 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These words from the Declaration of Independence are familiar to many of us, and yet it took 143 years for women to get the right to vote and 189 years for black people to get the right to vote. And still today, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are still only words for many people. Here in Boston, life expectancy varies by 30 years, depending on where you live. In Roxbury, with many poor and black people, life expectancy is 59 years. In the back bay, wealthy and mostly white, life expectancy is 91 years. It's tough to have liberty when you are in prison. The United States incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 people. Our rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most countries in the world. Millions of people in our country don't have health care, a decent job, good education, a home they can't afford, and that makes it pretty hard to pursue happiness. So on this show, you are going to meet people who are making it possible to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. People today who are making the words of the Declaration of Independence come true. Hello, welcome to We Hold These Truths. My name is Michael Jacoby Brown, and we're very blessed and honored to have as our host today Ron Bell, the founder of Dunk the Vote, an important voter registration and voter turnout organization that works on civic engagement in the Greater Boston Area. Welcome, Ron. We're really glad to see you today, and I'd like you to say something about where you grew up and what that was like for you growing up here in Boston. Sure. First of all, thank you, Michael, for having me as a guest on We Hold These Truths. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to hold a lot of them true, but we got to keep on striving and keep pushing until we get the prize. But I grew up in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood, which is a sub neighborhood of Roxbury. My mom and dad, my mom was a community activist and also worked with young people in the Boston Public Schools as a bus monitor, and my father was a welder and a baker, as well as a veteran. And it was interesting, we had three boys and three girls that grew up in the house, and many people referred to us as the Brady Bunch, but we were the Bell Bunch. And it was so, we were very fortunate to grow up in a neighborhood that was rich in diversity. It had a mixed housing stock and a concentration of institution. We had black, white Latinos, everything in between growing up. It was like a bowl of salad. So at an early age, we were able to get the education of folks from different cultures, Mission Park, one of the best neighborhoods to grow up in, which is a part of Boston's Mission Hill. Fast forward, I was able to attend Boston Latin School. Unfortunately, it was during the tough time in the city of Boston, very turbulent times. The bussing of the 70s where blacks and whites were going at each other. And I can remember vividly being called the inward at one of the oldest public schools in the country by a teacher. I was called the inward and I never forget that moment because here I am at a school that I didn't really want to go to. My mom really was adamant about me getting a good education and going to an exam school. And during the time that I was accepted into Boston Latin School was right during the time of the affirmative action. And during that time, blacks were able to get in pretty much like leveling the playing field. And so I thought that I was one of the affirmative action young people as a student. Man, for the number of years, I felt that way until 40 years later, I was a part of a group called the Black Alumni Advisory Committee for Boston Latin School, which are black alumni who came back to deal with a racist incident in the Boston Latin School by two girls, Maggie, Noel, and Kylie, two young black girls who really exposed the racism there. And at that moment, you know, I went back to the time I was called the inward. And one of the lessons I learned, Michael, is that you can't put a band-aid on racism. You know, whenever you encounter racial action, you know, even in this moment, in this pandemic with George Floyd, I still remember being called the inward. I still remember being spit on by black, white teenage boys when I was nine years old. I remember that being spit on going to Cub Scout singing My Liberty, My Country's Tears of These Sweet Land of Liberty. And I'm on this show. We hold these truths. I still can smell the spit every Wednesday being spit on by white teenage boys and I'm nine years old. So when we fast forward, as my life growing up, I've always been one to fight for racial equality, social justice. You know, it's the fire in my belly I get from my mom who founded the neighborhood we grew up in, Roxbury Tenants of Harvard, which her name is organized, you know, going to meetings with her children. And we're in the gym where my mother's organizing a neighborhood where we eventually lived in. So I know I'm jumping back and forth, but this is a part of my journey. And my journey has become my vocation, fighting for road of registration, fighting for social equality, and fighting for education and economic opportunities for black people in particular. And I say that because as an African descendant of slaves, I feel we always get the short end of the stick. You know, when you look at Boston, you look at disparities, which was pointed out in the intro there, the average network of a black family $8 compared to a white family $257,000. I thought that number was like, did they make it up? But anyway, you know, so I continue to fight. And as my journey going to RTH, as my journey becoming the Youth Director, becoming the Youth Council President at the age of 16, and then becoming the Youth Director of an organization my mom founded, I am very proud to say that I have continued her legacy. My dad was more or less like George Jefferson and Fred Sanford, who had the community laughing. I guess he worked so many hours working two full time job, he had nothing else to do but make us laugh and take