 Welcome everybody. Hi. So good to see you guys here. I mean, do a little bit of situating. Thank you. Everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Mia Schultz and I will be your emcee for today. I wear many hats. I am the Catalyst Leadership Director for Rights and Democracy Institute and I'm part of the NAACP, the president of the Rutland Area NAACP. And we run a bright leadership training for people of color. And at Catalyst, we also run a training for leaders to inspire leadership in people of color, people who experience disabilities, LGBTQIA, and women. So today's hat I get to wear is being your emcee and it is truly an honor to be here with you all. And I look forward to spending this time with you. So led by the lead of women voters in Vermont, the Vermont Suffrage Centennial is committed to informing Vermonters of the history and outcome of women's suffrage and engaging them in an ongoing quest for equal rights and citizenship. So before we get started with our program, let's go over some housekeeping rules or housekeeping, general housekeeping. If you could please silence your phones. We have some magical speakers and entertainers today. We'd like to hear them all. The Porter Letts or Porto Hotties are available over there. And there's a nursing tent, I believe, where's the nursing tent? Over there too. There they are. And programs are digital. So this is to be as sustainable as possible and save on paper and waste. They can be found by scanning the QR code on the signs at the welcome tent, which is over there. All right. And you can even register to vote because of course, right? Over there at the tent of the League of Women Voters. And finally, before we all get started, we ask all unvaccinated attendees to wear a mask and encourage everyone to maintain social distancing. We are still experiencing the wind. We love it, but we're still experiencing some COVID things as you all are aware. And we don't know what's going on with this Delta variant. So let's be as careful as we can be. We have some organizations to thank today to Ben and Jerry's Foundation, the John M. Bissell Foundation, Cabot Cooperative of Farm Families, Hunger Mountain Co-op, Lank Champlain Basin Program, Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership, Main Street Landing, Montpelier Alive, National Life Group, Shayhee Furlong and Bame Attorneys, the State of Vermont, the University of Vermont Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the University of Vermont Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies Program, Vermont Historical Society, the Vermont Humanities, and the Vermont Women's Fund. Wow. That's a lot. It's a lot. Let's give them a round of applause for sponsoring today's great event that we have going here today. And of course, there's many of individuals who are equally deserving of our gratitude. And so you know who they are. And I ask everyone who's actually present who represents any one of the following organization that I named or who is part of the planning committee, a Vermont Suffrage Centennial Alliance member, a League of Women Voters of Vermont member, or even an event volunteer, please raise your hand, stand up, so we can all give you some gratitude for making this all happen today. Thank you all. Where you at? Show them how there you are. There you go. Thank you. Thank you all. Oh, this wind. Hold on here. For today's program, our enfranchisement and voting, municipal and local voting and queer inclusion. These themes were developed by our diverse planning committee members. These are issues that are important for our present and future democracy in Vermont and in the United States. We will touch on each of these throughout the program. But let's get started with some music. We got a little bit of taste of that. Let's talk about I would love to introduce Nicole Nelson. She's an accomplished singer, singer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist who is half Trinidadian, Trinidadian and half Norwegian descent. Nelson began her professional career in music in the mid 2000s playing shows up in down the east coast and mastering her craft. She first received national claim in 2012 as the finalist as a finalist on NBC's The Voice. Today, Nicole tours in the indie soul band Dwight and Nicole with singer, songwriter and guitarist Dwight richer. And in 2019, she founded a Vermont chapter of the resistance revival chorus. And 2020, she teamed up with the Clemens family farm to offer free sound healing sessions to Vermont's BIPOC community. So without further ado, let's please welcome Nicole. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. It's wonderful to be here on this beautiful day. I feel very fortunate. I was talking with a couple of the volunteers just before we set up today. And they were carrying all this stuff and saying muscle, we brought all the muscle. And I was it made me think about the most important muscle right here. That's the one that pulses all of this out and causes all of us to be reaching for more life for better life. And for each other. Yes, I wrote this song called weight in response to some of the brutality that I was seeing. Following the 2016 election in my own community was shocking to me. It brought my warrior forth in a in a very big way. And it was stunning actually to me because I'm a lover. And I was identified. I'm a lover, not a fighter. I'm a lover. But man, I'm a fighter. Turns out you can be both heaven to see. I could do this all day to give you all some interesting facts, some facts about history and women's suffrage. And so I'm going to start today's fact, the first one. An interesting fact, the Snyder Act of 20 of 1924 admitted Native Americans born in the United States to full United States citizenship citizenship, though the 15th Amendment passed in 1870, 1870 granted all male United States United States citizens the right to vote regardless of race. It wasn't until the Snyder Act that Native Americans could enjoy the rights granted by this amendment. Even with the passing of the citizenship bill, Native Americans were still prevented from participating in the elections because the Constitution levied up to the states to decide who had so with that interesting fact in mind, let's continue our program and our wonderful lineup of guests. Today, I would like to introduce Melody Macken. She is an educator and artist. She's a citizen of the El Nui Abenaki Band and has held leadership positions on the Vermont Commission of Native American Affairs. Within our community, Melody has focused on cultural revitalization and concepts of personhood. A member of the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, Melody was named one of USA Today's