The Bob & Elizabeth Dole Series on Leadership Featuring Wes Moore
When
This event has passed.
Video Transcript
00;00;02;54 [Jason Grumet]: Well, good afternoon. Welcome to this, The latest installment in the bipartisan policy center series on leadership in this series, we are calling on leaders from national and local politics from business advocacy, education, philanthropy, and the arts to come together and help us confront a really fundamental question, which is to understand what is it that enables some people, what are the characteristics and circumstances that allow some people to overcome conflict and to generate true leadership in a divided country? I think the,
00;00;36;39 um, conversation is more important today than ever. And to reflect on these core questions, we have really one of our nation's most dynamic leaders with us today as Wes Moore, while I tend to do short bios, it's almost impossible to do a short bio for, uh, for Wes. So let me just give you a little bit of a sense of Wes on paper, and then you're going to get them in, uh, at least two dimensions on the screen here for an hour with me, uh,
00;01;02;21 Wes is the CEO of the Robin hood foundation, which is one of, I think the nation's most interesting philanthropic exercises. It's a, is a change organization that tries to bring scalable solutions to address issues around opportunity poverty in the New York city. Metro area Wes grew up in Baltimore, which will be a significant aspect of our conversation today, as well as the Bronx. He attended Johns Hopkins university. Uh, he is a road scholar, a captain and paratrooper in the US army 82nd airborne spent a tour in Afghanistan. He also spent an equally
00;01;35;26 challenging tour at the White House working for Secretary Condoleezza Rice, a good friend of BPC’s before taking over as CEO of the Robin Hood foundation. He ran something called Bridge EDU, which is an innovative tech platform focusing on scaling solutions to college completion and addressing the job placement crisis. Um, so as you can imagine, Wes brings a number of pretty interesting perspectives to bear, but we are also going to focus very much today on this wonderful document, which is a book that just came
00;02;05;52 out in June.
00;02;07;02 [Jason Grumet]: It is Wes Moore The Fiery Reckoning of an American City Five Days. It obviously focuses on the, uh, crisis in Baltimore, that nation experience. Then I think the lasting ramifications of that discussion are incredibly relevant to what's happening in our country today. Um, before jumping into a, what is I believe was Wes's fourth or fifth book. I just want to acknowledge how proud we are to name this series. Uh, in honor, of the extraordinary service of Bob and Elizabeth Dole, Bob Dole one of BPC's founders has been a real essential voice in our
00;02;41;10 organization for many years, both he and Elizabeth I think could be understood to be proud partisans who have overcome through law careers, significant challenges and adversity, and really, I think demonstrated the kind of confidence and creativity that is necessary to build coalitions and lead the country forward. And it is in the spirit of that leadership that I am now really delighted to welcome Wes. Um, Wes, there are more than a couple of things I want to talk about what I want to try to do here over the next, you know, 45 minutes or so is talk a
00;03;10;05 little bit about this really remarkable book. I want to understand how it influences the work you're doing at the Robin Hood foundation, very interested in the, um, power forward, um, fund that, uh, you moved on in the last couple of weeks. And then I think this is all going to be informed by, um, a really heroically important national policy debate. We at the bipartisan policy center are trying to understand how we can help to architect and accelerate a bipartisan agenda that increases opportunity and
00;03;39;40 addresses racial injustice. Um, not a small question, but a question that you thought about a lot. So I guess I want to kick this off, um, by talking about this book a little bit and acknowledge Erica Green, your superb co-author, um, why'd you write this book Wes? the third with a tough question, right? I mean, you know, what motivated you to decide this was what you wanted? Cause I know how hard it is to write a book. What made you
00;04;04;21 want to write this book?
