing.

Oh but look, what am I doing?

I'm talking, still.

I do not wanna be stuck in this position and neither should you.

So you should look in the mirror and reflect on yourselves.

Thank you.

(applause) (cheering) - Pain, worry, shadows closing in on me.

These are words that I use to describe my anxiety.

I'm always asked why my hand shakes and why my voice falters.

Little do they know my unwanted friend is awakening inside of me.

Friends and family urging me to calm down and stop acting so crazy.

But how can I calm down when it feels like my world is crashing down on me?

I stand there not being able to grieve as I listen to that little voice in my head, controlling my every move like an evil God leading my path.

I sit in the dark overthinking every bad thing you've ever put me through.

The sleepless nights, all the internal fights, that just doesn't seem right.

Like a thief in the night you steal my sanity.

Leading my brain from losing its ability.

I don't know why I listen to you But the truth is I don't know if I could ever get rid of you.

You're like a messed up memory screwed deep in my brain, just unwanted and hard to get rid of.

My unwanted friend I hope to one day be free of you entirely because I know I am more than just my anxiety.

But until then I guess I'm stuck in the strength of your grip quietly.

Thank you.

(applause) - Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream that it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plane seeking a home where he himself is free.

America has never been America to me.

Let America be that great strong land of love where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme.

But America has never been America to me.

Oh, let America be America again.

Let it be the land where liberty is crowned with no false patriotic grief.

But opportunity is real.

Life is free.

Equality is in the air we breathe.

There's never been equality for me nor freedom in this homeland of the free but America ain't ever been America to me.

I'm the poor white, fooled and pushed apart.

I'm the Negro bearing slavery scars.

I'm the, the red man driven from the land.

I'm the immigrant clutching the hope I seek and hearing that same old super claim of dog eat dog and mighty crush the weak.

But America ain't never been America to me.

Oh, let America be America again.

The land that has never been yet.

The land that's mine.

The poor man's land, Negroes, me.

Let America be America gain.

I pray let America be America again.

Let America be America again.

Thank you.

(applause) (cheering) - The best thing about being part of Stand and Deliver is to connect with people and your friends, 'cause there's a lot of things that you have in common but you don't know that's in common.

Like we're all in some way, we're all feeling the same way.

We all have the same emotions and we just need that time and that space to connect and Stand and Deliver really gives that.

- Be the change for a better feature.

When I hear these words the first thing that comes to mind is the main issue that affects my day to day life, racism.

I would love to solve for racism but this goal of mine is unachievable if the people on my left and on my right don't even see it as a problem that needs to be fixed.

To even be a change for a better future we must acknowledge the problems at hand and how they arose those oh so many years ago.

And I know from many other perspectives it may not be as visible, but for me racism is becoming unavoidable.

For me, racism is kids telling me that they were scared of me or thinking that I was aggressive before even getting to know me.

For me, racism is being scared to leave my corner store without buying something.

For me racism is being scared to leave that exact same corner store without having a death grip on my receipt for when I do actually buy something.

Racism for me is people telling me, oh wow, you're actually very articulate or wow you're actually very smart.

Racism for me is my black peers, my black friends telling me, oh you sound white.

You act white.

You're trying to be white.

But to be honest, all the racism that I listed, all the racism that I experience is very surface level.

And I still consider myself to be blessed as racism for some is being lynched.

But the racism that makes me most upset is the racism that trickles down.

It's the racism that got my grandma, my mom, and now me.

It's the racism that we've all grown accustomed to.

It's the racism that gives black families the natural ability to code switch.

It's the racism that destroyed black women's hair.

It's the racism that makes us think that anything that's ratchet is bad.

That anything that's black is bad.

It's the racism that our justice system is built on.

It's the racism that discredits black trans women and excludes black gay men.

It's the racism that pits my people against each other.

And I hope this very small list gives you an idea of the racism that I'm talking about.

It's the racism that continues to go unrecognized and unacknowledged thus continuing to plague each generation.

Now don't get mad at me if I sound like a broken record but once again, to be a change for a better future we must acknowledge the problems at hand and how they arose those years ago.