most influential women of the century as part of the Suffrage Movement's centennial. We are so, so excited and grateful for Melody Macken. The traditional caretakers of this place since Creator placed us here on this beautiful piece of Mother Earth. We still live here. Thanks for having me here. And thanks for letting me follow that one. I still have some truth to tell. I think we always needed to sing along with me, okay? The drum. This is the heartbeat of creation. This is the heartbeat of Mother Earth. So she's here with us today and we should never forget our oldest relative, disconnected. And there was no lines connecting each of the races, each of the directions, and all of those four things that we can, that is part of creation. This whole circle binds us together. And I asked him about that. And I want to share a quick story with you. So when he first came to my house doing something, he would come up to me and he would say, okay, Melody, pull out that chair. I'm making breakfast. Can you touch the pan? And I've had a different way of being. They sort of toggled everything up, right? Everything became different. And some of the things that bound us all together as people, as human beings, were broken. As a woman, that I need to inject myself. And I need to share my voice and I just sing out into creation all these beautiful words that we are. And it will hear us. And I miss him very much. I'll be here and sharing this song with you and bringing my best friend a little bit back into this world. And what his message is, is that we need representation. We need to bring the sacred hoop back together. I was watching Elmo today with my daughter, who's 18 months old, who I love very much. And this is the longest I've been away from her for a long time. One strong voice can teach the world a song. So I think you should always remember that. Always sing, always stand. Always been the greatest. And it continues to this day to be very troubled. So as we recover the bodies of all the children killed at boarding schools, we should remember why representation matters. And we should always work toward making those people who have been purposefully invisible, making them visible. And why is it that we have ever made people invisible in the past? Don't ever let anyone do that to you. So it's time. It's time to make people visible. Even in 2021, I can't believe we have to say this. But guess what? Listen to Elmo sing your songs out into creation. And thank you for having me here. And I'll see you at the end. Enjoy. Thank you, Melody. That was really inspirational and grounding. Thank you. Yes. So we ready for some more interesting facts. Yes, interesting facts. Next, the federal law does not prohibit noncitizens from voting in state or local elections, but no state has allowed noncitizens to vote in state elections. Since Arkansas became the last state to outlaw noncitizen voting in 1926. So with that, let's introduce our next. Do we? Do we? Oh, you're here. Okay, great. Our next speaker, Hussein Marie of Winooski. Hussein is an immigrant from Tanzania whose family arrived in the United States in 2015. And Winooski in 2016. As a member of the Winooski Charter Commission, he worked to advise the city council on a charter on a charter change that would allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections. An alumnus of the governor's Institute of Vermont. He is a recipient of the Vermont Presidential Scholars Program. His dream is to be in the Vermont legislature someday. And yes, Hussein, we need you. Hussein will be here reading his essay on that. In reading my essay, I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that with the help of Winooski voters, the state legislatures and many other supports are in Winooski, it is now illegal if you are noncitizen to be able to vote in municipal elections. With that said as well, I just wanted to take some time and also honor one of my fellow commissions on the Winooski City Charter, Alex Yan, who is also here. He's standing all the way on the line. Alex, yes, thank you. So with that said, it is. Our first meeting left me feeling scared, confused, and doubtful. As the youngest member of the Winooski Charter Commission and one of the only three people of color, I knew my views differed from my colleagues. Yet I wanted to do the right thing and change the thought of coal about voting rights for immigrants in order to honor their contribution to our community. But almost immediately my worries became a reality a longtime community resident accused the commission of doing wrong, violating the state charter, and believed that voting was a privilege and not a right. I know that similar judgments applied to French and Irish immigrants arriving in Vermont. Fear and ignorance about immigrants began with the founding of the Republic. I know the fact of anti-immigrant bias for my history classes and wanted to remind the commission of their ignorance of the issues and discomfort with newcomers. Everyone's opinions. So with a deep breath, I controlled my urge to speak negatively. My need to become a leader to help others emerge from the refugee entendonia after the Congo civil displaced my family. Even as a kid, I thought leadership presented a way out of difficulties as many camp leaders showed me at the time. Simple charity greatly influenced my ambition to represent the worries of the unheard. As a member of the Winooski Charter Commission, I and other residents advised the Winooski City Council on a change that would enable all Winooski residents, including non-citizens, to participate in municipal elections. New Americans like myself, those holding green cards, work visas, and permanent residents act just like other citizens. We pay taxes, own property, run businesses, and send our kids to our school system. But we lack representation. New Americans, including my mother, contribute to the economy. They create a diverse environment in Owan Square, Mario City. And as a result, the Winooski community is home to people with different talents, perspectives, and cultures. And many United Nations you can call us. This country democracy was created on the notion that taxation without representation is evil. It's why we left the British. But we seem to be continuing the practice to our own community members. Our republic was created on the belief that a more representative government is one that is by the people, of the people, and for the people. But what's a representative government that excludes particular members of its community, even with all that they do for it? I believe in democracy. I believe in a more representative government that values and respects the contribution of all its citizens. So due