 Welcome to the Longmont Museum on the Internet. My name is Justin Veach. I'm the Manager of the Museum Steward Auditorium, and we are coming at you live and direct from the Steward Auditorium this evening. Tonight's program is being presented as part of our Thursday nights at the Museum Series. That's right, every Thursday night at 7.30 PM, we offer you a little something, a panel, a lecture, a conversation, a talk, a reading, etc. I want to thank everyone who makes these programs possible. Our museum members, our museum donors, the friends of the Longmont Museum and the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, aka SCFD. I also want to thank our media sponsor, the mighty KGNU Community Radio out of Dear Old Boulder down the road. We love getting ourselves out there via KGNU and are grateful for the support. I want to tell you about a few programs we have coming up as part of our Thursday night series. Next week, we have the premiere of Longmont's newest live talk show. That's right, it's the Longmonster, and it'll be featuring Peter Adony, aka Mr. Money Mustache, Norma Johnson, writer, and healer and the incredible, incomparable Patty Limerick. You'll want to be sure to tune in next week at 7.30 for that one. We are coming at you live thanks to longmontpublicmedia.org to Facebook, our museum's Facebook page. Hello, Internet, we can see you out there, we can feel you, thank you for being there, and to local Comcast Cable Channel 8 slash 880 for those who have cable still. Tonight's program is being co-presented with the League of Women Voters of Boulder County. They're a nonpartisan political organization, and for 100 years the League has encouraged, informed, encouraged, informed, and active participation in government. The League of Women Voters of Boulder County works throughout the year to help empower voters and defend democracy. These are challenging times and all the more reason to ensure a strong democratic process that engages as many community members as possible. Colorado has one of the most efficient and accessible voting processes in the country. So let's use it and vote. You can check out the League's voter information website at vote411.org, vote411.org for all the election information you need. Moderating this evening's panel is another than KGNU's news director, Maeve Conron. Please welcome Maeve Conron to the Longmont Museum. Thank you, Justin, and thanks again to the Longmont Museum for another excellent, very, very informative panel, and we are really going to have a great discussion this evening with these three amazing panelists. And of course this is ever so timely, just days away from, as you said, Justin, what could be the most important election of our lifetime. Well, we're looking back but looking ahead as well as we look at the 100-year anniversary of women's suffrage. As you said, it is the time that some women were given the opportunity to vote and we're going to talk about the gaps and what's left to be achieved. But the three panelists that we have with us, we have Rebecca Hunt, Dr. Rebecca Hunt, is a recently retired CU Denver history professor where she taught in 1992 to 94. She's on the steering committee for the Center for Colorado Women's History and on the 19th Amendment Commemoration Committee, Rebecca served as historian for a Woman to Match a Mountain that was a documentary in 2008 on Neil Forsling, a Casper Wyoming homesteader, environmentalist, artist, and writer. Her current projects include urban pioneers, continuity, and change in two Denver immigrant neighborhoods, a history of skiing on Casper Mountain Wyoming and a biography of Neil Forsling. Rebecca wrote her doctoral thesis on the immigrant communities in Northwest Denver and Global and she's published two books on hospital history, one on the Swedish Medical Center and one on Wyoming Medical Center, Natrona County, People, Place, and Time. That book came out in late 2011. Welcome. Also joining us, Martha Loachmin, who is a long time Longmont advocate who has worked for social, economic, and housing justice by building opportunities for families throughout Boulder County and the Front Range. Her recent work with the Community Foundation in Boulder County highlights the opportunity for cultural brokers to influence decision making in our county. Her work with the City of Longmont after the 2013 flood established the resiliency for all project for the State of Colorado Division of Local Affairs. Martha is a University of Colorado graduate in ethnic studies, a licensed Colorado educator with a master's degree in secondary education and a national trainer for the Hispanic Wealth Project. Her career background is in banking, finance, real estate, education, and consulting. And she has lived in the US, Ecuador, and Mexico. She's currently running for public office in Colorado. So we're really pleased that you're here. We know it's busy in the Boulder County Commissioner race. Welcome. And also joining us, Shiki Tiarbara, who is the Director of Community Engagement and Equity for the YWCA of Boulder County. She runs several programs that focus on racial equity, such as Reading to End Racism, Latina Achievement Support, STEM E3 for Girls of Color, and Anti-Racist Trainings. Shiki Tiarbara is a public speaker and a facilitator and co-founder of Families of Color Colorado. She has provided diversity, equity, and inclusion training for the League of Women Voters at the Colorado State Convention and the League of Women Voters of Boulder County Board and the YWCA Boulder Board. After consulting individuals and local groups about DEI, she decided to start her own business, Yarbara Consulting. And currently she's consulting with several nonprofits and has created a racial equity retreat. Welcome. Well, we're going to start with actually reading the Ninth Amendment. It's short and sweet, but each panelist will read a portion, so we'll start with Rebecca. Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the 19th day of May, 1919, a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution extending the right of suffrage to women. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress, assembled two-thirds of each house concurring therein, that the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislature of three-fourths of the several states. