- The threats to American democracy seem to grow every day, not from some external threat, but from within: Revelations about the January 6th insurrection, gerrymandered congressional districts, and even restrictions on voting rights proposed or in place across the country.

Today's guest helps document those threats to American democracy and offers lessons about how citizens can resist them.

He's Marc Morial.

This week on "Story in the Public Square."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) Hello, and welcome to "Story in the Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller with The Providence Journal.

- This week, we're joined by Marc Morial, a former mayor of the city of New Orleans.

He's now the president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League, the historic civil rights and urban advocacy organization.

Marc, thank you so much for being with us today.

- Let me just say thank you to both of you all.

I appreciate the chance to be with you, and looking forward to a great conversation.

- You know, so the Urban League is one of the world's great, and one of America's great, historic civil rights organizations, but for folks in the audience who maybe don't know it that well, can you just give us a quick, 30,000-foot overview of the work that the Urban League does?

- Look, thank you.

And I think it's important to understand our founding in 1910.

In the early 1900s, you had a number of population trends taking place, one of which was immigration.

People from Western and Eastern Europe coming to the United States looking for economic opportunity, fleeing famine and persecution.

Another was black migrants, who were formally enslaved, who were freed by the Civil War, and the changes in the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation, who were fleeing the South, coming to the North.

They were fleeing the Ku Klux Klan and the rise of a new form of oppression called segregation.

When they came to the northern cities, and it was in New York where we were founded, they found difficult conditions: No jobs, no housing.

The promises that, in hopes, that they came north for were not easily attained.

So we stepped in.

The National Urban League stepped into the breach due to the vision of George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin, an interracial group of people, who said, "We're gonna advocate for and support black migrants who are new to New York City, help them find quality jobs, a place to live, and otherwise address their issues and problems."

Fast forward to today, we still work in communities to provide direct services to people.

And we are one of the nation's foremost civil rights advocates in the legislative and public policy arena with great particularity.

So we fight and work every day to impact the Congress and the president, to impact what goes on in the suites of America, to bring voice to those who have been locked out and left out.

And further and to this goal, to ensure that African Americans have parity, power in civil rights in the United States.

So I'm proud to have been the CEO now for 19 years.

It's been a good, long, strong run.

I feel like I'm just getting started.

I feel as energetic as ever because the problems we face in the nation today, the challenges we face, require all of us to be in the fight.

- Well, we're gonna talk a little bit about some of those challenges, and particularly some of the things that you're doing at the Urban League, but I see over your shoulder your political memoir, "The Gumbo Coalition," which is really a remarkable account of your time in public life as mayor of New Orleans, and in particular, your ability to bring together an inclusive coalition of citizens to solve some of the big challenges that you faced.

In a time when so many politicians seem to be running on politics of exclusion, can you say something about the politics of inclusion?

- Well, you know, the politics of inclusion is what gets things done, but the politics of inclusion is also based on some values and principles, not just on raw power or raw political advantage.

And during my time in New Orleans, we had great success mobilizing and unifying the community around the fight against violence and crime.

We had great success in bringing the community together because New Orleans was in need of an economic transformation in the 1990s.

And the approach that worked was really including people in the early conversations about the formulation of public policy and always maintaining an open-door process to people who wanted to be heard and wanted to be understood.

But then, thirdly, the willingness to make a decision on direction.

That after everyone has been heard, this is the direction we need to go, and let me tell you, my fellow citizens, why we're taking that approach.

So "Gumbo Coalition" was predicated on this idea that, like gumbo, a city like New Orleans, many of our cities, indeed the nation, are made up of many different peoples, creeds, colors, religions, orientations, neighborhoods, dispositions, philosophies.

And as you add new in, gumbo actually gets better.

So I like to think of our communities the same way, as we bring in people.

I don't see the world through rose-colored glasses, but I do believe that, fundamentally, we have more in common than that which divides us.

And fundamentally, people have the same aims, but we have difficult, longstanding, historic issues.