to that, on the conversation of voting rights, all resident voting is an issue that I believe should be talked about by every city in this country. Thank you very much. We have the representation theme happening, right? Yep. That was the purpose. We're hitting the mark. This is amazing. And I'm so grateful for your example. Who's saying? Thank you. We had a bright future ahead of us. So next up, we have somebody who I have been, like, fangirling over for a while. This is Farine Paris Meyer. Farine is a storyteller and founding member, founding CEO of All Heart Inspiration. She creates heart-centered spaces through workshops, community engagements, culinary arts, and more. She aspires to make a difference within her local Vermont community and beyond. One story at a time. Today, Farine will share her poem entitled All of Me is Tired, which is inspired by a mural downtown in Burlington called Farine Existing While Black. Farine, thank you. Oh, hello, hello, everyone. It is such an honor to be here. And I, too, have appreciated the heart connection in people's intros as Queen Nicole shared and as Mal shared. I often think our hearts are not used to their full capacity. I think too often we simply depend on it for the oxygen that it's pumping through our bodies and blood flow, but it's truly there to be a compass for how we need to move through this world. And I often share my heart is a woven tapestry of collective stories, minds, yours, theirs, ours, someone. So so much gratitude to each individual coming on this stage today and giving us a piece of your live narrative. It means so much. All of me is tired. And this, too, is grounded in representation. And what does it mean to feel hyper-invisible and hyper-visible walking through this world as a Black woman? I am from all of me is tired. My Black community is exhausted beyond words, running on fumes, masking our pain, giving from cups that are depleted. I am from fighting for strength to simply get out of bed, desperately needing motivation to show up for this thing called life each day, going back and forth from screaming to crying to numbness to just pure fiery rage. I am from feeling hyper-visible when we're simply trying to live our lives, running while Black, driving while Black, shopping while Black, yet so invisible when we need you to just give a damn. Our people are dying. Our people are being framed. Our people are being incarcerated. This anti-Blackness plague has been haunting us for centuries upon centuries upon centuries. We try to lean into our Brown and Black joy, remembering why we are our ancestors' wildest dreams, trying to not just survive but thrive at this thing called life. Because, as Queen Beyoncé says, life is our birthright, too. Yet I am from systems that fail us, law enforcement that harms us, human relationships that lack empathy, and being defined by one single story. I am from sleepless nights and anxious feelings, wondering where my Black community is really safe, longing to escape the constant microaggressions and gaslighting and learning happening at our expense. Memories of Black bodies being shot continue to haunt my spirit. I am from friends and loved ones texting me their pain, disclosing to me what continues to weigh down their spirits. Folk are just disrespectful with their performative allyship. Virtual hugs, Black Lives Matter signs, and prayers just ain't doing it no more. We need more. I am from wishing we could tenderly hold them, struggling as well because my heart hurts deeply, too, and wondering if this is the life we are destined for. Forever and always until we take our last Black breath. I am from knockouts, feeling unseen, being talked over, and minimizing our pain, lynching us with their oppressive, capitalist, racist ways of being. I am from pain and trauma that is slowly taking years off our lives, killing us softly from within as we bear witness to our community's suffering. Suffering that just feels like it's on repeat. Flashback of life moments that looks and feels like it's taken us out. Current life moments that make us question our worth. I am from wanting more peace of mind and mental clarity, freedom to fully exist in this Black woman body that I was simply born into. I am from 39 years of society reminding me that I am Black, that's 14,235 days of being reminded that I am Black, and many times the constant reminder about our Blackness is not even us. For we are not dangerous. I am not aggressive. I am not a threat. And stop making me your tokenized Black friend, colleague, or neighbor to simply exploit for your personal gain. I am from wishing I could shed my skin as armor because I am so tired of feeling like I'm constantly at war. My skin gets mistaken as a threat. Assumptions are made about my collective Black community as laws, rules and regulations get modified to keep us oppressed. I am from all of me is tired. I need more help. I need more help to fight the good fight. I have no more Black tears for you. Our collective Black souls are depleted. So please get outreached for us, with us, about us. Black lives mattering is the minimal one can do. Black women mattering needs to be the core thread weaving for all of us to collectively exist and thrive as we're needed to. We must act now. We must see justice now. As John Lewis told us, make good trouble now. Thank you. You guys noticed over here. Did you see we have a work of art and progress over there? Yeah. This is my turn to introduce what's happening over here. This is Cynthia Cagle. Everybody was welcome, Cynthia. She's our artist for the centennial. She's creating a painting that will serve as a record of our commemoration of the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, which will endure long after we disperse after today. She is here with us today and painting for all of us to watch her process. Cynthia Cagle, a Chicana from Los Angeles, arrived in Vermont in 2004. Currently, she is working on a series of paintings that explore her identity as a Latina as well as her indigenous ancestry. Drawing on her interest in evolution, biology, and nature, her work investigates family, trauma, racism, and personal history through a process of discovery and self-reflection. So I'm going to read you her artist statement and vision for what she's doing today. It's called the light of truth upon them. The artist, Cynthia Cagle, is oil on canvas, painted 2021 today. As an artist with indigenous ancestry, Cynthia's art confronts notions of progress. When one group moves forward towards independence and autonomy, often another is left behind, such as Native Americans who were steamrolled in the name of colonial expansion. Her art is a fierce condemnation of staggered