 What is it? Today is the 14th of December. It is Advent season. I am Reverend Mark Hughes with the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and this is juxtaposition. I hope I caught you on your way home. I hope you're in your car or maybe watching at home and you guys are watching along because we're here to talk today a little bit about reconstruction. Reconstruction, and we made it really simple. I said as we introduced this tonight, what is it and where did it go? Where did reconstruction go? It's interesting because one of the things that we've been working on is the 13th amendment and for those who have been following reconstruction, that topic that is least taught in our schools is it is the 13th, the 14th and the 15th amendments of the United States Constitution that we need to be concerned about because we didn't have a constitutional convention after the Civil War. The other thing is the 14th amendment was the whole idea of what do we do about the citizenship and the whole idea of equal protection under the law and the 15th amendment was voting rights. Listen to this about reconstruction. This is the term black reconstruction refers to the actions and activities of both black and white Americans in the period immediately after the Civil War. It involved the transformation of southern political, economic and social institutions in a manner consistent with the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments which collectively established black freedom and equality. So again, we didn't have a situation where there was a constitutional convention. No, it was just three amendments that this was hanging on. We know also that the race riots of 1866 when they erupted, the marchers, they were met by an angry crowd. There's a lot of protest that went on in Richmond, Charleston, New Orleans in 1867, a lot of pushback on reconstruction. There's always been a lot of pushback on reconstruction. But, you know, reconstruction was really a period where in which black and brown folks, black folks specifically in the United States had more political and economic power than they've ever had in all history, even including today. So that's what significant is because, yeah, in 1863 there was definitely the 40,000 or so black folks who were in the south. We always read about the proclamation emancipation. That was just to get black folks in the military. It was about 40,000 of them in the military. After the south fell, and largely because the recruiting, the proclamation emancipation, after the south fell it was four million, four million folks that they had to figure out what to do with. I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the stuff that we did this year. This is our last session before we get to a point to where we are into the new year. So blessings for everybody caring into the new year. But I want to tell you a little bit about some of the stuff that we've been doing over the last four years. I'm going to spend some time, I'll go back to reconstruction and just kind of frame up some of this. In fact next year we're going to talk about reconstruction all year long. What we know is that the PR2, the work we've done on PR2, it had everything to do with the remnants or the legacy of slavery. PR2 addressed the loopholes surrounding the 13th amendment as well as the loopholes we created here in the state of Vermont. We'll talk more about that. Before we go into this next segment though, I would say that this is how reconstruction ended, this is partially how it ended. It was Rutherford B. Hayes and James Tilden. It was an election and I believe it was somewhere around 1876 and the election was a tie essentially. It was hung up in a couple states. I don't know whether that sounds familiar or not. What happened was the Republicans who were then the abolitionist party at the time made a deal with the Democrats who were Dixie South, the landowners. They said, hey, we'll take the White House and we'll remove the federal troops from the South and it was from that point where reconstruction collapsed. Why do we not hear so much about this in our schools? Could it be that what we would have to do is we would have to acknowledge that we were once a nation that was well on our way to equality, to equity. We were well on our way to establish a more perfect union as a nation. Take a look at this slide. What I have is a couple of things I want you to look at. I'm going to give you a few slides just to get you caught up on some of the things that we've done over the last several years. I'm just going to run you through some of the things that we've done because I want to bring you up to where we are right now so we can better understand where we're getting ready to go. Some of you remember that. That's a thing too. If you're looking at that red barn with you remember take back Vermont, which kind of sucked. So we just played on that and just kind of crossed that out and put change for Vermont. That was our thing. That was our shtick in 2019 and 2020. And these are some of the policies that we move forward. You'll notice reparations is there. We went and did some policy around law enforcement, data collection and then of course PR2. That's when we started the work on PR2. Keep following for those of you who are in the Burlington area. Good afternoon, Burlington. Good evening on your way home. Remember Operation Phoenix Rise, restructuring public safety, implementing cultural empowerment, securing equal opportunity, expanding racial equity, belonging and inclusion. So that was what we were doing there. I will pause here for a minute because I want to remind some of you what we said we were going to do with the work we were doing with Operation Phoenix Rise and that historic that City Council resolution that came out of it, the Hightower Resolution. We said we were going to refocus on who and where and what we were policing. There was going to be some robust community engagement and a department assessment and analysis. And then we were also going to look into the wellness of law enforcement. What we were looking to do was not what Murad is telling us every day. That wasn't our story. Our story was to divest and reinvest from this apparatus, which at the time was budgeted far beyond what anybody else was seeing. And what we were going to do is redirect that into other areas and that included the implementation of a Cultural Empowerment Center, which by resolution we said we were going to do. We haven't seen that yet, but we did say we were going to do that, which ultimately became the Richard Kim Center and that's what you're looking at there. So just want to keep it clear. This is the work of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance here in Burlington. What you're seeing now, it resembles what we had