 I'm going to follow who's in front of me. I'm glad. OK. Good. Testing. Oh, yes. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. Yeah. Ready, Morgan? Are they going to start coming in? Ladies and gentlemen, if you please take your seats, will we get started? Good evening, everyone. I think we can do better than that. This is a celebration of life, not a morning of the deceased. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you so much. I bring you greetings on behalf of the greatest mayor on Earth, the Honorable William V. Bill Bell, the longest-serving mayor in the history of Durham and among the best, and my colleagues on the Durham City Council. The mayor is would you please stand? Give him a round of applause, please. If there are other members of the City Council, would you please stand and be recognized, or if there are other elected officials? Thank you, Ms. Johnson. Today, the City of Durham celebrates our 15th Annual Women's Forum. Let us thank the Human Relations Division of the Neighborhood Improvement Services Department for their work and their director, Constance Stansel and James Davis Jr., the division manager for leading the charge to celebrate women and our accomplishments. Human Relations Commissioners here, would you please stand? Let us applaud them for their work. And if there are Youth Commissioners here, as Evelyn Scott here and the Youth Commissioners, let's give them a round of applause. And Mr. Larry Thomas and the Thomas Mentor Leadership Academy participants, these are the handsome young men who escorted us in. Look at them. Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Thomas, and the work that you do with youth. I have seen your work in action. And I want to thank Evelyn in her absence for helping to keep our young people on the road to success. And Drew, raise your hand. He's a once a judge, always a judge, Drew Marsh. The 2017 theme for National Women's History Month is honoring trailblazing women in labor and business. Our theme honors women who have successfully challenged the role of women in both business and the paid labor force, and also women in politics. Women have always worked, but too often our work has been undervalued, underpaid, and unpaid. Because we're women. We're also too often unappreciated or underappreciated. Yet, we are a power to be reckoned with. Round of applause for that. And just for your information, the city council has approved in concept a mayor's council for women for the process that was. And that's a different story for a different time. Our honorees represent diverse backgrounds, and each have made a mark in a different field. They have successfully challenged the social and legal structures that have kept women's labor underappreciated and underpaid, as I said. They have been involved with paving the way for generations of women in labor, business, and political leaders to follow. Some of us readily admit that we stand on the shoulders of women who sacrificed so that we can be where we are today. I think we all need to acknowledge that there was someone on whose shoulders we stand and show appreciation for all the women who came before us, whether in women labor, business, or politics. To our panelists, thank you so much for agreeing to share your experiences with us as we celebrate who you are, whose you are, and the power within each of you, that treasure that only comes from above. Thank you so much. Thank you. Let's give my volunteer a good round of applause. Thank you so much, Cora Cole McFadden, the media pro tem of the city of Durham for those words. We really appreciate them. Let's give our media pro tem a good round of applause, please. My name is Hilda Gurlian. I am going to be your moderator tonight of this 15th Annual Women's Forum. It is my pleasure to be with you all tonight. I'd like to say thank you to James Davies and to everybody at the home of the City of Durham Human Relations Division for giving me this great opportunity to be here with you. Tonight, we are honored to have these five great women with us. As you can see, they're very beautiful on the outside. And as you will find out when you listen to their presentation, you're going to see that they're very beautiful on the inside as well. You're going to find out that they have big hearts and they have brilliant minds. Yes, they are brave, kind, compassionate, family-oriented, intelligent, well-educated, hardworking, and very successful. Let me briefly introduce to you our panelists. Dear panelists, as you hear your name, please stand up to be recognized and remain standing until I have called all of the names, and we can hold the applause until the end. I'd like to start with Chief Serelin C.J. Davies, Chief of City of Durham Police Department, Kim Lan Grout, founder of the Redefined and Disabled Project, Commissioner Wendy Jacobs, Chair of the Durham Board of County Commissioners, Christy Jones, Chief of Staff of the Office of Governor Roy Cooper, Dr. Desiree Palmer, owner of her own dental practice. Let's give our panelists a big round of applause. This well-organized forum has counted on the help of many volunteers. I know media pretend already recognize our volunteers, but I'd like to recognize them one more time. I'd like to recognize Larry Thomas and everybody, all the representatives from the Thomas Mentor Leadership Academy. Please stand up once again to be recognized. We are very proud of you, and let me say you look wonderful. And thank you so much to all of you for coming this evening. Let's give yourself a round of applause. Let me give you a roadmap of what is going to happen this evening, how we are going to play our game. Our panelists will make their 10-minute presentations in which they will share with all of us some of their passions, experiences, challenges, and opportunities that they have faced on their journey to success with the objective of inspiring and energizing us. When you hear a success practice or principle that have worked for any of them, I encourage you to write it down and use it tomorrow so that you, too, can be as successful as they are. And when they are speaking, if a question comes to your mind, write it down, because you will have an opportunity to ask that question. In fact, you're going to have two opportunities. One, right after the presentations, we're going to have a Q&A session. And then after we have done with the last part of our forum is that we will all be escorted to our assigned booth. And there we will have an opportunity to network with you. And then if during the Q&A session you didn't have the opportunity to ask that question, no worries, you can ask that question then. So this is the game that we are going to play tonight. And hopefully it will be very successful. However, to make it successful, we need your participation. So let's say yes and raise your hand if you are ready to play. Good, that's the way I like it. OK, the time has come. Now we are going to start listening to our panelists. And let me tell you a little bit about the first panelist. Chief Serelin CJ Davis. She is the Chief of City of Durham Police Department. She is a 30-year law enforcement veteran. She became the Chief of the Durham Police Department in 2016. Chief Davis comes to us from Atlanta Police Department where she served as Deputy Police Chief. She has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from St. Leo University, a master's degree in general administration from Central Michigan University, and she's currently a candidate for the business administration doctoral degree at North Central University. Please help me welcome Chief Davis. Good evening. It's a pleasure to be here this evening and once again celebrating Women's History Month here in the city of Durham. This is a special evening for me in particular because amongst me, I see many of the women that helped to make my journey here to Durham much easier because they reached out to me. It wasn't because I asked for help or assistance, but there were women that were here in the city of Durham in many capacities who reached out to help me along the way in my new role. So