freedoms, peeling back the facade of more comfortable notions of equality to expose injustice. With images from nature, such as birds, lending her work a complexity that speaks to humans' relationship with the environment and each other, Cynthia's symbolically laden paintings use color, beauty, and at times a bit of cynicism and humor to force viewers into a new relationship with notions of freedom. Freedom for whom? The story of suffragists writes in multi-layered, combining the struggles of indigenous, black, Latina, and Asian people. The history of the fight for the boat stretches back before 1920. The battle for the ballot is a perennial one with entrenched oppressors seeking to disenfranchise women and people of color. This painting showcases the perseverance of those who stood up, who stand up, and in the face of justice in Vermont and across the country. Zikala Sa, a member of the Youngton Dakota Sioux, argued for women's rights in her graduation speech from White Indiana Manual Labor Institute in 1895. Before she came a force in the suffrage movement, Ida B. Wells, born into enslavement in Mississippi, documented the horrors of lynching through courageous journalism, and Wells wrote the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. She saw voting rights as inextricable with civil rights in the fight against racism. Her work was shared by Vermonter Lucy J.C. Daniels, who fought for black and working class women to gain the vote, ending up in prison multiple times. And then there's Mabel Pinuali, the first Chinese woman to earn a doctorate in economics. She fought for the right to vote alongside white suffragists in the early 20th century. However, due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, she was unable to vote herself until 1943. These women paved the way for other activists and lawmakers, including Vermont's own Lavinia Dorsey Bright, the first black female legislator elected in Vermont in 1988, and Stacey Abrams, who continues to fight today to expand access to voting regardless of political party and knockdown racist voter suppression laws. The light of truth upon us, truth upon tells the story of women's fight, black, indigenous, Asian, Latina and white, to have equal part in the American democracy. These women, though separated by time and circumstance, represent the unified front of freedom seekers intent of providing every person regardless of race or sex or class with the fundamental human right to vote. Hermit threshes aloft, aloft reminding the viewer of constancy, of the struggle, the need to stay vigilant and keep grappling with injustice. This chronicle is part of Vermont's history and the women on the shores of Lake Champlain, pictured against the background of Clover and Adirondacks, reminds us of the story of the fight to vote is both our legacy and our future. Thank you, Cynthia. We look forward to seeing the results as we continue this program, and I just love this idea that we get to watch you create. Thank you. So we're ready for another interesting fact, yet another interesting fact. After the adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920, women of color were often kept from the polls. They faced racial and ethnic discrimination and were often discouraged from voting via violence. It wasn't until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that all African Americans and other minority groups had access to the ballot box. So I am so honored to introduce our keynote speaker of the day, Professor Annette Gordon-Reed. Professor Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl Loeb University Professor at Harvard. She has won 16 book prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize in History. Clap, clap, yeah, right? Okay. And the National Book Award for her book, The Hemmings of Monticello, an American Family. Her most recent book on Juneteenth was published earlier this year on the eve of June 19th, becoming a federal holiday. Amazing. Among her many honors, she has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Humanities Medal, and the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. In her keynote, Voting in Texas, 156 years of struggle, Professor Gordon-Reed will explore what happened after Black Texans got the right to vote on Juneteenth, 1865. Denial of those rights during the South's period of redemption and the fight for voting rights that still exist today. A native of Texas, Professor Gordon-Reed grew up in the racially segregated town of Conroe and was the first child to integrate the town's all-white school. It is my pleasure and honor to introduce Professor Annette Gordon-Reed. And thank you very much for that wonderful introduction. And thank everybody for coming out on this beautiful day. Wonderful day here to have this kind of conversation. This is an amazing time to be thinking about voting. As I'm sure you know, we're going through some difficult times in the country with apparently large numbers of our fellow citizens who don't believe that everybody, every eligible adult, should be allowed to vote. And that would seem a strange thing to happen or to have people believe in what is supposed to be a Democratic Republic. But there you are. And there's a fight that's going on in Texas and other places about this very, very topic. So this struggle that we think has been one, that many people think was one, with the 15th amendment and the 19th amendment which gave Black people, gave women the right to vote, the 19th amendment and the 15th amendment that gave men, Black men the right to vote, that everything was pretty much taken care of. But as we know that that's not the case. My book on Juneteenth talks about a name for the day in 1865 when Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas to say that slavery was over in Texas and to take over Texas as a military district. The story is told that Black Texans did not know that they were free, that the Emancipation Proclamation had been proclaimed. That is not true. It's the problem was that the Confederate army kept fighting. And it was not until they surrendered at the beginning of June, the last battle of the Civil War taking place in Texas, one that the Confederates actually won, but they knew that the entire war was lost, that the Union Army was able to go into Texas, make this proclamation and bring Texans, Black Texans out of slavery. And Granger's proclamation was interesting to me, not just because he talks about the end of slavery, but because he says, as part of general order number three, that Black people would then exist. The former enslaved people would exist in a state of absolute equality with whites, which was not something that had to be said. He could have just