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Short and sweet. Well, Rebecca, take us through the history of this, because, as we said, we're going to look back, but we're also going to look to the present moment and the future as well. But take us through some historical background, including Colorado's role in women's suffrage. Well, the first thing I need to say is you can't tell the story right if you start with Europeans. You have to go before them and start talking about the First Nations, because it was a pretty integral part of First Nations society and culture that the women had a great deal of say in what was happening in their lives and their villages. So when the Europeans got here, they had some, I would say, by at least First Nations standards some sort of retrograde ideas about women's role. Women were second-class subjects under the law. They were given some status if they were single, but after that they were sort of hidden under the identity of their husband's concept called Femme Covert. When our founding fathers created our nation out of revolution, they really started with the idea of all men are created equal. The problem with that was that it was all men, really, truly, although women were sort of citizens, and it was really all landed or wealthy men, white men who were created equal. So pretty much from then on out, the rest of the story has been everyone else trying to find their place at the table. As we were a young nation, we really didn't know what it meant to be citizens. We knew what it meant to be subjects of the king, but what did it mean to be citizens? So we struggled with identities. We bound more tightly and tightly around the women, their subservient secondary role, and we expected them to go with it because that was just the way it was. As you went through the first part of the 19th century, there were women who pushed back. Abigail Adams argued that to her husband, John Adams, don't forget the ladies. There were young women who worked in factories in the 1830s. There were women who got involved in anti-slavery movement and temperance, and eventually by 1848 there was a cadre of women in Seneca Falls, New York, upstate New York who decided to formalize it. They took the declaration. They added the word women to it. They held a meeting. They added, among many things, they were asking the right of women to vote, and they started lobbying for it. That lobbying would continue for many, many years, and it would end up in 1869 in Wyoming territory and Utah territory granting the women the right to vote. In 1876, Colorado became a state, and we then, in our Constitution, gave women the right to vote in school elections and gave the men the right to vote on whether women should have the rest of their voting rights, and it went down an ignominious defeat. So we waited until 1893. We ran again a referendum for the men to vote on. It was an interesting thing. There were a lot of women involved, including African-American women. This was one of the first integrated campaigns in the United States. You had women coming in from back east. You had local women, journalists, professional women, and in November of 1893 when the vote was all counted, women had gained the right to vote by about 6,000, tally of about 6,000, much of it due to enlightened men in Denver and of course in Boulder County. Our women then voted the next year. There were three women elected to the state house in 1894, and then they moved on to the national stage. They worked back east. They worked on the national amendment. They helped push it through and were able to in the end be part of getting the vote for all women. Okay, gotta qualify that in a second. All women in the United States. The problem was it still meant in the long run, in most places, white women. Colorado was one of the few places where African American women could in fact vote, but it was going to be really the 1965 Voting Rights Act that spread it around the rest of the nation. It was going to be 1920s and 30s for First Nations women. It was gonna be even 1950s for some Asian American women. And I'm gonna leave it with the idea that we've still got a long way to go. Paul Marta, as we heard 100 years ago, some women were granted the right to vote. Now 100 years later, we're still seeing many, many barriers to women having full political participation, particularly women of color. According to Rutgers Eagleton Institute of Politics, women of color constitute only 7.5% of the total 7,383 state legislators around the country. So it does seem like there's still a very long way to go when we're talking about full equal political participation. So what has been your experience as a woman and a woman of color running for office, and what would your advice be for other women and other women of color who want to do the same thing? That's a huge question. There's a lot into that question. And for me, I wanna talk about a couple of pieces before that, and I appreciate it, Rebecca, just kind of take us back and get us where we are. And then we'll be able to talk about where we're going. But I say that when I talk about, because as you already shared, maybe my background is in banking, finance, real estate, education, consulting, and we in this country have a larger, broader issue around women in leadership. I wanna talk about women in leadership. I'm not talking about all of the women who show up to volunteer in our local communities or around our state and certainly around the country. I'm talking about real leadership that will create gender equity, that will address the pay gap, that will address the ability for women when we talk about history. And it's shocking really in the timeframe of when women were able to get our own credit cards and to buy our own homes and to go out of our own homes without somebody's permission. And so all of these things also affect political participation. And so for me, it's been a really eye-opening experience to run for office. One is a first time candidate, two as a woman, three as a woman of color, four as a Latina, as an immigrant. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And it reminds me, and what I've said to the folks who have asked around this question, because there's so much interest in the Latino vote. I just was on a call earlier with one of the organization addressing the same conversation tonight. The good news is that at this time in 2016, the Latino community in Colorado had 39,000 votes cast in this election. We've already cast over 81,000, that was as of last week. So some of it's the narrative and some of it's the expectations. And I say that because women, we have been, it's been so ingrained to us as well as our counterparts that we should not be the leaders in a room, that we should not own the business, that we should not be sitting at the head of the table in a boardroom, that we shouldn't be the CEOs. And so directly, of course, and media representation and the expectations and the fact that women are doing more work on an average of doing four hours of unpaid labor called housework or called child rearing or whatever that might be. And that affects this bigger, broader conversation of why are we not supporting women in leadership roles period? And I look at political participation as just that. It's really around leadership. Unfortunately, we live in a country where just the idea of political participation and politics has become so divisive. And so I encourage folks to really look at that in a different way so that we can get ourselves to a place where we are going to welcome, encourage, embrace and truly celebrate specifically to your question, women of color who come from our communities, who have amazing experiences, who have thriving careers, who are very successful to be recognized the same way that we would do that for a man. So my personal experience, it comes from the expectations. Let me give you an example. In one specific event, my counterpart or a counterpart, a male who was on the same stage, started his conversation to the audience and said, this is a great sacrifice for me to