My first re-cap diary on Daily Kos Connects Asheville was about our Friday, September 25th event to hear The Rev. William Barber II, president of the NC NAACP, welcome our Daily Kos conference. His speech was a profound experience for those in attendance and in the link above there is full video of Reverend Barber plus a transcript. Be sure to pay attention to his call to action of Daily Kos bloggers.
Today, I'm providing most of the videos Chris Reeves took and photos from asterkitty and myself. Feel free to post your photos in the comments. It was a truly amazing weekend and it will hold many great memories for me.
Saturday, September 26, 2015
We began our conference at 8 a.m. with registration and a delicious continental breakfast, complete with many networking conversations around the room.
• Welcome
At 9 a.m. our program started, here is my introduction to the day:
We had some tech difficulties and Markos's Ask Me Anything segment lost sound. Sorry to not be able to include that. Feel free to post in the comments any of the discussion that was had during that time.
• Data-Driven Activism
Next we had what I consider the most important take-away presentation of the day. DocDawg gave an overview of data covering a systematic effort to shuffle and move polling locations that disproportionately impact minority voters in North Carolina counties. Joan McCarter wrote about DocDawg's data discovery, The sneaky new voter suppression tool in North Carolina, uncovered by one of our own. Her piece is complete with a full transcript.
The most important and shocking slide DocDawg provided shows a very sophisticated effort to make the simple act of going to the polls much, much more difficult for North Carolina's black voters.
"The headline outcome from our analysis is that in 2014 white voters—71% of the electorate in North Carolina—had to travel an additional 119,000 miles from their homes to their nearest Early Voting locations...which is approximately equivalent to halfway from the Earth to the Moon. [...] 'how did it affect black voters?' Well, black voters—22% of the electorate—had to travel to the moon and halfway home again, 370,000 miles, in 2014, to get to their nearest Early Voting place."
This is a poll tax and DocDawg suggests:
The kind of solution I would like to propose is to take this approach to launch what, for lack of a better name, I'll call the Fair Places Project. Why can't we put together an organization that uses geospatial data science to document disparities such as I've shown you, and then goes to the relevant county boards of elections and says, "Excuse us...you have a problem in your county. You have an enormous racial disparity with respect to distance-to-poll. And, gosh, that's unconstitutional. And we'd like to help you with that."
Daily Kos is supporting the Fair Places Project to help with rolling it out across the nation.
Full video:
DocDawg is a semi-retired scientist and businessperson, and a recovering hippy. He holds Bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees in biology from the Univ. of California (where he also studied computer science, despite his advisor's strenuous objections). He served as a professor of cell biology and biophysics at Johns Hopkins University before leaving academia to help launch a biotechnology company. Nowadays he consults for start-up biotechs, and is a pro bono data science consultant to the NC-NAACP. Doc is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Corporation Member of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. He and MsDawg raise and train horses in Durham County, NC.
More videos below the Big Orange Group Hug.
• Southerners on New Ground presentation
Mary Hooks, Regional Campaign Director for SONG - Southerners on New Ground - spoke about the efforts to represent LGBTQ voters within Southern states and the role we have in helping these efforts to succeed. And if you like the song
I'm On My Way to Freedom Land, you're in luck. Mary gives a wondeful rendition of it.
"We refuse to be part of a movement where any of us are left behind."
Mary's presentation was based on this must-read pdf: SONG on the role of white people in the movement at this time.
Mary Hooks is Regional Campaign Coordinator for SONG - Southerners On New Ground. She joined the SONG team in March of 2011 as a field organizer for Alabama. Mary's background is in human resources, and she holds of Master of Business Administration degree with focus on human resources management. As an undergrad in a Lutheran college, Mary discovered a radical desire to be a catalyst for change in the world. Now a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, she has found her niche in organizing with SONG, entertaining, and singing with the Juicebox Jubilees, a queer choir created to provide a safe place for folks to gather their voices together, sip a little wine, and sing songs that uplift, inspire and liberate.
Many thanks to DocDawg for inviting SONG to be a part of our event.
• NC NAACP Attorneys Al McSurely and Bob Zellner Interview
Denise Oliver-Velez, Daily Kos Contributing Editor, facilitated a conversation with McSurely and Zellner regarding their roles as white allies in the on-going Civil Rights movement.
I think it's important to include the very short bios of these two gentlemen before this segment.
Bob Zellner is a Civil Rights Activist who was the first white southerner to serve as a Field Secretary of SNCC. He now works with Rev. Barber in the NC NAACP Led Forward Together Moral Movement. The founder of the Ella Baker Organizing School South, Bob was a Freedom Rider in 1961. Growing up in Alabama, his father and grandfather were in the KKK, but he went to jail with MLK and was mentored as a college student by Ms. Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama.