Race and poverty, for example, and privilege and advantage that go along with it.

So it's not an easy task, but I do believe that I wrote the book in an effort to inspire other leaders, in an effort to inspire a new generation of leaders the same way I was inspired, the same way I learned from others, the same way I fundamentally watched people lead with purpose.

And I also saw people lead and fail because they were not inclusive.

They did not bring people to the table together.

- So, Marc, a few months ago, you've released your annual report, the State of Black America.

And in 2022, the subtitle was Under Siege: The Plot to Destroy Democracy.

What are you alarmed about?

- This is a copy of the executive summary of the report.

Your viewers can go to nul.org and download the full report or look at a PDF copy of the executive summary.

I am concerned about this assault on the institutions of American democracy, whether it is voting and the right to participate in our elections, or the value proposition of a free and fair press, or the fact that there should be peaceful transitions of power after an election.

And the fundamental idea that leaders should speak truth and not fantasy and not conspiracy and not falsehoods and fantasies is fundamental to American democracy.

And I am, like many, disheartened, concerned, and angered at these attacks on American democracy.

How does this play out?

I say to people, there have been 500-plus bills introduced in state legislatures all across the nation in the last 18 or so months that have one aim: To make it harder for people to vote.

And to particularly make it harder for people of color or disabled Americans or older Americans or younger Americans to be able to participate in this precious institution of the franchise in our country.

And then we have had, in the last decade, a Supreme Court which took it up on itself to strike down very significant provisions of the Voting Rights Act that had been in place for 50 years, and that were part of the struggle of many of our predecessors, our forefathers, our foremothers, who participated in the civil rights work of the 1960s, who put the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act on the books.

So I believe that all people, regardless of political party, disposition, ideology, orientation, have to fight to protect and preserve American democracy.

- So, Marc, you're talking about voter suppression.

And that takes many, many different forms, depending on the state you're in or the municipality or where you are.

Can you just talk about some of the different forms of voter suppression and why they are dangerous, why they are a threat to democracy?

- Well, it's an excellent question, and I appreciate the chance to maybe lay this out with some precision.

So one form of voter suppression is to require people to have an ID or a specific type of identification card to be able to vote.

So one way this is played out is in a state like Texas, which had a list of acceptable forms of ID and a list of things that were not acceptable as a form of identification.

As it turned out, when Texas first passed stringent voter ID, it said, "Boy, if you have a conceal and carry permit, that's acceptable as a form of voter ID.

However, if you have a student ID card, that is not acceptable as a form of voter ID."

The second way suppression has played out, in 2020, we had one of the best elections in American history.

More people voted than ever before, not withstanding a pandemic.

Election officials across the country made the ballot box more available by allowing vote by mail, by allowing early voting, by permitting and authorizing no excuse absentee voting.

Now, many of the same states are stripping those new opportunities to vote away and saying, "No, now you've gotta go to the precinct on Election Day, present your ID in order to be able to vote."

The third way is that some states have simply closed down voting places by saying that many states have a minimum number of voters.

In other words, they'll say, "You have to have a polling place for every 1,000 votes."

What these states are doing is going and say, "No, you have to have a polling place every 5,000 voters."

The impact of that is to maybe take the polling place out of your neighborhood and put it 25 blocks away.

If you don't have a car, if you don't have access to transportation, it's harder to go that distance, particularly if Election Day is on a day you work.

So these are some examples.

Even in Georgia, they passed the Anti Good Samaritan bill, which means that if you saw a group of senior citizens standing in line, in the sun, and they were hot and thirsty, it would be a crime for you to walk up to them and give them a bottle of water while they're standing in line.

So some of these are pernicious, mean, spiteful, hateful.

We should be making it easier for people to vote.

Voting is precious, voting is foundational.

And to the extent that we are not, we are in a fight to protect American democracy.

- Hey, Marc, you know, I look at some of this, and I can't help but concluding on my own that this seems to really be intended to target underrepresented populations, BIPAC communities.