be here and having left my partner at home with kids. If I would have stood up on that stage as a brown woman, I am 100% sure that the reaction would be very different than a white man. That's part of what's already ingrained in us, what our expectations are and why it is very hard for a woman to run for office and certainly for women of color. So it's just these different pieces that we need to just check ourselves and encourage each other to really challenge the way that we are working together in community. It takes women four to five times more conversations to go apply for a job. In general, white men will go and put their application in if they have about 20% of the qualifications. For women, statistically, we have to see our qualifications at 80% before we'll even attempt to apply. And running for office, we have to hear that invitation seven to eight times more. And so my encouragement is to look at the rooms that we're in and that's huge because you all are watching on the internet. Who are you talking with? Who's on your Zoom and your Microsoft Teams, et cetera? Who are in your leadership teams? Who are running your companies? Who are you meeting with? Who are you virtually dining with right now? And are we giving the encouragement specifically to our youth of color, specifically in Boulder County and the state of Colorado? Thanks, Maeve. Well, Shakita, as we heard, it took 45 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment for black women to be granted the right to vote. And according to the organization, higher heights for America, which advocates for black women in politics, black women actually tend to vote at higher rates than any other demographic. And in fact, black women voted at or above 60% in the past five presidential elections. Do you think that black women voters are being taken for granted or do you think they're really having their voices heard given how big a role that they're actually playing in elections? Of course we're being taken for granted. We have no one that's there representing us. There are no women governors. And as Marta just explained how hard it is or how challenging it is for women of color to be supported to run for office. And so yes, of course, we are the ones who are community activists in our African-American community to make sure that these women get out there and vote. And still we have no one that's representing us as a black woman. And sure we have a few in Congress and everything, but I mean, how long has that been? That's crazy. And also I want to get back to what Marta said for a second when she was asking, is it ingrained? I think white people think this is their country and their country alone. And so there's an issue with giving up power. And so once they realize that we all live as John Lewis said in the same house, then I think that they can understand that we are here to lift up one another, learn from one another and fight the same battles together with one another, right? And not have that fear. This is our country too. And I just think that, you know, there are disparities in education in the African-American community. As Marta mentioned, the pay gap also in that African-American community, health inequities. I mean, that's why we're out there voting because we want change. Not only want change, we need change. We have our black, my black boys, my black men I'm scared and fearful of because of police brutality. I have to make sure I vote hoping and praying that there will be change. Once I stop, what will happen? If black women stop going to the polls, if we stop voting, what will happen? It may get worse. And it's not like it's a silver lining right now. So yeah, I feel I've been taken for granted. I've been taken for granted. How many black women who have been community activists out there like Ella Baker, right? And Fannie Lou Hamer, oh my gosh, they gave their lives to make sure people voted. Not one was in political office, we're not even offered, we're not even supported because they were so busy not only making sure people voted but make sure their lives were secure. So you're talking about taking for granted? Absolutely. That's a really important point. It reminds me of what Marta said about we need to look at who's out there doing the community organizing. It's the women of color working in their communities. And they're so busy doing that work that they're the ones making space for other folk to run for office and being that supportive network for them. Wish you could, you've also been heavily involved in the League of Women Voters as well. And that's also celebrating its 100th anniversary. What's been the relationship between them? Like what is the relationship between the League of Women Voters and the 19th Amendment itself? Well, you know, the League of Women Voters started in 1920 and so they were grassroots organization, nonpartisan and we really pride ourselves on the nonpartisan because we want to make sure that everyone votes. Doesn't matter what party you are. And so that's important for us and we want to make sure that everyone used their voting power. And so women came together in their homes and their communities to rally up women and say, hey, come on, let's make sure we get out there and vote. But then also, I still have to mention this that black women did the same thing but you didn't see black women marching during the 19th Amendment. But it was important that the League of Women Voters stood up and took that opportunity where they could to make sure that women could vote. And they just rallied women all over the US and homes and in schools and however they could because it was important. It was just the history of what Rebecca was saying. We are all supposedly created equal. And so that was very important for the League of Women Voters to say, this is, like I said, this is our country. We have this right as well. And it's unfair. And so the League took up, took that movement and it's been going strong. Well, I'd like to ask actually all the panelists to weigh in on why we need to have more women voting. And you touched on this when why black women are turning out to vote because their lives and the lives of their loved ones depend on us. But what is the impact when we do have women who are showing up at the ballot box but then also more women running for political office and then being elected to political office? What is the impact, Rebecca? You know, I think one of the biggest impacts is the fact that these women are modeling for the next generation. It'll be more of a norm for the younger generation to know that they need to vote, that it matters. And you know, I think of it in terms of young white folks as well as young people of color. We haven't always been very good models for our youth to do that. You know, I think the statistic I saw was that overall voting in recent years has been about 55%. And it's more women than it's men. But how can we convince our youth that that really matters if they don't see us putting ourselves out there? A couple of things. This conversation is so exciting. And it's so personal and it's so emotional. So when I jump out of my chair, just know that it's with good heart. Here's the issue and the