envisioned, but it's not necessarily where we were hoping to take it. In fact, inside of the city, there was a complaint management system that we had wanted the mayor to consider because with the expansion of the racial equity, inclusion, and belonging office, because at the time that we put this out, there was only one person in the office. We wanted to expand on training outreach policy and data, but we knew that more than likely there would be more black and brown people working for the city of Burlington than ever in history. So we also wanted to create some other apparatuses within the city to be able to care for them so they didn't fly out of here. I wanted to also make sure you understood, and this was 21-22, what we were doing here in the this is statewide, acknowledge, create, and transform. So this commensurate to the 19-20, the 2019 and 2020, it is a legislative agenda. That's how it's commensurate. So this is the acknowledge, create, and transform. You'll see, again, we came back with the, this is when we actually introduced PR2, which was the constitutional amendment. And also, you see there's, we brought reparations back, again, because it died on the wall. Oh, I would say that, oh, we can come back to that. And then the racism is a public health emergency, which is the joint legislative resolution. And I think folks need to get this clear. There's a joint legislative resolution, but then there's also here in the city of Burlington, the mayor's his declaration. And then even our city council passed the resolution. There are three public health emergencies, just so you know. Home and Land Partnership. We supported that. That's the land access and opportunity board that exists today. There's also the economic empowerment. We'll talk more about that. That is our economic equity bill, which hung on the wall all last year. I don't know why, because there's $5 billion that came in the state over the last couple of years. But we will be reengaging the legislature on that. Act 33 is what we introduced as health wellness, the Health Equity Advisory Commission, which I chair now. So that's there. Also, obviously cannabis equities and quality of life outcomes, we can come back to some of that. So just want to make sure that folks are understanding. There's that joint resolution that I told you about that folks are understanding that there's a lot of work that's been going into eradicating systemic racism. In fact, our whole campaign on on systemic racism was all about the whole. It was all about making sure that the word was getting out the whole campaign on abolishing slavery rather. We were making sure that the word was getting out on systemic racism. That's what we wanted to do. Here's a cute little representation of what's going on in Burlington Reparations Task Force. But you know, this was also a component of Operation Phoenix Rise, the Burlington Reparations Task Force. We also encouraged the mayor to move a million dollars into a into a fund for racial equity. We were able to account for about 300,000 of that. We have no idea where the other 600 went, but that's that's another thing that's kind of hanging out there. But these are the things that we will be given more updates about as we move into the new year. As you can see, we're doing so many different things that we just haven't had time to come back and engage the community and make the community aware of some of the things that are happening and the status and update on them. So for that, we don't apologize, but we definitely would like like you to know about some of the other things that we're doing. This is that cultural empowerment center. We know that these systems have been in effective, inefficient and non-existent these programs and services. This is that cultural conduit that takes us into the community so we can make sure what we're doing is we are serving this community. So there's a there's a bunch of programs and services that are spinning up things that what we know we're not reaching folks in other areas. It's it's good that we do have programs and services in other parts of the city. This is for the first time in history. And I'm honored to be talking about this, you know, in terms of Richard Kemp and framing it around Richard Kemp, my father-in-law, because I know he sat in his chair as well. So yeah, definitely focusing on what the Kemp Center is doing and how do we put tennis shoes on the work that we're doing and get into the community to be able to organize in community to be able to provide the the relevant programs and services. I just threw a couple slides in here on the end before I close this segment out just to let you know that our data team continues to do the hard work. You can go out on our website. What we're talking about is disparities. We're talking about disparities that exist across all systems of state government. We're benchmarking at ACS information. We're also comparing it across the nation. You're able to drill down into some of these dashboards and then we even have qualitative data and heat maps on the website. So folks who are watching go out there and get your data. I think there's three things that we do with data. We benchmark, we measure our progress, and then we also inform our calculated and our strategic approaches and mitigation and moving forward. At the end of the day, it's all about systemic racism. Systemic racism is a legacy of slavery. Don't forget about our outreach and education. I just want to I want to flag that today. And the reason why I'm bringing all of this to you now is because look, folks, this is the close of the year. This is some of the stuff that we need to be talking about some of the things that we should be making you aware of on a regular basis. As we close the year out, I just want to encourage you. You can go out to vtracialjusticealliance.org or is it racialjusticealliancevt.org something like that. So go out to the website. I control room will look it up. So go out to the website and that's our website. And I just for for some odd reason it slipped. You can also go to richardkimcenter.org. That's definitely a place where you can get some additional information. But I want to make sure that you are following some of the work that we're doing. The new thing that we started doing over the last year or so is is is community engagement and support more community engagement and support. So we're leaning into definitely we've been thousands of dollars has gone out the door with personal assistance and business grants and economic empowerment is is something that we continue to work on home and land ownership. Our partners at CHT were working on some some some arrangements with them to better support the community as well as the Chinden County Regional Planning folks but supporting our small