Al McSurely is a veteran civil rights activist and attorney. Since 2005 he has served on Rev. Dr. William J. Barber's leadership team for the NAACP State Conference and the 200 plus partners who make up the Forward Together Moral Movement. In 2005 Al’s friend, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, awarded him the highest NAACP honor for civil rights lawyers, the William Robert Ming Award.
Al joined the civil rights movement in 1961, working CORE and SNCC. He and Margaret Herring were recruited to move to E. Kentucky to bring white working people into the movement. In 1967, they were arrested for sedition in Pike County, Kentucky. In December of 1968, they narrowly escaped death when white terrorists threw 8 sticks of dynamite at their mountain cabin’s bedroom window, and in 1969, they were arrested again for Contempt of Congress after they refused to turn over the names of hundreds of southern Movement organizers.
Al apprenticed for 20 years with Morton Stavis, Arthur Kinoy and William Kunstler, founders of the Center for Constitutional Rights, went to law school at age 51 and became a founding partner of the civil rights law firm, McSurely and Turner in Chapel Hill.
Denise Oliver-Velez is a medical anthropologist and AIDS activist, currently teaching anthropology and women’s studies at SUNY New Paltz. She is also a Contributing Editor for Daily Kos. She was the Executive Director of The Black Filmmaker Foundation, and Program Director and co-founder of WPFW-FM Pacifica radio in Washington DC. She is also a former member of the Young Lords Party and the Black Panther Party and has been involved in the civil rights struggle for over 50 years.
• NC Dem Party Chair Patsy Keever interview
After lunch, Joan McCarter had a conversation with Patsy Keever, since we are organizing in her backyard. We're glad she could attend with her busy schedule. Joan encouraged Keever to talk about all her resources in NC to combat voter suppression.
Patsy Keever was born and raised in Charlotte and now lives in Asheville. She was a teacher for over 25 years. She served as the president of the local and district chapters of the North Carolina Association of Educators. Keever served on Buncombe County Board of Commissioners from 1992–2004. She also served as North Carolina House of Representative from 2010–2012. Keever served on the following committees: Agriculture, Appropriations, Appropriations Subcommittee on Justice and Public Safety, Environment, Government, and State Personnel. The North Carolina League of Conservation Voters awarded Keever the 2012 Rising Star award for her work in the legislature. Keever was elected first vice-chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party in 2013. Keever was elected party chair in 2015.
Joan McCarter is Senior Political Writer for Daily Kos. Writing from her home in Idaho, McCarter focuses on legislative and policy issues for the site.After a stint working for then-Rep. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in both his district and Capitol Hill offices, McCarter obtained a Masters degree in Russian studies from the University of Washington's Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. She worked as a writer and instructional designer at UW before signing on full time with Daily Kos in 2007.
• Exploring the Power of Local Media
featuring Scrutiny Hooligans’ blogger Tom Sullivan, local radio host Jeff Messer & The Urban News publisher Johnnie Nelson-Grant and moderated by Randall Thompson aka randallt
Randall stepped in, at the last minute for Meteor Blades, to conduct a nice conversation underlining how important the progressive local media's role is critical in broadcasting our party's message year round.
Tom Sullivan is a North Carolina-based writer who posts at Digby's Hullabaloo and Scrutiny Hooligans. A former community columnist for the Asheville Citizen-Times, Tom's writing has appeared at Huffington Post, Crooks and Liars, Campaign for America's Future, AlterNet, and BlueNC. His Blue Century project in 2008 and 2012 broadcast over 1,200 Get-Out-The-Vote radio ads across western North Carolina.
Jeff Messer is a native of Western North Carolina and a radio talk show host on 880 The Revolution in Asheville and streaming nationwide. He is one of only four progressive radio hosts in the United States. Jeff is also the author of the book Red State, White Guy Blues, political satire detailing the rise of the GOP in NC in recent years. He is also a long time advocate of the local arts, having been a professional actor and playwright for over 20 years, with over 2 dozen plays under his belt that have been produced, including anti-Iraq War drama, This War Is Live. He's a life long rabble-rouser for peace and progressive views.
Johnnie Nelson Grant is the owner/publisher of the Urban News, Western North Carolina's only regional African-American and multicultural publication. A native Ashevillian, Johnnie established Urban News in 2005 to build awareness of vital news stories the mainstream media tended to disregard. Her focus is on projects that inspire, showcase and empower the multicultural communities of WNC. Currently Johnnie serves on the executive board of Four Season Hospice and Palliative Care, Mt. Zion Project Empower, and is an innovator of the African-American Heritage Commission of Asheville-Buncombe County. Johnnie and her husband Robert L. Grant, Jr. are the parents of two adult children.
