 April 3rd, 2021, we're about a 1500 or three o'clock session, abolish slavery, VT. So that's what you're going to be seeing here. I just want to welcome everybody who's come. And also just kind of chime in with who we are. The Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, our mission is to secure sustainable power, ensure agency and provide security for American descendants of slavery while embracing our history and preserving their culture. We're doing work here in Vermont. We've been doing here work across the state in Vermont. Some of our work, you know, we can tell you about at least some of it before we get into this session. We'll follow up this session with some additional information. But just so you know, we are, you know, doing it just a handful of work across the state. Just I think it's important to understand that some of our work is around platforms and initiatives where we have, you know, policy and other community initiatives work like our ACT platform at the statewide level, our Operation Phoenix Rise platform here locally. There's also outreach and education that we're offering here at the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance that's ranging from things with, you know, talking about our program of the Third Reconstruction. Also empowering a lot of businesses and so forth across the community. Community engagement and support would be in that category. Outreach and education as well just to let you know we're doing a lot of activities like the one you're watching right now and then of course there's cultural empowerment. So cultural empowerment, we're, you know, teaching Black and Brown folks where they come from, what is their history, their power, their resilience. So just wanted to welcome everybody. Definitely happy to be here with you this afternoon. You've got a great presentation for you. It's about the whole idea of slavery in Vermont. We are recording, we're broadcasting this live as well that will also be recorded. We also have our broadcast partners over at the town meeting. Those folks are with us today. That's going to be broadcasting as well. So welcome all who have joined. And what we'll do is we will get ourselves into a presentation mode here momentarily and we'll get into this topic of the constitutional amendment here and the whole idea of what this business of slavery is in our constitution here. So hopefully there's folks who are joining who haven't had the opportunity to have some of these conversations and obviously the expectation is that we'd want to be able to share with some folks who've been following us along this process the entire way. So, yeah, I'm going to tell you a little bit about proposal 2 and proposal 2 or we call it Prop 2 here in our legislature in the state of Vermont, the progress that we're making there. We're going to start way from beginning to tell you a little bit about, talk a little bit about slavery in the United States. It's a subject that a lot of folks just kind of like to glaze over and attribute it to pre-1865 in our nation. So we want to also dispel some rumors along the way, give some real factual data. We'll hopefully even be able to peel down into, you know, what this language actually means to us here in the state of Vermont. Don't probably be able to give you some updates on some of the things that are happening across the state. So again, you know, it's Mark Hughes. I'm here with the Racial Justice Alliance, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. We also have our town meeting folks. Hopefully we can get this broadcast. We can get some attention on this and educate some folks across the city, across the state. And indeed, our primary focus here is, this is all about outreach and education. It's all about providing that information to folks that ordinarily you wouldn't have the ability to access. So just talk a little bit about the Vermont Constitution here. And what you see in front of you here is the language of our Constitution. This slide is a couple of years old, quite frankly. We introduced what we referred to as end slavery Vermont campaign last biennium in 2019. And if you take a close look at the slide, what you'll see is that, again, this is the first article of the Constitution of Vermont, the first article. So not maybe 30 seconds into a read of our Constitution, what we come across is is that we see that persons are born equally free and independent and have certain natural inherent and uneliable rights. And it goes on to say amongst which are enjoying and defending life, liberty, acquiring and possessing and protecting property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. Therefore, therefore, no person born in this country or brought from overseas ought to be holding by law to serve any person as a servant, slave, or apprentice. Now this is where things get interesting. Comma after arriving at the age of 21 years, unless bound by a person's own consent after arriving to such age or bound by law for such payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like. So we see here in our Constitution, which is now 244 years old, written in 1777, what we see here is that there is a series of exceptions to slavery. We see that first a person constitutionally in the state of Vermont can be a slave provided there under the age of 21. They can also be a slave if they consent to being a slave. And after they arrive at the age of 21, the law can actually bind a person to slavery. Okay, thank you. I really appreciate that. We'll see if we can correct that. It seems that you can be bound by the law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, and the like. So let's see if we can get that screen share business straightened out while we're having this conversation because that seems to be kind of important. Nothing like some good old real-time technical difficulties. How are we doing now? You know what we can do here is we can actually, I think I've had this problem before and when we do that, when we have that problem in the past, I think it was something as simple as reducing the slide and just coming out of the presentation mode. How's it looking now? Yeah, I appreciate that. No worries. We're doing this together. So that is our wonderful town meeting folks in the background making sure that we're getting the best quality for you out there. So again, just to go back to this problematic clause, this exception clause, or these exception clauses in the Constitution, there you can see for those who were watching and those who were listening in the red lettering where we see that the language is very clear that in fact there is indeed an exception in the Constitution for slavery. And I know there's a lot of folks watching who were taught in our schools that we were the first state to abolish slavery here in Vermont. And that's a very nuanced conversation. But the facts are, the facts are that, and the truth is, is that the state of Vermont has held slavery constitutionally longer than any other state in the United States of America, 244 years. In fact, this Constitution predates any other Constitution and was used to model the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which also has an exception clause. So these are things that we're taking a look at. I want to just share a little bit with you about, you know, where we are, just going to be a hard one to see, but I'm just going to explain it to you is, is that you'll see that there are a number of states that are in orange in these states. Largely, these are the states that currently are holding slavery as being, there is also an exception clause in their Constitution that permits slavery, that explicitly permits a constitutional slavery. So I think where this might, it may be a little bit different today is I do believe that Nebraska if I'm not mistaken and potentially Utah over the last couple years have moved in the direction that we are seeking to move this state in terms of making it explicitly clear that under no circumstances in our state is slavery constitutionally permitted or indentured servitude for that matter. The year prior Colorado was orange as well. So just want to make you aware of that. Alabama's Constitution was just so all over the place. I think it has been amended more times than any other Constitution in the United States. And it just, as I recall, seemed so liberal on the subject. We just flagged it. And what's notable about Vermont here in this presentation is the fact that Vermont is unique in the United States is there are no other states. In addition to being the state that has held constitutionally slavery longer than any other state, they also here, we also in Vermont are the only state that has had an exception clause that specifically noted that there's a age limitation or there's an age, I guess, threshold, whereas the age of a person under the age of 21 could in fact be enslaved, enslaved. So again, very, very unique, our Constitution, very, very unique. And just a side note, there was a time, and I think it was maybe 1924 is when it was changed, that our Constitution said that young women under the age of 18 could be enslaved, and young men under the age of 21 could be enslaved. But sometime around 1924, that was changed in both where they were combined to be 21 total. So I thought that to be rather interesting. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the history, just some of the history of where we've come from in the state, regarding our Constitution, and just in general, but also as it pertains to this exception clause on slavery. What we see is that, yes, our Constitution was, in fact, written pre-statehood in 1777, and the Constitution, it was revised and adopted in in 86, as well as in 93, right, at statehood. There were a number of conventions that you see there on the slide that occurred. And the reason why these are notable is, is this just goes to show you that our Constitution has been taken under consideration for amendment, a number of times, I think the number is up to somewhere around 27 times, since 1777. These are just the instances in which these reviews or constitutional amendments occurred. And just to also note that, I should say, this is where the constitutional amendments have been successful, but they have occurred numerous times over a number of years. Here you see our conventions being held, as well as our referendums being held as early as late as 1913. It's important to note, again, that there was a gender adjustment, and we can talk, we're going to talk about that later in our presentation. And you'd say, well, what does this have to do with what we're talking about? You will find that this is incredibly relevant, the how they went about addressing gender in the Constitution, not just because at one point, women were constitutionally permitted under the age of 18 to be slaves, and men under the age of 21, and that was merged, but also there was some really creative constitutional amendments that did occur that removed language related to slavery. And I think that what's important to understand is, is that this language was removed under the auspices of de-genderization, and we'll have more conversation about that in just a few minutes. I want to tell you a little bit about some history, and I've noted this being recent history, and actually some of it is not so recent, and some of this, you know, some of there are a number of things that are ongoing. Just wanted to note that we started the conversation about the constitutional amendment back as early as 16 when we were, when we, as in justice for all, another organization that I am the executive director of, that we started conversations with a lot of the candidates, the senatorial candidates, many of whom are still around, like like Senator Sorokin and Senator Lyons and others, and we just started these conversations about some of the work we were doing, and a question came up, did you know that the constitution did indeed permit slavery constitutionally, and there were none, there was nobody who was aware as early as back in 16 when we were doing these sessions in conjunction with justice for all. I was also personally involved with writing into the Democratic Party's platform, the, a requisite that the constitution would acknowledge this issue of slavery, and that it would be a party position when, back in the day when I was a Democrat. So, so it's not a new discussion, this was as, I think occurred in August of 2016, where the Democratic Party stated that they would work to amend the article one of the Vermont Constitution to quote, clarify that slavery in any form is absolutely prohibited, so that was the language that came out of the party platform at that time. Another thing that happened is that we actually requested, when we were referred to as the coalition, we requested the Senate leadership to urge the 2019 Senate to propose a constitutional amendment, and let me tell you how that works, is while they were in session in 2018, you know, it is understood that that was the close of that particular biennium, the next biennium, because at the end of 18 there was an election. We were so keen on getting this work started, is we were asking, because you cannot start a constitutional amendment except for every four years, and that fourth year was 19, so we were aware of that, but we were asking the 2018 legislature to go ahead and urge the 2019 biennium, that legislature to start the work, we were unsuccessful in getting that done. We also were able to request that the House do the same, that the House put forth a resolution to do the same, the House did indeed put forward, put forward a resolution in 2018, urging the 2019 Senate to take up this work, however, the House never took the resolution up in House government operations and it died. So here we see that was HR 25, that was HR 25 in the House in 2018. Some other things happening along the way, and I think this is all good stuff just so we know that this stuff is not coming out in a blue. We know that the party reaffirmed its position, its platform position two years later, that we were, the position that we were talking about on Amin in the Constitution just last slide. The other thing is that the alliance with Justice for All, we also put forward language for a proposal for the Constitutional Amendment removing slavery, and that was in 2018. And just to be clear, that language, that initial language was actually put forward. We weren't able to actually move that into the Senate until 2019, but we did put that language forward. Here's an interesting and a very interesting one for you is it was the League of Cities and Towns, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, that unanimously also passed a resolution expressing their desire that the Constitution be amended to reflect that slavery is involuntary, slavery rather, and involuntary servitude in all forms are prohibited. So pretty excited about that. Thanks, Sasha. Sasha's a great friend of mine who sits over on the select board and over in Plainfield, who was I think the originator there. And I think some of that was a result of the work that she was able, we were able to share with her. The other thing that happened is that it was Senator Ingram and also in concurrence with 23 other senators that introduced what we know today as PR2, and that is that proposal to amend the Constitution. There was testimony that opened in Senate government operations and this, believe it or not, was well over two years ago when testimony first started in the Senate government operations. Another very appreciative and appreciated and interesting and sometimes not well known fact is that the Vermont Episcopal Diocese Consul, if I can say that, the Vermont Episcopal Diocese Consul did in fact unanimously approve the release of a letter to the Senate Government Operations Committee supporting PR2 in February of 2019. And there was also the Governor's Workforce Equity and Diversity Consul. They also unanimously voted in favor in February of 2019. We know that the Senate government operations had a public hearing in April of that year and the House government operations did so in May. So that's kind of the history of where it came from. And I'll just fill in the blanks a little bit. I would just say that it's important to understand that within the first biennium, which was last year, we did see the Senate pass this proposal out. It was a 29 to one vote. We also saw in the second half of the biennium, and that was in the year 2020, which was just last year, we saw the House send it back across and they voted it out 145 to nothing. And you can see those roll call votes that are documented on the Legislature's website. So here what you see in front of you is