reason why women must vote, why women must be encouraged to vote and they must be given the tools to vote because there are so many barriers for women not just internationally but still in this country. And I talked about some of those pieces. The other one that I haven't mentioned yet is sexual harassment in the workplace that truly connects to the same issues of gender parity. Women must be CEOs of companies. Women must own property to be able to gain equity and build equity and be their plan A and not wait for a plan B. But women also must be the decision makers because we have to be in control of our communities and our abilities to respond to community needs, to be able to allocate resources and funding and distribute and also hold our counterparts and corporations and our community other leaders accountable. And if you look at their current ballot, there are so many issues that are connected to that. And so when you tell me that you want specific money or tax and at the very end of that, it's been written so that you're telling me as a person of color that you're going to give us funding with this money, I as a woman, voter, need to understand that language and then be able to hold you accountable. That's why women need to vote. And that's why it's so important for us as women to not just be at the table, but for community members to say yes, you're at the table. Yes, I'm going to hear you and yes, I'm going to invite more people in because we cannot be just here and there. It has to become like Rebecca just said a norm. I believe it was Rebecca that just said a norm. For me, it's emotional because I hear the history and if anybody is hearing this history and isn't physically moved to some type of action, I personally just don't understand it because we shouldn't be in the spot where we're at. And our women, our young women deserve more and they need more. And so that's why it's so important for us to encourage women to vote. Everything Marta just said. It's important because voter suppression is still happening. Our president of the League of Women Voters Virginia case, I remember when she first started and she told us a story. She's Puerto Rican and her mom took her to the polls and they wouldn't allow her mom to vote. So she had to take her ID, she needed a passport. All of these barriers they created for her. So she had to go home and get all the documentation that they asked her for her to go back and vote. In Virginia, remember that? That was impressed upon her at a very young age. So I mean, my mom took me to the polls to go vote. I had that experience. Virginia mom took her to the polls to go vote but where are our women leaders? So I mean, I hear what you're saying, Rebecca. Yeah, we have to teach our young people but then you kind of look at where we are. I don't see a difference. Mom, you been voting ever since when? Grandma been voting ever since when? And we're still in the same situation. So I can understand why they wouldn't want to vote but we do need them to vote. We are resilient. So we need to stay strong for impact. Like you said, how can we be impactful? Because we need to let them know that we're still here and we are going to make a difference. And do we see that difference being made in policies? Like if you have more female legislators, do we see more family friendly policies being enacted? Like for so many years, we've tried to get some type of family leave legislation past it's state legislature. And Colorado voters are weighing in on that but I have heard, I don't know if this statistics up the top of my head that when you have more women in positions of political power, you tend to see more policies that are family friendly. Do we have to fight so hard for education if you had more women in office? I mean, is that too simplistic a way to put it or is there a direct correlation between the number of women holding political office and some of these policies that really have the family at the heart of us and not just the label that certain politicians put in terms of being family friendly but really family centric policies? But Maeve, think about it. If you're on the board, how many boards we've been on where we're like the minority, not because of the color of our skin because we're all maybe only one or two women out of 15 people, the rest are men, white men. I don't care what you present or what perspective you give them. Where is the change? Is it gonna happen? We can keep speaking our power and speaking our truth because we know we're mothers, we're teachers. I mean, they can trust us with their children, other people's kids, and they know we're gonna raise our own kids up right. But when we're there at the table, are they listening to us? So although they are in power, we have some women, some legislators. How much power are they actually given to change legislation? As a member of the vintage generation, I do wanna say, think how much worse it would be if my mother and I and those of us who are older had not been at the polls all these years. If it was your generation that had to be the ones who started being the candidates and being the voters. So the hope is we made it this far and we made some change and it's slipped back. But we're strong and women are strong and women can fight for the things that matter. And a lot of us have been doing it our whole lives. Agreed and agreed. A lot of us have been doing this work for our entire lives. And just respond to that question, you're exactly right, Rebecca, that women have been fighting for years around this topic of voting and rights and what most of us will believe are human rights. And in Boulder County, when we look at our elected officials, if we wanna bring it close, we have less than seven people of color who are elected officials in our entire Boulder County. That's over a hundred positions. So when you say, what would that feel like to be the first candidate running? I am the first candidate of color that's gotten this far in a local county election in 2020. Well, I'm so glad you're here. So I just wanna remind people that is there a lot of work that's been done? Absolutely. And I would not even be where I'm at without the women who have come before me 100% and that history is really important. And we also have to question, what does this mean for us now? And how do we ensure that we continue that forward? And how do we not get so comfortable that we think we're good? Because right now in Colorado, we do have a great amount of folks of color per se, as well as women. But we have to be diligent and vigilant because that doesn't just happen. That's years and years of work. And when women are faced with all these other barriers, including and on top of COVID, I read a fantastic article this week. That women right now in COVID, it's not take your daughter to school day to day. It's every day that women around this country are taking their daughters and sons to work. What does that mean when we talk about women who are going to be able to run for office in our near future? So we do have to be diligent and we have to be making sure that we keep on all of the assets that women will bring, I believe when they're in office. Well, I'd like to once