today, I'd like to recognize also Mayor Pro Tem, Cora McFatten, Councilmember Jillian Johnson. I know you all have been recognized, but they have made deposits in my life since I've been here, very positive deposits to help me along the way, along with the many women who serve in administration here in city government. I am speaking to you for the times that you picked up the telephone and said something that I needed to hear. I think the network amongst us is truly important. So my initial comments, I spoke at the chamber and you guys are probably tired of hearing me talk by now and I really enjoy speaking to that group of women because the title was Women in Durham, Take No Bull. And we had a lot of fun with that. We had a lot of fun with that and some of you were in attendance, but I said one thing that I can't help but reiterate that the ex-first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, made a quote about women being like teabags that once we're in hot water, you don't know how strong we are. So I say that to say that, you know, in our careers, we experience so many different types of challenges that are unique to women. And through those challenges, they make us stronger. We don't see it at the time and we don't think that any particular obstacle or challenge is there to help us along the way, but we find later after the dust has settled that without that struggle or without that challenge, we aren't who we become. And I have to say that it took some years to realize that in life in general, we all will experience obstacles. And our obstacles in the workplace sometimes are unique to us as women. So I wanted to share just a few things about trailblazing women. And as you know, wearing a uniform, and I kid about it all the time, a man's uniform, yeah, because you can't tell the difference between me and Captain Assembly over there. So I kid about it all the time because to fit in a male dominated environment, you really have to have thick skin for one thing and to really understand that confidence is important in the role that you play in leading. So in my career, I had many women who were there and men who were there to mentor me. One of the first African American chiefs of police of a major city was Chief Beverly Harvard. And she said words to me that will ring forever in my mind when I was a lieutenant, never thinking one day that I could even be a chief. She said to me, you have what it takes. And sometimes it just takes two or three words to deposit confidence in somebody else. Sometimes when you're on that journey, the journey is not about you anymore, but about what you can do for others that are coming behind you. And sometimes it's not about what you can do for another female, but it's about what you can do as a female for everybody in your organization in helping your organization reach levels of excellence and solidifying your organization in a way that you are all working towards the same things. So I think mentoring and making sure that it's not all about me and finding ways that we can all celebrate our success is really important, not just in our individual departments, but also across the organization, across the city. How do we succeed as a city, as a whole, as a community? So leadership in my role and over the years has evolved to many different things. I'm a mother, I'm a sister, I'm a friend, I have many colleagues that have been mentors to me and I have mentored many individuals in my career no matter what race, what gender, and I think that's really important. So one thing I did want to say is that in order to be successful in anything that we do, especially in today's workforce, there's certain attributes that we have to have, certain characteristics that are critical, and that is the confidence that's having vision and it's also having unwavering perseverance no matter what. You may not have cheerleaders on the side that are cheering you along, but sometimes you have to be your own cheerleader. Sometimes you have to press forward through the storms much harder than you do on sunny days. I heard it said in church not too long ago that sometimes when we sit in a storm to try to wait for it to go by, we experience more of the storm than we do when we press through it. The storm may last an hour if we sit there, but only five minutes if we press through it. So I leave that with you so that when you are struggling and you're going through various types of storms, remember to accelerate, press forward. Don't wait for someone to cheer you along, be your own cheerleader. Also, I wanted to share with you that in many professions and work environments, we still experience the glass ceiling. We do. Even as a chief of police, when I went through the FBI Academy many years ago, in 2006, there were 256 attendees in my class. I was the only African-American female out of 256 people from around the world. And I felt very awkward. I felt very out of place. And of course today, those settings are changing and evolving, but it made me realize that in a sense I was a trailblazer and it was incumbent upon me to make sure that I kept those issues and raised those issues even in my own department to make sure that positions and opportunities were available and accessible for everyone. Because we all have something to contribute to an organization. And lastly, I wanna talk a little bit about vision. It's not only the ability to conceptualize and anticipate possibilities, it's also your adeptness at communicating a new future for yourself or that of your organization in a very passionate way. So sometimes that sounds like that's difficult to do, but it's not really. So here's a bit of a checklist for you. Are you a keen observer of your own world, your work environment? Do you proactively watch and listen? Sometimes we have a tendency to talk too much and not listen. Do you pay close attention, ask questions, pro-discuss and gather information? These are critical attributes in our world. Do you look at important events in the organization or important events in your own life and career and ask yourself, what did I learn from that? What is this telling me? During reflection, can you come up with stories and examples that from your vision and clarify your own values, these stories will enable you to speak authentically from your own wisdom and your own experiences. And the last attribute that I wanna speak about is the perseverance. Perseverance is steadfastness in doing something despite the difficulty. Sometimes we have a tendency to take the easy road, but sometimes the easy road doesn't necessarily reap the benefits. Sometimes it's necessary to take tough challenges, the tough road in order to reveal truths in certain situations, truths about your organization and even about yourself. I'm sure you're familiar with the iconic poetess Maya Angelou. You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. You see trailblazers are women who have fallen several times and yet got back up off of their feet each time. How many of you know that song? We fall down, but we get up, which is really important. I hope today's forum will ignite a new or strengthened spirit among us as women. I certainly applaud the invaluable contributions women are already making throughout the city of Durham. I am really proud of the women that sit here on this panel. Many of you have already had an opportunity to work with and I know the bright minds that are here in the city and I look forward to having more discussion and just enlightenment in this opportunity. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Chief Davies. Our next speaker is Kim Lan Grout. She is the founder of the Redefining Disabled Project. She's a writer, photographer and disability advocate through her seat on the board of North Carolina Disability Rights. What most people would consider her disability, she considers her liberation. She elected to have her leg amputated at the age of 18 after a very long painful saga that started with a congenital vascular syndrome. Having a disability hasn't held her back from anything. It is with this love for life and for her broken body that she seeks to bring her art to show our community that disabilities are not the end of one's life, but rather can be a source of love, tolerance, patience and determination. Kim Lan is raising her daughters ages five and three to be confident, compassionate and happy women. Please help me welcome Kim Lan Grout. Thank you and good evening. It's an honor to be here in the company of such esteemed, powerful women. I'm Kim Lan Grout and unlike the women with whom I'm sharing this panel, I'm pretty ordinary. I'm a writer, photographer, wife, mother, a woman of color and an above the knee amputee. It's that last hat that I wear that of a person with a disability that has most impacted my journey to this spot here in front of you. I'll spare you how I lost my leg, though feel free to ask during the Q and A because I really love talking about myself. But it's more important to me to tell you about the other people with disabilities who paved the way for me to be here, to give them the attention they deserve. And though this is a national women's history forum, the shoulders on which I stand belong to both women and men, children and adults, fierce advocates and innocent victims. These folks fought, suffered, survived and died so that a woman, let alone me, would have a voice and so that someone like you might listen. Did you know that people with disabilities were the first targets of the Nazi euthanasia program, Action T4? They were called, quote, life unworthy of life and useless eaters and were thought to muddy the gene pool. Hitler's regime said euthanizing them was an act of mercy. Their propaganda claimed that people with disabilities were economic burdens as healthy people were forced to pay for their medical expenses. Sounds a little familiar. Over 400,000 German people with disabilities were sterilized, 200,000 people with disabilities were exterminated. A Catholic bishop called it what it was during one of his sermons, plain murder. This war on people with disabilities was not carried out on the battlefield but inflicted upon them by their own physicians and caregivers. That was as horrific as it gets but across the pond in the U.S., people with disabilities were still subpar. From the 1870s all the way to the 1970s, the U.S. had so-called ugly laws, prohibiting both the poor and people with disabilities as there was believed to be a correlation between the two from appearing in public, doing so resulted in a fine or imprisonment or both. In 1974, people with disabilities found unlikely allies in the Black Panthers as hundreds of them gathered together to hold what we know today as the wheelchair sit-ins. 28 consecutive days of unwavering protests in cities across the country until Section 504, the mother of the Americans with Disabilities Act, was passed. In the 90s, now that's not very long ago at all, allies collaborated to replace headstones belonging to hundreds of institutions' patients with mental illnesses. These people's headstones had been merely numbered and did not include their names, the birth and death dates or even the sweet message like a beloved daughter or rest in peace. In the 40s, when these patients had died and were buried, putting the names on the headstones of patients with mental illness was seen as an embarrassment to their families. People with disabilities in Nazi death camps in Germany, homeless and poor, people with disabilities in Chicago and all around the US. Disability advocates in San Francisco and Washington, DC fighting for rights alongside our Black Panther brothers and sisters and proactive allies silently righting wrongs committed decades before, all for people long past who'd never be able to show their gratitude. These are the shoulders on which I stand. It is these people who have set the proverbial stage from which I can preach universal design, reasonable accommodations, equity for people with disabilities and employment, housing, healthcare. It is because they lived and died having their dignity stolen from them that many, but not all, people with disabilities now finally in 2017 can live and die with dignity. They're cute, those are my kids. Ha ha ha. Because of these powerhouses who'd never know just how influential they'd become, I started a series of disability artivism and advocacy in 2014 with the redefining disabled project. Then in 2016 and inspired by a couple of typically abled lady bosses came the Accessible Icon Project in Durham. I am now a member of Disability Rights and C's Board of Directors, the only cross disability organization that provides free legal counsel to fight for the rights of people with disabilities. And I'm the outreach director for an independent documentary film called Farmer Veteran that highlights the grim realities of veterans PTSD and the vicarious trauma that veterans' families and caregivers silently carry. Because of them, I am better able to do my part now. I know that what I'm sharing is heavy, but with that pain comes a beautiful gain. By now, a female amputee, Arunima Sinha, has scaled Mount Everest. Tammy Duckworth, Democratic Senator for Illinois, US Army helicopter pilot and Iraq War veteran lost both her legs and severely damaged her right arm in combat. She now fights for our disability rights on a national scale. Trisha Zorn, the most successful athlete in the Paralympic Games with 55 medals in swimming, is a woman who has been blind since birth. Temple Grandin, renowned professor, designer and disability advocate who also has autism, will be inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame this September, joining the likes of Amelia Earhart and Susan B. Anthony. Last year, models with disabilities graced the catwalks of New York Fashion Week and Target included a child with a disability in its clothing ads. Disability ally and Ukrainian celebrity, Solomia Vivitska, is using her platform and art to spread awareness of the veterans who lost limbs in the Ukrainian war. Another celebrity, Lauren Elizabeth Potter, at only 26 years old, is leading the campaign against the R word and challenging us to consider just how special the needs of those with Down syndrome really are. My friend, Emily Roseates, reminds us through her BBC documentaries that women with disabilities are still beautiful and sexy. Right here on the triangle, my dear friend and a giant in our local disability community, Ashley Thomas, founded Bridge to Sports, pairing adaptive sports with athletes with disabilities. The list goes on and on, from far away celebrities to incredible athletes to dear and local friends. Women lead the pack. We lionesses run this pride. Clearly, we've come a long way. But it is because of the people with disabilities who fought, suffered and died before us that we, with the loudest, clearest voices we've ever had and the world's eyes finally intently on us, we can openly challenge the status quo, demand equity and begin to remove the social stigmas of life with a disability. Yeah, we've come a long way, but we have a long way yet to go. So with that said, while never forgetting their sacrifice, let's not dwell on the sadness and pain from which we came. Instead, let us focus on what steps we can take now to set our future generations of girls and women with disabilities up for success. There's a lot we can do to those ends. We can vote. We can be smarter consumers. We can be well-informed citizens and kinder community members. 