00;04;06;32 [Wes Moore]: Well, I, and first, I just want to say thank you. Uh, it's great to be in conversation with you and I, and I'm really honored, uh, to be here and also honored to and honored to be in conversation with a full understanding that there is not a singular, uh, political ideology that has the market cornered on good ideas. There's not a single political ideology that has, that can take responsibility for the levels of inequity that we have within our society. And, and the truth is, is that what we need is a holistic and a consistent and a committed group
00;04;37;60 of people who understand that the levels of inequity and the cutoffs of opportunity that we have within our society, uh, should not stand no matter who is sitting in what seat. Uh, and so it really is. It's a real honor to be in there. And honestly, frankly, an honor, when I think about the, the service that, uh, that Senator Dole gave to our country repeatedly, uh, whether it's in uniform or out, uh, it's a, it's, it's a real, it's a real honor to, to be in a, you know, to be able to have this conversation, that name, and, and, and, and I think about that actually in context of this book in, in the
00;05;09;50 book five days where I remember being at Freddie Gray's funeral, and that morning I was there when there were only about hundreds of people there, eventually thousands of people went to Freddie Gray's funeral that day. But, but the thing that really struck me was, was twofold. One was that was the first funeral that I've ever been to, of someone who I never knew in life. And that was part of the problem. Uh, the second thing was, as I was
00;05;39;18 looking around the church, and you're looking around at, uh, at people from all stratas of society, from, you know, people who are from the neighborhoods to elected officials, to business leaders, um, you looked around the room and you wondered were any of us willing to do what it would take to be able to address the massive failure and the series of failures
00;06;04;39 that took place in the life of Freddie gray.
00;06;06;59 [Wes Moore]: And I had an opportunity in those weeks after to have conversations with, you know, every walk of life in Baltimore, from, you know, business leaders to small business owners, uh, and, and really getting a sensing and hearing from people to activists and hearing from people. What do you make of what happened? What was your takeaway? And I heard every Stripe of opinion about what happened, what was the takeaway, what is next steps look like? And so really what I wanted to do with this
00;06;39;03 story was actually be able to invite the reader into many of the conversations that I was having, where in the book, five days, I was able to follow these eight different people. These eight lives very interesting, but also very complex and disparate lives and really walk through their life through those five days. And really then analyze what I hoped, what I hoped would then be the bigger takeaway for the readers to understand not
00;07;03;33 just the tragedy of his death, but frankly, the tragedy of his life.
00;07;08;52 [Jason Grumet]: So, um, Wes, I think, you know, one of the most interesting aspects of the book was just the very structure of it, right? Just in deciding that there was no single perspective, right? The question of what happened. I think can't be answered individual story choice to bring eight different people's perspectives together. I think really insists more than just, it's more than just an artistic strategy. I think it reflects a lot about the kind of complex structures that are really embedded in this whole story. And so, you know, talk a little bit about the people you chose. What was it about, you know, Greg's story or
00;07;41;21 Anthony who ran the roller rink or, you know, Nick and the city council. I mean, we know there are hundreds of people just talk a little bit about how these eight people became kind of the icons of the narrative that you wanted to unfold.
00;07;55;09 [Wes Moore]: And I tell you, it's interesting because that was actually, for me, one of the most fun parts of the whole process was actually winning way down and getting down to the eight lives that I actually wanted to follow throughout that period. And, and one thing I feel, uh, that the book does capture is no matter where you are on the political spectrum, no matter where you are on the economic spectrum, no matter how you feel about what happened those days, there was someone in that book who resonates with you. And there's also someone in that book who also you completely disagree with. And the amazing thing is that's life.
00;08;28;27 And so what I wanted to do was, and one on one of the able to show is how that actually does show itself in many different ways. And so whether it was looking at, and following the life of Towanda Jones, who was a woman who lost her brother to police violence two years prior, and when the gray family was then reaching out to, Towanda, you know, having the conversation about asking her to march with them, because they still respected her work. And so she was so proud of Baltimore that Baltimore was stepping up, but at
00;08;57;14 the same time, she's thinking to herself, but where was this when my brother was killed or whether it's following the life of Marc Partee, who's a police major who actually grew up in Wes Baltimore. And as he's growing up in Wes Baltimore, he's one of the highest ranking African-Americans in the entire Baltimore city police department, but he standing there and he and I, and I remember specifically when he said to me, I know none of my colleagues woke up that morning with homicide in their mind. But what I
00;09;25;39 also know is I understand why the kids in Wes Baltimore don't believe me, or whether it's following John Angelos, who is a, who was the son of the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, the head of baseball operations. Who's one of the people that made the final decision to actually play baseball’s first ever game with no fans, because Baltimore's in the middle of a state of emergency because he wanted the world to see this, or whether it is Greg Butler, a high school basketball star turned protester, but someone who has
00;09;54;18 dodged death so many different times and found himself getting a basketball scholarship, being one of the top players in the entire city of Baltimore, but then only having a snafu within the Baltimore city public school system that ended up taking a scholarship away.