care of his family. So I mean, I can continue on. I want to make sure I don't want to take up the whole time. That's great. I mean, I know you were the youngest director of the Mission Hill Community Center. And I know that was during the time of the murder where a white man murdered his wife and said falsely that it had been a black man, the so-called Stuart Case. I wonder if you can talk about what your experience was like then in Mission Hill as the youngest director of the Mission Hill Community Center and what you learned from that. Yeah. Well, you know, interesting after leaving the Roxburyton-Sahabah Youth Director, I became the Assistant Director at Mission Hill Community Center, which only lasted about six months. And then I actually was initiated in to the Executive Director with the Stuart tragedy when a pregnant white woman, as you mentioned, Mike, was allegedly killed by an African-American male. There was an all-off hunt for black men. Now, mind you, I'm just becoming the director and the youngest director at the age of 26. And, you know, having 80 staff servicing a thousand people a day, it was really a major challenge. But I'm proud that I was able to handle it. But I remember vividly, Michael, seeing black men being strip searched right in front of the center. And I was walking down Tremont Street, which is where the Tobu Community Center is located in Mission Hill. And I see these black men with their pants pulled down, some laid on the ground in front of the center. I remember turning around because I did not want to be subjected to that as a new director because it wasn't like it didn't matter if you was Executive Director. It didn't matter if you had a pseudo time. It didn't matter if you was a doctor or lawyer. It was a bad time, a terrible turbulent time in the city of Boston. And I felt helpless at that moment. But I realized in order to exact punishment on elected officials did not stand with us during that challenging time seeing young black men being strip searched and then come up and find out it was her own husband that did it. It was like we had to do something. And so we started organizing voter registration drives at local storefront. Unfortunately, the black men who were being strip searched weren't coming out to the drive. So what better way to reach them? In community organizing, we know that the best extras are those closest to the problem, but we also got to meet people where they are. And so we met these young black men where they are through the sport of basketball and that was the niche to bring them into the gymnasium. It was the niche to be able to bring community-based organizations, health care, where we check people's high blood pressure, blood pressure, cholesterol. It was a one-stop-shop, Michael, where we registered 1500 people in three days. And it was such an exciting moment for us. And then we fast forward into developing a leadership institute and we registered over 50,000 people over the years in accounting. So that's been my journey at Mission Hill Community Center. Now, mind you, that was just one of the many programs that we did from earlier to venture all the way to senior citizens. So it was a family service center and a community, folks building relationships and getting to know we were a big family. I would believe it would be similar to what Dr. King and Dr. Virgil Wood who had the opportunity to speak to the other day called the Beloved Community. So I guess I got this spirit in me. No, I know you do. I wonder if you can talk about some of your mentors and what you learned and how you learned about organizing at the Mission Hill Community Center and after that. I know you also led a reenactment of the Summit to Montgomery March that John Lewis and others joined. And I wonder if you can talk about what you learned from that experience and who are some of the key mentors and teachers for you now that you yourself, not that you're that old, but are mentoring many young people. Yeah, well, I just had a birthday the other day. So I know you're still younger than I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I there's a number of mentors some older and some younger because I think we can always we're always learning. One, I would say Hubey Jones who's Dean of Meredith at Boston University as well as a Dean at City Year. Hubey has been very supportive of me in my work. He has encouraged me to kind of focus in on what do I really want to do? What is my brand? And I continue to talk to Hubey not as much as I used to, you know, but I still check in with him, Mel King, who forms the Honorable Mel King, who was formerly a state rep as well as the South End Technology Center. He works there in the South End as well. MIT, he has a fellowship which I went through. These gentlemen were two key folks that I learned many things from. I remember Mel coming over to the community center during the time when I had just became the Executive Director in the first year of Dr. Vogue. And I remember when he was telling me, he said, this is what we need here, you know, civic engagement. This is what we need people to be able to come to a place that feels as if this is home, a second home. And so there are other mentors yourself, Michael. You've been a very instrumental in my life. And I have something here, building powerful community organizations. So I take a peek in here every now and then, if folks can see this. This is your time, right? This is your time. Okay. Well, we had a little technical difficulty. And we're back with Ron Bel, the founder and Executive Director of Dunk the Vote. Ron, I know you mentioned earlier about your experience at Boston Latin School. And you said 40 years later, you found out something. You said during the time you were there, there was some interest in affirmative action. But what was the actual situation that you found out 40 years later, you didn't actually get to mention that? Yeah, I, again, I was talking to you about the experience with the two young black girls who identified the racial activity that was going on at Boston Latin, Meggy, No Olds, and Kylie Webster, these two young women, brilliant, black, beautiful