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- 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.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

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

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel 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) - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with a terrific leader making a difference and recognized for it.

She's Pam Johnson, founder and executive director of a terrific organization called the Anti-Violence Coalition of Hudson County.

Pamela, good to see you.

- Good to see you, good to see you as well, Steve.

- You got it, we're gonna put up the website of your organization as we speak.

You're a 2023 Russ Berrie Making a Difference honoree.

I've been honored to be a part of that event in cooperation with the Russ Berrie Foundation for years.

Talk about your organization and why you're so committed to fighting against violence, and why is this also so personal for you, Pam?

- Absolutely, Steve, thank you so much for that.

So growing up in Jersey City, I'm born and raised in Jersey City on the south side, where most of the violence is concentrated as it pertains to gun violence.

In 2014, it was a really stressful, intense time in Jersey City.

I do have my own history of being a gun violence survivor more than over 26 years ago when that happened.

But I think more importantly, when we started the coalition, it was less about me and more about the community and what was happening in 2014.

- Hold on, Pam, you just can't run past that.

You were 22 when someone shot you at a gathering in the neighborhood in Jersey City, in the West Bergen neighborhood.

I mean, you were a survivor.

- Yes, yes.

- You're very young at the time.

What caused you to become an activist to fight against violence, particularly in your community?

- You know, I think that when we talk about violence to outside individuals and outside individuals are just those individuals who don't live in our community, in our neighborhoods, but they're reading the newspapers and seeing the headlines and watching the news, and they're probably thinking like, oh my, like it's so sad what those people are going through and it's kind of like victims are always painted as individuals who may have had it coming and there are all type of victims, and it wasn't meant for me.

Four of my girlfriends were shot at the same time.

It wasn't meant for them, but still, those bullets end up connecting with our body.

It ended up doing some damage to us that we still live to this day.

Trauma will forever live in your body.

You can get treatment for it as we all have done and you can utilize that trauma and do very productive things in your life, but you'll always remember those moments where you thought that your life was going to end.

And so that will always give me what I need to continue this mission in this movement to help victims of violence because when I got shot, there were no services being offered to victims of violence.

In fact, you were further victimized by the same system designed to help you.

- So let's do this.

As we put up the website again, your organization offers programming in the areas of anti-bullying, peer mentoring, violence interruption, victim and family support, vocational training and educational seminars.

Go on the website to find out more about the Anti-Violence Coalition of Hudson County.

Let me ask you this, Pam, there's obviously no simple solution that will fix the violence, particularly the gun violence program in our communities, disproportionately in urban communities.

What are a couple things that will make a difference?

- So I think the main thing that will make a difference is having a voice for those who have not found their voice yet.

So after someone gets shot, if you're living in one of those neighborhoods concentrated by violence, you have not really had a chance to deal with hearing gun violence or hearing bullets, the sound of gunfire and dealing with the trauma that's associated with your community.

And so once it happens to you, you're really in a bad position because you don't know what to do.

So I think most importantly, to be able to show up for individuals and speak for them and listen to them and actually advocate for what they want you to do.

So it's a huge thing for us to show up to the scenes of violence, be there to provide support services for families.

Most individuals who are shot, they're shot in their own communities.

And so their family live around the corner or down the street.

So they show up and sometime they show up to see their loved one's body still on the ground waiting for the coroner's office.

And so police have to do their job, but we're also there to help support families and undergo their grief while we're also assisting police so we can help them do their job.

So I think it's important for us to listen to victims to respond in a way that we're responding wholesomely in a holistic way of treatment and healing, but it's also what Governor Murphy...

The reason why we're fully funded is because of Governor Murphy.

So I think that-- - Hold on one second.

The dollars were put in the state budget to support your organization.

I wanna be clear on that.

- Absolutely, so I would be remiss to, and not to make this a political thing, but it is politics, because those organizations who are on the front lines providing those services always lack the funding for whatever reason.