00;10;10;32 [Wes Moore]: And so it's things like this when you watch how all these different perspectives brought these people to these different moments at this and this, this, this same unified fashion and how the death of Freddie Gray really led to almost this crash moment, um, that people then had to think about, and people had to absorb,
00;10;28;31 [Jason Grumet]: We're going to come back. You know, we're going to come back to this a lot when we start talking about solutions. But, um, you know, the only thing that really resonated for me was what you just mentioned about Greg and the extent to which little inflection points in people's lives have vastly different impacts depending upon the social and the community fabric around you. Right? So I think as we think about solutions, you know, we at BPC tend to think about these broad kind of systemic policy changes and recognizing that, you know, a school districts
00;10;58;11 discern decision about how to calculate a grade point average, fundamentally altered the arc of this kid's life. And I know that, you know, if that happened to your kids or my kid, we'd be in there with the guidance counselor, trying to understand what went wrong and just recognizing the social fabric that has Just to be part of the solution in addition to broad economic policy. Um, I think, you know, really had an impact on me, which is kind of an opportunity for us to shift a little bit now into, um, thinking about your work at Robin Hood. And I think we're going to be blending back and forth between the, the book and the, um, the policy responses as we go here. But,
00;11;32;37 um, let's talk a little bit about the Robin Hood foundation because I didn't one of the core ideas that animates a lot of your work is the reality that this is about systems and systemic change. I think the book reveals the fact that there is a complex system that is not going to adjust overnight absent a lot of external support and pressure, but so what do you learn from the book that's informing the kind of work you're doing at Robin Hood
00;11;58;26 and just for folks who don't know, you know, Robin, Hood's invested about $3 billion since 2016 in hundreds of community organizations, a couple of hundred million dollars a year, but Wes give us a little bit of a understanding about, um, the kind of priorities for the foundation and how it's structured.
00;12;14;43 [Wes Moore]: So, so, uh, you know, Robin Hood is a it's a 32 year old organization. And, and really start off in 1988, when the group of, you know, group of founders from Robin Hood looked and said, you know, we think, and they're all in the, in the, in the finance business and finance industry. And they said, we think this is going to be a tough year for the markets, but you know who this is really gonna be a tough year for it's for people who are already living in poverty and the challenge then where they looked and they said, you know, we want to be able to take what we know, which is data and analytics, and how do you take that
00;12;44;37 framework into the way that we fight poverty? So how do you use data and metrics to be able to identify, find and fund the most effective organizations that are actually working in addressing these issues of poverty and, and, you know, you're absolutely right where, you know, Robin had initially started off making about $40,000 worth of grants. Now, when you look at the work of Robin Hood, uh, in our, in our history, we've now allocated North of 3 billion and funding everything from everything in areas of education, early childhood job training programs,
00;13;15;48 uh, immigration issues, criminal justice issues, housing, uh, mental and physical health, anywhere that poverty is either the cause or the consequence we will find we will fund, we will build. And we will leverage in order to create long term and large scale impact and change, you know, but what's interesting is I think the, the, the book is also really informed. Uh, and it's also a real indication of also how I think about this work, um, where, you know, one of the things that we've been able to
00;13;46;11 incorporate within Robin Hood has actually been a policy weight, and it's for the first time in the organization's history, but we've actually added a policy wing to our work.