queens who really brought something to light. And I joined a committee called the Black Alumni Advisory Committee, which were alumni Boston Latin, and Michael Conor Parsons, who was the headmaster, when I was in, thank God, they changed their names to heads of school. That name doesn't, you know, signify what your show does, these truths, right? So anyway, so he, we were going around and introducing ourselves. And I said I was one of the young people who came into Boston Latin during busing in 76 during the affirmative action. And we had a number of blacks and Latinos that came in during that time. So I thought I was a young person that was able to receive that benefit of affirmative action. And he said, no, Ron, no, you wasn't one of them, you actually had the highest scores amongst the students who were enrolled, which included the black, white, Latino and everything else in between that. And I was like, wow, for 40 years, I thought I was an affirmative action student who graduated from Latin in 1981. And when I when he said that it was like a weight lifted off my shoulder. And that goes talk, that goes to tell you about how, you know, you can't believe everything you read or see, you have to know it for yourself. And when he told me that it made me feel a level of being proud, I felt very proud. And I felt like, wow, you know, I was one of the top candidates who got the highest score. So that was something that really was a tipping point in my life. I would also submit to you another lesson when we talk about schools, as we, you know, move forward these 40 plus years now, when I started dunk the vote in 1989, I was the executive director at Mission Hill Community Centers. And one of the lessons that I learned was how to be a community organizer, you know, could so many of us, you know, we say that but we really don't know the different pieces that go along with community organizing, like building relationship and fighting for power, and getting to know our neighbors face to face and talking to one another. And I remember a woman named Dean Neville, God rest her soul, rest in peace. She was one of the organizers who helped fight, start Roxbury Tent to Harvard, where her and my mom and others, neighbors, some students from Harvard University fought Harvard to get affordable housing for our community. And she kept saying to me, Ron, you have to learn the difference from a community organizer and an executive director. Because so often, you know, I was the executive director, actually was the youngest director in the department. There was 41 facilities, and I had two facilities. I was 26, 27 years old. And she kept saying that, you know, let me teach you how to be in community organizing. First of all, you need to go to your neighbors, knock on these doors. And it's not about you, it's about organizing people and getting them to take power. A lot of us use the word, we need to empower people. She taught me that you don't empower people, you teach people how to take power. And I kept saying to myself, you know, I'm so used to, you know, I'm the executive director, then you have your assistant director at my 80s staff. And I remember we had lost like a couple of staff members during that time, with a program called Hope and Progress. We had 250 young people, there were incidents in our center. One of the cities we had found a AK-47 pistol. And we kept saying to the administration in the city of Boston that we needed to replace these staff, we needed a security in one of my facilities, which was in the heart of the housing development in Mission Hill. And I remember knocking on the doors to parents that grew up with me and asked them to come to a community meeting. And lo and behold, we had 97 people. And then my supervisor, the executive director of Boston Centers for Youth and Families, which is actually back then with Boston Community Centers, I had her and her entourage came in front of 97 people, tell them that there was no money in the budget. At the time, I was one of the organizers for the union. And then our president, at the time, William Dickerson, he had asked, he was also the president of our board, he had asked all those in favor of these administration leaving this facility because they cannot deliver the resources we need, we were going to go directly to the mayor to stand up. And out of the 99 people that attended the meeting, 99 people that attended the meeting, 97 of them stood up and asked the administration, mind you, this is my boss, the supervisor and her staff, which was about eight of them, to leave the facility. Right then and in that moment, Michael, I learned about power. I learned about my community took power, and we were able to get the resources we need. We got the three staff, and as a matter of fact, we ended up getting four because Mass College of Art at the time, now Mass College of Pharmacy provided us with additional staff, so we had four staff and a police officer. So again, no one could ever tell me that, you know, people working together, organizing together, when a common interest can really accomplish the goal. Right, so I know after the Stuart case, you talked about dunk the vote, getting young, especially young black men together to play basketball, and in order to play basketball, they had to register to vote and vote. And now, here it is years later, you're revitalizing dunk the vote. Can you tell us a little about what you hope to achieve in the next steps for dunk the vote now? Yes. Yeah, dunk the vote is going through a major transition right now. I took a somewhat a breathing period. I ended up working as senior advisor to Governor Deval Patrick, as his senior advisor for community affairs. So that kind of took me off track. I went from nonpartisan to a partisan effort, because one of the reasons I did that was because we were able to get jobs for black people and Latinos and women and those that are on the low spectrum of the totem pole, so to speak. And during that time, you know, I learned about the inside. And in learning about the inside, I also learned how to organize from the middle, being on the inside and being an