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(upbeat music) (bell dings) - Good afternoon and welcome to The City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, February 4th, a snow day for many here in Cleveland.

And I'm Cynthia Connelly, director of programming here.

I am pleased to introduce our forum today, The Soul of Democracy.

Today's forum is part of The City Club's health equity series, because increased access to civic participation is at the heart of every healthy community.

But the battle...

There is a battle over the soul of democracy today.

Recently, access to the ballot box has become the site of some of the most important legislative conflicts across the country, Georgia, Texas and here in Ohio.

Legislators and activists are clashing over whether the simple act of voting should be easy and accessible or limited by ID requirements and other constraints.

Our guest today, Desmond Meade, led the movement in 2018 to restore voting rights to 1.4 million Floridians with past felony convictions.

His painstaking grassroots citizens ballot initiative amended the Florida constitution, and produced one of the largest expansions of voting rights in history.

At the height of the 2020 presidential race, Desmond saw some of his success undone by the Florida legislature.

But when he spoke as part of our Democracy Unchained series, which you can view online at cityclub.org, his optimism was persistent.

Desmond Meade is the executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and a returning citizen himself.

He is the chair of Floridians For a Fair Democracy, a graduate of Florida International University College of Law, and the author of "Let My People Vote' 'My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens,' recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for 2019 Desmond continues to lead efforts to empower and civically reengage local communities across the state and to reshape local state and national criminal justice policies.

In September, 2021, He also received a MacArthur fellowship genius grant.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland.

Please join me in welcoming Desmond Mead.

(audience applauding) - Good afternoon, - [Audience] Afternoon.

- We have to try that again.

Good afternoon.

- [Audience] Good afternoon.

- All right.

So Dan, thank you so much and City Club of Cleveland for inviting me.

I know I'm in Cleveland, but who they, who they, who they think they going beat them Bengals, (audience chuckling) obviously not enough Bengals fans here, cause you're supposed to tell me nobody.

I was talking to a friend the other day and I told him that this year's NFL playoffs have been the best playoffs ever in my entire life.

I think what made it so enriching was the fact that all of those games were decided by three points.

In that another part was that a lot of the visiting teams actually won.

That was just so beautiful.

Believe it or not, like what is he up here talking about football when you supposed to be talking about democracy.

But this NFL playoff season actually relates to democracy and to talk about how we can get something more vibrant.

When there's a level playing field, when both sides are going at it and no one is... Not one side have such a clear advantage.

It's just totally, dominating the other side.

Because even...

Unless it's your team that's winning.

Everyone else feels kind of like left out of the process, You remember when the Patriots used to just constantly win and win and people were like, there is something not right about that.

So that competition was healthy and vibrant.

But you know, I've often said that chain is... and I hope you guys don't mind.

I'm going to leave this alone here.

Is there a camera on?

- Yeah, - There is.

So I guess it follows me.

Great.. - No, no - Stay on the stage, God.

(audience chuckling) I've often said that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

We've heard that before and that no matter how much weight you would want that chain to bear.

It could only hold as much weight or carry as much burden as the weakest link could stand.

I do believe that that is also the same for our community, for our states, for our country.

That we could only be as great as the population of segments of population within our communities who have been the most weakened by having systems of oppression, systems of racism, or even that narrative that says that some lives are just less valuable than others.

When I look at all of the different segments of populations that have been weakened by so many of these systems, I can't help, but to think of the person who's been impacted by the Criminal Justice System.

Cause when a person is convicted of a felony offense, a person like me, can't vote, difficulty getting a job, difficulty getting housing, education, and it's ostracized.

As a matter of fact, I am forced to live the rest of my life with that word felon either before or after my name, that Scarlet letter of shame for the rest of my life.

When I looked at this segment, and I was looking at the systems that oppress it, I'm thinking about how yes, if we can...

Cause here's the key, If we want the chain to carry more weight, then we have to strengthen the weakest link.

If we want our community, to be able to be more prosperous, if we want our democracy to be more prosperous and more invigorating and more vibrant, like that vibrancy we felt when we was watching the game, it was just so exciting and exhilarating.