said slavery's over and that's it. But he suggests a way that the newly freed people were supposed to be living in Texas, and that was on a state of absolute equality. Referencing, I believe, the American Declaration of Independence and putting equality as an American value, the thing that determined, that sort of made Americans, Americans, the belief in the notion of equality. And there's an olive talk about whether or not we should celebrate the day of Juneteenth or call it a commemoration because we know that that's not what happened, that the end of slavery was an important thing. And we can't minimize what it meant for people to learn that they would no longer be subject to having their families separated legally by sale, which is what happens when you were treated as property, as an item of property, or as a chattel. So that celebration is appropriate there, but we also know that it was a struggle, and they knew it. They knew that you couldn't change the habits of centuries overnight, that slavery created not just a system of forced labor and sale, it created a racial hierarchy. It told white people who they were, and it told black people who they were supposed to be. Whether they accepted it or not, the society had a hierarchy that races were placed in, and that couldn't go away overnight. And what Southerners, white Southerners, immediately feared was the prospect of the equality that Granger talked about, and what they were most concerned about, one of the most important things was the right to vote. Would black people, particularly black men, because they weren't thinking about women, obviously, at this time, would black men be able to participate in choosing leadership? Would black men be able to become leaders too? Would the black community take its place alongside whites as Republican citizens? And the determination was that they would not be able to do that. And I'm sure you know the story that after slavery ends, the period of reconstruction was a very contentious time period that eventually was undone by the so-called redemption governments in the South that came in and shut down the attempt to make a multiracial democracy. And I think we don't think enough about the fact that there was an effort to do that. We talk a lot about the past, and we talk about the people in the past who were hostile, the people in the past who wanted to maintain the status quo. But there were people who thought that we could have a multiracial democracy, and they worked for it. We know the names of the founders, Madison, and the Constitution of the late 1780s, but we don't know anything about the people, much about the people who created the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The 14th Amendment was transformed American society, not just for blacks, but for everybody, but also the 15th Amendment. Those founders, John Bingham, those people are not talked about enough. And I think that's one of the things that we should do more in history is talk about the people who saw the possibility of a better day, the possibility of a multiracial democracy. So, Granger makes his order. There's resistance on the part of whites. Reconstruction is, in Texas, a very contentious thing. There were black people who were, in fact, elected to the legislature. There was a moment when blacks were involved very much in the Republican Party, which is very different from the Republican Party today. And we're very hopeful that they were going to be able to go forward. One of the most moving moments that I had when I was working on the book was to find a voter registration list and to find my great-great grandfather's name on it in 1867. And I thought about what it must have meant to him to be able to go and register, to put his name down, to say that he was a citizen, and that he was going to be able to participate in the governance and the running of the country of which he was now, he considered himself to be a citizen. And I think about what it must have been like a few years later when that was over, when Reconstruction ends and the troops were removed from the South, and white Southerners who had been waiting all along to bring things back as near to slavery as possible took away that right to vote. So this moment of hope that people like my great-grandfather felt was over within a decade, a little over a decade after that really hopeful day, June 19th in 1865. And what followed was a period of violence against people who wanted to vote, poll taxes, other means designed to stop African Americans from participating. Now at the same time, as I'm sure you know, women were also trying to make their voices heard on this question and campaigning for the vote. In 1869, the Texas Convention had a constitutional convention and decided that giving the women vote would not fly because it was not womanly for women to vote. So women had to wait. And even when, as was mentioned earlier, even when the 19th Amendment was passed, there was still a problem for Black women to vote because people in the South, whites in the South were determined not to have what they considered to be Black rule. And Black rule consisted of any moment or any degree of participation by Black people in the governance of the society. So when we think of changes and the civil rights movement, most people probably think of Brown versus Board of Education 1954. But the real chipping away at the system of segregation and of second-class citizenship began with challenges to limitations on the vote, the white primary in Texas, the Democratic Party only allowed white people to participate in the primaries. Well, the Democratic Party was the party in Texas at that time. And if you couldn't participate, then you basically had no right to vote. Your voice could not be heard. So the road to Brown really begins with these chipping away at the attempts to keep Black people from voting. Smith be all right, eventually the Supreme Court outlaws this. But this is voting, this notion of representation has always been at the core of what people wanted because they understood that it's only through representation, it's only through making your voices heard in that way and making people responsible to you and responsive to you that you can effectuate change and you hope to do that in a Democratic Republic. Now, you might wonder, as I have wondered, why not just incorporate Black people into the polity? Why not just campaign for their votes? This goes back to what I said before about the racial hierarchy. It was more important to maintain that hierarchy than it was to campaign for Black votes or to help Blacks participate in the process. So for most of the 20th century, instead of trying to bring Black people into the