15 years from now, the 30th annual National Women's History Forum, who will stand on our shoulders and how will we get her there? Thank you. Thank you so much, Kim Landgraut. That was wonderful. Our next speaker is Commissioner Wendy Jacobs. She is the chair of the Duran War of country commissioners. She graduated from Duke University with a bachelor's degree in history. She received her teaching certification from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and taught in the Duran and Casswell County public schools as well as Carolina Friends School. Commissioner Jacobs is married to Dr. Michael Meredith, a Duke primary care physician. They have three children who are all graduates of Duran public schools. Zack, a sophomore at the College of William & Mary. Eliza, a graduate of Duke University. And Caleb, a graduate from North Carolina State University. Please help me welcome Commissioner Jacobs. Thank you. And it is an honor to be here with all of you and with all of my fellow panelists who are very esteemed and involved. They're accomplishments and the things that they've done. I want to thank the Thomas Mentor Leadership Academy cadets. I have to say, Jaden, who I have known since he first became a cadet, was it five years ago or four or five years ago? Five years ago, he was just awarded cadet of the year for the second time. So I have to thank him. I'll add to that, Jaden. Also members of the Youth Commission, thank you for being here. My son, Zack, was a member of the Youth Commission. It's a great, great organization here in Durham. I want to thank Neighborhood Improvement Services, members of the Durham Human Relations Commission, the staff from the Durham Human Relations Division, all the city council members are here, the mayor, everybody. And all of you for being here with all of us tonight. And I want to acknowledge my daughter, Eliza, who is sitting here tonight as a young woman that I am very proud of. And I'm really inspired by what I've heard so far. Listening to Chief Davis, it's been so thrilling to have her here in our community. Great role model for me. And my comments really resonate with one of the comments that you made about reflecting, the importance of reflecting on what is the source of your wisdom and your values. And then Kim, I'm just blown away because it just shows me how much I don't know because that's a history that I really don't know. But as you'll hear from my comments, there's a connection with what you just said. My comments are really, we were given some topics to think about. And the ones that really stood out for me was also the shoulders on which I stand. And I felt like for now in the times that we are more than ever, it really is something that I could not stop thinking about. And I think that for all of us as leaders or trailblazers, it's always gonna be, I think about what is the source of your inspiration and the source of your strength because when you do have challenges, that's what you're gonna always go back to is that initial source of your inspiration and strength. So the shoulders on which I stand. In historic times such as these, we are challenged to take a stand, define who we are, what we value, and what we believe is worth fighting for. In times such as these, we are truly guided by those who have come before us, those whose shoulders on which we stand. Not a day goes by in my life that I do not think of my parents and grandparents and the sacrifices they made and the values they taught me. The way they live their lives and the lessons they shared with me. Informed so much of who I am, the decisions I make, the actions I take and the way that I lead myself in the world. We have all grown up with the stories that guide us. For me, it is the stories of my grandfather that he told us sitting around the dining room table after family dinners and holidays. Stories about growing up in a poor village in Poland in what was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Of needing to flee his village and leave his parents and sisters behind in 1914 at the age of 14. To avoid the violent raids and impending forced conscription of young Jewish boys who would become the first sacrificed on the front lines of what would become World War I. The story of how he made his way in the belly of a ship in horrific conditions alone and afraid on an ocean voyage to America. This is a journey others have made and continue to make, voluntary or forced throughout our history. Whether by ship or land, crossing oceans, rivers and borders, leaving family members and homes behind, often putting their lives at risk, fleeing violence at home, fleeing the face of war for a better life. I think of the stories he told me as a young child of coming through Ellis Island, his first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, its promise. I think of the time he showed me what he recalled as the park bench that he slept on in the Lower East Side of New York City until he could find other family members and make his way in this world. I'm not sure it was the exact bench, but I didn't tell him that. It is easier for some of us than others to know our stories. Some stories have been lost because these journeys took place longer ago. Some cannot be retrieved because these ties were severed by realities such as slavery or the Holocaust. But it is still important that we tell stories we do have to our children and to each other. This is indeed the way that our ancestors, their values and their legacy lives on. As I enjoy the many privileges and opportunities that I have in my life, I constantly think of the stories my father told me, the son of a struggling fruit and vegetable grocer in South Orange, New Jersey, who would drive back home in the wee hours each morning to help out by driving his father's old truck and deliver produce to local businesses and then be back at Cornell Medical School in New York City in time to juggle classes and his jobs drawing blood at a blood bank and as a salesman at a local shoe store to pay his way through school or how as a medical student he once slept in a hospital bed for months to avoid paying rent or then shared a bed when renting an apartment with another medical resident because they were on call at different shifts. We all have stories in our families and we must remember them and not take them for granted. The legacy and lives of my parents and grandparents instilled in me the importance of hard work, of kindness and respect for all people and the Jewish values of tikkun alum, mitzvot and mitzvah, which guided their lives and which guide my life and all that I do. It is the concept of tikkun alum, our responsibility to heal the world that informs the work that I do every day as a county commissioner to do what I can to make Durham the community I love a better place to live for everyone. It is the ritual of mitzvot, performing good deeds that also guides how I live in this world and treat others throughout the day. It is the central theme of sadaka, charity that encompasses not just giving donations but giving of oneself and serving others that I endeavor to fulfill each day as an elected official. In today's world, when we see the very foundation of who we are as a nation and as a people put in question, it is incumbent upon us to never lose sight of the shoulders upon which we all stand. There is the collective history of all those who came before us, who sacrificed, worked hard and fought for the many rights we hold so dear. But many of these rights that ensure our access to economic and social justice and the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are threatened today. We cannot stand idly by but must take responsibility and action to protect what our ancestors have achieved and lived their own lives for. And unless your ancestors came here more than 10,000 years ago, crossing the ice bridge from Asia to North America, you stand on the shoulders of a refugee an immigrant or an enslaved person. Let us not collectively forget that we are indeed a nation of indigenous people, immigrants, slaves and refugees. As a third generation American, for me this history is very recent in my memory. So is the not too distant memory of a time in our history when hate reigned unchecked? Where millions of ordinary people were guided by hatred in their own individual personal actions. Where these multitudes of actions enabled the murders of millions of human beings in a systematic deliberate manner. As a young child in weekly Sunday school classes in the 1960s, less than two decades after the end of World War II, I grew up seeing images of the concentration camps, the ovens, the piles of human bodies and the skeletal faces of the survivors freed from the camps, emblazoned in my memory through film and photos. Even as children