00;13;55;08 [Wes Moore]: And a big reason for that is because we cannot, none of us can properly talk about the impacts of poverty without also talking about the impacts of policy in making that happen, that we still have policies that are in place right now that are both putting people and keeping people in poverty. And so our ability as a, as a, as a change organization, as a change agent, who's focused on this issue of economic mobility out of poverty, knows that we have to be able to leverage the type
00;14;26;21 of systems that are currently in place. And you're absolutely right where, you know, I saw it and how that worked, how that worked directly in terms of, in terms of looking at the story of what happened with Freddie gray. Because if you look at the story of Freddie gray, it's a perfect illustration of not just why this work matters and why philanthropy matters, but also why philanthropy can't be enough, because oftentimes we would have these conversations about what happened in terms of the death of
00;14;55;43 Freddie gray and policing and the failure and the breakdown of the policing policy. But we forget about it, have a real conversation about his life. And if you look at Freddy Gray's life, you will, you understand why that should be just as heartbreaking to people As his death, Because Freddie Gray was a young man. And when you look at this store, the short life of Freddie Gray, it is truly a story of societal failure, where this was a young man who was born underweight and premature and addicted to
00;15;29;02 heroin. His mother had battled addiction for most of her life. She never made it to high school and she could not read nor write. And when Freddie and his twin sister actually gained enough weight to leave
00;15;44;09 [Wes Moore]: The hospital, that They were able to leave the hospital. And they moved into a housing project in Wes Baltimore, that housing project in 2009, along with 480 other homes were cited in a civil lawsuit because of the endemic levels of lead Inside of that home. Okay. And the CDC actually indicates that if a person has six milliliters of every six milliliters of lead in every deciliter of blood, that person will have cognitive damage for the remainder of their life. Freddie Gray had 36
00;16;18;46 and we've known the toxic impacts. And that, that lead is a neurotoxin for over a century inside this country. Uh, we just have been incredibly class in color color-based in the way we then chose to deal with it. And the reality is, is that when you think about that week there, Freddie was in a coma that week that Freddie was laying inside of a hospital bed, only breathing because of machines and tubes, that honestly might have been the
00;16;46;45 most peaceful week in his life. And I say Yeah, because that was a week when he was surrounded by doctors and nurses. It was a week when he was surrounded by activists and lawyers. It was a week when the entire city knew his name. It was a week when the entire city cared, whether he lived or died. Freddie's life story was a story of injustice and societal failure. And I think about it in context. And this
00;17;13;34 is top of mind because, you know, I'm just, you know, recently, you know, reading that, you know, even when we look at how, and this is where it goes back to where policy matters, not just in the policies that are put in place, but also the narrative that policy makers can draw around this, where I'm recently reading that, you know, the, the, the governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan has a new book out. And he described Freddie as a, as a quote unquote, a Crips gang connected street level drug dealer with
00;17;39;44 a long criminal rap sheet known well to these Baltimore city police.
00;17;45;22 [Wes Moore]: And I know Freddie Gray's life. And so I find the statement absolutely appalling, particularly when you're talking about that being one of your constituents. And so, and, and I have to say it because the truth does matter in the reporting that in my book, I saw no evidence that he was, that he was gang affiliated and the governor offers none of that in the book. And so when we think about this, the point is, is that when we're talking about the impact of Robin Hood or other philanthropies that are taking place, that we can do important and catalytic work, we can
00;18;16;57 do important work. That can be risk capital, that we can drive innovation, that some of the, some of the investments that I'm most proud of, that we have made in Robin Hood, frankly, are investments that we no longer have to make, because the problem has either been solved or it's now been put something up that it was so successful. Then it was then passed on to government to scale. Those are the type of investments that work, those type of investments that we can believe in. But I also know that in the life of Freddie Gray, he never had a shot
00;18;46;40 And he deserved lawmakers. He deserved elected officials. He deserved the governors who actually believed that his life actually mattered. And so this is where policy, this is where systems have to come in place, because there is no amount of philanthropy that could have made up for the devastation of a young man who was born underweight addicted to heroin lead poisoned. His last, his last documented year in school was in the 10th grade when he was 19 years old, he was in special education classes, his
00;19;17;16 entire life because of the lead poisoning. He lived in dire poverty for his entire life. That's not a failure on Freddie.