system in Texas and in other places in the South, the effort to keep them out continued. It wasn't to the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 that America really became what we could consider to be a true republic where everyone had the right to vote. And that's something that I don't think people think about very, very much. 1965 was not that long ago. We talk about a golden age in America. You're talking about a time period when Black people were not full citizens. We don't really get that until 1965, and that's not a long time. We've been at this a very, very short amount of time and the struggle has been going on since the end of the Civil Rights Movement, but it really was not triumphant, at least legally, until 1965. We're still trying to find a way to perfect the Union, to perfect the Republic. As I said, when we started, we have a number of people who are still against that. So, I think the book, it made me come to realize to sort of make the connection even more strongly between where we have been and where we are now. I think it's important for people to know this history, to understand that this is not just some sort of flash in the pan business here. This is the question of Black citizenship. Where we fit into this Republic has been from the very, very beginning. They didn't really have to answer it very much in the 18th century because most of Black people were enslaved and outside of the polity. But once slavery ended, and you had 4 million formerly enslaved people who had to be incorporated into the society, the battle began. And believe me, it is still going on. There are still people who don't believe that Black people should be able to participate in the American experiment on equal terms. And we've seen that in Texas, we've seen that in Georgia. I am hopeful, however, because just as things are taking place in Texas, and every week there seems to be some new atrocity that people are raising about it, I would also remind you that there are people who are fighting back. People came out during the last election. They stood in lines that they shouldn't have had to stand in. But they did so. And what is thrown at them, I think, will be met by an equal response. I think people will be involved. The struggle will continue. But it's a struggle, I think, that we all share. I mean, we're very far from Texas. It's a different type of society. But I think all Americans should be invested in what happens there to make your voices heard about what happened there, however you can support people. That should be done because if we want a republic, if we want a union that represents everybody that is worthy of the name, we have to make sure that all citizens, male and female, whatever type of people, all people who are here in America and want to participate in American ideals have the right to vote and have the right to choose representatives and to be full fledged citizens of the United States. And as disheartened as I could be sometimes, I am hopeful. And I am, as I said, heartened by the response that people have shown in trying to make sure that the struggle ends the right way. And that is with the citizenship of all people who were born and claim and want to be a part of the American experiment. So thank you very much. Thinking about the dichotomy that we find ourselves in, celebrating, yes, but also the heavy-heartedness of the struggle that it takes to get from one level to the next level. It's like a birthing process. It is not easy. It is not easy. You know, we have to fight for that feeling of freedom, you know, for the reality of it. Birds flying high, sun in the sky, didn't know bye. You know how I feel. It's a new dawn, it's a new day. It's a new life. It's a new dawn, it's a new day. A new life for me. We have to fight for that feeling. I'm thankful for everyone who fought before me. Because it is like, for those of us who were given the gifts of freedom or given taste of it, it's like waking up one day from a sleep into a knowing and it can happen like that. Because of the ancestors working for the future babies. It can be like that. What a difference a day made. 24 little hours of the sun and the flowers. As we go, it's always so lovely. Thank you so much and thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Gordon Reed for your words and really the history that we don't know that's not being taught to us. And we're continuing to educate today and hopefully we can bring this knowledge to other people because we cannot continue this struggle without facing the past. So I will continue with our interesting facts. Interesting fact, voter suppression tactics are often used to silence some of the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ community. In particular, voter ID laws that require photo IDs that match their gender identity and that can black many transgender and gender non-conforming people from voting. Many transgender individuals find obtaining an updated ID that accurately reflects their gender identity to be incredibly difficult. And many transgender individuals fear the stigma that they will face at the polling place if they do not have the proper ID. So with that interesting fact or just a fact, a history and our present, I would like to introduce our next speaker. Jean Silva, MD, Dr. Silva, is an assistant professor emerita at the at the U of M College of Medicine. She's devoted to making good trouble and today she will be providing us with some comments on queer inclusion and voting. Thank you, Jean. Just for the record, Jean is retired. So Jean is no longer a professor, but here I am anyway. Wow, what a great event for powerful speakers. And then Nicole, geez, blown me away. So I'm here. I'm supposed to be representing all the LGBTQ, ID, whatever, all the alphabet people and voting rights from our perspective. And I was kind of scratching my head about this because of all the things in my life that I was prevented from doing either legally or socially because I was a woman. And then because I figured out I was a lesbian woman and other people figured it out too, like duh, voting was not denied to me ever. So, but voting, it was really, really important because it got most of those other things corrected. And that's how we do it in this country. We vote and things get better, but only if we all vote. So even though the powers that we could have and probably would have tried to restrict us from voting back in the day, we were invisible. Most of us were invisible because we get fired or disowned or just not be able to do a whole lot of stuff. I don't take it for granted that now that we are visible, that those voting rights are a given. I have lived in Vermont since 1978. When I