If we want that in our community, then we must focus on strengthening people who have been denied access to democracy.

When I'm able to vote, that means that, guess what?

I'm able to participate in democracy, which makes it more vibrant.

If I am able to fully participate in our economy and I'm able to get the job and to buy a house and to do all these great things, then what does that do?

Does that only benefit me?

No.

It benefits everyone because we benefit when everyone fully participate.

This really struck home with me because I remember my journey.

I remember in August of 2005, when I was standing in front of railroad tracks in South Florida, waiting on a train to come, so I can jump in front of it.

That day was the lowest day in my life.

I was unemployed, I was recently released from prison.

I was addicted to crack cocaine, I was homeless.

And the only thing I owned were the clothes on my back and I stood there and I waited for that train to come.

And I waited.

I knew that my parents didn't raise me to be in that position, but there I was.

And so I waited and I waited.

Now, I'm a guy that's scared of needles, but even the thought of the pain, I would have to endure when that train crushed my body was not enough to make me move.

And I waited.

I was homeless.

And that was what everyone else was calling me a felon.

I didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel, but God had other plans and the train never came.

And I crossed those tracks and I checked self into drug treatment.

After completing drug treatment, I moved back into a homeless shelter cause I've been there before.

And while there, I decided that I wanted to do something that would prevent me from using drugs again, you see, because I was caught up in that vicious cycle of drug addiction that a allowed me to stop using at some points in my life.

But then I would end up using again and ending back where I was or even the worst place.

And so I enrolled in a local community college and I pursued a degree in paralegal studies.

And I ended up graduating at the top of my class and my professors encouraged me to continue my education.

I did, and I pursued a degree in Public Safety Management with a concentration in criminal justice.

I thought since I had a lot of experience getting arrested and appearing before judges that somehow or another, that would translate into classrooms success.

And it did.

And I ended up graduating with highest honors.

Eventually I got accepted in the law school, in may of 2014, I graduated with a Jurist Doctorate Degree.

You can clap now.

(audience applauding) I tell people that when I was standing in front of those railroad tracks and someone would've told me, Desmond don't jump in front of that train because in a few years, you're going to meet the president of United States, not once but twice.

And you're going sit on boards with commissioners and mayors and all kinds of dignitaries, and you're going to lead a organization.

That's going to restore voting rights, to 1.4 million people, or you going to be name Time Magazine, 100 most influential people in the world, or you going be a MacArthur genius fellowship.

If someone would've told me that when I was standing in front of those railroad tracks, the very first question I would've asked them was where they get that good dope they smoking.

(audience chuckles) Because there was no way at the time that you could have convinced me that a person in my position at the time could have even accomplished that.

Why did I share that?

I share that because I am standing here as a living example, to so many people who have had seemingly insurmountable obstacles in front of them who thought that they would never be able to accomplish anything, could see for themselves now that anything is possible, especially when you have God on your side.

And most definitely when you are willing to serve.

I also tell that because as I was talking about standing in front of railroad tracks and waiting on that train, and then I ended with me graduating with law school and you all clapped without being prompted.

(audience chuckles) The one thing that each and every one of you all did, those you all, who were looking me in my eye right now, like, as you were a few seconds ago, was that you didn't see felon, you didn't see homeless, you saw another human being.

And I believe that, that is so vital.

When you talk about even the soul of our democracy, we have to start from the very basic element and that element of us recognizing the humanity in each and every one of us.

How many times growing up enduring school that we have stood, and we said I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God.

Indivisible and the six most important words with liberty and justice for all, not some, not the rich, not the straight, not the Dem's or the Republicans, but with liberty and justice, for all.

That basic element of recognizing the humanity in each and every one of us, regardless of our immigration status, regardless of our sexual identity or socioeconomic status, regardless of whether or not we've ever been convicted of a felony, that as human beings, as children of God, that we are deserving of being treated with dignity and respect.

We can't have a vibrant democracy without first understanding that basic element.

An element that is overlooked, an element that is discarded because of our desire to engage in tribal politics.

