The highlight of Netroots Nation ‘14 was different for different people.
Some were there because of hopes that Elizabeth Warren would run in 2016.
Some were there for networking with others in Left Blogistan.
Some were there just to meet and greet kogs in person they had only known by screen name, or to reconnect with people they had met at previous gatherings.
But something unexpected happened right before he spoke, and I have been thinking about it ever since.
The speaker who introduced Rev. Barber was a total surprise: a dynamic woman I had never heard of before, who grabbed the room, held everyone’s attention, and left me wondering when she was going to burst on the national scene.
The wait is over.
All this activity is evidence the Blue Team in Georgia is on the move. This is more proof that we should not write off the Deep South. The Democrats who live there are not giving up and we are not giving up either. The pace of history and progress may be moving slowly there, but it is moving.
Stacey Abrams is a dynamic public speaker with strong progressive values, solid legislative experience and a compelling personal story. She has a chance. Win or lose, she is going to make some noise and push the envelope.
And if the Blue Wave really is coming, she will make history.
Here is the video and the transcript of her speech at NN14.
See for yourself.
Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams
Opening evening address to Netroots Nation
July 17, 2014
I want to start by telling you a story which I need to do because you have now heard from a list of very exciting people and you have no idea who I am and why I am here. So I'm going to tell you why.
I grew up in Mississippi. My parents are both from southern Mississippi. But I'm going to tell you about my mom.
My mother was a second grade drop out. Her parents got divorced and no one really was paying attention to her. And she decided to stop going to school. And she used to go to a neighbor's house Miss Gert.
And when we were younger we would have to go and visit Miss Gert and we didn't understand why we had to go to this old lady's house, that smelled a little different, but my mom said we have to go visit Miss Gert. And we would go every time we went to Hattiesburg.
Well one day my mother explained to us why we went to Miss Gert's house.
My mother grew up in abject poverty. My dad likes to joke that he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and she grew up on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks. Like her family was the family poor people made fun of.
But my mother came from a family that had never finished high school and she at the second grade realized she probably wasn't going to do it either.
But she would clean up for Miss Gert, and Miss Gert one day said Carolyn Hall, why aren't you in school?
And my mom explained she didn't have shoes, she didn't have money for the bus, she gave a litany of reasons.
And Miss Gert said Carolyn you need to go back to school. You're too smart to stop now.
So my mom screwed her courage to the sticking place and she took herself to third grade. And she walked in a little embarrassed because she was fairly certain they were going to hold her back. She would be the poor child with the bad clothes and now she would be behind a year.
She walked into that school and took herself to the principal's office and the principal opened the folder with her name on it, and there was a note from her second grade teacher, who had passed away. And that note said if Carolyn Hall ever comes back to this school, pass her on. She's smart enough to keep going. And for that reason my mother not only went back to third grade, she graduated as the valedictorian from her high school, went to college, went to graduate school and went to graduate school again. [applause]
My, my father as I told you was from a slightly more advantaged family they were just a little poor not a lot poor. My dad was a left handed dyslexic, an African-American man in Mississippi when dyslexia just meant you were stupid.
He was told by his teachers that the fact that he couldn't read was just a function of genetics and geography. And yet my dad taught himself to read, memorized his way through school, and he too graduated the first man in his family to finish high school and go on to college.
Now I tell you that story... I'm proud of my dad too.
But I tell you that story to tell you why I am here today.
I come from a family of miracles.
Where two people who found each other at the age of 15 have stayed together long enough not only for them to go on, but to produce six children who include two professors, myself a state legislator, my younger sister who is now a nominee to be a federal judge, my brother who's a social worker, my other brother who is figuring out what he is gonna be. But six children who all went to college and most of us went to grad school. [applause]
We did it, we did it because my parents refused to believe what they were told. But more importantly, because people like Miss Gert believed what they couldn't see.
Miss Gert didn't know my mom was as smart as she was. Miss Gert didn't know that that teacher had left that letter for my mother. But Miss Gert knew that what she saw had to be real and my mother had to go on. My father didn't know that he had dyslexia but he knew he was smart enough to not stop when the others told him he had to.
And that is why I am the Georgia House Minority Leader, because I believe that we will be Blue very soon. [applause and cheering]
I believe that the South... I believe the South is already Blue but just a little confused about it.