the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance's proposed resolution in 2018. Again, remember when I spoke to you about the resolution and I indicated that it was a resolution calling for the 2019 Senate to do the work. The reason why that is, again, you can't amend the Constitution unless you're in that fourth year. 19 just happened, 20, 21, 22, 23. We know that 23 will be the next time that it can happen. So we were trying to get the Legislature to lean forward into this to urge their colleagues and largely themselves, quite frankly, to lean into this work and to start that process. So this is what we proposed in terms of resolution in that resolution. Again, was the resolution largely that came out of House government operations in the form of HR 25 in 2018. Again, we were unsuccessful to get a similar resolution even introduced in the Senate. So a continuation of that resolution in basically, you know, obviously the whereas clauses looking to entice, if you will, the senators and to dial into the work. Largely, you have to understand history here is that folks are unaware that this even existed. A lot of folks just kind of just largely dismissed some of this work that we were doing, just saying, oh, come on. Here's a just a quick anecdote. I was walking down the street and I was walking next to Jim Condos. The State Secretary. And I said, Jim, what do you think about this? And he said, that's not in there. So here we got a state elected official. Now, Jim, you know, I love you, but this is this is this is a story. So so yeah, we, you know, from from Beth to TJ to others to other elected officials, largely this this language in these this Constitution was largely either not recognized, not acknowledged, unknown. Yeah, I know they to everybody takes every elected official takes an oath to this to the Constitution. And yet, just a very difficult time on the education front, which is why we're here, which is why I'm taking the time right now on a sunny Saturday afternoon to sit down with you and tell you about the history of this thing and tell you what's really going on with our Constitution. So here's what you what you see here. This is the proposed again resolution, the 2018. What you see here is the actual language that we initially put forward that we thought would go into the Constitution in lieu of that constant, the constitutional language that currently exists. And what you see as we have sought to we have, we were offering just basically a strike. If you look at the bottom, we were saying that essentially how to resolve this is just get rid of the last part of just completely get rid of it. And what we, you know, what we thought that would resolve is just provide some clarity. Now, the outcome, it actually evolved and we'll get more into that. But that is where we ended up. Now, there's there's more here, though, because there's also in the Constitution, a chapter called 42. And this kind of gets to the language that's a derivative of the fact that we've had slavery existing in this state. There was a term that we used to use for those of you who reside in Vermont, who've been here so for let's just say, at least eight or 10 years, you'll remember something called the Freeman's Oath. The Freeman's Oath. What is a free man? What is a free man? So we'll get more into that. But every single time you find that language in our Constitution and our statutes, it always pertains to voting. So in chapter 42 of the Constitution, we also sought unsuccessfully to have that language removed consistent with where how it has been removed out of all statutes and a secret constitutional amendment that was done under the auspices. Remember, under the auspice of gender, where in 94 that happened, I'll tell you more about that later, you're going to have to stick around. So we were unsuccessful at removing that language. And that's a longer conversation. We can return to that later part of our presentation. Just wanted to make it clear, though, this is where we all started. So of course, what we did is we did get some draft language back from Ledge Console. The draft language that we got back from Ledge Console was consistent relatively with what we had put forward. There were some changes that were evolving. I don't think that within the scope of what I'm presenting to you today that this is as relevant as where we ended up. So this whole legislative console draft, I think I'm going to largely skip over it and just get you to where we landed. So this again, the continuation of the language. So as it was introduced in 2019, you'll see the language in red. It says it goes on to say, I beg your pardon, so you'll see here that there's a discussion about the history of the Constitution here. And we also began to speak about the 13th Amendment as well. Because one of the, and this again, and I think it's educational, is there are many now who have seen the movie, the documentary 13th with Michelle Alexander. Many of us know that there is an exception clause in the 13th Amendment. And I think it's very important for us to look at the overlap here, because one of the first pushbacks, and it was usually from an older white man that I got the pushback, is you don't have to worry about that we're covered by the 13th Amendment. We're covered by the 13th Amendment. And I think what we have to keep in mind is that the 13th Amendment never abolished slavery. The 13th Amendment always said that it prohibited slavery within the United States. Look at the red text. It says, except as punishment for crime, whereof the party has been duly convicted. So that's very important in the context of this conversation, because really what we're talking about is it's not so appalling at the end of the day that all of these states have constitutionalized slavery, because slavery is constitutionally permitted in all 50 states as a result of this language. Now, obviously, states' rights, states do have a right to pushback on the federal government. We do it with immigration all of the time. We're doing it with marijuana. We'll have more conversations, cannabis, if you will. We'll have more conversations about that later. But just making it clear, we wanted to point out to the legislative council what's going on in the grand scheme of things. And so we framed this conversation historically and contextualized it with the Constitution of the United States' 13th Amendment. We also noted, if you see here, that we want this, we want to make sure that it's clearly understood that the reason why we're doing this is this is very foundational, because this is really serving as a foundation to address the work that we're doing to dismantle systemic racism. So that kind of flushes out, because if you begin to think about what the Constitution does, one of the major things it does in the exception clause is criminalizes poverty. It constitutionalizes the criminalization of poverty. We'll talk more about that. Why is that relevant in systemic racism? Systemic racism 101 tells us that as a result of the institutionalization of this racist policy violence that has occurred across the United States historically in housing, education, employment, health services access, economic development, and yes, the so-called criminal justice system, it has consistently impacted black and brown folks in such a way that black folks median income now is about 113th that of white folks and growing. And we'll have to figure out what that is. So yes, we cannot resolve, we cannot resolve this challenge of systemic racism without one, you know, racially disaggregated data, you know, collecting that data across all of those systems, and two, a radical redistribution of political and economic power. And what that means is beginning to dismantle some of this policy that, you know, that is supported by the Constitution that can enforce things and that can perpetuate things like say, for example, a school to prison pipeline, or let's just say, for example, a war on drugs. So what we know is that, yes, most black people are poor. That's what this system has created, despite the fact that most poor people are white. So just to be clear, this is where we're coming from. We're not talking about the Constitution just because it's a hobby and we're not talking about it just because it was the interesting thing to do in that year. There's a lot of other work that this