again ask all at the panelist's to weigh in on this. When we talk about women's suffrage, I think people just look at the right to vote. I do think that people think that's the full way to participate in a democracy. I'll cast my ballot every four years, maybe every two years, but that's the be-all and end-all of democratic participation. But as we're hearing this evening, there's so much more to it. So when we talk about political participation for women, what does full political participation mean for you, Marta? Maybe if you'd like to talk about that, given your own experience. Sure, what I will say, I do believe kind of going back to one of Shakitha's comments about being the Latina in a boardroom. The Latina in XYZ company, it's happened to me in a lot of different sectors around the county, around the state over the years. And I'm also cognizant that when I raise my hand, it forces a group of national board directors for one of the state's largest employers to hear what I'm talking about when I'm asking about our immigrant communities and safety. And I'm also cognizant that nobody else would bring that question up. And so it's the hard labor and the piece of what else does participation mean? It's, you're right, it's not just voting. It's not just casting that ballot because there's also that piece that I talked about a little bit about holding our community leaders accountable for the commitments that they're making. And it's also looking at how can we all be building together? Because the reality for everybody in the room tonight and on the internet watching is our work is not done November 3rd. Our work is just going to be beginning. And so that's part of that public participation and the participation that will be required for all of us. Shiki, so what are your thoughts on that? What's public part, full political participation look like for you? Exactly what Rebecca was saying. I mean, we have to continue to do what those women have done for over a hundred years. And that has to be done. And also be on those boards in those uncomfortable spaces, you know, run for whatever you can in whatever office, you know, whatever positions, you know, teach our community, teach our youth. Encourage your neighbors to not only vote, but what are you passionate about? What do you believe in? So tell me, what are you doing about it? Let's stop sitting at home complaining, shaking our head like, sucks to be them. Well, you are them because we're all in the same house. So we all have to do our part, whatever that means for you, whatever it is that you care about. So it's important that we keep the movement going, making sure everyone have the opportunity to vote. That there shouldn't even be barriers for anyone to vote. And we are still dealing with that in 2020. Why are they closing polls? Why are people, I mean, that doesn't make any sense. So that in itself, although just voting, but making sure everyone votes, we still have those barriers. How do we break those barriers? We need you. We need people. We need our community to step up and step in to where change need to be. Rebecca, your thoughts on that full political participation. What does that look like? As a person who's been an educator her whole life, again, for me, it comes back to another generation. And for me as a historian, making sure that that next generation hears the stories as they really were. And I tend to try to tell stories that give hope as well as caution. I consider teaching a subversive activity, frankly. And so I wanna be out there and I wanna be shaking up people's sense of their community. When I do American history, I don't just teach slavery. I teach free blacks in the colonial era and I teach the power of education to change lives. And I talk about Latinx people who were doing amazing things at a time when frankly it was often harder to be Latinx than it was to be black in parts of the West. But how people can rise against what society would inflict upon them. And so I think the other thing, being involved on a grassroots level, and I know you've done that, and I know you've done that, whether it is leading a group, whether it is painting a mural, whether it is being a journalist and saying the things that you need to say, writing a novel or a play. There's all kinds of ways of taking your voice, your people's voice out. And in this case, the voice we're talking about is women's voice. And that can be part of the political process and it's separate, but they can't happen without each other. But just before we move on, there are tons of studies about the positive impact of women when they are serving in positions of power around the increase in policies, around family education, healthcare. But an interesting study out of Dartmouth also shows that when women are adequately represented, they also encourage more transparency in politics and more decision-making in a transparent way. So more effective governance on top of all the other things as well. So, well, 100 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, you brought this up, Shakita. We're still dealing with voter suppression as well as the erosion of voting rights. It's hard to fathom that in 2020 and yet here we are. And even in Colorado, which has really, well, certainly by comparison to other states, done a much better job of voter accessibility, reports coming out of voter intimidation, Mobile Home Park in Fort Morgan, an owner, threatening to double the rent if the election didn't go towards the candidate that he favored. So we're dealing with this everywhere. When you were taught on this 2020, 100 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, this is still a fight that's been fought, essentially. Address that just in the view of a current candidate. And I think it's important information for people to understand. It was talking with some of our aging adults around the county, obviously, virtually, making some phone calls and talking to folks and some of the folks who run several of those facilities for us here in Boulder County. The question kept coming up in conversations. Do our residents have to call to get their ballot? And after I heard it a couple of times, I said, okay, what's happening? Well, this is what our residents are coming to us and asking these questions because they're hearing this. That is really shocking. We should be shocked here in Colorado because we know that in Colorado, we have not mastered, but we do mail in voting really well. But what the good and the bad of media, unfortunately, we have a lot of national media telling, giving misinformation. It's okay, I think, to say lying to our voters around the country. But what's happening is that even folks here in our own communities are hearing this information and thinking that it applies to them. That, to me, is a way of suppressing the vote. If you're telling folks in our communities that they have to call to get the ballot when we know that's not the case. So coming from all different angles, and that for me was like, oh, this is wider and bigger than we would think. And certainly, we kind of get in our Colorado bubble, which is another reason that we need to be very attentive to that piece. The other thing