businesses and what and leaning into some opportunities for skill development. So just wanted to make sure that you are aware of some of the things that we been doing throughout the entire year. Cultural empowerment just to flag that the first African landing day is our day. It you know it has been a deep it has been proclaimed as a holiday for the state of of Vermont by the governor. We that is our 1619 commemoration and what we did is we wanted to do that to make sure that folks understood the contribution and the resilience of black folks since 1619. Don't forget about our wellness working group. There's a lot of stuff coming out of that. It actually informed our health equity and advisory commission. So stop right there for a minute. We'll come back to me and and I'll just tell you that there's just so much going on with the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and the work that we're doing. I'm going to give you some highlights of what we're going to do tomorrow evening at the Richard Kim Center. Stop in there. I'm going to start in starting around six o'clock. We've had there's so much conversation about this whole idea of systemic racism. There's a slide for you there. This thing about systemic racism. Again the reason why we elevated this work through the proposal the PR to the Constitution Amendment. The reason why we flag this. Keep in mind we've been doing work parallel to as you can see not just in policy but in community and outreach and education and community support and also in cultural empowerment. So we've been working on all sides to chip away at this thing. But this thing is a beast. The unjustly gained political economic power of whites continue in economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines. This thing is a beast. White racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power the source of overt racism. So there's there's so much to unpacking this and it's so important if you you can pick the book up swing by the Kim Center I might have one laying around for you Joe Fagan and Kimberly Ducey racist America roots current realities and future reparations. We've got to get after this thing. I want to tell you I'm going to give you a little preview of this session that we're going to be having at the Kim Center. Here's the thing and this is a great place to start to now. Now listen. It's really important for those of you who are watching. I'm giving you some stuff that you have probably never seen before because we've got it as our other presentation said turn the curve on systemic racism. You know we've got to get to a point to where we start where we stop talking about it and we and we start doing something about it. The problem is and nobody really has nobody can really nobody really wants to say a few people really want to admit this. But you know a lot of times we're talking just like the intro to this whole segment. It's like what is it. You know what you know what the same thing that you know the question that I asked with reconstruction. We can ask that with systemic racism because it's not you know I'll take you back a slide. It's a hard one to get your head around because you immediately you go to this whole thing. Well I'm not a racist or you it becomes an over conversation. We've got to be able to identify where some of this stuff lives where it is what it looks like what it smells like. And what I'm telling you is it is insidious. There are there are various constitutional clauses. There are various statutes. There are various institutions and rules there are various policies. There are various systems that collectively work to insidiously produce disparate disparate outcomes. When we criminalize poverty. Why is that so important. Well if you spend two centuries ensuring that there's only a certain category of folks that are mostly poor black folks because most black folks are poor. Those are the numbers. Then you criminalize it. Well this is reminiscent to convict leasing. So when we start looking at say for example Title 13 it says if you don't pay your debt Title 13 is criminal law here in the state. Then we're going to come and issue a warrant and come and arrest you. Come on y'all. You got to see what I'm talking about. The voting laws. Why is it that 49 states are passing voting laws. They're trying to make it harder for black people to vote. This this is a part of a larger system. We won't even get into the electoral system in the electoral colleges pretty much in your face. Then as far as the the filibuster. Yeah that is that is not just a legacy of slavery. I mean that's it again in your face. It's right here. You know so there are so many ways in which we can look at this. You start taking a look at the fact that there is you know today you know and we're going to talk about this next year. We're going to talk about this a little bit next year. What we're going to do is is then we're coming in on on closing pretty quick. But what we're going to do is we're going to spend some time talking about this thing called the we call it the Freeman clause the Freeman clause. And the Freeman clause is simply this. It's it's just that within our Constitution existed. And I'm going to tell you where it came from. I'm going to tell you where it went and I'm going to tell you what it impacted. But within our Constitution there are there there was clauses that were placed in our Constitution that defined who could vote and who could be elected and also who could vote for a constitutional amendment. And they were called Freeman. We'll talk more about that. I won't go much into it. But what it essentially did is it created over a 200 year period a voter suppression on steroids like you've never seen. And people still running around asking why Vermont is so white. So there there are so many things that we got to unpack in this conversation about systemic racism and where it lives and where it came from. There there is you know the tax system itself. We will unpack this next year over a period of time we'll get a chance to talk about the precedence in the court system. I mean even today here's a story for you. So last night I'm at the the judiciary's DEI meeting and they're talking about how you know yada yada. They went away you know for a year and they created this DEI thing the chief justice is sitting there blah blah. And you know and one of the things I say to him is is hey we'd like to work with you because obviously they've already gone in and they figured out what they wanted to do and they came back and they just want to have you know they want to engage the community. Hey guys this is what we're doing and then they want to just do some trauma voyeurism. So they're there all of us are not connected to the criminal justice system. Equal justice under the law doesn't