00;19;27;28 [Wes Moore]: That's an indictment of all of us. The fact that this young man never had a shot. And how do we then rethink our systems to be able to provide platforms where opportunity and ambition can actually meet each other and not essentially be just become cynical. And so we have to acknowledge our, our own role in the failures that led up to lives like that and where we're all of us have a collective responsibility, all of us in philanthropy, all of a sudden government, all of a sudden business, there's a corporate sector that has to play a role in this, but we also
00;19;58;47 have to understand that it's not going to be individual adjustments around the edges. We really have to rethink why so many people, uh, don't have a chance and why exceptionalism and individuals that can make it up through the cracks, uh, have become my hallmark. And, but unfortunately still very much become exceptions. So, um,
00;20;21;03 [Jason Grumet]: Yeah, there's some beautiful sentences in this book. One of my favorites I'm just gonna read, which is the American dream you define as an unconscious state That contains shades Reality, but it's ultimately unmoored from it focusing. I think the facts that we're aware of, which is, you know, when the OEC D now it takes five generations on average to move from poverty, the middle class A hundred years. I think if you look at mobility, The United States basically was doing pretty well until about the 1980s when it kind of stalled out. And now despite our imagination of work hard
00;20;51;60 and get ahead in American dream for the vast majority of people, that's just not true. That there's much greater social mobility and the UK and Canada and other democracies. And so fundamentally this is a systems issue. Um, one of the other powerful ideas in the book, um, for me was this black butterfly effect, the professor, Larry Brown's kind of mapping of Baltimore. And just showing that geographically, if you are in either of these wings of the
00;21;15;17 [Jason Grumet]: Butterfly, you're basically kind of trapped. So talk About how, you know, Robin Hood and how you think about kind of taking on some of those Structural systems. And then I want to come back to this question of exceptionalism. I think he has a mission thoughts, but you know, what is it, early child development? Is it incentive Just for work and the snap nutrition program? Where do you see the high leverage opportunities right now?
00;21;38;14 [Wes Moore]: Yeah, so, you know, it's, um, you know, one thing, and when I think about what's happening for, for, for so many people, we think about both the long term implications of what we're talking about, the fact that, that, uh, that deep child poverty and child poverty in this country right now cost this country anywhere between 800,000,001 point $1 trillion a year, uh, that's the cost of child poverty. That's the cost of the fact that for so many children, we are cutting off their, their ability to have that levels of economic mobility. And one thing that we do
00;22;10;36 know is that for people who were born in poverty, that you have a greater than 50% chance of dying in poverty, your, your point is absolutely right. The lack of mobility that we have in this country right now is, is not just staggering, but frankly it strikes at the heart of this idea of the American dream, that we all talk about the idea that, that someone can do better than their parents, because statistically, as of right now in this
00;22;36;08 country, it's essentially a coin flip.
00;22;38;35 [Wes Moore]: Uh, but it's not something that in any way, shape or form is not even guaranteed, but it's not something in any way, shape or form that there's even a higher probability that that is going to be the case. And we see how there are structural things that we can immediately do. Uh, you know, talking about how do we have a combination of work supports for parents, uh, you know, and the expansion of supports for children, you know, like snap, uh, that can alleviate childhood poverty. How can we make adjustments to the child tax credit that we know would have a significant impact and specifically, because the way the child tax credit
00;23;11;15 is currently aligned, and this is a program that's intended to support the most vulnerable children and families in our society. That for example, 54% of African American children do not qualify for the supports from the child tax credit. And this would require an investment, but this investment is far from onerous because our federal governments, you know, our federal government will spend more than, you know, more than $4 trillion a year in 2018, that was around the number, but cutting child poverty in half would cost roughly
00;23;41;20 a hundred billion of that, which is a significant number, but it's a little bit more than 2% of what we're talking for. The federal budget, cutting child poverty in half and completely eliminating deep chopped poverty. And so these are things that we know that if we can make some basic adjustments to how we are going to prioritize to the things that we know are going to be important when it comes to giving children a, uh, you know, giving children a better chance when we know, for example, for example, that if
00;24;09;08 you just, if you just look at 2018 for children born in 2018, you would protect more than 350,000 children from lead exposure and yield about two point $7 billion of future benefits.