I wanted to just talk about was this, the issue of felons around the country who have been, I was just talking with a gentleman yesterday, actually, who does a lot of work with re-entry type of initiatives. And so there's this feeling once you've been pushed out of the system and you're not welcomed and you're struggling to be able to find a place to rent because landlords don't want to give you housing and it's hard to find a job. And you've been told for years or years and years that you're not allowed to vote. And so even in the states where you can now vote with a felony record, that sentiment of feeling like you're not or you shouldn't. And that is a big barrier in the United States still. And so those are some of the pieces that I think people just forget like, oh, that's another sector of our communities that need to be encouraged to participate in this part of the process. Well, Rebecca, I know certain as an historian that you, I think all of us should really look to history to help us understand more what's going on. So in the context of voter suppression, voter intimidation that we're seeing right now, can we learn anything from history? Well, I mean, we did manage over time to make voter suppression less of a norm in a lot of places, not everywhere, but what I wanted to address was actually what I think is one of the most insidious forms of voter suppression this year. And that is what they've done to the post office, making it hard for people to get any kind of mail on time. But specifically aimed at discouraging people from doing mail in ballots, reducing the number of polling places so that you have to be in the long lines. And frankly, as a vintage person, I'm intimidated at the idea of standing in line for five hours, frankly. But I love seeing people persist. I love people say, well, I'll drive that extra across town to the voter drop-off box. I'll go ahead and go into the next town in my county to vote. But that's harder to deal with because in the case of the post office, it was actually sanctioned, encouraged, and actually created by our government. And you've got the grassroots level of the people who are just bloody racists and they're going to do whatever they can. But when your government is actually trying to suppress the vote, it's a whole other level of bad. And that's why we really need more women, more people of color who will stand up. And who will say enough is enough. Jiquita, what are your thoughts on that? I know you've already kind of touched on it, but we're seeing ongoing voter suppression, voter intimidation, and the erosion of voting rights coming from our government. I like you, Rebecca. And we have been standing up. We have been speaking out. We have been talking about these same issues for decades and decades and no one listens to us. It actually take white people to stand up and say, this is not right. Because our voices obviously are not mattering the way it should. We are taking for granted. And so I believe we're doing what we can with what we have. And so until we are in office, until we can change the law, we're just gonna keep asking the same thing over and over again, stop shooting black men. Stop killing people. Stop putting, separating families. We've been asking the same thing over and over again. So it's 2020 and we're still asking the same thing. So I don't know. But I know obviously it's not me standing up yelling and screaming because it doesn't matter. You know? We need to quit asking and start telling. Telling who? Telling the people in power, enough is enough. Yeah, white people gotta start doing that. We've been doing it. Yeah, you're right. I wanna thank you. One of the articles that I was reading earlier this week in preparation for this conversation was about a study that the Guardian shared in 2017 and it was an international conversation. The question was asking both men and women if they believe that women have equal opportunities. And in the US, 53% of women felt like yes, women have equal opportunities and 72% of our counterparts feel like women have equal opportunities. And so when I hear this question, where are our brothers in this conversation about women's voices and women leaders and what policies affect women, why are men creating products for women to use when men don't know how our bodies function and men don't know what that unpaid labor in general feels like and men don't know how taxing it is for women of color to run this race, to do this work, to be pushed aside, to be left outside of the building. So brothers, this is your opportunity to help us with the women's voices and the women's vote. And that really gets to the heart of the structural barriers that stop women and particularly women of color. There's so many statistics that just underpin everything that we're talking about tonight. Potential female candidates are 15 times more likely than men to be primarily responsible for childcare, six times more likely than men to be primarily responsible for housework. And another thing that's really interesting is incumbency because if women have not held political power but were coming up against incumbents in political races, the incumbency system is itself a huge structural disadvantage and itself can create barriers as well. Yes, that's a great conversation. And for people who know Alexandria Ocasio-Cartez, one of my favorite lines of hers was I did not come here to ask to stand in line because that's what incumbency feels like. That's what white men in leadership positions sometimes project. And it's not just candidacy, it's not just women running for office. Think about the boardrooms that you sit in. Think about the companies where you work and those leadership positions because when we tend to sit in groups and work with groups and play golf with those groups and we eat dinner with those groups, then we tend to also hire in those same circles. And we tend to ask those people to run for office with us, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that's how we need to start changing those conversations. And the groups, as Shakitha said, like we are here and we are part of your communities and we are doing the work. And so when somebody tells me I have never seen you before, what I hear is I am invisible to you because when you needed me to make Spanish language phone calls for you, when you were passing me the voter sheets two years ago and asking me to do the Spanish language, I was there and I saw you and I actually know your name. So we've got to be really cognizant about how we function within our communities. And I used to teach language here in the district and I would tell my English dominant language students who were learning Spanish, you don't have to go to Mexico, you don't have to go to Caribbean, you can walk down your street in Boulder County. I am 100% sure that you have a neighbor who is a native Spanish speaker who would love to meet you who you should love to meet as well. Well, just as we finish up, you know, to round out the conversation and really we've all been talking about it all night, but you know, if we look at the 19th amendment just as a foundation and a starting point as we discussed it gave some women the right