And I think to have legislators who are not afraid to put money in the budget in those communities who are having an issue with community violence and to treat community violence and gun violence like a health epidemic and treat the root causes that will underlyingly support the movement and also support victims and families, but in a very different way.

We're not simply talking about more law enforcement on the ground in those communities, we're talking about providing assistance to law enforcement to help prevent and intervene and deescalate.

- And lemme ask you this, do you believe on some level, or to what degree do you believe that if you watch the "six o'clock news", and I'm not talking about NJ Spotlight news, important programming every night, speaks for itself.

Let's just talk about local news, commercial programs and other sources of media, social media, et cetera, where violence in urban communities is so...

There's so many stories that too many of us just gloss over and don't even realize we're talking about people, not statistics.

Those statistics are people, are families who are devastated.

So it's my way of asking to what degree do you believe we've become somewhat desensitized?

- This is a real conversation that's happening in families' households and in communities in Jersey City as well across the New Jersey and any urban community.

Desensitized, so I work with a lot of youth daily, as young as five and as old as 25 and much older as well in various programs that we run.

And I think that it's become very normal, and so we have to not make it so normal.

So we have those conversations with youth and their families and we want them to know that although you have seen and lost so many friends that you grew up with and went to school with, nothing is normal about that.

And in a lot of cases where we look in communities where there is an explosion of mental health episodes and alcohol and drug abuse in different neighborhoods and homelessness and just traumatic things happening in those neighborhoods outside of gun violence, but it is connected to that gun violence that's happening in those communities and that unhealed trauma.

So we make sure that we're addressing it by saying that there is a healing component needed, but nothing about this is normal.

And if you're ready to start your healing, we're ready to walk with you one step at a time to get you to where you need to be in order to have a successful life.

- That's Pamela Johnson, founder and executive director of the Anti-Violence Coalition in Hudson County, 2023 Russ Berrie Awardee Honoree for Making a Difference, making a difference every day.

Pam, thank you so much, we appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- You got it, stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Recently, along with my colleague Mary Gamma, over on our sister series "Lessons in Leadership," we spoke to a gentleman by the name of Matt Eventoff, who's with the Princeton Public Speaking and Oratory Project, talking about his book, "Speak Fearlessly," all about tips and tools to become a more confident public communicator.

It never goes out of style.

Public speaking is always seen by folks as scary.

How can I get up there and speak confidently?

Well, Matt talks about that, and that's why we wanted to share that message with you.

Matt Eventoff, Princeton Public Speaking and Oratory Project.

Good to see you, Matt.

- Wonderful to see you.

Thank you so much, Steve.

Thank you so much, Mary.

- Hey, listen, Matt, talk to us about, what is the Oratory Project?

- The Oratory Project is an interesting collaboration that I have with a former student at Princeton University who now runs an amazing organization down in South Texas called the College Scholarship Leadership Access Program, run by Thomas Garcia.

He was a student at Princeton, where I served as the resource at Princeton University for their public speaking program called Speak With Style, which was a student-run organization.

And I was a resource there for 10 years.

Thomas and I really hit it off.

And the idea was, when COVID first hit, to bring resources to children in underserved communities to help them find their voices, and offer those resources for free.

- Mary, does that sound familiar?

- Oh, it does.

And it sounds so near and dear to our heart, for sure.

- For for 22 years, we ran a program called Stand and Deliver as leadership and communication tools for inner city youth.

Disproportionately, young men and women in Newark.

Mary ran that program.

I was honored to found it.

And we did it for a lot of years.

Now the Board of Education is running it through the schools.

But Matt, we share that commitment to helping young people find their voice.

But real quick on this, as a student of public speaking, you know it's been my world.

My first book, 2001, Mary, "Speak from the Heart."

Thank you, Simon & Schuster.

And every book since then- - I have it.

- has been... You have it?

- I do.

- Oh, you're the one.

So here's the thing.

I know he got it on eBay for a buck and a half.