Our desire to have our team dominate the other team and shut them down and not even give them a chance to win, not even give them a chance to share their thoughts, because we know what's best for this country.

When we talk about different elements of registering and voter suppressing, sometimes we forget, and we tend to think that one side have a monopoly on that.

But the reality is from the time this country was formed they've always been a group of politicians that wanted to pick their voters instead of having the voters pick them.

I'm reminded that even though, we had a great victory in 2018, I'm reminded that it wasn't too long ago, that the women in this room was not even able to vote.

They were jailed, they were beaten to prevent them from having their voices heard.

That's another reason why I thought that the movement that we had in Florida to re enfranchise people with previous felony convictions was great.

And the efforts of my organization today to eliminate these obstacles to democracy and obstacles that prevents a fully engaged or a person participating in our economy, removing those obstacles was amazing because I believe that if we can provide access to the most despised segment of our population, we'll be able to provide access to democracy for all.

If we can learn to love those who we despise the most, then we'll be able to love everyone and we can get to that liberty and justice for all.

And so we ran this campaign and we brought together people from all walks of life.

And it wasn't about no left versus right, It was more about what was right.

And that when the debt is paid is paid.

And we were engaging folks from all parts of Florida, those of you all who know Florida know it's three states in one, And they were like, Desmond, how did you talk to create three different conversations?

And I didn't, I only had one.

Its a simple question.

Do you know anyone who you love, who's ever made a mistake?

And everyone, whether there was Republican, whether Democrat, whether they was white, whether they was black, didn't matter, they all had someone who made a mistake.

And that was one of the key strategies that we used.

And I was telling folks that listen, we weren't trying to be too selective because number one, Hey, it might sound kind of controversial, but we were fighting just as hard for the person who wanted to vote for Donald Trump, as we were for that person, that wished they could have voted for president Barack Obama.

Cause it wasn't about whether not we felt someone thought like us or was going to vote on our side.

That wasn't the driving force.

What was the driving force was that we wanted every single human being in our communities to be able to have a say in how their country is governed or how their communities are governed, whether they agreed with me or not.

That's what democracy is all about.

And so if you find yourself only for fighting for people on your side, or who you think is on your side, then you're not engaging in that work to create a more robust democracy.

You're engaging in tribalism and you are helping to further the fracture of this country.

I often think I'm up here in Ohio.

Let me tell you my good friend, Neil Voes is a huge time, Ohio State Buckeye fan, and he managed to trick me into going to a game with him one year against Michigan.

And man, I'll tell you, it reminded me of those rivalries like Alabama versus Auburn, and you seeing the split in the homes where one side of the house, are Auburn colors, the other side is Alabama colors.

And I'm pretty sure it's the same here.

That you will have families where one side of the family are huge Buckeye fans and the other side are Wolverine fans.

But even in spite of the family being split in allegiance to these different teams, they still maintained that family bond.

My wife made me renounce all my NFL teams to just be a Philadelphia Eagle fan in order for me to marry her.

And I had to suffer through some years before we got to the Super bowl.

But in spite of our differences, we still was able to love each other.

This the thing that we have to understand.

That when we talk about democracy, it's not about my side beating your side, or what side is the better side or whatever.

When we talk about democracy, it's about both sides being able to fully engage and participate on a level field, And engage in debate and be able to come to some type of consensus for the will of the people, for the good of the people.

That's what we look at.

And so on our campaign, that's what we did.

We had our campaign.

One of the most beautiful things about our campaign was that we embraced the spirit that we wished was more prevalent in our community.

That spirit that said that shows us that in the aftermath of a hurricane.

I remember in Texas, there was some flooding and there was an African American gentleman in the boat and he stopped to rescue this guy.

This white man and the white man got to the boat and forgot.

He left something back at his home.

And he had to go back to get his Confederate flag.

And that black man stood right there, and in that moment, he was able to overlook the racist history of that flag and what it represented.

And he was to see through the bigotry and connect with that person's humanity.

That same feeling that we have when the hurricane or tornado hits communities.