we were not shielded from this harsh reality. A reality that we know survives to this day with the recent bomb threats, graffiti and damage to synagogues, day schools and Jewish community centers and desecration of graves at Jewish cemeteries that takes place throughout our country. We see the rise of hate today and acts against people throughout our nation. Hate based on race, religion, sexual or gender orientation, ethnicity and country of origin. Hatred is real and lingers below the surface and it cannot be tolerated. That is why in my recent state of the county address I stated that Durham is a community that is tolerant, welcoming and caring, that we value diversity and we will not allow discrimination against any group of people based on sex, age, gender, race, class, sexual orientation, country of origin, religion or ethnicity. I stated my commitment that Durham is and will continue to be a county of inclusion. But to make these words a reality requires each and every one of us to honor our ancestors and all those on whose shoulders we stand. To live out the values they instilled through instilled in us, through our daily interactions and how we treat one another. It requires efforts we make each day to help and serve others and ensure the world is a better place today and for our children's future. Thank you. Hey, thank you so much, Commissioner Jacobs. Our next speaker is Christy Jones. Christy is the Chief of Staff of the Office of Governor Roy Cooper. She is the first African American female to serve in this capacity. Prior to this appointment, she served for 10 years as Chief of Staff for the North Carolina Department of Justice. She started her career in public service with Governor Jim Hunt as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Initiative on Race. Christy is a graduate of North Carolina Central University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and she's also a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned her degree in law. She feels humbled and blessed to have unique professional experiences and is personally grateful for the love and support that she receives every day from her husband. Please help me welcome Christy Jones. Thank you very much. I am not sure who gave me the honor to sit on the stage with these women but I will say thank you for thinking more of me than I think of myself. It is indeed a confidence boost to sit among such women who have dedicated their lives to making the world a better place and I'm indeed honored. Believe it or not, my kind of remarks I found on Instagram. So for all of you parents who think there's nothing good on social media, that's not quite true. But as I was scrolling through Instagram, I saw this quote and it says, little girls with dreams grow up to be women with vision. Little girl with dreams grow up to be women with vision. And it didn't of course, Instagram doesn't do everything grammatically correct and they didn't post who had originally stated the quote so I don't know who to give credit to but that's what I want you to know is that our journey here didn't start today. We didn't start in this job. We all started as little girls with the dreams. And I think that's important to know because sometimes when you look at people you think about the destination versus the journey. And so tonight I want to talk a little bit about the journey. And I think, I hope the ladies on the stage would agree with me that it's more about the journey than where we are today and how we got here. And I think my remarks, it's interesting. You know you're saying some of the right things when you say something somebody's already said. So I probably, I didn't cheat. I believe the same thing. So in my thoughts is I thought about leadership and how we got here and I think about, let's say top 10 characteristics to get you to the destination you want. And I say that because everybody's destination is different. It may not be to be a dentist or to be in politics or to be a county commissioner or a police chief or to be such a noble person in public service or in non-profit world but whatever your destination should be I think there are lots of different ways to get there. But the one that I think is most important if I had to name 10, five of them would be confidence. And the police chief talked a lot about confidence. You know, it seems to be a quick fix, confidence. That's easy. But let me tell you for women in particular confidence is not that easy. And if you happen to grow up in a Southern home, oh my goodness, modesty over confidence every day. We all either had a grandmother who made us or reminded us often not to be too confident or a great aunt who would tell us how much weight we gained or how much weight we lost or the slip was hanging or something was going wrong. So we're not always just surrounded by confidence. And when I did a little bit more research about it I actually found that there's an article that I recommend you read. It's called the Confidence Gap that speaks to that very point. The article was authored by Claire Shipman and Katie Kaye. And they speak directly to women being less self-assured than men, okay? Listen to this. One of the examples they highlight says that women apply for promotions only that they're sure that they qualify for 100%, right? So if an application says you need 20 qualifications, women are only gonna apply for that job if they have 22 of those qualifications, right? Our male counterparts, on the other hand, if they just have 10 of those qualifications, they're applying. That shows the difference in our confidence level. They say I should be able to get the job with the 10 qualifications. And we say, yeah, well I have 22 of the 20 needed, I'm not sure I'm gonna get the job I wanna apply. That's the truth. So as I want to talk about confidence a little bit, I know that we just aren't born with it so it's a process of building confidence. And I wanna talk to you a little bit about how I was able to build some confidence. And where I grew up in Wilson, North Carolina, small little country church that I went to, my grandmother made us go every Sunday. And every Easter and Christmas we had to do a Christmas speech. And I don't know how many of you had to do that, but every Christmas and Easter or other holidays, you have to get in front of the church and stand and recite a poem. Now, the older you got, the longer the poem was. But you were always nervous and you'd get up there and you start to recite your poem and then you forget something. And inevitably somebody in the church say, honey, it'll be okay, take your time. It'll be okay. And you got into a little bit more confidence and you stood a little bit taller. And then the next time when your poem was a little even longer, you had a little bit more confidence because those people showed you that you could. And I'm certain that I'm able to do public speaking today because of the ladies and the people in my family church that gave me the confidence to do public speaking. But the next big dose of my confidence probably came from public school teachers. And if you don't believe that public school teachers or any teacher, wherever you went, they make a difference in your life. I was blessed when I went to the first grade, didn't go to kindergarten, when I went to the first grade, I had a teacher by the name of Ms. Doris Bizett. She was my first grade teacher. Believe it or not, Ms. Doris Bizett followed me my entire life and career. Every move that I made, if there was a little article in the paper about I had made honor roll or if I'd graduated from high school, graduated from college, whatever I did, Ms. Bizett always sent me a note and called me. Up until last year when she passed everything I've done in my life, my first grade teacher encouraged me. And it wasn't just my first grade teacher, it was counselors. It was student government teachers. A lot of us start our way in student government and school activities. It was those teachers and counselors who told you you could that encourage you, you should run for class president. When you really wanna say