But here's the thing.

Every book, every seminar, every article, everything I've ever done has been this obsession with public communication.

That's for me.

Where does yours come from?

- It's interesting.

My journey in communication actually started when I was 11 years old.

I was a young man.

I was a little bit different than other kids.

And I used to ride my bicycle through my neighborhood.

I grew up in Toms River, and I used to ride my bicycle through my neighborhood and other neighborhoods listening to, anyone on this show still remembers, a Walkman.

Traditional Walkman with a cassette tape.

And I received a cassette tape of Iron Maiden's first live album, "Live After Death."

And at the beginning of that album was Winston Churchill giving one of his most famous addresses of all time, "We Shall Fight on the Beaches."

And when I first put that tape in and I heard that voice, every hair on my body stood up.

And the electricity I've felt run through my body was something like I've never felt before.

And I became a Churchiphile at that point.

I just became obsessed with everything Winston Churchill.

Became obsessed with digesting everything that Winston Churchill produced, everything that Winston Churchill said.

That was obviously pre-YouTube.

It was very hard to get any kind of video.

I couldn't find any video, but anything I could find on audio, anything I could read.

And it just became fascinating to me how one human being could change the course of history with their voice.

And although my life's taken many twists and turns, as most of ours have, in a career, that really was an anchoring point.

And it became fascinating to me that through a mix of communication and through messaging, that a man who had a checkered political career up until that point- - Sure did.

- Not always the most popular guy in Britain, was able to save the Western world.

In many ways, through his voice.

- Yeah.

And you hit it on the head, Matt.

With the voice as such a powerful engine, right, we can get messages across to people, we can connect with people.

Why are people so afraid of public speaking?

Where does that fear come from?

And what can we do to overcome that fear?

Because really, without sharing through voice, people cannot hear our messages.

- I think we all suffer from...

I certainly do, and that's something.

I've always been nervous before crowds, and I've been doing this now for close to 22 years.

And it's a fascinating conundrum that most people face.

I think it's just very odd for a person to be up in front of other people, and they are the only one verbally communicating.

I think one of the barriers is people don't realize that you're still having a conversation, even if someone is not verbally responding.

They're responding through nonverbal communication.

They're responding through facial gestures.

They're responding through listening, through intent focus, as you're illustrating right now, Mary and Steve.

- Yeah.

And I'm smiling because Steve and I always say to anyone that comes to us and says, "I'm really afraid of speaking in public," where we say to them, "Are you afraid of having a conversation?"

And if you change your mindset and see that as a conversation as compared to a presentation, which takes us back to like the third and fourth grade when you had to stand up and you're fumbling with your notes and papers.

So if you see it as a conversation.

That's why I was using my body language to say, yes, that is definitely it.

What most people don't realize is when Dr. Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, he had given portions of that speech at different times in churches throughout the South.

For quite a while, not that speech.

But it wasn't that he just woke up one day and gave a speech.

He spoke all the time.

Winston Churchill spoke all the time and practiced all the time.

There are tomes written about the preparation and practice that Winston Churchill put in to be able to communicate the way that he did.

Malcolm X, the same thing.

John F. Kennedy, the same thing.

If you look at any great leader who communicates well, they don't just wake up and communicate effectively.

It's an art, as anything else.

To something both you and Mary said earlier, I think that's something else that's really a barrier for people, is they don't understand that.

I believe, obviously, there are some people who are born great at different disciplines.

And they are the anomaly, and they are 1 of 1,000 or 1 of a million or whatever that number might be- - Wait, hold on.

But Matt, they don't get better by just being that.

That's like saying Michael Jordan was born with extraordinary skills.

Yeah.

And he practiced constantly.

So you may be born with it, but to improve and get better, it just doesn't happen automatically.

Go ahead.

- And Michael Jordan's a great example, right?

And my facts might be wrong here, but Michael Jordan was left off of either his sophomore- - He played, went out for varsity as a sophomore and was cut.