00;24;21;14 [Wes Moore]: If we were to go through the process of addressing leg bait, lead based paint hazards in the home of low-income children. And so this is about, are we going to be deliberate? And are we going to be focused on it? We have now gone on for, for, for 40 plus years on the idea of a war on poverty, but here's the reality is, you know, as a, as a, as a combat veteran, I know what war looks like. And I know it means that you are willing to use every tool and asset at your disposal to be able to
00;24;52;17 defeat the enemy. We have not had a legitimate war on poverty going on for all that time, and that's not something that's an, and I'm you know, saying it here in front of this group is that that's not an indictment on a political party because the truth is, is that, you know, we can talk about policies and positions that were put in place, regardless of the political affiliation of who was sitting inside of the oval office and know that only thing that's happened during the same time that we've had a war on poverty is we have watched discrepancies and disparities
00;25;23;36 economic disparities, wealth disparities explode during that time period. And so if we were to do things like focusing on, uh, basics like led abatement, focus on basics, like creating true adjustments to the child tax credit, focused on basics, like making sure that every child, when they're entering into a school that, that school is as prepared for that child to be able to come in and learn and create all the other assets that are going
00;25;50;00 to be needed and necessary for that child will be able to have that level of not just economic, uh, you know, not just, not just academic, uh, fulfillment, but also economic stability and sustainability focusing on things like how can we make adjustments to childcare policies right now that are going to keep the economy from being able to revive itself from what we've seen over these past four months. And so really being deliberate though about how we're going to prioritize our budgeting assets and how we're to use that in a way Be able to support the most vulnerable is actually the most powerful way that we're going to drive economic, that we're going to drive a level of economic boom and economic boost to the situations that we're seeing right now.
00;26;18;38 [Jason Grumet]: Let me just remind folks that we are going to be opening this up for a little more of a conversation. So you can enter your questions in the live chat or at a #BPClive via Twitter. Um, I guess a moment of maybe some optimism and then some challenge. So I share your sense of optimism around investments in early childhood. And it a little
00;26;50;35 bit of a BPC advertisement. We came out with a study yesterday with University of Arizona called start with equity early years to early grades, which looks at the extent to which it's not just a question of resources, but there are also some deals deeply embedded cultural biases that are really undermining children of color in terms of their aspirations. And so I think there is, um, a lot data there. That's very compelling. This point of optimism is it's probably also the place where we're finding some of the, the most authentic and vigorous bipartisan support. You know, our
00;27;19;45 efforts had been led by Rick Santorum and George Miller, right. You know, to folks, if you know, DC politics do not tend to ride the same subway. And, um, when we're looking at what's happening, even in this emergency crisis, I think there's some real motivation around child tax credit and a kind of a second look at tax policy, which, um, I think you point to, so that's the optimism. I want to talk a little bit about the Covid crisis though, because I know Robin Hood is very focused on this, but one of the things that we know, and I'm just going to add a couple of stats is that,
00;27;50;01 um, communities of color started behind and they're going to come out of this crisis farther behind, right.
00;27;55;07 [Jason Grumet]: We did some interesting polling with the Rockefeller foundation. And if I can just share, uh, a couple of stats, um, in terms of lost wages, through lost jobs or reduced pay, that's affected 36% of the white households. We polled 59% of the Hispanic households and 54% of the black households as a result. I think accelerated by the fact that, uh, you know, communities of color have had lower savings, um, 44% of black, 42% of Hispanic, and only 23% of white households have had to tap it into
00;28;25;33 emergency savings. And what I find most discouraging is, um, missed payments. So, so 23% of white households have missed a mortgage payment or a utility bill, 42% of Hispanic and 44% of, um, every American household had miss payments and so that means folks are coming out of this crisis with worst credit, vulnerable to eviction. Um, so what are we doing together, right? What are we doing to think about how to take advantage?