I think there are a couple of gerrymandering examples in North Carolina and Texas where more than 90% of the state's growth in population comes from people of color.

But in those cases, it's that they've actually effectively reduced the representation of people of color in Congress.

Do you have a sense, am I fair in characterizing it that way?

That a lot of these efforts are frankly to target people of color.

- They are targeting black people.

They're targeting Latinos.

In some states, targeting the indigenous communities.

There is no doubt that there's a racial dimension and a racial intent behind this because it's all about how to win an election.

And if you don't think you can win fair and square, you begin to say, "Do I have the power to manipulate the rules?"

And one way people seek to manipulate the rules is by affecting who in fact can vote, who in fact does vote, how easy it is for communities to vote.

All Americans need to push back against this.

Look, there was once a time when the Voting Rights Act's passage and renewal in '68, I mean, '65, in '72, in '75, in '82, in 2006 was a bipartisan, bipartisan undertaking with Democrats and Republicans.

I even recall being at the White House in 2005, 2005 or '6, '6, 2006, when George W. Bush proudly signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.

How has this become such a rank, partisan issue when it shouldn't be?

Protecting democracy is fundamental.

And the right to vote should not be so constrained with arguments that are specious, such as fraud and lack of integrity, if we are going to continue to maintain our status as the world's greatest democracy.

- You know, so I'm gonna flip it now, and I'm gonna play devil's advocate.

There's some who would say that politics is a tough business, and that people in power are always trying to shape the electorate and who can vote and how easy it is for them to vote to serve their specific needs.

You were a big city mayor.

Why would these types of steps be out of bounds in a Morial administration?

- I mean, they're out of bounds because they're just fundamentally wrong.

And, you know, there's a moral code to how we engage with each other.

They're fundamentally wrong 'cause they're anti-American.

The United States of America is predicated on, if you will, a representative democracy, on the right to vote.

And for years and years and years, yes, we thought women, African Americans, people under the age of 21 needed changes to the Constitution, changes to the statutes, to ensure they had the right to vote.

We have got to push back on what I consider to be an absurdity and something that just strikes me as being so inconsistent with who we are as a nation, what we are as a nation, to the point where if we do not have democracy, we could have a totalitarian system.

And that's unacceptable.

And I say to people who say, "What difference it would make," you should go try living in a totalitarian nation for maybe about two months.

You'll see.

- So, Marc, one step, another step, toward totalitarianism is election sabotage.

And we've certainly seen examples of that.

Can you just tell us what election sabotage is and get into details of how that is a threat to democracy?

- You know, it's been time-outed in this nation.

When you run for office and you win, you celebrate.

If you run for office and you lose, you congratulate your opponent, and you also celebrate that the election represents that the people have spoken.

Election sabotage is when people try to undermine the actual system of elections and counting and certification of the results of an election.

Election sabotage is to continue to trumpet a falsehood that an election was stolen or fake when you know it was not.

In 2020, 60 courts looked at the 2020 election results and concluded that they were fair.

This is what this is all about.

And we have to push hard against this in an effort to make sure that we are protecting American democracy.

- So, Marc, you mentioned all of those court challenges, all of which cleared election officials in the the sanctity of the vote, and yet that myth is entrenched in certain circles in America.

You certainly see it on social media.

You see it on certain channels.

Why?

What is it in the hearts and minds of those people or those groups of people that continue with this myth?

It can't just be, although it is partly political.

What's going on here?

- It's historical precedent here.

I mean, the Salem witch trials were predicated on a big lie.

A lie that certain women and children were possessed of demons.

And they were put to death.

And it was a falsehood, but hysteria took over in Massachusetts back in the 1690s.

If you look at the 1600s as well, 1500s, 1600s, there was a debate as to whether the Sun revolved around the Earth, the Earth revolved around the Sun, the world was circular, or the world was flat.

Those that disagreed with orthodoxy, which was that the world was flat, and the Sun, if the world was round, the Sun revolved around it, were put to death for heresy and punished.