to vote, but where do we go from here? What actual tangible steps can we take? This is everything we've been saying but just as we round out the conversation, Rebecca, tangible things that we can do and what more needs to be done. Well, I think about what some of the women at the time of the 19th amendment said was the next step. They said we have to educate, we have to graduate, we have to support in terms of you wanna make this change. We are here behind you. We have our hands on your shoulder. We'll be here for you, Lisa. I agree with them, definitely educating. I know the legal women voters, they're really passionate about that, making sure that the community is educated and they do really good research. Social policy team, they're just, they're really awesome. The other thing I wanna say is too, is to be inclusive and listen to the voices. Once you're inclusive and you say, oh yeah, we want everybody to come. We want everybody to be involved but be it, listen to the voices too. Don't just check off a box and say, oh, we got five people of color on our board or two people of color on our board. It's more to it than that. Communicate, listen, understand. Understand where they're coming from. I know we're the two that's so passionate up here because we have those experiences, we're not. Our passion doesn't come from false media or fake news. It's because they're experiences and they're true. And I think we can't get tired for our own kids, for your boys and for my boys and my girls. We can't give up. So it's important, if you say you in it for the work and you wanna be inclusive, well, it's an action word. And so just being inclusive is good but you need to listen at the perspectives of the person or the people or the demographic that you're being inclusive with. So yes, invite them on the boards. Educate, educate your community, educate our youth. But please listen to your community. Where do I go from here? This is one of those, oh, I wish everybody could jump in the conversation who's here listening too. To me, there's that piece of really analyzing where we're at currently in our local community. Like I really, I'm a strong believer, like what can we do in our own house? I love that because I don't feel like it's our job to critique another state in this country. If here in Colorado, we are still at fault of some of the same policies or practices and especially during COVID. Let's not cast our stone until we know what we're doing in our own communities. What are our HR policies look like? How do we deem women as experienced or not having the correct resume? How do we look at this idea of support network? And I'm just gonna go back, Maeve, to one of the comments that you made about this idea of support network when really in the reality, a lot of our support networks in this country are actually on the backs of people of color historically, even to get the vote, to get candidates their seats, to get legislation passed, to get policies moved forward. So how do we look at really look at the policies in our own communities and our own organizations in the nonprofits that we work with and our faith communities? Who are the leaders on stage and really look at that in our own communities so that we can figure out where are our women's voices and are we ready to lift people up and be vocal about it and not just stand with us, but sometimes it takes the movement of bringing somebody forward and standing next to, but being really cognizant of that in an action. Just to further extrapolate on that, the changes that need to happen seems to me, and this is personal for me as well, how on earth do we expect more women to get involved and run for office or even take leadership positions if we don't have maternity leave, if we don't have affordable childcare, if we hold meetings at the time where you're trying to feed your kids and you're expected to give hours and hours of time as a volunteer to serve on boards and you have to then go and pay extra for childcare, I mean, how on earth are we gonna do that if we don't have those basics taken care of? You're supposed to wait till they're 18. That's the expectation. Men can do whatever they wanna do when they wanna do it and how they wanna do it, but the expectations on us as women is everything, right? The caretaker, the housekeeper, the chauffeur, the chef, the lover, everything. So it goes back to what Martha said, where are the men? So we need our brothers, our husbands, our uncles, our dads to step up and say, you know what, I support you. Because who takes those kids when we want to do those things? Another woman, it's usually a grandmother, it's usually someone who's retired that's in the neighborhood or a neighbor and it's usually a woman, right? So we need men to step up and say, okay, let's create a plan. What do you wanna do, right? It can happen. It can happen, but it's about the power who's willing to give it up. So either you wait until they're 18 or I guess I'll be watching them for your kids for you so you can go ahead and run for office. But I think, Justin, we were gonna maybe take some questions if any have been submitted online. Come on up here, Justin. We do want to encourage all of you out there on internet land, on Facebook in particular, to submit questions for our panelists and we do have one from Facebook already. Ginny wants to know what inspired Marta to run. I think we kind of got that from the conversation. So, a gazillion different things and accumulation of, I'm not gonna tell you how many years, but you may be surprised. But it was one specific conversation after the 2013 flood when I was doing a data assessment for the state of Colorado, specifically working with monolingual Spanish-speaking families in Boulder County with a group of young women specifically Latinas in one of our area high schools and I asked a young woman, they were walking through what happened literally during the flood and how these students were family translators trying to manage everything that was happening and then also asked, where are the barriers in your own day-to-day life and that meant high school for them? And this young woman turned to me and she said, miss, tell them to let us speak for ourselves. And I was working for the local government at the time so she was talking to me and take care of everything with her and that voice resonated with me for a very, and it probably will forever. But it was the voice that launched me into this piece of saying, all of our community voices and experiences in all these different areas must be not just at the table but allowed to make decisions for a representative amount of community members in Boulder County. We are specifically Longmont, we're a third of our community and I'm talking about our Latino population here in the city of Longmont and we've never had that kind of representation. Hello, Facebook, come in, Facebook. Do we have any more questions from our Facebook audience? And if we don't have any questions from our Facebook audience, do we have any questions from our physical audience? Well, I could come up with a question. Oh, should we attempt to restate that question so that we get it on Facebook? So the question came from our