 It's a great day. I don't think it's going to rain anymore, and I'm really pleased that everybody has been able to join us today, so thank you so much for coming out. We're going to have a great morning and also enjoy the afternoon. I am Reverend Mark Hughes, the executive director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and Justice for All. I'm also the principal of the Racial Equity Association, so I want to welcome all of you here today. Today we're here to announce and also to celebrate the beginning of a campaign to amend Vermont's constitution to prohibit slavery and indentured servitude in all forms. I am joined by the executive director of Vermont Interfaith Action, my colleague and friend, Reverend Debbie Ingram. This campaign is going to amplify our ongoing efforts in teaching Vermonters a factual narrative about our persisting constitutional slavery exception clauses and the pivotal role that the Vermont Constitution has played in the history of constitutional slavery exception clauses in our nation, including the 13th Amendment. Sound bites, right? We can cut that one out. We're also here to connect the work abolishing slavery to the ongoing national effort where four states have already successfully done this and six additional states will be on the ballot this year. We're here to explain a relationship that the institution of slavery has with the current realities of systemic racism, its legacy. Following the press conference, what we'll do is we'll have a community cookout with Barbecue. Ben and Jerry's is in the house right here. We've got lawn signs, stickers, t-shirts. There'll be remarks by some of our other leaders, music, games and so forth. So please feel free, especially those of you with the cameras, stick around. Don't go anywhere. Our country's legacy of slavery is the foundation of systemic racism according to the Declaration of the United Nations in 2018. The large discrepancies by race and rates of poverty, unemployment, infant mortality, income, and incarceration among many other data points to the conclusion that these shameful statistics, I'm quoting the United Nations, can only be explained by longstanding structural discrimination on the basis of race, reflecting the enduring legacy of slavery. End of quote. Now although Vermont has claimed to be the first state to abolish slavery, the truth is that the Vermont Constitution has indeed permitted slavery in some form or another for the last 245 years. Some exceptions to abolish slavery in the state of Vermont Constitution permitted enslavement for children. It permits enslavement for the payment of debts and fines and the like. Now many other state constitutions and the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution were modeled after the slavery exception clause language that is in the state Constitution of the state of Vermont. And to the surprise of many, it's still legal in the United States slavery. The exception clause in the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows slavery and the involuntary servitude to be used as a punishment for crime. Any system, any system of oppression harms both the oppressor as well as the oppressed. Well, obviously people of color are primarily the ones harmed. We can just cut that out. The ones who are harmed, white people in the United States are also dehumanizing themselves by not addressing the hatred, underpinning our legacy of slavery, and by not dismantling the systemic racism that is the consequence of this immoral institution. So that is what we are here for, and we are here to tell the state of Vermont to vote yes to proposal two, no slavery, no exceptions. Thank you. I'm Debbie Ingram. I'm an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and the executive director of Vermont Interfaith Action. Today is an exciting day. It's a day that I had little inkling of back in the fall of 2018 when I had just gotten re-elected to the Vermont State Senate, and I submitted a request to legislative counsel to draft an amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery without exception. This is a day I had little inkling of when I got over 20 other senators to sign on to Prop 2, as it became called. And it was introduced into the Senate in January of 2019. This is a day I had little inkling of when there was serious debate about the need for this amendment, first in committee and then on the Senate floor. Yes, this is a day I only dreamed of four years ago when the Senate process began. But today I'm speaking to you not as a former state senator, but as the executive director of Vermont Interfaith Action, which I was back in 2018 and 2019 as well. It is a point of great pride and poignancy for me that the organization I direct has taken an active role in the campaign to pass this amendment by Vermont voters after I championed getting it passed by the legislature. It is also an honor to be working alongside my friend and co-conspirator in good trouble, Mark Hughes, who is the person that made me aware of what our Constitution actually says about slavery. And for Vermont Interfaith Action to be following the lead of the organization that Mark directs, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. It is only appropriate for this campaign to be driven by black leaders as people who are directly affected by the change we seek. It is only appropriate for this campaign to afford an opportunity for white people to become effective white allies and not white saviors in the struggle for racial justice. And for us as white people to take responsibility for the role we have played in the morally reprehensible institution of slavery. White people of goodwill, like the majority of the members of Vermont Interfaith Action, are on a journey to understand that living in the United States of America is one experience for people of color and another experience entirely for white people. For us it is a process to become aware that race is a construct that has been used to benefit some at the expense and exploitation of others. For us it is a process to realize that what we have been taught about the history of our country and state is full of misrepresentations, distortions, and outright lies. For us it is a process to understand that our society will never live up to its potential until we grapple with the legacy of slavery and its manifestation as systemic racism today. Part of this process of increased awareness, realization, and understanding is to campaign for and pass Prop 2. What we start today will educate Vermonters on what our Constitution really says, with its exceptions to prohibiting slavery, and its example to provide those exceptions, followed by 25 other states and the U.S. Constitution. What we start today will affirm that we know slavery in any form is morally reprehensible and should be unambiguously abolished. What we start today will connect our state to the other states across the country where similar measures are on the ballot, propelling our country to build a new future for us and our children. I could not be prouder of the multiple roles I have played to get us here, or of the passion of the people of faith whom I work with to advance this campaign. This may have been a day that I could only dream of at one point, but now it is a day I will never forget. Thank you for being here. Let's get this campaign started and let's get Prop 2 passed. So we're going to stick around and answer a few questions for those of you who are still here. We got some food. There's rumor of food. I haven't seen food. But Ben and Jerry's did not let us down. So stick around. Debbie and I are going to make ourselves available for you to just answer any questions that you might have. This is a heavy lift for Vermont in terms of how we understand what it is that we are here to do. We've never thought it would be a heavy lift for the typical Vermonter to say, no, we do not want a slave state. We never thought that would be a heavy lift. However, we believe it's a heavy lift in terms of the education initiative in the endeavor that goes into connecting systemic racism to slavery and understanding it as a legacy and understanding that the work we do now that we've been doing before that will continue to do in moving forward is directly connected to the construct of slavery. It was created by it. So the work that we're doing to abolish slavery is very, very important. The other challenge, and I'm trying to answer some of your questions beforehand, the other challenge in trying to get this across to our voters and to you as the press, we are trying to change a narrative that has existed in this state for generations, for generations. And now we know, those of us who watch the news lately, how easy it is to get somebody to believe something that is not true is actually true. If we just keep saying it over and over and over and over again. So as we see that manifest itself now, imagine that happening for generations in the state of Vermont. So as to make you believe that Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery. It was not. That is a difficult thing to embrace. But it is a part of a conversation that we need to have between now and November. And I think as a result of doing that, we can better understand Vermont's role in informing the exception clauses that would emerge across the United States, as my colleague told you, in 25 other states to include the 13th Amendment, Vermont actually informed the exception clauses that would emerge after. And to make it clear, there was no state that had any language concerning slavery in their constitution before 1777. And the first one was Vermont. That is the truth. So that is what we need to teach ourselves. And then that way we are better able to connect our roles and our responsibilities regarding the manifestation of systemic racism here in our state and double down in the work that we need to do. So thank you for coming out. We are here for you. We will answer your questions if you have any. Have a good afternoon. Let's get them.