organization and other organizations are doing around dismantling systemic racism and this is a fundamental, a core part of that work. So yes, as introduced in 2019, what we see here is they did indeed take our advice and there was an introduction of this policy and of this constitutional amendment in such a manner that was consistent with what our desires were. And that was just to go ahead and strike all of that language. Let's just go ahead and get rid of it. So that was in 2019. So what happens is that the constitutional amendment does get referred to a committee of reference. It was Senate government operations. All constitutional amendments start in the Senate. So it was Senate government operations and what we got out of that was language something like this. And I think this was as early as February of 2020, February of 2000. Let me see if I can get this right. Yeah, February of 2021. Let's just dig into this for a minute. What we have here is slavery in any form is prohibited. And no person born in this country or brought from overseas ought to be holding to serve in any person or servant as a servant or apprentice or bound by law. And then it went on to say, let's see, as a servant or apprentice, and it goes on to say, unless bound by a person's own consent or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, and the like. So what does that mean? Well, what that means is that it was a ridiculous assertion that we were going to go with this language because there was still language in there. Grace, if you're going, we're right in the middle of a session and we'll get a chance to chat in just a second. Grace, if you're just joining, we're right in the middle of a session right now, and we'll get a chance to chat in just a little bit, but wanted to just invite you in. We have Town Hall with us. We're broadcasting Facebook and YouTube. But what you see here in this language is you see a proposal that was floating around in Senate government operations that would have kept the exception clause for the bound by law for payment of debts, damages, and fines, and the like, and even permitting a person to provide their own consent for slavery. So we weren't having that. We pushed back on it. There was a lot of testimony that happened, some from Peter Teachout at the law school down there, some from Dick McCormick up here, Senator Dick McCormick, there was pushback. There was an assertion that maybe some of this language should remain in the Constitution because the Constitution, they thought it would be good for it to carry it historically so folks could look back and see what we used to do. Our assertion was that that's what museums are for. This is a living document and this document really should reflect the values of who we are as a state. So the conversations went on and ultimately what we got to is that as passed by the Senate, you see here, this is the one that came across on a 29 to one vote or 39 to one vote from the Senate and the language ended up falling out like this is that all persons are born equally free and independent and have certain natural inherent and uneligible rights amongst which are the enjoying and defending life, liberty, acquiring and possessing and protecting property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety, therefore slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited period. So that is what was passed out of the Senate because the because the House does not have the ability to amend the Constitution. Where that left us is that we, this is what also came back from the House. So I'm just going to pause there for a minute while I get my, while I get my computer plugged in and just give you a break the process. So what we know now is that we have a constitutional amendment that seeks to address this, this exception clause in our Vermont State Constitution. What we know about the process of passing this constitutional amendment is it must first be introduced in the Senate. There is a two thirds vote that comes out of that and it has to do with those present and it's a little gets a little bit tricky. I'm not going to get into all of the rules, but it did in fact make it out of the Senate. It did not make it out of the House the first year, but you have the whole biennium, which is the two years, to make it out of the House to make it out of both, you know, to get this thing down the path, because the next biennium, it must do the same thing. So we were able to get it back out of the House, which was last year, which was the second year of the biennium. As you know, there was an election that just occurred. So now we're at the beginning of the biennium. And what we know now here is is that the rules committee of the Senate, the rules committee of the Senate voted this out on, I believe it was Tuesday, which means it holds the calendar for seven legislative days where upon such time is it is moved to the floor of the Senate and a vote of the full Senate will occur. And that is currently scheduled that looks like it's going to fall out on the 9th of April. So very, very important date, good opportunity, despite the fact whether you feel as though your senator is going to vote for it or not, it'd probably be a good idea to reach out and let folks know that you're watching. And also understand that this is far more than symbolic. This is far more than symbolic. Our Constitution is the grandfather of all constitutions. I told you a little while ago that the 13th Amendment has that exception clause in it that really created the prison industrial complex and the racial disparities therein. This whole idea of how we've moved from convict leasing to sharecropping to this whole idea of war on drugs and how that system has been used. That exception clause in 1865 that was written into the 13th Amendment, they looked to the Constitution of Vermont to model that language after. Yeah, that's how preeminent the state of Vermont is in this whole conversation about slavery. So back to class, what we have here is we've got the constitutional amendment as it has been passed, the first biennium. And just think of it as if you're a football fan or something like that. I'm really not. But a football fan would say, we're in the third quarter. Third quarter is the second pass through to Senate that's coming up on the ninth. Fourth quarter is that the House would essentially pass it out. We just have to look and see what the rules are in the House. Does it get sent to a committee of reference in the House, like the rules committee, does it just stay on the House floor and immediately go to a vote? We don't know yet, so we'll have to get all of that figured out. So I want to talk to you just a little bit about just some recommendations, some additional, some recommendations that we had put forward. So again, as we said before, our original recommendations, now we are amenable to what you just saw on the previous slide, but our original recommendation in terms of language, which you see is here again, we're back to what we initially proposed. It's right here in front of you and you just see that language at the end of the first paragraph. That was our thoughts out of the gate. Just strike all of that. In fact, we think that as a result of the lively and colorful deliberations in the Senate government operations that we probably arrived at a better place. Now, as far as this whole idea about Chapter 42, we didn't get that. So there's reasons I'm not going to go into, but largely I think it's because it was a chair of Senate government operations who said, well, we're going to hold off on that because we're not quite sure what to do with it. We're not sure whether it's going to require a constitutional amendment. We don't quite know what it means and so on and so forth. There's a lot of foot dragging going on there, and we can talk more about that. But just this is more so just to let you know, we requested that Chapter 42, the title of Chapter 42 be changed. So it says, voter qualifications oath, as opposed to saying voters qualifications of free men and free women. Because currently, just to be clear right now, in the Constitution, in Chapter 42, it says the latter, voter qualifications of free men and free women. That is the only place in the Constitution where you see that language. Historically, back about maybe 16, maybe 26 years ago, before 1994, there was probably