I could never win class president. But they gave you the confidence to believe that you could do those things. But I wanna make sure that you realize that your confidence building doesn't always come in a positive format. Tell you this incident that happened to me and it happened at North Carolina Central since now she told you where I went to school. But I was wanting to go to law school and I told one of my professors that I wanna go to law school and I specifically said I'd love to go to Chapel Hill. And so one day, little tardy to class and I walk into class and that professor said, Ms. Jones, tardy students don't get into law school. She didn't know me because I studied even harder from that time because I was gonna prove to that teacher that professor that tardy students can get into law school. And let me tell you, a tardy student got into law school at Chapel Hill. And I say that to say sometimes you have to, there's this saying amongst young people let your haters be your motivators, okay? And so by that, what I say is sometimes you gotta build confidence when people don't think you can do it. Prove them wrong. That's a big dose of confidence building because once you do it, you remind yourself, I did that, I can do the next thing. But then when you start your career, you really need a bunch of confidence. And a lot of my confidence early, particularly in the political arena, which doesn't always have a lot of women, but thank goodness now there are more women getting involved in government and those kinds of things. But I had the opportunity to join state government. And I worked under such women as Carolyn Coleman, who was one of my leaders, the mayor's wife, Judith Bell was one of my mentors, June Michal right here in Durham was one of my mentors. And not only did they show me by example, they would pull me to the side and tell me what I need to do and say, Christy, you can do this. You should apply for this job. You should try these things. And those women gave me my confidence and it really helped. And the other thing I think we should be clear about, it's not always women that give us our confidence. The chief alluded to that, sometimes it's men. You know, I came in, I worked with Governor Han and I had the opportunity to meet then Senator Roy Cooper. He was running for attorney general and asked me to join his team and I did. Luckily he became attorney general and I started out working with him as deputy chief of staff. I could have stayed deputy chief of staff for the remainder of my life, it was a great job. But when the opportunity became available, then attorney general Cooper came in my office and he sat there and he said, Christy, you have what it takes to do that job. I'm offering the job to you. I never thought I was one of those women that thought I need the 22 qualifications. And he saw the qualifications in me and I'm honored. And then again, recently when he was elected governor, he looked at me and said, Christy, you are the person for this job. So it can be men or women that give you that confidence and I'm always grateful for him. So my goal for tonight is two-fold. One for us as mothers, aunts, sisters, godmothers, to make sure that we give little girls that we know the confidence they need to become women with vision. Make sure you tell them they're doing right, they're doing good, give them those confidence. And secondly, for those of us who are a little past being little girls and we're young women or different places in our career, I hope that our stories of growing confidence will remind you that if you try, you too can grow confidence and build on your confidence and move up to the places that you wanna be. But confidence is a key part of that. And every day I look at these other women and they inspire me and give me confidence. I hope tonight we give you the confidence to go to your destinations. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Christy. Our next speaker is Dr. Desiree Palmer. She is the owner of her own dental practice. She is a graduate of Mount Holy Oak College and Tufts School of Dental Medicine. She started her dental practice in 1985 and this made her the first African American dentist to establish a private practice in Durham. Dr. Palmer and her all female team of 14 professionals strive to provide their patients with excellent state-of-the-art dental care and exceptional service. She is an active member in her church, Holy Cross Catholic Church. She is married to Michael Palmer. They have three adult sons, Austin, Brandon and Colton and they are the proud grandparents of Brianna Lilly. Please help me welcome Dr. Palmer. Thank you, good evening. I would like to thank the City of Durham Human Relations Division of the Neighborhood Improvement Service Department for the honor of being asked to serve on this panel with these phenomenal trailblazing women. I'm not sure how I got up here, but I am appreciative. Thanks, James. I wanna talk a little bit about my passion and my passion is dentistry. That probably sounds a little strange because I am really, really passionate about what I do. And I just wanna share a little bit about how I got to that. My mother was my first and most influential role model. She was one of 11 children who grew up in a small town in the western part of the state, Triune, North Carolina. She was the first and only one of her siblings to graduate from college. Her five sisters all migrated north to Connecticut to work as domestics. And for the young people in the audience, domestics, if you have seen the movie The Help, those were my aunts. And during that time, each of them set aside a little bit of money to send their younger sister to college. My mom. During my mother's summers off from A&T, she also worked as a domestic for a very wealthy woman in Massachusetts who happened to be the dean at Wellesley College. Mrs. Hill, the woman she worked for, encouraged my mother to consider pursuing a master's degree after graduating. And she did. She went on and acquired her master's degree at Howard University. I stand on my mother's shoulders. And in some ways, my mother, you know, she stood on her sister's shoulders. And of course, Mrs. Hill was there sort of pushing her along. Mrs. Hill always spoke highly of attending a women's institution. And she encouraged my mother to consider sending a daughter, if she ever had one, to a woman's college, specifically one of the seven sister institutions. Strongly encouraged by my mother, I attended Mount Holyoke College, where I can say I found the confidence to pursue my passions. That's where it was really nurtured. And when you talk about confidence, I was thinking, Christy, I wish I had been at your church doing more of those presentations and I'd be a lot less nervous about being up here. But Mount Holyoke had a diverse student body of women and they were being prepared for forward-thinking leadership. When I got there, I wanted to be a high school biology teacher. And I wanted to major in biology and be a teacher like my mom. However, one of the deans of students at the college recommended I consider dentistry. At the time, dentistry was just being open to women. And I was 18, she said, it's a good career. I did it. I wasn't sure what I was getting into, but I had that blind faith that she knew what was out there for me. So I majored in biochemistry, I graduated, I married my husband, Michael, and we headed off to Tufts School of Dental Medicine in Boston. Dental school was probably my first serious challenge because you know at Mount Holyoke, I was there with other women. So it was a nurturing environment. Dental school, on the other hand, was not that. I probably noticed most the racism and the sexism there. The other thing about dental school was the challenge was how was I gonna pay for it? We didn't have the funds, the tuition, but somehow that didn't stop anything. I just thought, well, if I get in, we'll figure it out. And so family members chipped in, my parents, Michael's dad chipped in, and then I applied for a National Health Service Scholarship and I got it. So I had to commit to three