But that the more we keep talking and the more we do the more we understand what you all have seen for a while: this is a progressive nation, this is a progressive country, and the South is a part of that nation.
We have been the bastion of learning too many hard lessons not to be the victors in the end. And I believe that in the South and starting with Georgia, we are about to not only turn Georgia blue, but we're gonna turn the South blue, and we're gonna turn this nation Blue, and we're gonna make Blue mean something. [applause]
I come from a family that believes in miracles.
Because once, what my parents did... My mom became a librarian and my dad became a dockworker who eventually worked his way up as longshoreman, hurt himself, and when my parents had to figure out what they were going to do with their lives next, my parents became ministers. And if you believe that it's hard being a minister anywhere imagine being a minister in southern Missisippi, where it is hard to believe that anything good will ever come. It was my parents who taught us that no matter how little we have, there is always someone with less, and it's our job to serve them. And that is what netroots is all about. This is a community that believes in the possibility of more. A community that believes in the possibility of the future. But we don't wait for the future to come.
And as a southerner by birth and by choice, I believe that the south is blue. I believe that what Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter are pushing for in this election is possible. [applause]
More importantly, I believe in the 800,000 unregistered African American, Latino and Asian voters who simply need to be asked to come out. [applause and cheering]
I believe in the 1.7 million unregistered women and young people who just need us to say "show up".
I believe that it is not right for us to assume that we are lost simply because of our past. Because if past is a predictor I wouldn't be here.
I believe in the possibility of the South.
But I'm here to tell you I need help.
I'm here to tell you that what we have to do can only be done by having all of you engaged. I need you to do three things for me. The first one is educate.
Say educate (audience responds: educate)
Education is important and especially for us to have a progressive South. Because too often we don't know what we've done.
I'm a legislator and I believe my job is to go back and do an autopsy at the end of every...each session and explain what we did to you and why. And I'm tired of doing autopsies—I'd like to start doing more diagnosis. And that requires a progressive legislature. I'm tired of explaining why in 2014 when we are facing one of the worst times still in the South in terms of unemployment, we decided to strip unemployment benefits away from bus drivers, school bus drivers, take away the reproductive rights of women, and drug test the poor. That's what we decided. And just in case you missed it, we also decided to put guns everywhere and safety nowhere. That's Georgia.
But I believe that if we educate our people about what's being done, they will start to change it, and this is a community that understands how that education happens.
The left—the right will tell a lie a thousand times until it sounds like the truth. The left will tell the truth one time and when people don't say amen we stop talking.
But what Joel said is we have to be our own media. We have to be the ones willing to educate and tell the truth. We can't simply whisper to each other or tweet each other about this cool thing we read or this terrible thing we heard about.
We've got to not only tell each other we have got to tell other people. If they are not listening we have to go and find them because if we don't educate, they don't know.
So first you have to do what? (educate)
Look, I'm the daughter of ministers, you gotta do better than that—you gotta do what? (educate)
Thank you. The second thing I need you to to is activate.
say activate (activate)
Once we have educated, once we have explained what they've done, we have to explain what to do to them.
We spend too much time being the experimented upon, instead of the ones in the laboratory. We have to be willing to activate people and get them to turn out to vote.
When I look at this room I think of the diversity that exists here as compared to their conferences. And on their side it doesn't look like America, it looks like a really really small part of Utah. This room looks like America and if we are willing to activate ourselves from the top to the bottom across the spectrum of color we start to change.
So what are we gonna do? (activate)
And the third thing we need to do is agitate.
Say agitate (agitate)
I knew that would be your favorite one. Y'all were loud and … y'all were ready.
if you educate if you explain what has been done, and you activate you explain what needs to be done, tell them what's been done to them and tell them how to do something about it. When we don't behave, when politicians lie to you and show up and tell you nice stories and don't do their jobs, we have to agitate. We have to push back and demand better and we have to get rid of them if they won't do their jobs. I'm an elected official I was hired to do this work. I don't do my job I deserve to be fired.
It is activation agitation that fires me. It is going to those polls and not just picking the people you want but getting rid of the people you don't like.
We have to start firing people in the United States and firing people in Georgia, and we intend to begin this year in Georgia firing as many politicians as possible and hiring the right folks. [applause]
So I need you to do three things for me.
I need you to first do what? (educate)
Then? (activate)
And finally? (agitate)
And now I will vacate. Thank you.