- So I think, I mean- - In high school.

And really, the impetus behind "Speechless" and Speak With Style books is that you might be born in different circumstances than somebody else, but everybody has a voice.

Everybody has a voice.

And if you can learn how to hone that voice, utilize that voice, and articulate, you'll have a leg up in whatever it is you choose to do.

no matter what your circumstances are.

Hey, Matt, thank you for joining us, my friend.

We appreciate it.

Thank you, Steve.

And thank you so much Mary.

- You got it.

Thanks, Mary.

And I'll be right back after this.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- We're now joined by Ryan Silver, principal of Nelson Mandela Elementary School.

Good to see you, Ryan.

- Good to see you as well, Steve.

Thanks for having me here today.

- You got it.

Tell everyone what the school is and why it's so significant that it's named after the great iconic hero, Nelson Mandela.

- So, Nelson Mandela is Newark's newest heartbeat as I call it.

It's a school located in Central Ward of Newark, New Jersey.

And this school is so special because not only is it really taking the opportunity to educate scholars starting at age three and aging up through age eight right now but it's also truly empowering our scholars to live a life of civic-minded social justice, truly with an eye to service and keen citizenship, living in the spirit of Nelson Mandela.

- Ryan, you refer to your students as scholars, not students.

Why is that?

- Well, I believe truly that any student that is sitting in a school, a school of excellence, should be embraced as a scholar.

So at Nelson Mandela Elementary School, being a student is simply not an option because scholarship is the option, the only option for our kids.

Every day we push our students, our scholars, to make sure that they're precise in pushing their studies in literacy, mathematics, and in science, truly hoping to accomplish that goal of reading one million words in a school year.

- This is the first year of the school?

- Yes, we are currently in our first year, actually in our eighth month of operation.

We opened our doors September of 2023.

And we are pre-K three through third grade.

- Did you come up with the name, Nelson Mandela Elementary School?

- Yes, so I partner with Roger Leon, our district superintendent, who had this phenomenal idea to name the school after a revolutionary leader.

And what better leader than Nelson Mandela, right, being a pioneer not only in education but also in social justice and civil rights, pushing the true journey of what it means to be a scholar and living in the mission of not only thinking about how you liberate yourself but also liberating a group of people.

So when we were toiling with the ideas of naming the school, Nelson Mandela was the only option.

- Ryan, let ask me you this.

Nelson Mandela's legacy speaks volumes, impactful, well over 20 years in prison simply because he worked to fight against Apartheid in South Africa.

Why does Mandela's work speak to you on a professional as well as a very personal level, please?

- Well, quite honestly, Steve, it's hard to truly separate the two.

On a very, very personal level, I believe that each of us has encountered in some way an adversity.

And Nelson Mandela's story is just that, a story of adversity and him working to overcome these adversities and work through a struggle.

So as I think about the work that I've done as an educator for nearly 20 years and I think about the work that is to be done, I think about how the pandemic has caused us to see so many deficiencies in literacy, so many deficiencies in mathematics.

And so it pushes us to all think about how we can be better.

Over the past three or so years, I would say roughly between 2021 and now, I've read a series of Mandela's diaries, I've read a series of his anthologies, and one message resonates.

And it is true that truly in that moment of adversity, we start to see that we have options, right?

One option to give up, one option to push through, and one option to look at this as a lifelong learning lesson for us to think about how we can now empower people to do something different in the future.

- So every obstacle, every barrier, every challenge, and Mandela faced more than a lifetime for millions of others.

- Absolutely.

- Is an opportunity, has to be an opportunity.

Correct?

- To be an opportunity and it depends on outlook but it has to be an opportunity, absolutely.

- So I wonder how, Ryan, and you've spent 20 years in education, right?

- Yes.

- I wonder how the heck with the children of Newark and the challenges that they face, disproportionately Black and brown and your students by the way, 100% of the students at Nelson Mandela Elementary School are children of color.

