 Good afternoon everybody and welcome. I'm Susan Collins. I'm the Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Thank you. And on behalf of the Ford School and the entire University of Michigan It is such an honor to welcome all of you here today I in particular like to recognize President Mark Schlissel, Provost Martha Pollock, Regent Michael Beam, Regent Emerita, Julia Darlow and several of the university's executive offices and deans who are here with us today. Thank you so much for joining us. I'd like to acknowledge as well my faculty colleagues who are part of the steering committee for today's events. The university's Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion and the Chief Diversity Officer Rob Sellers, Professors Martha Jones, Ann Lynn and Matthew Countryman and also my fellow Dean of the School of Music, Theater and Dance, Aaron Dworkin. Thank you all so much. Indeed it really is a great honor to welcome all of you here today to hear from one of the nation's most distinguished champions of civil rights, the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Before President Schlissel introduces him more fully, I'd like to offer my thanks to Reverend Jackson for spending the entire day here with us with our students and our faculty. Thank you so much for that. We really appreciate all of your time. We're also so pleased to have his wife, Jacqueline Jackson, his son, his daughter and his grandson all here with us this afternoon. Reverend Jackson, I look forward to your remarks and I know that I speak for many in this room and many who are watching the live stream that the remarks that you will give us today are so needed and are extremely important and so we are very much looking forward to them. And now it is my honor to introduce Dr. Mark Schlissel, the 14th President of the University of Michigan. President Schlissel most recently served as Provost of Brown University. He's the first physician to lead our university. His academic research has contributed to a detailed understanding of the genetic factors involved in producing antibodies and how mistakes in that process can lead to leukemia and lymphoma. President Schlissel earned his A.B. in biochemical sciences from Princeton and went on to Johns Hopkins University in medicine earning both an M.D. and a Ph.D. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the University of Michigan's 14th President, Mark Schlissel. Good afternoon everybody. Thanks very much Dean Collins for that very kind introduction and for your outstanding leadership over the past decade of the Ford School of Public Policy. I'd like to thank the Symposium Organizing Committee as well and also acknowledge the role of my friend, Bankalee Thompson, in helping us organize today's session. Everyone at the Ford School as well who's helped our community in their efforts over the past week or the whole election season understand the impact of this year's election. Today we recognize a distinguished national leader and we honor a legacy that spans more than half a century. The Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. has led the way in the struggle for freedom, voting rights, equality and peace here in the cities and towns of the United States and abroad. We should all take note that his first experience as a social activist was as a student. In the summer of 1960 in his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, Reverend Jackson refused to be turned away from the segregated local public library. He's been at the forefront of the struggle for civil rights ever since. During the mid-1960s, he worked with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and helped secure the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He ran for president in 1984 and 1988 building unprecedented coalitions of voters and inspiring millions and as recently as last week Reverend Jackson was traveling throughout our nation working to get out the vote, meeting people in our communities and battling new challenges to the Voting Rights Act that he had helped to enact. For his numerous accomplishments, Reverend Jackson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000. It's our nation's highest civilian honor. The University of Michigan community is also very proud to count Reverend Jackson as an alumnus. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from our university in 1979. But like many of our graduates, he didn't receive his degree and leave Ann Arbor forever. Reverend Jackson came back to campus. He came back in 1987 to meet with activists in the BAM 3 movement and the University Coalition Against Racism. He also came back to campus in 2000 and spoke in our law quad in support of students who had organized to defend affirmative action. These were momentous times in our university's history, events whose impact reverberates to this very day. They were part of our nearly 200 year history and they informed the strategic plan we rolled out last month to advance diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of Michigan. And now he's back today. We all know there's much more work to do. During the run-up to the election and the day since, we've seen attacks that single out individuals and groups based on their identities. We can't forget how this makes our students feel. But we've also seen demonstrations expousing peace, inclusion and tolerance. We've heard from many in our community about the need to make room for voices all across the ideological spectrum and for all to speak out against hate and discrimination. This afternoon, in fact, students again gathered on our dyag to make their voices heard. Before I invite our guests of honor to the stage, I want to share a few words from his University of Michigan commencement address in 1979. He said, we no longer have the luxury nor can we afford racial polarization on various aberrations and expressions of petty apartheid. A multiracial education must be our personal, local and national goal, for we must develop the capacity to live with each other and not apart from each other. The title of Reverend Jackson's address today is What's Next For Us? Hope and Reflection. Please help me welcome civil rights leader, former student activist, founder and president of the Rainbow Push Coalition and inspiration to all who strive for peace and social justice, the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Today I want to thank President Mark Schistel for and Dean Susan M. Collins of the Gerald Ford Public Policy Center, the faculty and students and beneficiaries of the University of Michigan around the world. The good bit of the university has made its commitment to the America that this is and accepted the call, the mission and responsibility to the aid in building the nation that we must become. We are a nation that has come from the pit of 246 years of slavery which began 157 years before the birth of the nation in 1776, the genocide of Native Americans, legal segregation of Jim Crow in 1880 to 1954 with 5,000 lynchings without one indictment. The foundation of our nation is this immoral sense of which we have not sought forgiveness nor redemption. Any idea of making America great again reopens the wounds in America's immoral foundation, born in sin and shaped in iniquity. The school has consistently sought to step in the breach to bring healing to the body politic. We need not for a moment underestimate the damage done to our country and the cleavage in the soul of America in the last few days. It's our nation and our soul that must be healed. What are we confronted with? There is a tug of war for the soul of America. Dr. King and SCLC's mission was to redeem the soul of America. And that the base of our nation is an identity crisis. Do we want to be an aristocracy or a democracy? Multiculturalism or race supremacy? An aristocracy of the few or democracy for the many? Will it be one person, one vote democracy ruled by electoral overseers? President Abraham Lincoln said our nation could not survive, have slavery and have free. A house of either gets itself cannot stand. There's been a lot of analysis as to why Secretary Hillary Clinton lost her presidency a few