at least a couple of dozen places where it appeared. And also, just as recent as the last several years, it has appeared in multiple places in our statutes, and they have all been erased. I'm going to go into that right now, because these are some of the other recommendations that we put forward. Because again, we're not just here to amend the Constitution. I think I've told you about as much as I can tell you about much of the process that led up to amend the Constitution. But we're also building precept upon precept. Because what we're starting to understand is as you begin to pull at the thread of systemic racism, the more you're able to unpack things, the clearer you can see the things that they are hiding, the clearer that you can see the things that also need to be addressed. And it's just a work in process. It's a work in progress. It took 401 years to do this. So yeah, these are some of the other recommendations. Note point number two, it says initiate a joint resolution making application under the U.S. Constitution resending and replacing the 13th Amendment to ensure that slavery is prohibited without exception in the United States. So that would be an application under the U.S. Constitution. It would be resending and replacing the 13th Amendment, making sure that we understand that there are no exceptions nationally. So there is no national policy. Because what we see here in the United States, reconstruction, 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment, 13th Amendment specifically, the whole idea of slavery is prohibited except for a duly convicted crime. That was merely served as a bridge largely to appease the South, but it's a national policy, served as a bridge because the history of slavery, it marched right up to 1865. It didn't stop like we were taught in schools. The Constitutional Amendment created a provision whereby it was just done in another way and it has been done the entire time. So what does that mean to us as United States citizens? What does that mean to all of us? What that means is we live in a nation, we live in a nation that has always had slavery constitutionally, always. Think about that. So this is much larger than Vermont. This is much larger than Vermont. So and across the state as we plug into the abolished slavery national network, we're also working with him to get some of this work on. Let's go to point three. Amend title 17, chapter 32, and remove 16 occurrences of the language freemen, language, the freemen. Now you see next to that that is complete and that really demonstrates the power of some of the work that we're doing. Because again, this was written, this slide was created a couple of years ago. And I think slightly modified since then. So what we were able to do as a result of starting this work on the Constitution was is to be able to move to a conversation about what is this business of freemen? Why is it that every single time the Constitution and our state statutes, and there's more, speak about the qualifications for state office or federal office? It's spoke of in terms of freemen. You have to be a freemen to do that. Why is it that in order to vote for any one of these elected officials, these statewide offices? What do I mean by statewide? I'm glad you asked. So when we start talking about our legislature, when we start talking about our treasurer, we start talking about our auditor, our attorney general, our state secretary, we start talking about, you know, Peter Welsh, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, our congressional delegation. So the qualifications for any of those, any one of the 180 legislators here in the state as well, we start talking about the qualifications to vote for and to qualify for those positions has always been framed in the term of freemen. Now that ought to bring you pause, given the fact that constitutionally, United States Constitution, as well as constitutionally here in the state of Vermont, there has always been a delineation of who is free and who is not. That's why we call them slaves. So this is some of the things that we've been working towards. We were able to see 16 occurrences of the language freemen removed from Title 17, largely being replaced with voters, the language voters, or persons, sometimes in the Constitution. So that was done quietly. It was done quietly. This is the reason why we're having these sessions right here, because nobody's going to tell you. You're not going to read this in the paper. The legislature's not going to, you know, shoot you a note and say, hey, guess what we're doing? We're going to get constitutional, we're going to remove slavery, we're going to abolish slavery, and we're going to back away from the language that referred to it. What this is, this is clear and simple. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is not a hypothesis that I'm coming up with that's kind of jacked up and that's sideways. This is a fact. This is, you know, when you speak in terms of freemen, really what we're talking about is one thing, voter suppression, period. That's it. So it may not be real and present today, but that was why the language was designed, because why else would you delineate the election criteria, the criteria for a person to serve in those offices or to vote in those offices? It's about holding on to political and economic power, because if you think about a nation that's been around for a state that's been around for 244 years, or de facto, what we've experienced is that there's been a holding on of power because it was always designed that only those people who were not slaves would be able to hold these offices or vote these folks into office. Are you seeing what I'm saying? I know you can't respond. So this is the language that we are asked to be removed. It was quietly removed. So the other piece that we have here is, is we saw in the, in Title III, and this, again, this is written two years ago, in Title III, in 2311, that we wanted to add a population level quality of life outcome. What do you mean, Mark? Well, the population level quality of life outcomes are administered by the Chief Performance Officer and an older white woman by the name of Sue Zellner here in the state of Vermont. And they are designed for measurements, state measurements, and there are certain categories of people within the state, or there are certain, there are various subjects that are very important, you know, some are, you know, that, you know, Vermonters are safe, that, you know, that there's a, that the, you know, folks in disabilities communities can live comfortably, that, you know, children are cared for, that the elderly are. So what we were looking for to do, you know, if systemic racism is real, this seems like it makes sense, is why not have a, you know, black, indigenous, and people of color are able to, to live safely, be protected, and enjoy, you know, a reasonable quality of life for, I'm just kind of pulling it out of there. But so that was put forward as a proposal, as a result, is usually those, those quality of life outcomes, there are indicators that are created. And then through those indicators, there are measurements, and then the various agencies are measured on their progress on that. Okay. So we did put that forward. Unfortunately, it, legislatively, it was hijacked, we were not really able to provide testimony in committee, which was House government operations last biennium in its development, but there was a statute that came out that essentially said, no, we're not going to do that. What we're going to do is going to create these outcomes, and we're just going to spread outcomes that relate to black, indigenous people across all of these other 10 categories. And then it went south from there, and we can talk more about that in another session, but that if it hasn't already should be coming out of the Senate, and it is a train wreck. That's right, Senator White, it's a train wreck. So I will come back to that. We'll talk more about that later. But again, these are just examples of what came out of our work on the constitutional amendment. So yes, the work of Title III, 2311 folks, for those of you who've been watching that work, it came from the Racial Justice Alliance and our partners in the work that we were doing years ago as a result of what we're doing with the constitutional amendment, because what it