We've seen it in south Florida at the collapse of a condominium, when people were rushing, we didn't care about a person's immigration status.

We didn't care about their political party.

You're on the road, Bakari, you're on the road and you're driving here at the City Club.

And you see that accident on the side of the road and you decide you want to stop and help and you get out your car and you run up to this person that's laying on the ground.

And I'm willing to bet right now, $100 in my pocket.

Your first question is not, did you vote for Donald Trump?

What is your immigration status?

What's your sexual?

No, it's likely going to be around, are you okay?

Or how can I help.

You see it's those moments in which we are great as a country.

It's in those moments where we can create a great and vibrant democracy, those moments where we could see past what divides us and connect with each other, along the lines of humanity.

We even have to look at voting like that.

So many times voting is just superficial.

It's about what side gets more votes than the other side.

And have to go register more Democrats so we can outpace the Republicans.

And we have to try to find ways to discourage people from voting and encourage our people from voting.

And the reality is that we don't just want a voter, what we need is an investor in democracy.

Regardless of how they feel.

That's what we did in Florida.

We were trying to create more investors in our democracy.

So we didn't talk to our people about politics.

We talked to our people about love.

We talked to our people about the need to fully engage in our democracy, to make it more vibrant.

The soul of our democracy, rest with our ability to connect with each other, along the lines of humanity.

Can we see that person that God created?

Can we see them and not the color of their skin, not their political affiliation, not any of those other labels.

Cause there was no labels on with liberty and justice for all.

I'll welcome questions at this time.

(audience applauding) - We are about to begin the audience Q&A.

We welcome questions from everyone, City club members, guests, or those of you joining us via live stream or the radio broadcast on 90.3 ideastream public media.

If you'd like to tweet a question, please tweet it.

@thecityclub, you can also text them to 330-541-5794 that's 330- 541-5794.

And our staff will try to work it into the program.

Can we have the first question, please?

We ready for those questions?

All right.

Yep.

Thank you so much.

- Hi Desmond.

So as a part of the Sugar On Grits delegation, that we are both a member of, I want you to talk about this campaign had a lot of ups and downs that many may not know.

Tell us you spoke a little bit about how you were able to coalesce and work on getting a contingency of Floridians across demographics to get behind you, regardless of political identification.

One that stands out to me is a moment where the campaign was involved in volunteer efforts.

I believe it was after hurricane Maria, but that's not the only one.

So talk a little bit more about humanity, overcoming political identification.

- Thank you for that question.

Those three questions in one.

But I'm glad if you notice, she opened up with part as part of the sugar on grits delegation, There's this huge debate that's going on across the country about whether not you put sugar on grits.

Anybody put sugar on the grits, please raise your hand.

You know what?

And see, I love that because now you hearing feedback from the audience that, oh, you don't put sugar on grits.

You put maybe butter, maybe some cheese, but you don't put sugar on grits, I'm a sugar on grits guy.

And let me tell you how I explained, at some point, peanut butter and jelly was not popular.

- [Audience] What?

- At some point, somebody was like, you putting peanut butter with jelly.

That's not how we do things around here, but see sugar on grits is also symbolic of the way we have to engage folks.

Cause we have been so accustomed to doing things a certain way.

And we've been so accustomed to using techniques that may have been beneficial 30 years ago.

And not even realizing that times and systems have changed, but yet we're still stuck in a way of doing things.

We're still stuck in our language.

We get so tied into languages and not really being like tuned into what's going on, on the ground, that we are trying to force things through, and then we wonder why we are not successful or why it seems like we just keep on spinning the wheel.

Amendment four campaign was a campaign about sugar on the grits.

It was a campaign about doing things differently, That model of okay, you mobilized your base, you move the middle and you neutralize the opposition.

You all remember that.

But no, what about just getting the opposition and turning them into your base?

What about in amendment four I was told, and number one, because of some erroneous solutions that when you talk about felonies enfranchisement folks have going to automatically think, oh man, if we fix that man, that's a win for the Democrats.

And why is that?