Randall Thompson and his wife Joy have been activists since they met in high school at an NAACP meeting in Oklahoma in 1968. They have been professional clowns, jugglers, magicians, fire eaters, puppeteers for over thirty years and three generations. Randall has been a member of Daily Kos since 2005. Randall has a background in nuclear health physics following submarine service in the US Navy. He and Joy were part of an immediate response team of health physics investigators at Three Mile Island in April of 1979. They regularly consult with groups concerned about contamination and are actively engaged in Fukushima information distribution through radiation monitoring networks.
• The Storms of 2016 - Accelerating Sea Level Rise & Ocean Heat Storage Will Fuel Extreme Coastal Storms in 2016
by George Birchard (aka FishOutofWater)
So I just texted Chris Reeves on why we don't have a video of FOoW's presentation and he replied that someone sat in front of the camera so it's a video of the back of someone's head. lol. Duly noted. Before this latest exchange with Chris, we've already decided we're going to create a "perch" for our video recording camera. Next time.
I hope FOoW will be on hand to talk about his presentation, but better yet, perhaps he can do a diary on it. I'll link it here FTR.
George Birchard is an interdisciplinary environmental earth scientist and science communicator. He built and managed earth science research programs to develop understanding to safely regulate nuclear waste disposal. He was “Wild Bill” Libby’s (inventor of carbon dating) last doctoral student. He has taught, preached and sang in the choir. He dreams of perfect waves to bodysurf on tropical islands. He blogs at Dailykos as FishOutofWater. The smartest thing he ever did was getting married at 19 to his wife of 44 years, Teresa, who provides Ob/Gyn care to all in a rural eastern North Carolina community.
• Rural Healthcare Realities in North Carolina
by Teresa Birchard (aka Tbirchard)
Dr. Birchard provided an informative 20 minute description of the medical needs of rural communities and how politics affects the outcome of real life dramas all across North Carolina.
Teresa Birchard is a doctor, lawyer, and health educator who has provided women's health care in small island and rural communities for over 20 years. She provides Ob/Gyn care at a Federally Qualified Health Center in Sampson County. She is precinct chair and communications secretary for the Sampson county Democratic Party. She is a small town North Carolina native. She quit high school, graduated UNC Chapel Hill and UCLA law, however an inactive member of the California bar, then earned her MD from George Washington University. She has been married for 44 years to George Birchard who blogs as FishOutofWater. She blogs at Daily Kos as tbirchard.
• Video interview of Campaign Zero Activist DeRay McKesson
This is a first for our events, but I like it. It's difficult to send all our writers at once to these events and this is one way that they can participate remotely. Shaun recorded this interview a few days before our event.
Shaun King, former Daily Kos Contributing Editor, has a conversation with DeRay McKesson and McKesson's work with Campaign Zero, Black Lives Matters and his recent meeting with Bernie Sanders. McKesson states near the end of the interview that Campaign Zero is now labeling police brutality as police violence. "The police have actually been the violent people since August." McKesson wants to re-orient people's view of safety. "Policing" is racially coded. Watch...
DeRay McKesson is an activist, organizer and educator focusing primarily on issues impacting children, youth and families. He is a Teach For America alum, and has worked with Harlem Children's Zone, TNTP, opened an academic enrichment center in West Baltimore. DeRay is founder and co-editor of the Ferguson Protestor newsletter and is a member of We The Protesters, which organizes protests centering on African-American issues. In March of 2015 DeRay was named one of the "new civil rights leaders" for the 21st century by the Los Angeles Times. In addition to his social media activism, he has participated in discussions on CNN and written articles for the Huffington Post. He and fellow activist Johnetta Elzie and WeTheProtestors.org launched “Mapping Police Violence", which collected data on people killed by police during 2014 and were awarded the Howard Zinn Freedom to Write Award in 2015 for their activism, and named to Fortune's "World's Greatest Leaders List" for their work with the Black Lives Matter movement. Deray graduated from Bowdoin College in 2007 and currently resides in St. Louis.
Shaun King, a contributing editor here at Daily Kos, who is noted for his use of social media to promote religious, charitable and social causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement. His Daily Kos writing contributions have centered around civil rights issues and violence in Ferguson, Missouri and Charleston, South Carolina as well as allegations of police brutality toward the black community. Shaun is the founder of Justice Together, a new charity designed to fight police brutality.