caused us to begin to see is, what are those things that show themselves when you begin to pull those threads? And we've also seen how this system is self-healing, self-protecting, and it morphs into something else when you get that close, which is a huge, what are huge examples in that? Well, nobody's talking about them in the Constitution. The Title 17, as we know it, just talked about, it was done and you didn't even know about it. And in Title III, 2311, they hijacked it and it's gone sideways. So this is the frustrating and interesting and fulfilling and just nuts work that we're doing. So the other, and you see the example there, the other thing that we know is that, yes, Senate Rule 84 still has the language of Freeman in it, where, what it pertains to, and this is a third category of the use of Freeman that I omitted inadvertently, is that it pertains to the referendum process that goes into the constitutional amendment, the state constitutional amendment. Let me just back up because it just occurred to me and I didn't tell you this, that what happens after this thing passes through the legislature, the second biennium, I told you the first biennium, Senate House, first second biennium, Senate House. What happens then is that this provided it passes through all of that, there is a question that goes on the ballot in November. And if this is correct, what happens is this will go on the ballot next November 2022. And as you know, 2022 is the midterm election and it will be a question across the entire state on the ballot. So that's what happens. The reason why I pause to tell you that is this Rule 84 in the Senate speaks to that process. In fact, if you looked in the previous bullet back in three, Title 3, Title 17 rather, I told you the other two instances, who's voting, what office they're voting for, but also the constitutional amendment process. Are you seeing a pattern? Because freemen, you don't want anybody but freemen dinking around with the Constitution. You don't want anybody but freemen being able to vote for state-wide elected officials and you certainly don't want anybody but freemen being state-wide elected officials. So why is the remnant of that language in 84 important? The reason why it's important is because it's an example of how you can have a remnant of policy violence and systemic racism right under your nose. And nobody says anything about it and it's right there. But it also serves as an indicator to be able to pull at to say where did that come from and what does that mean? Because we don't ask enough for those questions. The other thing that we'll see here is, I don't want to steal my thunder, so I'm not going to go too far in it because it might be another slide, is we're going to see this language appear, this freemen language appear in our cities and town charters, which is Appendix 24. Yeah, that's going to be Title 24 in its appendix. How do I know? Virgin's Burlington, where I reside, and at least one other place has that language and we've been seeking to get that language removed administratively. Nobody really wants to talk about it. So why am I telling you all of this? Well, the reason why is I'm also trying to connect the importance. I'm trying to connect why it's so important that we're looking at things like this thing called the constitutional amendment. It's important because I know it's very difficult for folks to say, well, let's just brush that off and it's over. It was years and years ago. You're just trying to start something and create a fuss about nothing. It's really nothing to see here. It's meaningless. All it is is just an old dusty piece of paper and nobody's paying attention to it. Who cares? Wait a minute. This is the constitution of the state. Every law that's passed in our legislator must pass that muster. You cannot pass a law through our legislature without legislators being concerned about whether it's constitutional. The ledge console spends so much time focusing on this. The governor has actually vetoed bills because he said that they're unconstitutional. Our Supreme Court in this state upholds every law, every single law. They uphold every law based upon its constitutionality. Everybody swears an oath to this constitution and the list goes on to include our chief executive, the governor, and that same constitution prescribes the process whereby which he carries out his duties as well as everybody else. The constitution is freaking important. The words that are in it are important. In precept upon precept, the words in our constitution have driven the development as well as the creation and the expansion of our statues. I'm going to show you an example of that later. But it suffices to say, you've already seen an example because you've seen Title 17 a moment ago. Recall Title 17 here in 3. Title 17 essentially is mapping right back to the constitution of Chapter 42. Chapter 42 about voting. Title 17 in our statutes, it is reflective of Chapter 42. That's why the language that was in Chapter 42, Freeman, was so easily carried over. And that's why when you look in the office of the state secretary, you land at a place of voting. So just wanted to just point that out. Get a little passionate about the constitution. I also happen to have taken an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic as well. So the systemic impact. I want to talk a little bit about the systemic impact here. And this really just goes right into exactly what I'm talking about. Because first of all, mark systemic impact of what? If we're talking about the constitution, you can't disconnect our statutes from the constitution. A minute ago, I told you a little bit about rule 84, which is in our Senate. It's there for a reason. Rule 84, when the Senate started making rules and there are many, there are many rules and some of them you may want to become familiar with, they reflected on our statutes and they reflected on our constitution. Why else would rule 84? Why would there be rules in the Senate that pertain to elections? That pertain to qualifications for elections. And in this case, that pertain to the folks who are actually going to vote on the referendum of the constitutional amendment, rule 84, Freeman. So very important. When you start looking at institutions, you look at the government itself. And again, I mentioned a moment ago about legislation and even our courts. The constitution is important. The language in the constitution is important. We'll talk a little bit about implications because a lot of times folks talk about, it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. But were it not for our own state laws, those folks who are incarcerated right now wouldn't be able to vote. There's only two states in the United States that can't vote. Really at the heart of the discussion that we're talking about right now, whether it looks like it or not, and whether it's particularly relevant or as relevant today as it was, this is a voting conversation. This is a disenfranchisement conversation. When you start talking about slavery, it has always been implied you cannot vote. It has always been implied. So that is a integral component of what we're talking about. Thankfully, Maine and Vermont do have that on the books to be able to allow folks to vote. But again, the whole idea of the constitution saying that if a person cannot pay his debts or fees or fines or the like, that they can be a slave, that supports a statute in our laws in Title 13 that I can show you in a little bit. Maybe I can find it. Maybe not. I don't know whether I have it in this debt. That basically says that yes, you can be incarcerated if you don't pay your bills. What is that? What does that mean? So poor people, people who are genuinely poor, should just be incarcerated? Or worse yet, because they're incarcerated, at least by the 13th Amendment, and yes, by our state constitution, they are slaves? And yes, there's a fundamental conversation we should be having. Are we a state that says that slavery is okay? Are we a state that says there is a category of people that we call slaves and we have some? That's the question that we should be asking ourselves because there's no question about whether or not it exists today. The question is whether we're going to get rid of it and whether we're going to succumb to what the 13th Amendment is doing. I'm going to talk a little