days ago. Much of it valid, but from my perspective, the pundits have missed the central reason. New undemocratic voter laws and voter suppression. Ari Berman in his brilliant book, Give Us the Ballad between 2011 and 2015, 395 new laws of voter restriction introduced in state legislatures in 49 states, many of them became law voter restriction. If the voting rights had been fully and fairly protected, we would be bringing a different discussion today. She won the popular vote. If we're not for voter suppression, she would have won the vote in the electoral college as well. New voting laws since June 25, 2013 have wiped out 868 polling places that includes removing polling places from campuses and other familiar places. There's nothing more fundamental in this whole discussion than voter denial access. A nation that speaks of meritocracy with hard work, effort and excellence cannot match or compete with inheritance, access and racial favor. Our struggles have made us freer across the years, but we're not equal. We need to make some moral and legal choices. Shall we be a nation with people who do the crime, including those running multinational corporations on River and Wall Street through the time? We've become the double senator of only punishing people of color and the poor. Do we have the nerve to free and pardon those who did their time for the crime and offer them a clean slate and a new start? President Lincoln pardoned Jefferson Davis and other confederates who engaged in treason against the United States of America in an effort to bind up and heal the wounds after the Civil War. President Ford did the same thing with respect to Richard Nixon after Watergate. Even though he had violated dishonor and debased the Constitution, it was clear that he would have been impeached and convicted and driven from office legally and technically. He was never indicted, tried, not convicted of anything. Unique to Ford and Nixon was that Nixon was never official accused, tried to even sort of pardon. President Ford was simply determined to stop the potential harm restrained the hemorrhaging and heal the wounds. There are those in their anger and spirit of retribution and want to use Hillary Clinton as a trophy in the name of false justice. It would be wise in the name of justice and the lineage of Lincoln and Ford for President Obama to do the same and to pardon Hillary Clinton. President-elect Trump, while the President's a candidate promised upon a special prosecutor to investigate Secretary Clinton and try to put her in prison, even though Secretary Clinton has not been legally accused, indicted, tried or convicted of anything. President Obama should follow President Ford's example and offer a preemptive, full pardon and inoculation against politically motivated prosecution in the spirit of healing the divisions in our country. To do otherwise would only exacerbate divisions and hardened feelings on both sides. It would be a monumental moral and political mistake to pursue the prosecution of Hillary Clinton. Such a mean-spirited action against her would unleash a nasty spirit in the nation and would damage our government. There's still tremendous tension in our country because of unfinished business resulting in the current political turmoil of street protests. The public vote winner will have more than 2 million vote lead but there's significant behind in the electoral college to return to 228. Over 13 million votes were cast in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. The three states Hillary Clinton needed to win but she lost by a cumulative vote of 110,000 in those states. Are we going to have a one-person one-vote system or not? President Clinton said the right when he said we must go forward by hope and not backwards by fear. Donald Trump said the electoral college was ridiculous until he won and then he said it was a great system, respected smaller states. That is what Reagan looks like. What makes it difficult to turn this decision aloof is that the public vote did not elect Donald Trump. The manner in which he ran his campaign on racism and sexism and xenophobia and religious bigotry has unleashed massive hatred, fear and division in our country. Protesters driven by fear and pain, fear of mass deportations, fear of a wall that can be a reprobable home to this southern neighbor, Mexico. Fear of little children crying and terrified that their parents may be deported. Fear of rejecting an American judge because of his Mexican-American heritage. Fear of banning Muslims, fear of limiting trade access. Our democracy has been damaged. This school must be a sanctuary for its classmates and its friends, let Ann Arbor stand up and stand tall as we seek to heal our nation and make a more perfect union. This is not just about Democrats, it's about democracy. It's not about Republicans, it's about the Republic and its character. The role of money permitted by Citizens United is undemocratic and criticize democracy. Racism, fear, anger and economic anxiety and the rule in small-town America play the role. Many rural communities that voted twice for Barack Obama, but voted for Trump in 2016 out of economic desperation. Sexism had an impact. The abandonment of the working class and organized labor played a role. We globalized capital without globalizing human rights and the workers' rights and women's rights and children's rights and the LGBTQ rights. The Russians hacking the Hillary's and the DNC's emails, exposing them also hurt. The media giving Trump over $2 billion free advertising just for entertaining, not emancipating. The announcement of the Affordable Health Care Act's insurance increases just before the election hurt. The comment letters hurt. The FBI intervention in 2016 and the Supreme Court intervention in 2000 election impacted outcome of each election. In 2000, it was the Supreme Court. 2016, it was the FBI. Most of these points in the top-down analysis by the pundits were made and accepted, but they virtually ignored the suppression of the black vote. The recent New York Times editor said the Republican official in North Carolina boasted that cutbacks in the early voting reduced black turnout by 8.5%, increased white turnout by 22.5%, just by manipulation of the rules and the precincts. The voter suppression affects many groups, Hispanics, Asians, women, workers, young people, seniors, the disabled and whites, but the primary target was African-Americans. The right to vote is the most basic right in the democracy, but the black vote is the foundation of the democratic part and process. We came in 1690, we're not the bottom, we're the foundation of our country, when the foundation shakes the whole world, trembles. Denied blacks access to the vote and you affect the democratic part in the national vote. The effect is felt on the electoral college. President Barack Obama and others said that we don't have a national voting system, but a state and local voting system. You can't rig an American presidential race. We really can. You don't have to rig the entire system, just rig three or four states and suppress the black vote. Do it in Florida. In 2000, win by 537, not counting 27,000 votes in the Valle County, Florida. The state of Florida had the right to stop the count. The black vote is denied after 1965 and discounted in 2000 and suppressed in 2016. The common denominator of all of this madness is about the demise of the black vote. In 2016, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Hawaii, federal appeals court said the state legislature had passed a racial discriminatory voting law targeted blacks with alarmed surgical precision. So-called liberal states like Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan don't have early voting, which is an institutional form of voter suppression. Disenfranchised in 5.8 million ex-fellows who served their time in prison for the seal on probation of parole is voter suppression. It affects black, brown, young and poor people disproportionately. Most voters will be surprised to learn that New American, as a New American as an American, has the fundamental right to vote. The explicit fundamental individual right to vote is not