Because number one, when people think of the criminal justice system or people who are in prison, they're thinking about people that look like me and not like Dan, that's number one.

And number two is because people that look like me are the only race of people.

The only race of people who someone could look at and just automatically assume what political party they support.

Just think about it.

Can't look at no one else.

I don't know if Dan is a Republican or a Democrat.

Guess what?

I don't care.

But because of these beliefs and people are saying, okay, we can only do things certain way.

You can't talk to Republicans, cause Republicans are against people getting their rights back, especially in Florida because they know if they do, Florida's going to turn blue.

And because of all of this, you have over 1.4 million people that are suffering and shut out of democracy because we can never come to a consensus because everything is based on what?

which party is going to benefit.

What about whether or not democracy is going to benefit.

And so we engaged in a totally unconventional campaign that went against the butter on the grits.

And we did things differently.

We spoke to Republicans, we spoke to independent, we didn't care who you were.

We spoke to you.

And we talked to you not about whether not Florida's going to turn red or blue.

We talked to you about love.

What about somebody that you love that made a mistake?

Do you think they deserve a second chance?

And that was enough to power through all of the partisanship, even the implicit racial biases.

So thank you for that question.

- Desmond, quick question.

Can you talk about how you made sure that the folks who were directly impacted, the returning citizens were constantly the voice of this campaign?

We all know a lot of money came into Florida, a lot of national organizations who wanted to lead efforts on the ground.

I think you did a really great job in making sure that those voices really fought the fight.

- Thank you for that question.

And it just so happened through trial and error.

Those of you, when you read the book, I think you you'll see a few passages about this, but there was a time when, I was able to get a handful of organizations to be interested long enough in this issue to want to be a part of trying to figure out how we can launch a ballot initiative.

And it was funny because at some point afterward And I'm this guy that, I used to be homeless just a few years prior to that.

And I'm hanging around all these great organizations with beautiful initials and I acquiesced a lot of power to establish organizations cause they know how to get things done.

But the problem was that when the going got tough, they got going.

And when I looked around, I found myself standing by myself and I've started to realize that they could wake up the next morning and vote, but I can't.

I don't have the luxury of walking away.

I like to share this analogy that I think is so appropriate.

I had to figure out what my lane was and that experience helped me do it.

I tell folks, I use this analogy a lot to help people understand the difference between contribution and commitment.

Believe it or not people get that.

They do get those two things confused.

The way I attempt to help people understand the difference is talking about a ham and cheese omelet.

Now I'm pretty sure most of us, we not going to debate about ham and cheese omelet.

(all chuckles) But basically the ingredients to ham cheeses, is what, the egg, the ham and the cheese.

If you were poor, like me growing up, then even milk the stretch of eggs.

I know you guys have never done that before.

I'm the only one, but we know that the egg comes from the chicken.

We know that the cheese and the milk comes from the cow and we know that the ham come from the pig.

Well, the chicken made a contribution to the ham and cheese omelet.

The cow made a contribution to the ham and cheese omelet, the pig however made a commitment (audience chuckles) to the ham and cheese omelet.

(audience applauding) I was the pig trying to play the role of the cow or the chicken.

And I was asking the cow or the chicken to be the role of the pig.

See those folks with the nice fancy initials.

They weren't pig material.

The reality was they were actually cows and chickens.

And so I couldn't be mad at them when they walked away.

When it wasn't looking sexy or it wasn't the hot topic of the day, or there wasn't a lot of money out there that was committed to that.

And so I could understand why when there was no money in the campaign that they left but I was a pig.

I had no going back.

So we pushed and we pushed.

And let me tell you, I used to drive over 50,000 miles a year on my car in Florida.

Sometimes borrowing money from my fiance at the time.

Who's not my wife, just so I could have gas money to get back home all while being in school.

Let me tell you what happened, at some point that grassroots picked up steam and we were getting close to a very important benchmark.

And then yeah, the initials came back.

You think I told him, hell no, no, come on in.

Cause you can't have a beautiful ham and cheese omelet without the egg, cheese in the milk, along with the ham.

And so we needed everyone's input.