years in public health, but that scholarship is what paid for me to attend Tufts for those three years, and God is good. The other thing at Tufts, what helped me to sort of endure the sexism and the racism, were the network of other women students. That particular year, it was 150 students there. It was about 32 women, and that was probably the largest group of women that the school had. And it was three African Americans. So between the women and the other two African American males and my family, I survived. The key there is be persistent. You've gotta do it. I knew I had to do it. I had no other choice. I was there and I was gonna get it done. So the last year of my dental school, then I became pregnant with my first son. And he became a primary motivation to graduate on time. I graduated on a Friday, celebrated on a Saturday, and gave birth on a Sunday. So anyway, after practicing as a public health dentist in Boston for four years, Dr. Thomas Bass, and boy do I stand on those shoulders. Dr. Thomas Bass was a Durham dentist and a family friend, and he mentioned to my parents that I should consider coming to Durham because he planned to retire in a few years. So when the clinic closed where I was practicing in Massachusetts and my public health obligation abruptly ended, we decided to take him up on the offer, another serious blind faith. We visited North Carolina for Michael to find a job and to find a house. He found a job. We, during that visit, we put a down payment on a house and we returned to Massachusetts, both technically unemployed, to sell a house in the dead of winter in New England. It sold in a few weeks and we took off with Austin the four-year-old and Brandon our infant, Bruce the dog, drove two cars to Durham, North Carolina, where we knew no one but Dr. Bass and his family. So I practiced with Dr. Bass for seven years. By the way, he did not retire. He became revitalized. But by far, Dr. Bass was a wonderful mentor. Then at that point, I had three sons and the next challenge I took on this journey was to step out of the boat and step out of the comfort zone because being with Dr. Bass was truly a comfort zone. But I decided, do you own practice? Try it. And I moved to Northern Durham and at that time, there were no African-American dentists practicing North of 85. I had one employee, an NCCU student, who we sort of trained each other. She was trained as a receptionist and a dental assistant. And as the practice grew, we acquired more staff. In 2000, we moved to a larger facility and we grew to be two women dentists and 10 female team members, women working with women, women supporting women. And most recently, we opened up the second location, which is Bull City Dental. And I think something was really special about making that move. Finding the right location was really important. I was looking for the curb appeal with windows you could look in. And I came up on a large window storefront in City Center District on Parris Street, Black Wall Street. And I felt like the ancestors were guiding me. So at age 59, with 60 around the corner, I stepped out on faith and went for it and we opened Bull City Dental. So today, I have three talented young women associate dentists and I emphasize young because I need their innovative ideas and 12 fabulous female team members. We work hard, we play hard. So when I reflect on this journey, having a family and a career, there's some key points I'd like to bring up. One, it can be a balancing act when you have a family, but there's no question you can have both. It's not work or family. One does not preclude the other. It's all inclusive. My family, they help me with the practice. My sons do some things with websites and social media and Instagram, things that I don't understand. And we, as an office, we share with each other, the women supporting women and talking about our families. The other thing that's really, really important is be open to the possibilities. Just think if I hadn't been open to the possibility of when that Dean of Students said to me, what do you think about dentistry? Dream big, focus small, position yourself. Position yourself to take the shot. Things can happen if you're in the right place and you've positioned yourself to be there. Be on fire. Mary and Wright Elderman always says, be on fire with everything you do. And give back, be of service, be mentored, be a mentor. And I think what we heard throughout this whole thing was be persistent, be available. Be visible, but most importantly, build relationships. And finally the thread that I think weaves through my journey. I mentioned a couple of times blind faith, but in reality it wasn't blind faith, it was God's plan. God planned to put so many wonderful women and men in my path to guide me. It's definitely not about me, but about all the relationships that support me and sustain me. My ancestors, my mother, my father, my brother, my husband, my three sons, my granddaughter, my work family, my church community, my friends, and most importantly my dental patients, and the Durham community. It's that large circle that surrounds me that makes it so easy to get up, go to work, and do what I love to do. So I'm hoping in Durham we will continue to build circles. Circles, not pyramids, circles. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Palmer. And thank you very much to all of you panelists. You were wonderful. Wow, we learned so much from you. Great lessons, great lesson, very inspiring. Thank you very much for sharing your time and your talent with all of us tonight. Now we are going to open the floor for questions and I'd like to call Nicole Jacobs with Human Relations to please come, yes please, to come to open the Q&A session for our panelists. I know you are eager to ask those questions. Go ahead. All right, so in keeping with the theme of trailblazing women, last year we saw the first female presidential nominee from a major political party. And in one of the debates we saw her interrupted by her male opponent and she was called a nasty woman. So my question for you is, are any of you nasty women and can you share with us an experience in your professional career similar to that? I know Chief Davis has got some. We're all looking at her. They're all looking at me. I'm not a nasty woman. I've had many experiences where as a woman in a male dominated environment, things were said or done that personally I felt may have been very disrespectful but what I found I had to do was if I remember correctly, I cry our first lady when I go high and there were many days that I had to address those types of situations just one on one with the individual as opposed to allowing whatever that behavior was to win because many times when things like that happen people want to see what your reaction is and when you react the way that the individual who evidently perpetrated the act when you respond in the way that they want you to then they win. So many times I've had to have, not just with men but I've had to have sidebar conversations and once you have a sidebar conversation and a very pointed sidebar conversation with the individual about what their behavior was most of the times that puts an end to it and they respect you for that too and they respect you for not indulging in the fray and in the public. Well, situations like that have happened to me all the time. I don't know if I'm like a magnet for that but the first thing that came to my mind was actually in my personal life and when I had elected to have my leg amputated the vascular and it was only 18, I had just turned 18. I'd had this like very long inpatient hospital stay and my vascular surgeon who was a third generation head of the department and I felt like he had something to prove and I think he felt that way too. When I told him this is the route that I want to take that's my trajectory and this is my journey and I am comfortable with it, I'm okay with it and please do this procedure for me. He simply said that I couldn't. He said I'd be bedridden for the rest of my life. I'd never get married, I'd never have children, I'd never go back to