in the Constitution. Each of us has a state right to vote, but not a citizenship right to vote. Ironically, after the hella decision, with an individual right to a gun, but not an individual right to vote in the Constitution, you know that's crazy. The only reason that these states can do what they do, for example, Texas passing a voting law that allows you to use a gun for ID, but not a student ID, is because we have a state's right and local control voting system. We must add a right to vote amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It gives every individual the right to vote and gives Congress the authority to establish a unified national voting system. A voting system would be decentralized and operated by state and local jurisdictions, but they would each have to meet the federal standards. A right to vote amendment would set the constitutional framework for Congress to pass laws to allow early voting everywhere. To modernize and pay to replace old worn out machines. The mandate automatic voter registration at age 18. To allow same day on site voter registration in voting. To allow for non-basic partisan voter education how to use voter machines in our schools. We must democratize democracy and make America better for all of its people. I want to thank Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, whom I just talked a few minutes ago, had joint and legitimate concerns. Ruger's left behind as a result of technological advances. Ruger's left behind and got the raw end of globalization. Victims of stagnant wages and low incomes. They're having trouble or can't pay for their children to go to college. This would be the first generation whose children will have less than their parents had. Both were for change, doing different directions. While the social numerators were different, the economic denominators were the same. Will Trump and Sanders look on a dry field of economic pain? Banks were bailed out. Homeowners discriminated, decimated and left out. No plan to reinvestment in the community is most damaged. On that dry field of desperation, Bernie Sanders put water on trees and flowers of opportunity to grow. Donald Trump put gasoline on the field and lit a match. Big business and financial lobbyists are falling over themselves today trying to get access to the new drain to swamp administration in Washington. Here's how ridiculous things have become. Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, now one of Washington's top lobbyists to the New York Times. Trump has pledged to change things in Washington about draining the swamp. He's going to need some people to help guide him through the swamp. How do you get in? How do you navigate? We're going to help him do that. I bet they are. The candidate who ran against Washington's corruption and ends the deal-making has now turned to a rogue's gallery of corporate insiders. Lobbyists, corporate lawyers, staff from corporate back-think tanks and corporate execs themselves that run the transition team. The price we're going to pay for the invasion of Iraq, expensive price for madness and wrongness. A system of war based on lie, a preemptive strike. If I think in Afghanistan, being supported in Syria in approaching $6 trillion, a lot of legitimate anger in the U.S. and around the world raised with economic anxiety. This anti-immigrant phenomenon, growing nationalism, is sweeping not just the U.S. but Western Europe as well. Be very afraid that the climate has been set. The KKK has been marching and celebrating while nationalists are on the move. I don't mean to be afraid personally. That's the fact in the world of this climate, but we're not afraid personally. But it could be a favorite country in the world. He won because of quite anger and fear and racial resentment in the content of economically distressed times for money, for many who are not used to being economically distressed, but blacks have been distressed for a long time. We're going to have to march around with flags in the streets and intimidate and threaten people. And have an extreme right-wing Congress and governors, offices around the nation. Wall Street is now selling records now because they expect the handcuffs to be taken off Dodd-Frank, the human protection agency, the regulation generally on business. But it's possible that he could destroy the U.S. and the world economics and take the entire world over the economic cliff. Our environment could be deripidly damaged with his unleashing of the foolish fossil fuel industry. Sustained massive nonviolent resistance to Trump is needed, hopefully without violence and repression. Dr. King said in his question, where do we go from here? What steps should we take? How do we keep hope and resistance alive? First, we must maintain hope. Students don't let them break your spirit. Another naive hope, because we cannot come out of the deep hole, we end with a naive or false hope. Deep water does not drown you. You drown because you stop kicking, because you surrender because you give up, because you do less than your best, and no one is earned the right to do less than their best. We must have a hope that's strategic. Determine has both a sharp and a long-range plan. We must pull up with a rope of hope and not dig deep into a hole of fear, a rope of hope not a shovel of fear. Faith is a substance of things hoped for and the independence of things not seen. The substance of the protected right to vote, automatic registration at age 18. The substance of early voting in every state. The substance of a constitutional right to vote as opposed to states' rights. The substance of pay equity for women, of affordable and desegregated education. Student loan debt, written credit card debt, give it up, let's make education accessible and affordable for all of America's children. The substance of sensitivity to the predicament of immigrants and Muslims, of reinvestment in our cities, of policies around guns and drugs in and jobs out, a White House conference on violence causing cures, racial and gender disparity, the impact of poverty on our lives. Second, we must turn protests into political organizing. Use protests to dramatize and educate. Use politics to register and vote in record numbers to change unfair and regressive laws. We must organize and fight to have the right to vote amendment to the U.S. Constitution. For us, we must keep a positive vision of the kind of country we want before the American people. Fifth, students must keep marching. The trajectory of youth must look into the future. You are not our future. You are right now. Stand tall right now. Fight xenophobia. Right now. Fight racism. Right now. Fight sexism. Right now. In war. Right now. It gets difficult sometimes, but walking till the winding road finds an end. Let nothing break your spirit. It gets dark, but surely the morning cometh and the dark must flee. Have a commitment to healing, to building, to heal the breach. If you plant two seeds in the ground and you grow a wall between them, one will be tall and multiples of fruit, one will be short and stunted. The taller is not better. The smaller is not lesser. It's the one that had access to sunshine, something called photosynthesis, grew. When the walls come down, we can all grow together. This land is our land. This nation is our nation. Learn to live with classmates of different ethnic groups and religions. We are an ethnic, the diverse nation. A multicultural nation, our best. We've survived the part that we must learn to live together. Living together across lines of race and gender and religion. The forward by hope, not backwards by fear, must characterize our marches, our efforts. The Bible puts it most profoundly, it says it's healing time. It's hope time. It's mercy time. And if my prayer is to heal, it's healing time. It's healing time. It's mercy time. And if my people will call by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from the wicked ways they'll hear from heaven, and I'll forgive their sins and heal their land. You of them, keep up alive, this land is our land. Thank you very much. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you, Vending. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, it means I'll tell you here historically at the University of Michigan, where Kennedy unveiled the Peace Corps and several presidents in the past have appeared before this university to unveil issues around public policy. So we're here again with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Before we begin, I want to thank my wife, who's always my support here. I think I need to fulfill our righteousness. Dana Thompson. All politics are local. Stand up, Jackson. Go Blue. Hi, Dana is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. I have a grandson who's a freshman at U of M, and because he's in the engineering school, he's too bitchy to hear his granddad speak, he's not playing football, he's designing football fields. We have music and concert coming up to really serenade Reverend Jackson, but before then there are lots of questions. I've been getting a lot of emails this afternoon from students who actually are interested in hearing from you, Reverend, about where we are as a nation. One of the questions says, is the Trump election, the white uprising of 2016, how can we change the systemic mechanisms that benefit white people in America? Can it be done? We've been here before, you know, in 1861 the choice was slavery, freedom, succession. We chose union and freedom. We passed that test. In 1964 the choice was go out and argue in the case for statehood segregation, and Johnson for a new inclusive America, we won that test. We didn't win the test last Tuesday, but it is not over. I say it's not over because with a two million popular people vote, the people spoke louder than those who opined. We must not give up hope. Even then it's cloudy, but it does not mean the sun is not shining beyond the clouds. Don't surrender your spirit. Don't turn on your neighbors. It is wrong to ban Muslims. It is wrong to glorify the Tehranian walls in Germany and building walls between us and Mexico. It is wrong. It is wrong for men to try to control women's bodies and deny women the right of self-determination. It is wrong. It is wrong for somebody else's LGBTQ to violate their person. It is wrong. Better we fight the right, fight and lose temporarily and fight the wrong, fight and win. Let's keep fighting the right fight. I'm curious to know what your reaction was on the night of the election, because this was not only a national event, but a global event. The world was watching what was going to happen in the United States. What was your reaction? I was disappointed. Good champions play with pain. You fall down, you get up again, because the ground is no place for champions. You have to play even with the pain and seek to understand what you're looking at. The fact of that is legitimate economic anxiety and pain at the base. We've globalized capital, but not human rights, not international law, not women's rights, not children's rights. If we were playing a basketball game in China, we could live with outcome. We were playing a trade game with China we can't live without outcome. On the athletic side, why can't we accept the outcome, the playing field is even and the rules are public and the goals are clear. The referee is fair and the score is transparent. That's not true on the trade side. So fair trade is the answer, not isolation. We must learn fair trade is the answer. We cannot go into isolation. We are one third of our own hemisphere. Two thirds of our neighbors speak Spanish, English is a minority language in this hemisphere. We need bridges, not walls. We are a great nation because we reach out when we live above international law. Human rights and set determination and economic justice. We declare pre-emptive wars and penal price for it. We must live with and in the world, not above it. Arrogance precedes the fall. The United States is the leading superpower. Looking at what happened Tuesday night, you get to travel around the world a lot. I'm curious how you think other nations. Because the US for a long time has ascribed itself as sort of a moral authority to call out nations that supposedly are violating human rights or may not be really on the up and up. Even the State Department keeps a list of nations that it claims have human rights violations. Nelson Mandela on the Bush was listed as a terrorist until it was removed. I'm curious now, how do you think all the nations like Egypt and others would now view the United States looking at the political system here today? Much of our moral authority is our own self-described label. Someone say the other day that we have been a great democracy for 240 years. That counts since 1776. African-landed here in 1916, 19, we were here 157 years before 1776. Didn't we matter as a work without wages? We went from no rights to three-fifths of a human being, from that to gem crow, from that to segregation. We have before us the challenge of becoming a moral authority. And now we find ourselves growing increasingly arrogant. There's strength and humility, not in arrogance, in love, not in hate. If your neighbor's house is on fire, you say, I've looked at the ballgame, I hear Sirene, my neighbor's house is on fire. Well, I know he was in the house on kitchen fabric, because he drinks and smokes and sifts, pot and all kinds of drugs. And he went to sleep with a cigarette burning into his house on fire. He has a problem. He does have a problem. But the wind blows and you live next door. So none of us are safe until all of us are safe. We are each other's keeper in a world where if we go on a plane in New York, one going to Senegal, one going to LA, we get there by the same time. Science has dwarfed distance and technology has shortened time. There are no more foreigners in this world. Everybody sees what everybody's doing in real time. And so learning to live together is a moral challenge. I hope that we're up to that task. And I want this university to remain a moral sanctuary for caring for people, share for all your classmates, share for all of your classmates and all your faculty members. We all matter at U of M. Set the pace for the nation. We're number one, not just when you play an hour away, but... So... I mean... Be number one when you play Ohio State. So, you know, I was looking at the images across the nation, the protest in New York, in Chicago, across the land. Normally, those images come to us from the television screens around the world when nations do not accept the legitimacy of their governments. They take to the streets of protest to basically register legitimate discontent about the president, about the leaders themselves. But for the first time, perhaps in recent memory, recent history, we are seeing in the United States, massive protests, thousands of people across the nation registering legitimate discontent. What do you make of that? And what does that say about the U.S.... I remember some Mexican children the other day crying for fear that their parents would be deported. There were some young Muslim girls who were upset because they had a job that had been stashed from their heads. And if that happens in one of your classmates, embrace them. You must be your own private sanctuary for your classmate, your friend, your neighbor. We cannot say either, but to be silent is to portray our conscience. We must not be silent in the face of these violations of human rights. But Black lives... America. That's why I said mentally there's a tug of war for the soul of America. Shall we be aristocracy for the few and then make a lot of money and pay no taxes? Or shall we be a democracy for the many? Shall we be one person, one vote? Or shall we assume that one corporation is one person which is so absurd and vulgar? Who are we? We have the dinner to crisis. We must be that land that we talk about giving your tired. You pull your hungry. You hold masks, you're in the breather. What makes us great is embrace those who yearn for freedom, who yearn for dignity. Universes like this have students on this campus who fear being put out of class and deported after next semester. We must take a strong stand against having our classmates deported. We must be each other's sanctuary. I know you just spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders. I'm curious as to your take. What do you think was... What was it that was underestimated about this election that has proven those perhaps who were thinking optimistically, you know, supporting their other candidate, Hillary Clinton, wrong? What was it that was underestimated about this election? It would say so quickly. Democrats were anxious that basically they were excited that Hillary Clinton was going to win. So obviously they underestimated something about the election that pivoted to Trump. Two issues. One, she did win. In a democratic society, the popular vote matters. And a suppressed vote matters, and as a consequence, between the popular vote lead and suppressed vote, that dynamic equals victory. And we would not do well to assume that popular vote does not matter. Anybody that do that would accept, in your cities, emergency managers rather than elected officials. Elected officials, you get elected one day, and they're going to give you an emergency manager the next day. That's the kind of electoral college. We demand the right that elected officials represent us and let one person, one vote stand. And I would certainly hope that we would not give up on that. I think so long while there are those who want to make Second Amendment a priority, as the first amendment is first, because the first amendment is a priority. The user right to demonstrate would do so nonviolently, with discipline, goals, targets, demonstrations matter when they're clear and focused and nonviolent. President Barack Obama, the nation's first African-American president has less than two months in office. In your remarks, you said he should offer a preemptive, as you call it, pardon for Hillary Clinton. Are there other items or lists of things that you would like Obama do before he exits the White House? I think first of all, in some perspective, when he came in office, we lost 800,000 jobs that month. We had a net gain of jobs every month since. That matters. The banks, when the global meltdown, they've been revived, not connected to reinvestment and lending, but revived. The automotive industry had gone down. Even Americans were laughing at low-quality cars coming out of Michigan. That was number one again. Putting me in America's health insurance did not have it before. Somebody said, well, the problem with affordable health care is it balloons at the end. If a new car comes off the lot and the brakes are not working, the steering wheel is not working, you don't destroy it, you recall it and fix it. Don't go backwards from affordable health care. People who don't have jobs need affordable health care more than ever. And so, there are two things you could do. One is, just look at Detroit for a moment. As we think creatively for a moment. If that's a commitment that we have 100,000 big-in-homes in the abandoned lots in Detroit, and about the same in Chicago, move lead paint jobs to do landscaping and cut the weeds and the bushes down and use SBA loans to put entrepreneurs in business jobs, to demolish those homes and businesses that cannot be restored jobs. Where there are boards put up window panes and put in painting and glazing and roofing, that may be more jobs and people with jobs are our priority. Let put America back to work to be a priority. That's what Dr. King's last mission. And so, we need a White House conference on violence, causes and cures, or you'll just dust off the Chronic Mission Report, violence, causes and cures with the most heavily armed nation on earth. We lost about 6,000 soldiers in Iraq in 10 years and 30,000 a year at home. We are the most violent nation on earth. We can't deny it and we certainly should not brag about it. And when the idea of allowing military assault weapons to be sold on commonplace, there's no difference against these weapons. I don't know what the executive order can do, but these weapons can shoot down planes. They shoot up churches and theaters. We must ban military assault weapons. And I repeat, I don't even misunderstood about this here in the business. Lincoln could have taken a position, given the Civil War where Calhoun and Lee and those guys sought to overthrow our government. They would have been convicted and hung, tried, executed. Lincoln said, for the good of our nation, let's heal the wounds of war and go forward. And he forgave them and pardoned them. And that was some constellation, because that was one of him to punish them. 800,000 Americans were killed, more than any other war since that time. But Lincoln chose healing and not hurting. You said, we're the same as Kate with Nixon. There were those who just wanted, just a little of Nixon giving up water getting met. And there had been a kind of gratification for some. We finally got him. President Ford said, no, we don't need him for a trophy. We need him to move on, let's go on with the nation's business. And by the way, Nixon was not tried, was not convicted. And then the plight for pardon Ford made an executive order in the national interests of America. Hillary Clinton has not been tried, convicted, been facing all those hearings. But there are those who want to drag off for the next three years into making the sense of them, of defining who we are. It's not fair, it's not necessary. If you're at least a special prosecutor, they have God-like powers, more than even attorneys can not stop them. Presidents can not stop them. They will not stop if they find some reason to put her in jail, what the travesty that would be. How did the vice power in this, sir? I said, not only pardon her, but there are several thousand other Americans who have paid their federal dues for the crime they committed, and pardon them too. A kind of emancipation proclamation. Let's start over again. Reverend... I'm not talking about let those in jail out. That's not what I'm discussing. They're paying that to those who've served their time and are out. They see the burden of the label of ex-felon. Many of them can't vote, and they can't function. We reduce the damage and reduce their person, reduce their productivity. What's the purpose of the judge? It gives you five years, Washington society, to give you 25 more. There's another issue that I want to bring up because you talked about putting America back to work. The Flint water crisis. What happens to Flint now? Flint needs water bottles, not water pipes, not water bottles. The people of Flint stand out. There are now other places in Michigan with water as poisonous as it were in Flint. It just says that I'm inclined to believe that there have been a lot of publicity around Flint. If there were commitment to... If that's the infrastructure project, we would steal workers back to work and pack for those construction people back to work, save lives in the environment. We have no idea the impact of water when it's heavily lit on the lives of children and the rest of their lives. Flint is a national disgrace and should be a national barricade. This government has a sixth of the million dollar rainy day fund. Not a dime is going to Flint. Flint is raining in Flint, raining down poison. The federal government calls Flint an emergency not as a disaster. So the federal government offers 5 million, rather than 95 million. Flint is a disaster zone and needs recovery now. Flint deserves recovery now. Towards the end of the Bush... We saw the auto-industrial crisis towards the end of the Bush administration. President Obama came in and rescued the industry. Now we're seeing the Flint water crisis. What do you expect, or should we expect, what should be done as it relates to the administration of Donald Trump? Well, he has said that a priority for him, and it may come around, is to invest in infrastructure. As soon as we put America back to work, we have several trillion dollars in offshore taxes that have not been paid. He understands how that works. And there should be a system of range, a difference made to bring that money back to America, targeted for reinvestment. These inner cities need more than a bank, Dr. Sissle, they need development banks. When we say marshal plan, we're not talking about the amount of money in marshal plan, it