mean that I am necessarily me as a black man appearing in court as a criminal defendant. The truth is is that every single system housing education employment health services access economic development the so-called criminal justice system every single one of them because they are currently producing the spirit outcomes we have to do something to mitigate that. Here's the problem remember the 14th amendment. That was one of that was one of the reconstruction amendments. Okay. So the 14th amendment of what it was actually when it was written for was to provide besides making our citizens actually humans because before the 14th amendment we weren't considered to be people we were still three fifths but we'll come back to that. But besides that what the 14th amendment was doing is it was saying equal protection under the law it was protecting us it was making sure that we got a fair shake. For those who are having a hard time with this go back to Kindergarten fair and square. So here's the thing the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment has been hijacked and it has been weaponized and it is used to claim reverse discrimination every time we try to go in and fix the disparities that we know exist. So back to my story last night the question that I have for the for the justices and justices if you're watching I still have the question would you be interested in sitting down with us and collaborating and working with us as we continue to develop a constitutional amendment that will butchress our state constitution it will butchress our state constitution so the equal protection the equivalent of the equal protection clause in our state constitution will re fortify our position and our values in the contemporary the contemporaneous notes that we that we that we use to accompany that and to explain it will be enough for us as a state to say no enough is enough not in our state just like we did with women's reproduction rights just like we did with cannabis to be able to say yeah feds we got that but no we're not doing that here because that's not our values or is this not that important because every single one of those systems that I just named in order for us to really at the end of the day come on let's stop playing around we can keep collecting data into the cows come home we can do policy we can do training and I'm not saying we don't do it welcome to reconstruction reverend mark Hughes Rick Vermont racial justice alliance I'm trying to take you there we're going to be talking about this all next year so if we know that everyone we can also do some racial impact assessments on policy I know it all we can look at our appointment processes we can look at every single one of our appointment processes and we can say yeah how do we modify that but at the end of the day if we know and we've got quantitative data and we do have quantitative data that explicitly tells us that we are having consistent and insidious disparate outcomes across every single one of these systems at some point or another we have to come to terms with there must be not race neutral but but race directed policy policy that says we need to go in here and make this right for these black folks right or the other option is as we let them continue to use the very constitutional amendment that was created to protect us to keep us from being able to reduce at least minimize these disparities so I laid a lot on you so the the justices last night besides getting it mixed up and thinking I was talking about which buildings would be affected and I think it's really not taking me very serious when I correct them and told them the 14th that this doesn't affect any I'll wait for your response just to calm but the thing is is that you know I'm not hearing anything from them so we'll continue we're going to do the constitutional amendment it'd be great to work with you and not it doesn't need to be adversarial we should be working to get all of this stuff we should have legislators lined up trying to do this work so I get distracted but I'm going to take you back to this slide in these last couple seconds here maybe just for this slide right here but these are some of the other ones you start thinking about the public engagement process the federal to state funding criteria why is it that five billion six billion maybe seven billion dollars came into the state last year and they couldn't fund an economic equity policy for to address systemic racism why is it that that money three two two-thirds of a of a bit the last billion dollars is not even spent why is that money not making itself up again systemic racism is an economic a political and economic divide along racial lines okay King said at best we can't fix this without a radical redistribution of political and economic power so why is it that we're we're still trying to figure out you know what to do about this money I don't know so in some of the things that I want to leave you with and this is what will do it to Kimson we're going to go over some of this in depth and this will be my last slide we'll take it home some of these things that I want you to take with you now is this is how this is what you do about systemic racism look for it watch the money see where it's going this is within your organization this is within your activity whatever it is that you're doing alerting the system hey calling it out when policies are in equity speak up stop being silent now's a good time I mean with all the work we've done until now at least leverage the latitude that we've given you in the work that we've done and speak up and say something escalate immediately organize get more people around this so you're not talking about this by yourself because if you're by yourself you're going to lose demand transformation not change and also target specific policies and start at home stop pointing at everybody else and saying he's a racist that person oh my god look at Trump and all that other stuff look at you look at the look at the folks around you and stop trying to water stuff down thank you for that slide I'm telling you we got a lot of stuff to tell you I'm going to be at the Richard Kim Sanders Mark Hughes Reverend Mark Hughes the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance there is a lot of stuff to tell you there is the VT racial justice alliance dot org you can go over there we don't usually beg for money but it is the season so if you want to give us if you want to you know give us help us out a little bit we would appreciate it go over to Richard Kim center dot org check us out over there come back here second Wednesday of next month got something for you meet me at the Richard Kim Center on Thursday evening at 6pm want to tell you more about reconstruction happy holidays God bless you all good night