But this time I understood who the pig was.

That's where the buck stopped with me.

I helped them understand that they were actually cows and chickens and not pigs.

And that's how we kept them, I guess, in their lanes.

- Hi, good afternoon.

I just have a quick question.

So as we all know, the Florida legislature gutted the amendment that you all worked so hard to pass and essentially made it almost in difficult, but not impossible.

Meaning that folks had to pay their fines and fees, but clearly the courts don't keep really good documents.

So it's almost impossible for people to know what they owe.

I guess my question is, what is the next steps either in terms of another amendment, maybe another law to require courts, to make it explicit, what people owe, what are the next steps so that we can get the vast majority of those 1.4 million Floridians, the opportunity to vote because that is their democratic right?

- So one of the thing, and I like the phrase that, after we passed amendment four, the floor of the legislature gutted the win.

I love that.

Because here's the deal.

And that have been a misconception for quite some time.

Why did you say that Desmond, all right.

Prior to Amendment four in the state of Florida at the time Florida was one of four states.

It was Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, and Iowa.

There was one of four states that permanently disenfranchised American citizens, which meant that once a person is convicted of a felony offense, they lost their civil rights for the rest of their life.

The only way in Florida that anyone could get around that was going through the governor and the clemency board for clemency.

That was the only way.

And one of the things that we faced was I remember in the years of governor Charlie Chris, where he created a policy that allowed for the automatic restoration of civil rights, for people who were convicted of less serious offense in his four years in office, over 155,000 people were able to have their rights restored.

Then we had governor Scott who came in, undid those policies with a signature on a piece of paper.

And all of a sudden in his eight years, less than 5,000 people were able to get their rights restored.

And so one of the things that matter of fact, that was one of the events that really caused me to say, wait a minute, four politicians get to decide which American citizen get to vote and which don't get to vote.

Like there's no greater indicator of citizenship than being able to vote.

And to leave it in the hands of politicians to decide who votes and who don't vote, that is disastrous, And we leave so much room for partisan politics to play a role in that, whether they're Democrat, Republican, it don't matter.

No politician should have that kind of power to decide which citizen get to vote period.

That was a driving force, but here's the deal what amendment four did.

Because we know that felonies enfranchisement saw its resurgence during the reconstruction area as a major mechanism, or tool use to drastically reduce the voting power or the political capital of the newly freed people who were enslaved.

Who primarily African American, dominantly, African American.

We know that.

And so this was in place for over 150 years.

Amendment four.

I love it.

Amendment four changed the constitution of the state of Florida.

And what we did with amendment four was basically knock down that Jim Crow law and created an alternative avenue of being able to participate in democracy without having to gravel at the needs of any politician.

And that is safely enshrined in our state constitution.

And the legislature can do anything they want to try to put pebbles in the way, but if they really want to try to even gut or really significantly impact what we are able to accomplish, the only way that they can do it, is through what?

A constitutional amendment.

They have to go right back to the same people who voted over 5.1 million of them over 64% that said, yes, to second chances and have them say, we change our mind and that's not happening.

That's not happening.

But yes, they did codified the requirement of the payment of fines and fees in order for a person to be able to vote that has impacted roughly around 700,000 individuals in the state of Florida.

My math is good.

I know that that leaves me over 600,000 returning citizens who can vote today.

600,000 individuals who can vote right now today.

But it also within that code that was created by our legislature, created an alternative avenue where we could actually go to the courts now, and the courts could actually waive those fines and fees for those individuals.

And we have a program that's up and running right now.

That's allowing even attorneys in other states to dedicate pro bono hours, to help our people put together motions and to get people in front the courts to get their fines and fees waived.

I would not give the Florida legislature credit for doing anything against amendment four, cause they can't touch it until they put something on the ballot.

I'm like grateful for the opportunity that we have.

Because if you have policies that's changed, we've seen governors one minute, They say, everybody can vote, the next minute, they want to be restrictive.

A new administration comes in.

And so that is too precarious of a position to put the right to vote in.

And so we need to have it enshrined in our constitution and hopefully one day it would be in our US constitution as well.