00;28;55;30 Everyone's talking about building back stronger, if it feels right, it feels moral, it feels just, um, where do you feel like the opportunities are to actually get our arms around that challenge build back stronger?
00;29;13;44 [Wes Moore]: Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a great question. And let me also first say applaud you all the research, because it's not just important research, it's an important, it's an important setter as to how we actually need to be understanding and looking at this work because you're absolutely right. The desegregation of the data, uh, is staggering because when you look at what's happened in, in, in 2020, um, you know, 2020 has been a helper year. Uh, and, has thrown these two genuine crises at our doorstep, you know, the first was this introduction of a virus that has had this absolutely catastrophic health and economic
00;29;46;04 implications on our society. And in many ways, uh, has not just, uh, has not just exposed, but it has exacerbated. It's exposed the fact that if you look in New York city alone, and this is data that we did with, with Columbia university, uh, half of new Yorkers prior to COVID-19, half of new Yorkers have spent a least a year in poverty over the past four years, not half of a borough, not half of a group, half of the city has
00;30;16;19 been in poverty for at least a year over the past four years prior to COVID-19.
00;30;22;45 [Wes Moore]: And the other thing that I think 2020 is thrown at us is just this very unneeded reminder of how inequitable policing is in different communities, right? But the reality is that both of these two crises, in many ways, they actually, despite being very different crises, they expose the very same truth. And that is while and the same truth you highlight in your report. The wild COVID-19 has impacted everybody. It did not impact everybody equally, and that people of color have contracted COVID at twice the rate and also died at twice the rate and that police
00;30;54;34 reform is going to be necessary for all communities. But the reality is, is that in this case, we watched George Floyd on camera take his last breaths while handcuffed face down on the floor with a grown man, nonchalantly leaning his knee into his neck. And we watched his name being added to this longer lineage of others to include Michael Brown and Philando Castile and Freddie Gray and Walter Scott and Sean Bell and Eric Gardner and Sandra Bland
00;31;24;38 and Breonna Taylor and, and Laquan McDonald and Tamir Rice and Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin, and the list goes on. So these twin crises expose a singular truth in many ways, and that is the role that race plays in our society. And that dealing with COVID is not simply going to be about the discovery of a vaccine and dealing with inequitable policing is not simply going to be about the elimination of
00;31;52;09 choke holes or no knock warrants. And the protests that we're seeing around the country are not just about police, who are formed. They are about racism and how we see itself showing itself, and so many different varieties and in so many different forms that we within our society. And so there's the things when I think about where we are right now, and actually the thing that I actually re I remain hopeful, I really do remain hopeful about where we can end up in all of this is that one thing I'm seeing and
00;32;23;27 feeling is that people are understanding that when we're talking about what does justice mean?
00;32;28;07 [Wes Moore]: Just justice does not mean how are we thinking about criminal justice? Because it also has to mean how are we thinking about economic justice? How are we thinking about this reality that 23% of people who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19 actually were living in poverty prior to COVID-19. I E they were the working poor, the people who were working jobs, and in many cases have multiple jobs and still living below the poverty line. How do we focus on things like health, justice, and the
00;33;00;56 reality that for black women who have breast cancer, they're 43% times more likely to die of breast cancer than a white woman with breast cancer. How do we think about things like employment justice and the reality that an African American without a criminal record has less of a chance of getting hired than a white person with a criminal record research that literally just came out from the Brennan center. And so these are things that we think we have to be able to factor in and be honest about that we have to be able to disaggregate the data and go
00;33;30;25 where the data leads us. We have to be able to take a, take a bipartisan approach to these issues and know that every budget that we pulled together is a moral document. And that in order for our society to grow and build, it means that we have to be led by data and humanity. We have to be data-driven and we have to be heartless. And we have to know that we can actually do this because I know sometimes it can be amazingly frustrating for people and they will sit. And they'll say, I don't know how we're
00;33;57;57 going, how we get past this. I don't know, you know, it, it's not going to get better.