So to the white people that like to deny that racism exists because of course if you don't see it, if you don't experience it, it must not be real.

To the black people that perpetuate other forms of anti-blackness and other negative stereotypes, to the board members that water down the history curriculum, to the parents that normalize racism within their household, to the white woman that never include black women or just any woman of color in their activism, to the people who are passive with their racism and try to act like it doesn't exist.

And lastly, but definitely not least to the people who are proud of their racism and yell at the top of their lungs.

To be a chance for a better future we must acknowledge the problems at hand and how they arose those not so many years ago.

Thank you.

(applause) (cheering) - Well right now it's just so much to like, you know take in because it's like a, an experience that I just didn't think I would make.

And it was just all luck.

And I threw my heart into like my piece and it's just really exciting to be here.

I stare into nothing.

It was my life consumed by this feeling, waiting for the afterlife.

I watched as people passed me by and I would look down and I would see that I wasn't moving.

It's as though I was stuck so lifeless and alive that everything I've ever done started diffusing.

And I felt as though to question how I got here, what's to become of me?

Where did I go wrong?

These were the questions I asked myself but they truly don't matter.

You look deep inside yourself and you see who you truly are with this change that you await, with this change that will make you belong.

I used to look in the mirror and I felt unloved.

Yeah.

But the more I kept staring, the more I kept looking, I saw someone and it flew like a dove in the sky.

So beautiful, a beauty undone.

And it made me feel as though that nothingness, it's temporary.

But the only way to break that cycle is to truly find yourself.

And although it may seem tough, hard, and it might hurt, you have to push yourself.

You are the only one who decides where you go, you dictate your future.

So I aspire to tell you to be that agent of change.

Be that dove that flies away from nothing because that nothing is temporary.

But to have change in the world you have to focus on yourself and change who you are.

- (applause) - Thank you.

- The fact that we're here together, the fact that we can celebrate and honor the young men and women in the great city of Newark and we had one or two from Elizabeth from the Boys and Girls Club, that's fine.

But the young men and women from Newark, New Jersey are gonna do great things.

It is an honor to have my name affiliated with this program with these young leaders of tomorrow.

We cannot thank you enough for being with us, For giving of yourself, for giving of your love.

Get home safe everyone, everyone.

We'll see you next year.

(cheering) - Hi everyone, I'm Steve Adubato.

That is Mary Gamba.

A special edition of "Lessons in Leadership".

Mary, this is an interesting setup, it doesn't look like the normal "Lessons in Leadership" segment, but we've got and an extremely talented leader who runs a program that we're a part of, our "Stand & Deliver"" leadership, a communication program for Inner City Youth.

Talk about it.

- This program today that we're talking about is a media skills initiative, which was part of our Stand & Delivery Youth Leadership Program.

The young adults that you see on screen today, as well as myself and Steve and Tony Richardson work together with these students over a series of many, many weeks focusing on things like media skills, communication, making eye contact into the camera.

So it's my pleasure right now to first and foremost, introduce Tony Richardson who is the project director for Stand & Deliver.

We have Ethan DeJesus.

Ethan just finished his eighth grade year.

So he is gonna be going into ninth grade Jeremias Castillo was in 11th grade and is going to be going into 12th grade.

And then Shawn'Yae Myers, who was with us at our boys and girls clubs location.

- Tony, it's so interesting, we had these young leaders as well as a range of others and we taught them media skills.

Real quick before I go to Ethan, what the heck are we doing teaching media skills to 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 year olds.

Why is that even relevant?

- First of all, it's never too early to start to become comfortable speaking in front of groups.

It is something that you have to do your entire life if you're gonna be successful personally and professionally.

- So then on that note, Ethan let me ask you, you were part of every one of our seminars.

What was the most significant lesson or tool that you took away from that series that you said, Hey, this is gonna help me be a better leader and communicator moving forward.

Just looking at the camera, it makes listen to you more.

That's probably one of the most important things because you wanna reel people in whenever you're talking.

Ethan is down here, Shawn'Yae is down there.

But Shawn'Yae if I'm talking to you, we did this in the seminar.