- Good afternoon, Mr. Mead, thank you so much for being here.

(indistinct) My name is Marinette Blackwell.

I'm the mayor of Maple Heights.

This is extremely extremely an amazing just presentation, I look forward to reading your book.

You said you have a JD, So congratulations.

My question, as one of those politicians and one of those elected officials is we've gotten to empowering those who have felonies, the right to vote in Florida.

The next move that I'm seeing for us is how do we make, create a movement that will minimize felony convictions.

And certainly with your background on criminal justice, you understand that, that's still a barrier.

We know, in addition to what you're doing that work needs to continue all over this country is we need to move where the felony convictions are reduced.

As we truly make a conscious effort to reform our justice system.

Do you have any thoughts on that.

Is that a part of your overall movement and vision for the soul of democracy?

- Madam mayor, thank you for that question.

I have a whole lot to say about it, but Dan is looking at me.

But what is what I can tell you?

And you can't.

I do not believe that you can change the criminal justice system, from one approach.

You have the laws and then you have the actors, that actually execute those laws.

You can't have great policy, but bad actors, vice versa.

You can't have great actors but bad policy because at some point they're like contaminating each other.

And so I think that you have to attack it from both sides.

I think that the very same people that really need to drive that conversation are people who've been impacted by the system.

We've often said those who are closest to the pain are often the ones that are closest to the solution.

And a lot of times we've been paying a lot of lips service to that.

Let me tell you something, in the last six years, and I hope my math is right, But let me make it easier for me.

Since 2018, the biggest victories around democracy has been led by people directly impacted.

Have been led by people with previous felonies convictions from amendment four in Florida to amendment two in Louisiana that eliminated this Jim Crow jury system rules to winning voting rights to thousands of folks to Prop 47 in California, that extended voting rights to people even while they were on probation, to court victories in North Carolina.

So over the last six, seven years, they've been strong proof that if we just let the people who've been impacted the most, take the lead, we can make some changes.

But the other thing is about, we have to shift the narrative.

The narratives are so important.

I talk about it all the time.

I share the story of one of the books I read, 'African American and The Atomic Bomb,' which talked about the African-American response to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

How African Americans were basically like, man, if United States can drop a bomb and kill all those thousands of people, what can they do to us?

And we are not on the best of terms right now.

So they were concerned.

But the thing about that book that really stuck out to me was that prior to bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki United States went on a massive propaganda campaign that depicted the Japanese people as dangerous, violent people.

And they even with drawings, the characters was exaggerated frames and exaggerated eyes and all that kind of stuff.

And what they were doing was two things.

Number one, they were dehumanizing the Japanese people and they were desensitizing the American public as to their humanity.

And they did such a great job that when the United States dropped the bomb and killed thousands of innocent women, children and men, rather than there being public outrage, there was celebration, stop and think about that for a minute.

There was a celebration of the murder of innocent women, children and men.

That's the power of the narrative.

That's that same narrative and mechanism that tells us that being black is dangerous they're violent people.

They are super predators.

And these felons are...

These criminals and...

Listen a narrative.

Immigrant, if I wanted dehumanize them just put illegal in front of it, now people are not caring as much about families getting separated at the border.

They don't care about the inhumane treatment of people in prison and putting children in solitary confinement or arresting eight and nine year olds and putting them in handcuffs or putting a human being in a cage or even conditions, that's not even fit for an animal, but that's the power of the narrative.

And so we can fight to change the policies and we could change the actors.

But if we don't change the narrative, then nothing really changes.

And so that is so important.

That's why there's so many orgs or groups that's out here.

That's says no, don't call us felon, call us justice, impacted people or formally incarcerated people.

We use the phrase returning citizen in Florida, and I believe in DC, but we have to recognize first that we are people with somebody's sons, daughters.

And let me tell you, you want to talk about changing policies around, say the school of prison pipeline or changing policies around police encounters and all that.

It's very simple, you take away the politics out of it.

And you ask yourself one question, just one question.

If you thinking about juvenile justice reform, what you say is how would I want my son to be treated if he did something at school?