• Leveraging Local & State Government Through Citizen Activism
by Democratic State Sen. Terry Van Duyn, City Councilman Gordon Smith & citizen activist Barry Summers
Moderator Randall Thompson duplicated a presentation from NC's January Bloggers Convention of how citizens can actually influence the lawmaker's ability to make decisions. Valuable advice was supplied from citizen activist, Barry Summers.
Terry Van Duyn, NC State Senator, is a Democratic member of the North Carolina Senate. She represents District 49, which includes constituents in Buncombe County, North Carolina. Van Duyn was appointed to the Senate in 2014 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Sen. Martin L. Nesbitt. She won election to a full term in her own right in November 2014. After the election, she was elected Minority Whip by her colleagues for the 2015-2016 session. For the past 20 years, Senator Van Duyn has been a tireless advocate for working families in Buncombe County. She has served on the Community Foundations of WNC Distribution Committee, chaired the board for Pisgah Legal Services, and volunteered as a healthcare navigator under the Affordable Care Act.
Gordon Smith, Asheville City Council has served on Asheville City Council since 2009 and says his focus has been on job creation, affordable housing, food security, transportation, and equality. He is chair of the city’s Housing and Community Development Committee and chair of the four-county Asheville Regional Housing Consortium. He was the founder of Asheville's political blog, Scrutiny Hooligans and has been a member of Daily Kos since 2003.
Barry Summers, Citizen Activist, is a visual artist who moved to Asheville in 1997. He has been active in local political issues ever since, for example as the founder of SaveOurWaterWNC, the activist group opposing the State takeover of Asheville's water system, and most recently, in studying the coming integration of drones into North Carolina and US airspace at WhenTheReapersComeHome.
• Activism Leads to Coalition
by citizen activist Barry Summers, Mountain Peoples Assembly's Carmen Ramos-Kennedy & Elaine Lite
Unfortunately, our video camera ran out of its limit of 8 hours of recording and we were unable to document our last segment. You'll have to take my word for it that is was very worthwhile. Summers showed time and time again that it took a coalition of local groups to effectively have an impact on state and local politics. He had scans and screenshots of numerous news reports of local coalition actions and his panel discussed the outcome. Many thanks to Summers and his dedication to affect the local politics of North Carolina.
Elaine Lite was a founding member of Mountain Voices Alliance and the Mountain People's Assembly. She co-organized a successful campaign in 2007 to keep Progress Energy from building a peaking power plant on the French Broad River and worked on the Save Our Water campaign to fight for Asheville's water system. She was also a primary organizer for Mountain Moral Monday in 2013. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Asheville-Buncombe NAACP, co-organized the Americans Who Tell The Truth exhibit, and is a representative on the Racial Justice Coalition.
Saturday photos from asterkitty:
davehouck, SteelerGrrl and Mr. SteelerGrrl
Fishoutofwater with pajoly and eeff sitting in the orange hat
mikebonehead, moviemeister76 and ?
We finished the evening with an After Party at nearby Lexington Avenue Brewery. Below are some of asterkitty's photos:
asterkitty, peregrine kate and Expatgirl
navajo, Chris Reeves, Isaac Coleman, Denise Oliver-Velez, Al McSurely and Bob Zellner
randallt, Jon Sitzman and joieau
tbirchard and Joan McCarter
Jon Sitzman, peregrine kate, asterkitty and ZenTrainer
asterkitty and navajo
navajo's photo of OPOL, peregrine kate and Daniel
navajo's photos of tbirchard wearing her husband FishOutofWater's gift, from which he purchased from Aji and Wings!
And from Sunday morning's brunch:
FishOutofWater, milkbonehead, moviemeister76, peregrine kate and Expatgirl
Markos Moulitsas, ZenTrainer and navajo
peregrine kate and navajo
Markos Moulitsas and asterkitty
And more photos from Friday's event have surfaced:
At St. James AME Church: Bob Zellner, Carmen Ramos-Kennedy,
Denise Oliver-Velez, DocDawg and Al McSurely
Edgery and MsSpentyouth at the St. James AME Church really swell Fish Fry!
Markos Moulitsas, Reverend William Barber II and randallt
Markos playing his own composition at the YMI Gallery
Video at Katherine Muller's facebook page.
a gilas girl and TexDem
Diaries so far on our fabulous Asheville weekend:
DKos Connect Asheville First Thoughts: Community & Content by pajoly
DKos Connects Asheville: Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around by Steeler grrl
DailyKos Connects Asheville: The Challenge for Us to Be David The Giant Killer by Chris Reeves
Top Comments - Daily Kos Connects Asheville by BeninSC
Asheville. Some parts rocked. Some parts sucked. by ZenTrainer
The Asheville Awakening by One Pissed Off Liberal
The sneaky new voter suppression tool in North Carolina, uncovered by one of our own by Joan McCarter