school and these are all literal things and they were all just false and so just like tardy students get into law school, 18 year olds, girls with freckles and just a dream and just some persistence and resilience. You can get up and walk after losing a leg and travel the world and have that family and get your degrees and start things and influence people and be a powerhouse and that's in that way I'm a nasty woman, right? It was just like you don't even know what I'm dreaming about right now so take the thing off and let me get out of here and that's what he did and here I am. So I have a postcard on my refrigerator at home that my daughter brought home. It says nasty women make history. So that's something we actually strive for in my home. But politics, government is also a very male dominated world and field and so I would be lying if I would say that it's not, it doesn't become an issue or it has not become an issue and a lot of times it can be very implicit or it's not always, it can be below the surface and I'll just share an experience that I had recently. So county commissioners across North Carolina, it's majority white males and I was serving, I was very excited because I was serving on the board of the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners and I was very excited about it. I was at my first board meeting and anybody who knows me knows that I tend to be talkative and assertive. I don't necessarily stay quiet. I was the one who was always raising my hand in the classroom and so I was at my first board meeting and we had somebody from actually the state government come to our meeting and I right away put my hand up and spoke about an issue and afterwards it was interesting because it was actually a woman that came up to me, a female county commissioner and I think she meant well. I think she was trying to kind of have my back but she said to me, you need to restrain yourself because these guys are not gonna like it with you out here talking all the time and expressing your opinion and speaking up that's not gonna get you very far. And again I think it was meant as something to be helpful as words of wisdom and she may have been absolutely right about that but that is something that we push up against and it goes to also kind of the inner confidence issue. A lot of times I think that we as women are our own worst enemies in terms of kind of self-suppressing ourselves or self-limiting what we say or do. So that's just one experience that I would share in terms of maybe when I was being too nasty. Thank you, thank you so much. Usually what I say, if that's the worst name you're gonna call me today, have at it. And I say that because one of the things I think we should do is store up confidence. That's what I always say, I keep a little confidence stored up for these, I call them lack of confidence days when somebody else is trying to take my confidence away. I'll tell you a funny story when I was in college one time I was at a dance, finally got up with no confidence to ask the guy to dance and he said no and I looked at him and I said no problem, I got some confidence stored up for a day like this and walked away. Because you have to just know somebody's going to try and take that confidence from you so that's when you just, because that comment that night was meant to unnerve her. And you just have to be prepared for those moments and just keep going when they go low we go high. And I guess my example is back at the dental school because I was pregnant and I was the only woman that was pregnant at the time. I had several male students come up and say why did you even come to dental school? I mean, aren't you going to stay at home and raise your family? And I said yes, I'm going to raise my child just like my mother did, she worked. So I think that's the kind of thing you sort of run into on a regular basis that people want to sort of guilt you in that you can't do both and you can. Thank you, thank you very much for those responses. Very good. Nicole, do you have any more questions? What about you, Nova? No, well I do, I do have some. I do have one question, but let me ask the public. Do you have any questions, somebody? Okay, let me ask my question. This is my question, it's going to be to Kim, Kim Landgroud. Because we have so many young mothers in the audience and some mothers to be also, I'd like to ask you what practices do you use to teach your daughters to be kind, compassionate and confident and happy? Oh, well now I'm going to start crying. In our house, and I have to say that my husband, Sean, who's front and center right here, helps me to these ends. We have a motto, we have a mantra in the house and the girls have said it, I think for as long as they could talk really, and you have to pantomime it, we say, I am strong, I am smart and I am kind. And we do that when we lose confidence, right? It's a reminder, and so you can do that. You know, when you're in front of a ton of people, you could just repeat it to yourself and the girls do it all the time. You know, they bring a cool project home from school or they start preschool because, you know, they're five and four, but any little thing to remind them and when we all do it, you know, when mommy does it and when they see me doing it before I come here tonight and when they see daddy doing it, that's just a normal thing and that's a part of their vocabulary and their language and nobody questions it and I love the age that they're in right now because they don't understand insecurity yet. I'll be like, you are so smart, and they'll be like, I know. Confidence. Yeah, yeah, and I love that and if I could bottle that and sell it, you know, but the thing is, is that I don't have to, I can just foster that in them and you can foster that in your children, both boys and girls, and we won't have to sell it, it all just comes free, like it's all innate, I think. Thank you, thank you very much. One more quick question to Christy. Christy, what advice can you give to our young people here in the audience who wants to get into public service? I think I would say start volunteering. First of all, public service is a broad term, right? If you help anyone, you are doing public service and so sometimes people think you have to work specifically in government. I actually started off in the nonprofit world. I worked in Wilson, it was called OIC, Opportunities Industrialization Center and when I graduated from law school, I went back there and started my career there and so I think if you first think of public service in a broad term and try to help anyone you can, that's probably the best way to think about it in a broader term than just working in government. Thank you, thank you very much. Okay, this is the end of the Q&A session. I'd like to say again, thank you very much to our panelists, you are great leaders. Thank you for all, yes. Thank you for all that you do to make our community the best place to leave work and play. We appreciate that. Now we hope that you have enjoyed the presentations and that you have learned. What have we learned? Many things, among them, confidence, be perseverant, work hard, get a mentor, establish those relationships that are gonna take you to success. Now, what you need to do is to apply those principles to your life. I mean, listening to the principles is not going to transform your life, but you have to apply them and try to apply them tomorrow so that you can be as successful as they are. Now, we have come to the last part of the forum. Our volunteers are already lined up and they are going to take our panelists to the atrium where you can have an opportunity to network with them until 8 p.m. We promise you that we're gonna let you go at 8 and we're gonna be on time. Now, I like to say also that the, this women's forum is being televised on Durham Television Network. Please visit dtntv.org for replay schedule or for city's YouTube channel to watch later. Thank you very much. Our volunteers, please come to escort our panelists and to you, thank you very much for coming once again and enjoy the networking opportunity.