organizer on the outside, and having connections on both and bringing that together to make sure I continue to deliver from my community. After I left the administration, I realized that dunk the vote was such a there was such a leadership gap in our community. And you know, when you look at the daunting statistics of the net worth of a black family eight dollars compared to a white family 247,250 around that figure, you have we have to do something around economic opportunities. So we were able to, you know, get some of the folks who've been very active in dunk the vote and particularly black men and women to organize and to mobilize and to really develop their leadership skills. Even during this pandemic, we were, we had our PPP gear and we declared this past year, dunk the vote 2020 as a voting as a public health emergency. And so we were still out in the ground, but we brought the ground game to the social media space. One other area that I work in is communications. I run a broadcast on Milton access TV as well as Boston black news and Boston praise radio and TV and I use them outlets, one to use as an educational form where we're able to implement our one of our projects called cells civic engagement leadership lab, which entails providing information for young people and visit our website at dunk the vote 2020.com is so important that we get all people involved because I know we've been, we were able to organize it at it from an issue that happened in our community and very bad issue to Stuart tragedy. But we realized that it's not just black people that we're reaching out to we're reaching out to all people because when you help in particularly folks who've been here and brought here against the real African descendants of slaves is better for all of us. So now what we're doing, we've expanded to eight different states. We have a physical present zoomed into various states across the country, including battleground states like Pennsylvania, Arkansas. You know, we will also have a presence in Florida and California, and in North Carolina, South Carolina, and 12 cities across the Commonwealth. And we're really zeroing in to make sure that we focus in neighborhoods, and particularly in areas where I have done work and dunk the vote, volunteers and staff that are paid, I might add, so that we're able to kind of measure our success. And we're asking folks to join dunk the vote $20 per year, we're asking people to join our organization to continue to keep the flame flickering. This year 2021. We know there are a number of races here locally. There's races going nationally in various states that we're in. And we're going to do our thing. We're asking people to organize their blocks, their communities, stay active. We've declared civic engagement is a public health emergency, civic engagement. I think sometimes, Michael, we tend to work on these elections, and particularly some I've worked on whether they've been Deval Patrick's or Obama's. And, you know, we get all excited, you know, we get candidates that look like us that someone think like us and have our best interests at heart. And we stop, and we don't want to stop. We need to keep people engaged, make civic engagement a way of life. Right. And why is it so important to have a membership organization where people pay dues, support the organization? Why is that so critical to the future of dunk the vote? Well, it's important. You can't depend on grant money. Grant money comes, it goes away. When you have a membership, people are invested in themselves, they invest in the future. They're also invested in an organization that builds power and economic opportunities. So they know there's a place they can go. They can go to Dunk DeVos cells, civic engagement, leadership lab and find information. They can call on others. We're building a family. We're building what, you know, Dr. King called the beloved community. As I mentioned before, Dr. Virgil Woods, who's one of my mentors, talks about the importance of building relationships, importance of building a beloved community. And when you invest in something, you take pride in it. Even when I was the executive director at Mission Hill Community Centers, we had a membership. Dunk DeVos was a part of Mission Hill Community Centers. And when people pay for something, they pay attention to what's going on. Then they have value it. Right. And like you say, the grants may come and go, though the foundations will often love you and leave you. And often you love the foundation. Oh, yeah. And I think the thing that you're doing, and maybe we only have about a minute left, is why is it so important that this be an ongoing organization, that it not just flare up a few weeks or months before an election? Why is that so important? That it be ongoing and 24 seven, 365 days a year, year after year? Why is that so critical in about one minute or less? Yeah. Well, I think the quote that Dr. King always says, and it sums it all up. And I'm very cautiously optimistic about our future and the turning point which our country's in, that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards just so I continue to ask people to let's keep going in the right direction. Right. And the other thing you mentioned is about how dunk the votes of family. Can you just say what that means to you and how the members will be a family? Well, as I mentioned, I get the fire in my belly from my mom and I believe in relationships. I believe in folks looking out for each other. It's in my DNA. So it makes me feel I'm doing my part. It makes me feel I'm a part of a family that makes me happy. Well, thanks, Ron. It's a really honor and a privilege to have you on We Hold These Truths because you are building, you are making those truths that were said in paper or on parchment and the Declaration of Independence come real in 2021 and in the years ahead. So this is Michael Jacoby Brown signing off for We Hold These Truths. I'm the host. We were very lucky to have Ron Bell, the director and founder of Dunk the Vote. So go to his website, Dunk the Vote 2020 and join. This is your time to make a difference. Thank you very much.