may have been 13 billion. What made the marshal plan significant was, in a zone that was 50 years long, terminal interest loans, in these inner cities that have been devastated by bank exploitation, and government lack of investment, and by various forms of escape. We need knowledge to redevelop them, but a banking system for those zones, we need reconstruction. We know how to reconstruct nations, and we should apply it at home. You talk about Detroit and reconstruction a lot, and I spoke to the mayor's administration this week for a column tomorrow about how the city of Detroit responds to the Trump administration. How do you think, or what should urban cities do, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, you name it, across the nation, how should they relate to the new administration of Washington? We need economic reconstruction, but we cannot trade off how we treat our neighbor. I want a job with the price you pay for it cannot be to violate people's human rights. We can do both. You can rebuild schools without having children in school crying, fear and deportation. You can rebuild cities without banning Muslims. You can rebuild cities without xenophobic language and behavior so that the issues shall be reconstructed, the cities shall reconstruct relationships. We share 2,000 miles of border with Mexico, 2,000 miles. We do more trade with Mexico, and the government will do with China and Japan. Do you want to make your next neighbor an enemy? Mexico is a gateway to South Central Latin America. That's why I said, as we think globally, not just locally, and see the world doing not to kill, we are 6% of the world's population. And Putin in his Trump's group represents 6%. Most that one eighth of human race is African, one fourth of Nigerian. Two thirds of my neighbors are Latin Americans. Most people in the world today are brown, black, non-Christian, poor, female, young and don't speak English. In that world, let's lead the world in coexistence and not threaten core knowledge. In that world, we must live together. I want to run some names by you. These have been talked about as potential picks. Cabinet secretaries for the new administration. Don't do that to me. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York has been mentioned as a potential, the number one diplomat for the United States. Alabama senator Jeff Sessions is also, his name is in the ring as a potential attorney general. What is your take so far about these names that have been put out here? Make America read again. I mean, they represent their party. It seems to me that some people got to make some decisions like I really voted for him but I'm willing to excuse all of this stuff to get to him because I might get a job. You should not risk filing your name even for a job. We need jobs. We also need decency and dignity in the sense of humanity as well. I'm concerned that as we look at some of these names that have been surfaced that they may do our nation harm but if we can see this election and don't fight for the suppressed vote and Dec. 19 which is the day the electorals elect we'll have to live with that for a season. It will not be a pretty picture because the rule is not standing by waiting for us to violate them. We isolation is not the way of the world. Globalization is the way of the world but it must be balanced globalization. It's interesting that our telecom and our trans media has a balanced system but economics do not and so we must balance our global economics. Also most people realize we're not a part of the of the world court. So on the poor nations when they violate a poor for the world court we should not live above the world court we should all commit our simple justice. When your school plays a higher state in a few days from now on the real side you want to win the game you really geek to win the game and if it's 10 yards paper first down and 6.4 touchdowns you can accept the outcome the one school has to run 12 yards for the first time the one has to run 8 yards you can accept the outcome it's out of justice peace comes out of justice a sense of fairness and you cannot favor the teens wearing the gray and red or the teens wearing blue and gold it must be a sense of fairness we seem to have given up on justice as a reasonable standard justice is reasonable it is often said Reverend that you know a true function in democracy has to have a vibrant press we've seen a pattern now since Donald Trump's election picking up a fight with the media this morning he was on twitter with the New York Times any concerns about the role of the media here in moving forward especially after this election lessons learned well one lesson learned is that the media cannot the media is a delight to promote Trump and was not as did not critique as well as it should have critiqued but we need a free and vibrant media and we cannot and social media opinions are not the same as well trained journalists who thank you in the research social media opinions cannot compare to well thought out story we must not give up on that narrative I have two more questions we've seen before this election the new wave we talked about this University of Missouri diversity equity and inclusion and so forth but going back to the civil rights movement it's well documented that the movements for social change actually started on student campuses for some this movement represents perhaps a new era of civil rights movement or perhaps reignite in the past what role do you see students playing on university campuses across this nation at this point in time being a source of conscience used their freedom to mature into a sense of social justice I remember 19 years old going to jail with seven classmates trying to use the public library I came into my sense of maturity within the country losing my fear of jails and death by going to jail and then other jailings fighting to open the doors the good news is what keeps my hope alive is that we have these dark moments but we're winning when I look at Carolina Panthers put Atlanta Falcons they couldn't have been behind the cotton curtain it would have been illegal you couldn't have had the bricks behind the cotton curtain you couldn't have had CNN you couldn't have had South Carolina's the number one producer of tires behind the cotton curtain you couldn't have had the Greg Clemson Alabama game behind the cotton we are more civil but it's just like swimming from Britain to France it's not the distance that tackles from Mr. On the Corwin the crosswinds that's unanticipated and sometimes these winds knock you down you cannot look for the first plate of grass to allow you got to get back up and keep fighting I repeat again deep water does not drown you you drown when you start kicking Paul said there was a shipwreck one time and people were inclined to panic he said well some made it on boards and some were broken pieces and some were broken pieces a few days ago John Graves I was walking down the street and I saw well I really didn't see it because I slipped and fell broken sidewalks and a rudder had grown on the one of the trees and lifted the sidewalk and it was kind of lifted and I looked back to where I had fallen and in that crack there was some grass coming out just a little daylight a little sun shining a little water life sometimes comes with the cracks sometimes it does not come and hold pieces it's fine life where it is let life express itself even cement cannot suppress it ultimately with the people in the end right will prevail suffering breeds character in character breeds faith in the end faith will prevail it is about on that belief in those surrender that's a nice segue Reverend to my final question next week is Thanksgiving there are lots of families who will be having Thanksgiving but in fear in a state of fear unsure what will happen the next day the next week in January what do you say to those families that you know might have a different Thanksgiving this year because of the climate in the nation today well if I were a turkey I would not organize the Thanksgiving dinner that's the first and that's the very guy that point the turkey should not organize Thanksgiving dinner you