I'd like to think that in '21 and '22, in the 21st century, that we are beyond as a nation this abject embrace of falsehoods and lies.

- I hope so too, quite candidly.

Hey, we've got about five minutes left here.

I wanna move to a couple of other issues, some things that I know that the National Urban League is working on.

You recently announced a new effort with the Anti-Defamation League, the Community Solidarity and Safety Coalition, to address the needs of communities affected by hate violence.

Tell us a little bit about that effort.

- Hey, thank you for asking that.

So we were all at the White House in the fall at a summit convened by President Biden as a result of Uvalde and Buffalo and a number of other hate crimes.

Jonathan Greenblatt, Reverend Al Sharpton, myself, along with John Yang of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice coalition and Sydney Benavides of the League of United Latin American Citizens, five of us got together and wrote the president and said, "You need to host a hate crime summit," which he in fact did.

As a result of those collaborations, we've joined with ADL to do a number of things.

Number one, many historically black universities, many non-profit organizations are not equipped to confront the possibility that they would be targeted with hate violence.

And we know that churches and schools and synagogues and mosques have been targeted with hate-filled violence.

So this is an effort to help non-profits, to help schools, particularly black colleges and universities, to prepare themselves on how to respond, and to protect themselves from this rising pandemic of hate crimes in this country.

- So you've used the word "pandemic."

And I'm gonna use that to segue into another topic here.

Events of the last nearly three years, at whatever level, have been against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And the Urban League has been a leader in efforts to help during that.

Where do you think we are now in the fall of 2022 as regards to the pandemic and the needs of people, particularly people of color who have been, you know, very cruelly punished, along with other people as well, by the pandemic?

- We are, I think, in a situation where COVID is not over, but it is easing.

I spoke to a friend this morning who told me she had just had a very difficult bout with COVID in the last two to three weeks.

This pandemic is not over, it's eased.

What have we learned?

Health disparities based on race and class, particularly race, are very real in America.

What else have we learned?

That modern science is quite smart and clever and demonstrated the capability to stand up a number of successful vaccines in less than a year's time.

And as a nation, I think, thanks to the leadership of the Biden-Harris administration, and we partnered with them, millions and millions of Americans got vaccinated, understood the value of it, and decided to take a step to protect themselves.

- This is hugely important work.

Hey, Marc, we've got literally just about a minute left here.

And I'm wondering, you know, one of the...

I enjoy talking with you.

I could talk to you for a week, it feels like.

But one of the things that really inspires me about you and your leadership is that it is so grounded in the benefit and welfare of others.

Where did your leadership style come from?

- You know, I owe so much to my mother and father who were frontline civil rights leaders and history-making personalities.

My mom makes 90 this year.

- Wow.

- Wow, congratulations.

- My father has not, he's been gone for 30 years, but he was an accomplished leader: First African American mayor of New Orleans, first African American legislator in Louisiana.

I learned by watching, by observing, not only my parents, but their friends and allies, on how they engaged and how they were so authentic in how they dealt with people.

And that was an inspiration to me.

And then I'm from the generation that was inspired by Martin Luther King, the Kennedys, and Malcolm X, and Barbara Jordan, and Shirley Chisholm, and so, so many others, men and women, who were principle dynamic personalities, who you could tell love people.

And I believe that to lead, you gotta love people.

And that's not in a romantic fashion, but you gotta love the human creation and believe that everyone has value and everyone has an opinion and everyone deserves to be heard.

And that doesn't mean everyone deserves to be followed, but everyone deserves to be heard.

So I owe so much to my parents and the times in which I have grown up, and I truly believe that leadership is a team enterprise.

And all I am is a drum major, an orchestra conductor, someone who's trying to get others to participate in the better making of the nation, ending the long history of racial injustice, building a future which is inclusive and equitable and can make a difference.

- That's an inspiring place to leave it.

Marc Morial, the National Urban League, thank you so much for being with us.

That's where we need to leave it.

We're out of time.

You can find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Join us again next week for more "Story in the Public Square."

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