If I'm talking to you here, 'cause you're on my screen over here, Shawn'Yae but the reality is, I've gotta practice looking into that camera.

How challenging was that for you Shawn'Yae?

- It was really challenging to keep my eyes and directly in front of me rather than to look at people, as you can say, you're down here on my left side.

So yeah, it was really challenging for me.

But after practicing after a while I finally got the hang of it.

we asked you to talk about something you care deeply about.

Something that frankly you wanna lead an effort to change, innovate, improve.

Shawn'Yae, do you remember what you talked about in that seminar series?

In my community there are some who don't have the best insurance and with the economy gone into recession, there's very few mothers, many mothers who can't afford to get like baby formula.

And I just wanna be the change in my community.

I just want to lead people into the right path to better their lives.

- So there it is.

- What did you take away from the media skills seminar series?

We did three seminars together.

- So something that I took away from this is being able to have an ear for just what is actually coming outta my mouth.

Whenever you're addressing a certain audience you really want to make sure that you know what it is that you are telling your audience.

You wanna make sure that you are not always being caught up on ums and ands.

You want to make sure that whatever is coming outta your mouth is coherent and fluent.

You truly are the leaders of tomorrow.

And not only are you teaching everyone here today just about what youth leaders can do, you just shared of yourself and we thank you for that.

Why'd you go come to every seminar, take the feedback, work on it and get better.

Why did you do that?

You didn't have to, you didn't really even get points for this.

- I came back because I think I believe that the criticism is necessary to hone my craft.

I want to speak more about my ideas.

I wanna make the world a better place and to do that I need to hone my speaking skills.

So this criticism is absolutely necessary for me to change the world.

Be the leader that this world needs.

Each one of you come from urban communities.

And one of the things we've talked about in our Stand & Deliver program that Mary and I started 22 years ago, along with Tony Richardson, is that not much is expected of young people in urban communities from a lot of folks across this state, across the nation.

They just don't expect much, mostly because they don't know who you are and what you bring to the table.

Shawn'Yae, what is one thing about you that you believe over time will make you a really great leader?

- I don't take no for an answer.

So I'll just keep going and going and going until I do it.

You will be a great leader down the road because, Jeremias?

- I think it's mostly because of my honesty and transparency especially when it comes down to the lives of people that are being played with, I'd say in the political world and also in the healthcare system.

This is something that we need transparency and honesty to address completely.

- Toni, what has this program done for you.

- I'’m a retired educator.

So working with Stand & Deliver and working with the students here allows me to stay in contact with young people.

And that's been important my whole life.

- Our Stand and Deliver program has had hundreds and hundreds of young people standing and delivering, doing, making presentations about issues they care deeply about.

The theme is be the change.

What change do you propose?

What role will you play in making that change in your community?

If you go on our website, SteveAdubato.org Mary people click on Stand & Deliver, right?

So you click on Stand and Deliver, it takes you to past videos from our previous Night of Eloquence events.

It also takes you to photos, our curriculum.

And it's just been a great run.

I mean, Steve and I have worked together for 22 years and all 22 of them, I've closely involved with the Stand & Deliver initiative.

And it's just truly been my honor and pleasure to meet so many young adults, many of whom have come back to be the workshop leaders with the program.

So that just goes to show you that no matter how old you are, 15, 17, 18, you truly can make a difference.

So I thank each and every one of you for being here today and for letting our audience know just the message that you have.

- To Jeremias, to Shawn'Yae, to Ethan, we can't thank you enough for trusting us.

We're honored and proud, honored to have you and proud of each one of you.

Thanks so much.

There you have it, our Stand and Deliver media skills, seminar series.

Final words, Mary, I know this is "One on One," but we had Georgette, our executive producer, you're on with me right now because it does take more than a village to lead this effort.

- It sure does.

And it'’s truly been a honor just getting this message out, letting these students be seen, their messages be seen to a larger audience on "One on One."

So thank you for letting us share this space here as well.

- And I know our audience is better for listening to these young people who are making a difference.

Thanks for watching, folks.

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

Funding has been provided by PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

RWJBarnabas Health.

The North Ward Center.

And by TD Charitable Foundation.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com, And by ROI-NJ.

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