audience here in the Stuart. The question came from a young female college student who didn't grow up in a particularly politically charged atmosphere and wants to know how to engage in the system without becoming discouraged and without having overwhelming expectations. I have a question for you, what are you passionate about? She's passionate about creating art. Then what I would say is that your next step is to get out into the community and reach out to people that you can help maybe by furthering their creativity or simply making them brave enough to try to be creative. But give of yourself. And I think at CU, there's wonderful opportunities. There are so many student organizations and I've been so impressed with young activism on campus and particularly young women around climate but also art is activism. That is something that we've really, well it's always existed but I think we really see it emerge in over the last few months. And I know there's a lot of that energy happening on campus and COVID has really challenged a lot of that but it's also created a lot of opportunities, I think, to connect with other communities that you might be geographically close to. Go do a short film and get it online about being an activist. Come intern at KGNU. Yeah, you have to do radio. Art is radio. I will say, I just want to say one thing. Knowing what your passion is, I would say go into a community that you usually don't go into. Learn a different culture and teach, be creative there. Teach young kids from a different culture. That is a community activist. And I think you'll be awesome at it. And based on what Martha said, also listen to them. Let them, their voices shine. Any more questions from folks in the audience? How about you, Facebook? Facebook? I can't hear you. Well, maybe I'll ask a question. Can we talk a little bit about Kamala Harris? Kamala Harris's presence as a VP candidate and the importance of that? Any importance, absolutely. And the importance of it. Any importance. To me, it is a super exciting opportunity for a variety of sectors. I'm listening and watching different people, folks in all different sectors, meaning in the arts and celebrities and community people around the country. React to that has been really inspiring. And I think it's a really important piece of not just pushing forward our first VP, but figuring out the kind of the same conversation we're having tonight is how do we ensure that other women of color start moving into those positions and start being elected officials and start taking leadership roles so that this is hopefully next week, not the first, I'm sorry, not the last, but the first of many in the US that can start changing this true dynamic. I love the fact that she is Afro-Caribbean East Indian. So again, she's a reflection of a powerful, talented woman who reflects the diversity of our nation. I agree with both panelists. And also, I hope that, again, with what I said previously, making sure that she's supported so that she can do her job. I hope that the community will support her, whatever community she go into. I hope she fills the love. And it's just important that we support one another. So the league is non-producing, so I can't really say much, but personally, I just hope that she gets the support that she needs. There is one more question that we missed on Facebook here, it appears. What can we do to fight voter suppression as individuals? If you have the time and energy, go out and be a poll watcher. Be a judge at the polling places. Those are two things that are near and dear to my heart. Similar to that, and I've heard this happening already here in Colorado in different areas of our state where folks really are physically being intimidating around ballot drop-off box areas. And so if you had the time and energy and you felt safe to not be right there as much as just be somebody there that could walk, if you see something happening, to literally just walk with somebody and help them just get into the box without interfering in their process. I was really shocked to hear some of the things that really are happening here. So that would be a time and energy as well. Well, that looks like that's about it for the questions. Maeve, do you have any famous last words? I mean, I think this was a fascinating conversation and everybody's insights were just incredible. And as you said, Chiquita, you know, this is lived experience. This is personal, you know, for you and Marta. We absolutely need to get out of the way and listen to your stories and that. Those stories have as much power as the people who traditionally have power. And so I think that's, it's why it's been such a great panel and we really appreciate the Langmont Museum for hosting it and making space for this as well. Because I think that's what we need to do. It seems to be the theme as well. If you have power, make space for others. And that means giving up some of your, your own power, your own time, make space to let others come in. And I think that's gonna help things, hopefully. I do wanna say that I appreciate Rebecca going into the field of history and making sure that there is true history because a lot of our students are not told true history. So I appreciate you telling the true story and other stories than other than what's in the history books. Because not, I mean, even black kids weren't told true history. So I appreciate you doing that and going out and speaking on it. And that means a lot to me and for me. And I really appreciate that. Thank you. This in general is a closing kind of thought around women's rights in general and this conversation about women. One of my other comments to our earlier question is women, we also have a responsibility to support each other, to get a career, to look at our finances, to talk about credit, to talk about the backbone of this country which really is our financial ability to stand on our own two feet so that we aren't put in a position where we are relying on somebody else. And that might make some folks uncomfortable and that's the reality for us to be in positions where then we can give back in our communities where we can be philanthropic, where we can sit on boards, where we can support other folks' kids. And so that's just one of the pieces that I think is kind of broader around paying attention to all of those policies and making sure that we are taking care of ourselves as well because it's very hard for women to put ourselves in the front because we're juggling all those activities that Shakita already talked about and mentioned. As a mostly white woman of privilege, it has been very important to me tonight to be here and hear your stories and really be able to have the luxury to listen. And just thank you. And I want to thank you all for joining us. Let's thank Rebecca Hunt for coming out, Marta Lochimane, Shakita Yarbrough, and Maeve Conron from KGNU. I also want to thank the League of Women Voters, Boulder County, for supporting our program tonight. Thank you for joining us. And if you enjoyed tonight's program, please share it on Facebook. Let people know we had a great program here tonight. Thank you all for joining us and thank you again. See you next week.