came here, it was perfectly illegal in Vermont to deny people housing, credit, insurance and like most everything you need, right? It wasn't until 1992 that making discrimination against my community became illegal. It didn't disappear, but we had recourse. And that happened because of activity on the part of my group, sure. But even though it seems like half the people in Vermont are gay, it's not true. Most people are straight as I awkwardly found out when I first moved here. Some moments there. But straight people voted for us. Straight people made this happen. That gay people got rights that we should have had all along. But that happened and I am grateful. Now, most of you know how this kind of works in Vermont and some of you don't. But on these socially contentious issues, what happens is the committee studying this and voting on this to present it to the general legislature calls an open meeting and people come at nighttime or in a weekend or something like that. So lots of people can come and you have the for the bill and the anti the bill happening. And everybody gets to speak two minutes for two minutes against two minutes for two minutes against. And so that's what happened for the non discrimination bill. And that passed. And I am grateful. And then came the civil union bill. And I'll tell you, that was ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. So during the discrimination bill, a whole bunch of gay people showed up, whole bunch of straight people got to see, wow, that's my neighbor there. Or some people like my family. Wow, that's my mom. And we're saying to the legislature why this is a problem. And then somebody else, nice people, good people, some of your friends, some of your neighbors, we get up there and say horrible things. And back and forth and back and forth. And so for the discrimination bill, we won for the civil union. That was uglier. And that was close. But we won. So our families would have the same protections as other families. And then nine years after the civil union bill, we tried for marriage. And boy, what a difference. So for civil unions, I went door to door in my neighborhood in Winooski, proud of Winooski, go Winooski. And you know, you know, would you support civil unions? Bam, Dorslin. Civil union? Bam, Dorslin. Bam, bam, bam. That was hard. Nine years later, squirt gay marriage? Yeah, sure. Would you call your legislator? Oh, yeah, I'll do that. And the hand of the phone. Because it had the legislators on speed that. And they go, what? Now? Yeah, now. I don't know what to say. Placker, hell of a placker. And they would laugh. And then they would do it. All these street people did this for us. So they found out that intervening nine years that their world didn't fall apart, those gay people could get married. And they found out that just because gay people could have jobs, have loans and things like that, their world didn't fall apart. No concept. We should enlarge on this. So what's the moral of the story? I cannot, there are not enough words to express my gratitude towards the people that helped me and mine. Now, I do get a kind of weird feeling for feeling so much gratitude for what I should have had all along. And I know it's a lot of you out there recognize that feeling. For me, where I am right now, and it's a very privileged position, and I know it, that weirdness is a little bit, and the gratitude is huge. And so what I want from all, and the GLBT thing, it's not done. No, it's not done. It's better, and better is better. But it's not done. And it's certainly justice is not done for many, many people. And so what I'm going to ask of all the GLBT community is we got help. We got helped a lot. We could not have done it without our allies. So let's do some helping. Let's do some helping. That's what has to be done. It is our turn to give. And you're thinking, well, one person doesn't make a difference. And I say, well, surely there won't be a difference if you don't try. And you might say, I don't know the best thing to do. And I say, the best thing to do is the thing you will do. And I'm asking all of our allies, all of the people in Vermont who helped us. There are many that need help and you know it. Everybody is aware of what's going on. All of America is your neighbor. All of America needs to vote. And all of America needs to have those votes counted fairly. So join me, join us, do something. If you're already doing something, do the more. If you don't know what to do, see me later. I'll be here. Open your hearts and get it done, my darlings. Get it done. Thank you. And thank you for the call to action. Everybody got that? Yes. Thank you. Let's continue. Let's keep going down this show. I don't even know what time is it. Am I doing all right with the time? Everybody okay? You still, I don't feel like we've lost too many people, so I must be doing all right. Or we all are with the time. Thank you. So let's do another interesting fact. This is the interesting fact for the People Act. Poll after poll has shown overwhelming public support for this legislation. One recent survey found 67% of Americans in favor, including 56% of Republicans and 68% of independents. So for the People Act, it's really popular. There's our interesting fact. So our next speaker is Tyler. Tyler Heading. Tyler recently graduated from U32 High School in East Montpelier. This fall he will be attending Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Wow. He is most proud of his commitment to challenging himself academically and personally throughout throughout his high school and his involvement in athletics and extracurricular activities at school and in his community. He received the All-Around Learner Advocacy and Engaged Citizen Awards at school. He has not yet decided on a major in college. And today Tyler will be reading his essay on the For the People Act. Remember you're interesting fact. All right. Let's welcome Tyler. Thank you. It's an honor to be here today. Thanks everyone for coming. It's been an honor to hear these beautiful words as well. So here's my essay. The United States of America has forever thrived on the success on the successes of democracy, government for the people, by the people. However, recent attempts have been made to change this, which I believe are not in the best interest of the future of Americans. As of March 24th, 2021, legislators had introduced up to 361 bills with serious restrictions. These bills looked to potentially restrict voter access, particularly for minority groups. We are currently relying on Congress in hopes that they will pass the For the People Act, as this act would look to suppress all of the horrific restrictive bills that legislators have been