got that point Benkely yes I do well we cannot settle for people having a meal a day a year people need to have the capacity to have a balanced meal every day that's the first issue second issue some of the great heroes and heroes of our time in World War II who found threatened Jews and gave them sanctuary their lives were defined by providing for frightened people's sanctuary a little love would do if there is some student some classmate of yours who you know is anxious and maybe crying night because the fear of deportation maybe going to take them home for Thanksgiving with you and be kind and not only should your school build sanctuary and not and fight for policies to protect mean you have students in this university right now who have come against greater odds and they're doing well in class but they fear being deported we can mobilize and fight for policies that stop them happening I think if we mobilize the worst may not happen it is silence that's betrayal when we didn't have the right to vote we got the right to vote because we marched the discipline and all I'm saying to you is that fight for the protected right to vote who makes America right great is the right to fight for the right fight for affordable healthcare fight for student loan debt reduction fight to forgive student loans fight for that which is meaningful the moral of supreme court justice the moral of supreme not the supreme and their power and keep fighting and there are checks and balances you know trouble not being to move on America like you moved on a hotel there are checks and balances because I interest one reason why he is not going to move the way on affordable care he thought he was because I mean if his constituents need affordable care people were so confused until they wanted affordable care but they didn't want Obamacare they wanted omelet but didn't want eggs but now they will find out thank you very much thank you very much my name is Aaron Dworkin I serve as dean of the school of music theater and dance here at the University of Michigan first I would just like to share our appreciation again to Reverend Jackson for joining us as we celebrate your legacy and commitment to civil rights for more than 50 years thank you again so much as we get set up here I just wanted to share when Dean Collins shared with me her desire that the performing arts and its role in the civil rights movement serve as an important part of this symposium I was moved and filled with excitement for the opportunity that our students would have to demonstrate some of the ways in which the arts can help us shape a better society the reality is that the arts have played a pivotal role in social justice movements from the very beginning Frederick Douglass the great orator statesman freedom fighter leading the abolitionist movement played the violin as well as his son and his grandson Joseph Douglass was the first black violinist to tour nationally and internationally Frederick Douglass believed all fully emancipated civilized men should understand music to that end he taught himself to play the violin which served an important role in his life and which is why you will find his violin atop his desk at the Frederick Douglass Museum in DC Martin Luther King Jr and many others in the civil rights movement grew up with a piano and the performing arts in their homes Martin and Coretta met at a music school where she was studying voice and violin Dr. King shared at a speech he gave in 1964 in Berlin long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multi-racial world musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls much of the power of our freedom movement in the United States has come this music it has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail it has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down for in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man for over 50 years Reverend Jackson has been at the forefront of these issues of the great Mahalia Jackson that's where the power comes from when there is no gap between what you say and who you are what you say and what you believe when you can express that in song it is all the more powerful it is now my honor to welcome to the stage a number of our talented SMTD students and faculty who will depict the values and ignite the emotions of the civil rights movement through song, dance drama and instrumental music each artist and performance will be individually introduced by Justin Gordon who is an LSNA student minoring in global theater and ethnic studies ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming Mr. Gordon to the stage good afternoon everybody good afternoon I am humbled and grateful to be here and I like to speak on behalf of all of my family in the room personally to Reverend Jackson and say that after your remarks today and your presence here on campus I respect and reverence for you and your legacy has deepened even more and I just want to give a humble thank you to begin this serenade of music and performance for you and he, his message has inspired us to be able to say all around the world together we are going to say it together I am somebody I said I am somebody thank you Reverend Jackson I appreciate you I'd like to first introduce Mr. Jordan Samuels he is a musical theater student and a baritone vocalist and his accompaniment would be from professor Jason DeBoer he will be singing the song Make Them Hear You from the musical Ragtime the original singer and performer of this song is Brian Stokes Mitchell and in the musical it was the song was sung by the protagonist named Cole House Walker Jr and he was successful black pianist who started a riot and revoked after his wife was shot down by murderous policemen only after trying to shake the hand of them president Theodore Roosevelt ladies and gentlemen please Mr. Samuels make them hear and say to those who blame us for the way we chose to fight that sometimes there are battles that are more than black or white and I could not put down my sword when justice was my right make them hear make them hear you your daughters and your sons make them hear you make them hear tell them in our struggle we were not the only ones make them hear you make them hear you your sword can be a sermon the power of the pen teach every child to raise his voice and then my brothers then will justice be demanded by ten million righteous men make them hear you when they hear you open ears and just sing that song next I'd like to present to you an excerpt from the documentary Love, Life and Lost which features the song Seven Last Words of the Unarmed originally composed by Joel Thompson and will be performed by the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club under the direction of Mr. Eugene Rogers associate chair of choirs and the professor of conducting here at RSD University please enjoy should do more than entertain great art should connect you to things that are going on today I wanted to process my own feelings about being a young black man in this very racially tense time and also to do something about it I remember making a very purposeful decision like I need to say something with this art I need to provide healing with this art The Seven Last Words is a multi movement work that features the last words of African American men who've lost their lives before their time Music is a good outlet to really tell a story and I think that's what we're doing here with these pieces we're really telling a story and to have the perspective of the people that were lost The Michigan Men's Glee Club is one of the oldest choral organizations in the United States The Seven Last Words is a good fit for the Glee Club because of how diverse the choirs having people of various races singing the words of this struggle is very meaningful to me and very moving to me to see people connecting with the pain As piece purposefully is very important and it is meant to inspire our reaction I don't think great art should always make us feel comfortable It's easy to get wrapped up in anger but I feel a lot more needs to be focused on honoring their lives Now more than ever do we need art to create sincere