bit about Vermont Correctional Industries because there is a statute. I'm not going to share all of this with you right now. On the books that permits us, and on the federal level, and a lot of this is coming out of private prison industry, okay? I won't go into details of a whole other presentation, I promise you. Out of private prison industry, whereby there are programs that set up that states can ascribe to, and the language in these statutes essentially says that we as a state can lease the labor of our prisoners. This is Vermont Correctional Industries. If it was in Nevada, it would be Nevada Correctional Industries. They have them all over the United States. I may have misspoke on Nevada. I didn't do my research, but most every state I check, I find it. In Vermont, we specialize in office furniture. We also specialize in license plates, in wall hangings, as well as we have a call center out of our Department of Motor Vehicles all incarcerated here in the land of the free, the home of the brave, the brave little state, Vermont, as slaves in our prison. From our Correctional Industries, look it up. VCI. And when we get into having conversations about the 200 or 250 folks, slaves that we have in Mississippi, why is that not human trafficking? You're taking slaves whose labor you sell and you're moving it across state lines. I'm not being ridiculous. These are real conversations that we have to have. So when you start talking about labor, migrant labor, even the Department of Children and Family, we got to take a close look at. I won't talk that much about Woodside, but there's a lot to unpack here in this conversation when we see that constitutionally that slavery is permitted. Get prison out of your head. It goes all the way across the board. Because we also have to have a conversation about indentured servitude. That's when you're against your will, you may not be a slave, so that is in the Constitution. We got to have a real serious conversation about this because the truth is, if it's not in the Constitution and it's still happening, then we go to the courts and we resolve this. That is our constitutional responsibility. That is our democratic responsibility to make sure that everybody, this is not so much a race thing as this is a human rights issue. This is about human rights. This is about a nation that has always held slavery, that was built on genocide and established on slavery. The systemic racism that has been produced as a result of it, the benefactors of which are everybody that's not a white man. Here in this country, the benefactors also are realizing the pain that's associated with this institution. We'll talk a little bit more about what the United Nations says about this, but there are real implications is what I'm getting at. There are things that we really need to be talking about here regarding this constitutional amendment. When it comes to immigration, now what we're talking about here is because if we're going to really say in our Constitution that slavery is prohibited, that indentured servitude is prohibited under any circumstances, that means we have, we are knowingfully contradicting the federal constitution, the United States Constitution, because the 13th amendment says no. The 13th amendment says no, we are a nation of slaves. That's what it says. I'm not being ridiculous. No, we are a nation of slaves. If we're going to contradict that, a lot of folks are pushing back on that saying, well, what are the implications, previous slide, what are the implications? Well, I'm not sure if we want to sign up for that. The thing is, what I'm saying, what we're saying, what we're observing is we already signed up for that. We're already pushing back on immigration policy. Why? It's national policy. Yeah. Why are we pushing back on it? Because this is wrong. It's wrong. When we look at hemp and cannabis and we understand it, upwards of 70% of black and brown folks are still being arrested for cannabis related crimes across the United States and doing serious time for infractions, violations related to cannabis. And here we are, we're in the middle of a taxation and regulation period in our state. And we know the feds are pushing back on it because it's not legal. But we did it. What about PR5, which is the other constitutional amendment that makes sure women have a right to choose concerning their own body? Right? And there was also a statute that was just passed. Why? Because we saw the Supreme Court getting ready to get stacked. It happened. And it's likely that we're going to face something in the near future. But we're ready because we don't care what the Supreme Court says, because in Vermont, we do it this way. There is a constitutional amendment that we will place, put in place PR5 to ensure that. Why is nobody excited about slavery? Why is nobody having a conversation about what to do about slavery and how we push back on the federal government, not just amend in our constitution, but pushing that the 13th amendment be rescinded and replaced in the United States Constitution? Why is nobody talking about that? Is it not as important as marijuana? So yeah, so we've started the work to unpack, to constitute the systemic racism. We started this work. We talked about Chapter 42 a little bit and also 17. We talked about the quality of life outcomes and the Senate rules. This slide was from last year that you could just replace S54 with S25 because we're still pursuing racial equity in the cannabis industry. That's a whole other presentation. Surprisingly, last biennium, there was a commission that returned after a 2018 summer session with a 50-year review on Act 250. For those who don't know what Act 250 is, it is all about the way we use land in the state of Vermont, which is the preeminent manner in which wealth is transferred. Now, we know land was stolen and labor was slavery, but we'll come back to that. The challenge here is that if you come back 50 years, you'll land in the middle of a civil rights disaster and the nation was burning down. And the most important thing that this state could think of to do was to protect the land right on the heels of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations. And this is back. That review of that policy happened just about two years ago. And there was not one word about equity. This is a 50-year-old land use law. Why am I saying these things? It's because this is how we're unpacking systemic racism. Chasing after stuff, getting in, testifying on these things, the Constitution, yes. And yes, even reviewing Title IX, which really gets into a little bit about our Human Rights Commission and how we go about protecting ourselves. Oddly, Title IX is also about commerce, but we're talking about protecting our bodies. We used to be the commerce, Black and Brown bodies. There's a lot to unpack. There's a lot to understand about these policies, about these statutes, about these Constitution. We've got a lot of challenges. We've been collecting a lot of data. Some of these numbers are old, but we've got a lot of challenges here in Vermont. We've got a lot of challenges as a nation. There's a lot of work that's being done. And I'm hoping that some of the work that we're doing is going to contribute to changing some lives. We are currently right now. We've got quite a bit of policy work that's happening at the statewide level. I know that it's really important to understand that as we do the work in Vermont, as we do the work in Burlington rather, that there's a lot of opportunity that's out there. There's a lot of opportunity in the policy work. There's a lot of work in the outreach and education. I think of particular importance with this work on the Constitution is, is I think that folks just need to get dialed in and just really get a better understanding on what this constitutional amendment really means. Call your legislators. Jump out there and get involved in whatever way you can. I'm going to ask for questions to kind of be kicked over to Info at racial justice alliance at vtracialjusticealliance.org. Info at vtracialjusticealliance.org. I wanted to just make sure that we didn't run out of time or that we're not running into a problem of running out of time. So I've got, I think there's maybe a couple of other things I could share with you in terms of what we're doing right now and in terms of policy. I know that