advocating for. This act is exactly what we need to strengthen the future of democracy and this country. Joe Biden himself heavily encouraged his Congress to pass this act, claiming that the For the People Act is urgently needed to protect the right to vote, the integrity of our elections, and to repair and strengthen our democracy. I believe President Biden is right. Voter accessibility is absolutely crucial to the success of this country. If people, particularly minority groups' voices, are deafened by these bills, then we are not receiving the votes that truly represent the entire American population. Thus, defeating the purpose of democracy and destroying the philosophies our political system and country were originally built upon. When we look into exactly what these restrictive bills would do to the state of this country, it becomes clear how necessary it is that they must be stopped. For example, some of these bills would limit who can vote by mail, restrict who is allowed to assist in returning a voter's ballot, tighten the witness requirements for ballots by mail, eliminate early registration, and much more. The primary issue with these restrictions is that they will severely lessen the votes received and, in many cases, the votes received by our country's smaller minority groups. At that point, we are not obtaining a true representation of American citizens and the system has failed. These bills are corrupt and they will silence many Americans whose voices must be heard. With these bills, our democracy is no longer government for the people by the people, but it then becomes government for the government by the government. And this is not what the United States of America should stand for. As a young person and assumed to be a new voter, I want to experience true democracy. I want to experience the America I have read about in my history books, one that is built on the wishes of the people. I do not want to experience the America these bills aim to create, where the people lack a say and lack a voice. I do not want to experience in America that is completely dependent on what the government wants, opposed to the millions of people who really make the country what it is. We need the For the People Act to be passed. We need it for the future of this country. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Tyler. Thank you. So we have we have another interesting fact, one more. And this one's almost like a statement for me. It's kind of one of my mantras, right? Because this is talking about local elections. The state of local the stakes of local elections often receive little media coverage. However, local elections have real consequences. Whether it's a guarantee of healthy drinking water, well maintained streets and bridges and infrastructure. It's a concern that should be taken in consideration when assessing candidates in a town and city. And I just urge people to remember those local municipal opportunities to vote because that's where our power and our voices can really be built, in my opinion, the most right here at home. So I'd like to welcome back Melody. Melody. Where's Melody? Here she comes. Welcome back Melody for our closing. And we'll give her a couple minutes to get up here and we'll close the show soon. I appreciate you all staying here with us and hearing this wonderful program. I have been inspired. Definitely not a waste of time on a beautiful afternoon on a Saturday. Thank you. Welcome Melody. So thank you everyone for being here. And I'm going to close with a story because stories are very important to our culture. And if you want to know who people are, look at the stories that they tell and look at the things that are about you to them, that they have all around them. So for us in the beginning of the world, our creator, Gluscabi, our transformer, he shot an arrow into the ash trees. And when he did that, all of the people walked out. Men, women, children, all shapes, sizes, more genders than just two, all kinds of people. And this is what makes a society. This is what makes a community. And so without all those people, you do not have all the beautiful things that are possible. And so for us, whenever we have councils, whether it's the three-year-old who wants to give their voice or whether it's the, you know, the adults that want to share their truth, everyone at our council speaks. We always give them a chance. And so I just want to leave you with this idea about shooting the arrow into the ash trees and as the people of the ash, as the people of the dawn who first see the light of dawn in this continent, everyone's voice matters. So thank you for being here. And I really hope that you all had a wonderful time and got something out of this. Enjoy. I just have some closing things to say before Nicole graces the stage again with another lovely song. I can't wait to hear. The Vermont Suffrage Centennial Alliance has commissioned Bryce Douglas of Offbeat Bryce Productions to create a short film based on the hard one not done event that you just attended, this one right here. One of the goals of the film is to capture individual responses to the event and different perspectives on why voting matters. If you're willing to share your thoughts and opinions and participate in this project, please stop by the welcome tent. Welcome to where are you again over there right there and talk to Bryce for a couple of minutes. We'll invite you to the public screening, not screaming, screening of the completed film in a few months. And a big thank you to our audience. Thank you to you all for joining us today and helping us to recognize how important voting is to our democracy. And I hope to see all of you at the polls. Thank you, everybody. I had no idea what I was going to sing today. We're going to be completely honest with each other. I figured I would let my heart lead the way. Be inspired by all of the brilliant people and the energy that's here right now. So I think for the final note, I want to sing a song that was the very first song I ever sang in front of people in my entire life. And I was so scared. I had never done that kind of thing before. And I just remember trying to channel Ella Fitzgerald. And she always inspired me and I was always amazed by how hard it must have been to be her a black woman in the 1950s touring the way that she was and facing so much just all of the things she must have been facing. And so I'm going to honor her in this song right now. Oh, we have to overcome our fears and build our strength together. Thank you to the future babies, to the joy that they're going to feel because of the work that we do and the joy that we feel in this moment. It's been a pleasure to be here with you all.