If we talk about police encounters, who do I want to come to my son's door when he's having a mental health crisis?

Who do I want coming?

And if we start from that basis, that basis that touches on your humanity, a lot of these things would change, but it's the narrative that dehumanizes us.

It's the narrative that causes us to not be as sensitive to the plight of others as we should be.

- We have a lot of questions coming in virtually, and this one actually builds off of what you were just saying from our community partners at Cleveland votes.

What are some immediate calls to action?

You can share with us Clevelanders that we can deploy in a way that will elevate love unification and radical transformation.

- Wow, I love that.

When the Florida legislature required that there were payment, fines and fees before a person was able to vote.

One of the things that we did in addition to creating our attorney assistant program and utilizing the courts was that we fund raised.

I think in 2020, we raised over $30 million to help people who are too poor, pay off their fines and fees.

Cause we thought no one should be forced to choose between eating, putting food on their plate or voting.

We engage in that.

We raised in a couple of months over, like I said, $30 million.

We were paying people fines and fees off.

And then there was this new story that broke that was misleading and basically saying, oh, Bloomberg donated a lot of money to our fines and fees, which created a political uproar.

Another reason why in our campaign we kept the politics at bay and kept our stuff elevated above it.

But when that happened, there was a lot of chatter going on in the dark web.

And my organization, my name popped up in the dark web.

And that was around the time when even a lot of civil right activists or racial justice activists were getting like death threats and all kinds of stuff.

And so our senses were heightened it and it got...

It was bad enough to where I was full forced to hire armed guards, to guard my home where I lived with my family and to guard our office.

I mean, it was heavy.

That was heavy on me.

One of the things that was on the chat, they was telling folks to crash our fines and fees system.

They was encouraging folks let's crash it, whatever.

And then it was another post that said, hell, sue, some of you all, they go ahead and apply for it whatever.

And my deputy director asked me, said, Desmond, you know, what if a reporter ask you about that.

This is what I told my deputy director, is that there's a lot of people and we knew it when we was collecting petitions, there were a lot of people who loved Donald Trump who were returning citizens.

And a lot of them had fines and fees.

And I told them that if they apply to fines and fees, we going to pay it.

Stop and think about that for minute.

Here, I know that there's people that hate me because of the color of my skin.

Maybe some want to even kill me.

But yet, but yet I was willing.

I said, no, even though they hated me, we going to pay their fines and fees.

Because even though they hated me, they still deserved a shot at democracy.

They should have access.

And so to your question, which I think is a beautiful question is that we cannot allow ourselves to be pigeonholed into fighting for access to democracy or for any cause we should not allow ourselves to take on these labels or allow labels to be put on us.

Because when that happens, it limits who we can talk to and who can talk to us.

And I know that at the depth of the things that we are passionate about.

That we don't see the race.

We don't see the partisan politics because when we're knocking on doors, in our communities, when we're meeting people on the train, on the subway, at our jobs, at our schools, these are people from all walks of life.

And so we have to figure out how do we love our way through that?

And understand that I don't just only knock on certain doors to talk, no, I'm going knock on every door and I'm going to have that conversation.

And so we've got to find a way to love through the hate, we got to find a way to love through the fear.

MLK once said that what, 'hate can't drive out hate,' Fear can't drive out fear.

But I am a disciple of the fact that love can conquer that all.

And in amendment four in that night, in November, when over 5.1 million people voted yes, over a million of them were Republican.

What I see was 5.1 million votes that wasn't based on hate or fear, but rather votes that was based on love, forgiveness and redemption.

And we showed the world, we showed the state.

We showed this country that love can in fact win the day.

That we can move major issues without having to tear each other down without having to be fearful of each other.

We can move it with love if we are willing to be committed to it and courageous enough to do so.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) - Thank you.

Today at The City Club, we have been listening to a forum featuring Desmond Mead, president and executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you, Desmond Mead.

Thank you, members and friends of the City Club.

Please stay warm.

I'm Cynthia Connolly.

And this forum is adjourned.

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