just as recent as yesterday, I found out that in House General that we do have a, that our joint resolution in House General is in House General, it's to, actually, I think it's in services, health services, I'll figure out where it is, but the resolution is for, it's a joint resolution to declare systemic racism as a public health emergency. So just so you know, that's there. I think it's in human services, actually. So you'll want to check that. Go out to our website. It's vtracialjustice alliance.org, vtracialjusticealliance.org. Yeah, click through there and see if you can find, I think you can probably find some of our policy initiatives as I'm looking right now. And I think if you just go to the site, once you first get to the site, I mean, I would drop it in the chat right now, but it doesn't make any sense because this is largely broadcasting. But if you just go to vtracialjusticealliance.org and yeah, one of the ways that you can get to it is if you scroll down and where it says platforms and initiatives, platforms and initiatives, if you clicked on that. And that would, you know, take you to some of the policy work that we're doing. But you'll see some of the other work that we're doing, we're doing, you know, we're working with some of our community partners with COVID-19, BIPOC clinics in the community, we're doing some information sessions out there. So lots of work, lots of work that we're doing. But back to policy, I would say that that particular policy in human services is a good one to follow. H210, H210 is a, it's a health equity bill that just left the house and it's over on its way over to the Senate. You'll find it, I believe, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be in, let's see, it looks like it probably, well, clearly it's going to be in health and welfare in Senate. So you can find, if you go to our blog on our website, this is probably the most important thing I can tell you on policy. If you go to our blog on our website, you'll see our latest update on all of the policy initiatives. I, you know, to think of it, I should have probably went there myself and just read them off to you. I'm going there right now when I'm talking to you. But yeah, there's that. As I said earlier, you know, PR2 is definitely coming out of, yeah, coming out of the Senate that you'll see the full vote. I would encourage you to listen to the full vote. I'd be curious to hear personally myself what the debate is, you know, what the debate sounds like. And not so much that we're going to be expecting a lot of pushback on it, frankly. But because just curious to hear our legislators take on this and their positions on it and their thoughts on it and where they envision it going. So yeah, I did get arrived there. I'll just conclude with, you know, just the, you know, there's, there is a, that joint resolution that I just told you about, about the racism public health emergency. It's called JRH6. JRH6. You know, there's going to be actually testimony being taken up on that this week. And really, I think the reason why I'm telling you about these policies is because it's not enough for us when we dismantle systemic racism to push back on policies that we don't agree with. It's important the constitution statutes to be able to push back on those to transform them, but also to get off our heels and get on our toes and to lean into some of this work where we're coming with creative, excuse me, economic equity policies, for example, like an H406, this whole idea about economic equality. So that would be, you know, you would need to reach over into the house, talk to those folks. I think it is, I want to say it is house, commerce, economic development, house commerce and economic development, I think. No, actually, that's in house, general housing and military affairs. That's in general housing and military affairs. So definitely, you know, again, like with H406, that's kind of a big deal we want, you want to be watching for that. I told you about the health equity bill. There's also a land and home equity bill, which is H273. Look for that. You know, that's also in the same committee, the committee that I just mentioned. So I just wanted to give you a couple of those. Cannabis market equity, which is our H414, that's, you know, that's in house government operations. It should be, I think it should be, it should be S25 that comes over from the Senate that comes to our house government operations to be able to track that down. It's just stuff to watch and it's things that are important. And then finally, the reparations task force. There's H387 demanding, our demands, they're pretty intentional. We're asking for reparations, a task force. We tried it last biennium. It didn't go anywhere in H478. No action was taken in house government operations. You know, I don't know whether folks have seen recently the activities that happened in Evanston, Illinois, which really combined reparations with tax and regulate cannabis, using that money from the sales of that recreational cannabis. So yeah, definitely wanting to make sure that folks are indeed paying attention to, you know, to what's going on there. You know, the United Nations actually has called out the United States on several times about an apology for its genocide and slavery. You know, I think part of that has to do with, you know, addressing our Constitution. I think some of it has to do with, you know, our reparative efforts that we're making. But again, make no mistake about it. This is a United Nations, this is a civil, a human rights rather issue. It's a human rights issue. You know, I don't know that you knew it or not, but we've never, the United States has never signed a treaty with the United Nations that would be binding to the extent that Black and Brown folks could hold standing if they wanted to hold the United States accountable. I don't know that you knew it or not, but the United States actually apologized for slavery in the House of Representatives in 2008 and again in the Senate in 2009 with full disclaimer of no liability. But here's the thing. It's time for us to advance these conversations. It's time for us to get this work done with this Constitution. Vermont, the Constitution of Vermont in article one is the granddaddy of all constitutional slavery. It existed far before any other one. And right now it's, it was also used as the model for what was used to create the, these exception clause in the 13th Amendment. Right now we're like at halftime and we're getting ready to go into the third quarter, we're getting all of that changed. There's a lot of stuff that we've began to see, as you can see, began to unravel as a result of the work that we're doing. We're going to keep pulling those strings. We're encouraging you to pull those strings with us. And as these things, they become unearthed, join us, you know, vtracialjusticealliance.org, info, email, the email address is info at vtracialjusticealliance.org, join us in this work, help us beat systemic racism, a whole lot of other work to do, you know, outreach and education, cultural empowerment, all of the other things that we're doing. We've got the COVID stuff that we're responding to, which the state as well as the feds have just consistently dealt as a bad hand there. Why? Because of systemic racism, because of greed, because of a zero sum mentality, where there's a false narrative of scarcity, because Black lives haven't mattered. So we continue to do this work. We encourage you to do it with us. I thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time this afternoon. Aiden, thank you for joining us with the Town Hall. You're awesome. Grace, thank you for joining as well. Those of you who are watching live on Facebook, thanks a lot for joining those who are watching this broadcast or who will see this broadcast, also streaming over on YouTube, inviting you out. Come with us for the journey. Let's get this constitutional amendment, this PR2 done, and let's be the first ones in line to tell the folks in the United States House of Representatives, as well as the United States Senate, it is time to rescind and replace the 13th amendment of the Constitution of the United States. We must once and for all and forever be a nation that does not permit slavery or indentured servitude on this land at any time we're moving forward. Thanks and have a great afternoon.