dialogue between disparate groups That's the point of truly great art is we're trying to inspire that conversation It's not about a color of your skin, it's not about the type of person you are It's really about life It doesn't matter what the nature of the loss is because it is tragic no matter who it happens to As we focus on love, life and loss, regardless of one's political opinion we can all agree on the value of human life Moving and I'd like to now with my personal pledges bring to the stage a super soprano vocalist Ms. Kayla Hill She'll be accompanied today by Mr. Joshua Marzan and she'll be singing a song called Mistral Man by Margaret Bind which is one song in a set of three called the Three Dream Portraits These set of songs were accompanied with text from poems of the late the great Langston Hughes This song in particular personifies a mindset of a menstrual performer while always having to continuously have a joyous exterior while struggling and wrestling with inner turmoil that structural racism always brings Please welcome Ms. Kayla Hill to the stage with soul Is anyone else just absolutely floored by that performance? Man Oh my I'm from the west side of Detroit, Michigan and we don't get a lot of opera singing The first time I ever heard anyone personally sing opera was three weeks ago during the practice and my whole perception during singing has changed ever since I heard Ms. Hill's voice One more time for Ms. Hill This next program deals with a certain demographic that we forget about a certain demographic that sometimes does not get the resources that they were entitled to as citizens and they were taken away technically by the 13th Amendment I'm speaking to the Institute of Prisons and the prison industrial complex and the prison creative arts project against those inhumane practices that are happening behind those walls to our brothers and sisters The prison creative arts project which you will see here in a film presentation and subsequently after the film presentation the director herself will come and give a scene of her play during time behind the visiting glass I'll allow you to learn and see what fighting for lives really looks like when you can't physically touch someone Thank you My students and I are here for a theater exchange program with Unihio which is the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro We are a program at the University of Michigan called the Prison Creative Arts Project or PCAP and we do theater work in prisons with adults and children throughout the state of Michigan Here in Rio we have collaborators who do incredible theater for social change work in hospitals, prisons and favelas We have a space that is safe in which particular issues of those communities can arise that they can put their own opinions that they can create from their reality to recreate their reality So in fact I think the heart of this work is to open spaces so that the voice of these people is heard, that is, is offered in the Latin American tradition it doesn't just belong to Brazil But when my students come here they realize that theater can happen in many different ways that they had not previously imagined and that theater has many different practical roles in people's lives Really high quality professional theater can happen in a cramped waiting room of the hospital where the actors have this much room to do a whole play and it can be marvelous to compare with more people Never before there was a person like you and you will never see You are habitually unique from the past, from the present from the future, from the future from the perfect future I don't know any other conjugation My brother is an artist He draws and paints but mostly he does graffiti Right now he's been in prison for seven years for graffiti Imagine seven years of your life for a crime where nobody got hurt Who's it helping for him to be in prison? The guy whose wall he wrote on Shoot Would have helped that guy more if they gave him community service and made him clean up the pinche wall I think mostly they locked him up because he's a smart ass So when we was kids we took this trip to El Paso and we saw this mural that said God is Mexican And Danny, my brother loved that When we got back to Phoenix, he started going everywhere writing it on all the walls God is a Chicana Dios es un mojado God comes from the barrio God hangs out at Titos He didn't just paint the words He made them beautiful We grew up having this real strange relationship with God because of my mother So we were Catholic and we went to church on Sundays and prayed like everybody else but during the rest of the week Ama would talk to God like he was her compadre or something like he was right there washing the dishes and folding the laundry and then she'd get mad at God and call him stupid and yell at him and then she'd have to apologize Perdóname Diosito pero I was angry with Jew this morning for sending rain on the day of Lolita's first communion But then I realized that Jew sent the bad weather on purpose so that it would blow Doña Violeta's ugly dress over her head on the steps of the church to punish her for being una vieja chismosa Now that your plan has been revealed to me I want to say how sorry I am for gelling at you this morning and for eating that extra communion porque tenía hambre pero ya no quiero hablar más de eso So this was my mother we heard this all day long and then my brother he'd been hanging out with all these guys and one night a bunch of those guys got arrested and if Danny had been with them he would have got picked up too So we started going to all those places where he used to write as an undocumented immigrant and God dances cumbias and he started writing his friend's names instead Aldo Gutiérrez is in prison Israel Sien Fuegos is in prison Freddie Ramirez is in prison Today the cops caught him he was writing Leo Archuleta is in prison God is with him God is a prisoner He tried to run when he saw the cops but they caught him and three of them beat him until he had a concussion and they broke his right hand so they didn't write so good no more and after that I must stop talking to God for a week and now Danny he writes us letters and this this real shaky handwriting and at the bottom underneath his signature he always writes God is a prisoner I am honored to say that Dr. Ashley Lucas is my mentor and arguably the greatest human being I personally know and if you don't know who she is as the late great contemporary poet Christopher Wallace a.k.a. Biggie Small said if you don't know now you know students next I'd like to present an excerpt from a moving dance piece called City of Rain created by Camille A. Brown and performed by U of M dance majors and masters of fine arts candidates this film moving dance piece represents the spirit of perseverance in the face of struggle, loss and grief please enjoy if I could dance like that I wouldn't be up here talking to you all right now I just moved for 11 that was amazing that was amazing now we're almost at our conclusion and we have had some triumph we have had some encouraging words we got to end with some jazz right we got to end with some music correct yes yes I'm proud to present a jazz quartet for the ages we got Cassin Belgrave on saxophone every read on drums Brian Jarez on bass and David Lazar on trumpet they'll be playing well a song by Bud Powell he was a great jazz pianist back in the 40s and 50s that battled police brutality and racism despite making classic music afterwards they'll play a song called cyclic episode now as all good parties go and all good celebrations go we got to give you something to leave with something to go home with we got to send Reverend Jackson Jackson home on a good note on a great note even as he walks outside of the door correct alright we have one of our esteemed professors and musicians Tiffany Ng will be playing on the carillon out in the bell tower she will be playing Negro spirituals as we leave as you walk to your cars or buses songs such as swing low sweet chariot and the black national anthem lift every voice and sing ladies and gentlemen that is my time I love you all family hope to see you soon thank you