77% are Ecuadorian.

- Yes.

- 20% African American or Black.

Question, how the heck do you communicate and get the message across that every challenge, barrier, and obstacle is really an opportunity to kids that are really young?

- Yeah, we do it through love.

And so many of my peers have laughed at me at times when I've said, "There's only one way to lead a school "and it's with love."

Right because oftentimes when I speak, I get very impassioned.

You can probably see that here today.

I speak with my.

- I can.

- I smile, I jump, I get excited.

And kids feel that.

When they see and feel the way in which our adults interact with them in class, they know that they're cared for and that they're loved and they want to be a part of doing something right, doing something well.

Our parents feel that every single day that we open our doors, the hugs that push and say to people, "We're here and we're in this together."

However, we don't make any excuse for a child.

We truly believe, and I'm not saying this because I'm here with you today, we truly believe that if we push scholarship and truly believe that if we push every single child to read every word on a page, to compute every single number that they see, we are living in that legacy because it is difficult.

When we have so many scholars that are Spanish-speaking, many scholars that have come as a newcomer to this country, it's easy to give up.

It's easy to have a defeatist attitude.

But we push that there's no option to give up.

We only push through and then we celebrate success every single day with either shout-outs in class or shout-outs whole school, that gets celebrated.

And that also encourages scholars to want to do better.

- Ryan, where'd you grow up?

- I grew up here in Newark, New Jersey.

- What part of the city?

I was in the North Ward of Newark.

Where'd you grow up?

- So I grew up in the South Ward.

I attended Maple Avenue School.

I also attended Arts High School.

So I am a Newarker.

I'm a brick city baby.

- A brick city baby.

How did you find yourself 20 years in education in Newark, all 20 years?

- Not all 20 years.

I started my career in Newark.

I spent some time working in New York City and now I'm back.

- How did you wind up being the principal of Nelson Mandela Elementary School?

- Yeah, so Nelson Mandela has been a project and a project that has been in the works for many, many years, right?

I believe that our superintendent had the idea of re-envisioning schools and opening schools that would do something differently, do something innovative.

And I've always stood behind that.

So as I was doing work in New York City as a principal, really breaking barriers there, we stayed in touch and I told Roger Leon that I wanna be part of the new regime of schools that he is building in our city.

I wanna be part of the excellence that's being built here.

So when we conversed about this opportunity, I could not say no.

And I said to him, verbatim, "I'm ready to come home."

- Ready to come home.

Newark's your home, right?

- That's right.

- I often say this to people and I know it sounds corny to some but being born and raised in the city of Newark, my family still there, my dad, you know the work that my dad and you know, who passed, and now my sister Michele at the North Court Center, the Robert Treat Academy, a whole range of other educational and community-based initiatives.

You can move out of Newark but Newark is still it just is a part of those of us who grew up in Newark.

I mean, it's a part.

Isn't that sound, is that?

Is Newark just always a part of us?

- It absolutely is.

I cannot think about any conversation I've had, either about my personal journey or my professional journey, that doesn't always take me right back to growing up in Newark and having a series of dedicated educators that worked alongside my single mom to really make sure that I had everything that I needed because I didn't grow up incredibly wealthy.

I didn't grow up, you know, with a silver spoon.

You like that?

Silver.

But I did not have a silver spoon, right?

However, there was a push.

There was always a push to be excellent by teachers and educators who were also Newarkers, right?

They pushed us to be great scholars.

And that in turn is the same level of push that I'm bringing in here today.

- Ryan Silver, principal of Nelson Mandela Elementary School doing important work.

Well done, Ryan.

We'll look forward to having you back to tell us more about the progress at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.

All the best, Ryan.

- Thank you so much.

I look forward to it as well.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

PSEG Foundation.

Kean University.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

The Fidelco Group.

NJM Insurance Group.

Valley Bank.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

And by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Promotional support provided by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

And by BestofNJ.com.

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