00;34;01;58 [Wes Moore]: We're always going to be dealing with these issues and I can't help, but think to myself, that's what people were saying during the heart of slavery, too. But we have people who are willing to fight and people who are willing to bend that moral arc towards justice as Dr. King says, well, the moral arc is long, but it bends towards justice. It does because we have people on the other end who are pulling it that way. And I'm sure there were people who were saying that when it came to a woman's right to vote, and I'm sure there were people who were saying that
00;34;31;37 about marriage equality, but people kept pushing. And that's really where this is our time to be able to do the same thing, that if we know these things exist and we know these disparities exist, we know what the racial wealth gap is. We know what the health gap is. We know what the policing gap is. We see these things, and unfortunately we're seeing it live on television. What then becomes our responsibility to be able to address it. And if the collective action that we have around it, the collective action and the
00;35;02;18 understanding that it should not just be the impacted population who has to consistently carry the water to be able to make change happen. That's actually what gives me a significant amount of hope that we're going to actually be able to get something done with this stuff.
00;35;16;28 [Jason Grumet]: So let's, let's talk about how we can speed up that long moral arc a little bit. And I'll tell you the question that we're struggling with the most, which is how do you create a bipartisan agenda for racial justice? And I say, bipartisan, not because that's kind of a spiritually nice idea. If we have a divided country and we fundamentally believe you want durable change, you're going to have to have Some broader political bias. So I think there's a general sense, and I certainly share it that something has happened that is different and durable. And we just saw police reform legislation go, absolutely no place in the United States Congress, right?
00;35;48;51 So these are our two truths, right. Data and humanity. I really liked that framing. So let me ask you a question that we're grappling with, which is, do you feel like economic justice can be an effective proxy for racial justice? And I'll back that up a little bit by just saying some of the work that's been done around Minneapolis, which had some incredibly progressive policies really focused on race, neutral economic opportunity, but the presumption was, if you have inequality and you bring race neutral equality
00;36;17;01 forward, you will have a disproportionate benefit to people of color. And it kind of didn't work out that way, right? What you found, or at least what the literature I've read says is that the communities of color didn't have the social access to some of those programs, you saw a lot of lower middle class, white folks getting access to low income housing. And so I go back to that story with Greg Butler about not having a parent say, what the hell is going on with your guidance counselor, you know, eliminating you from the NCAA. And at the same time, we struggle with the notion that it's
00;36;46;29 going to be harder to develop a broad-based bipartisan policy. If the focus is around racial justice and economic justice. And so we're grappling with those two questions, and I would just wonder, are you thinking about that tension now?
00;36;57;38 [Wes Moore]: It's important. And it's, it's a very real tension and it's an important tension. And part of the thing is, and I think you actually, you, you actually hit the nail on the head earlier is when you're looking at the level of disparity and also understand that that level of disparity is not an accidental level of disparity. I think, you know, we have to be able to collectively understand the role that race has played in our nation and its history, understanding the fact that, and be honest about the fact that this is a country that was
00;37;28;17 founded on a racial hierarchy, right? It was founded on stolen land, was stolen labor. And that we have laws that were created to segregate and discriminate, and it goes well past slavery, right? Cause people would say, well, slavery is a long time ago, but then right after slavery, we went to reconstruction in black codes and Jim Crow. And so you saw this thing continue to show itself. And I think one of the things that we have to be able to collectively do needs to be honest about that level of history. Honestly, I'll be honest about the fact that we had
00;38;00;09 a subsidization of the build out the suburbs, honest about the fact that we had a GI bill, which is responsible for some, maybe some of the greatest buildout of the middle class in this country that worked really well unless you were black, because they were excluded from the benefits of the GI bill, understanding the importance of inherited wealth when it comes to not just, you know, not just, you know, wealth creation, but also the explosion of the wealth differential. And one of the first, one of the things that I think our nation needs to be able to do is to be able to have the level of
00;38;30;55 courage, both at a national level, but also in local levels of being able to do what other nations have been able to do.
00;38;37;09 [Wes Moore]: And that is actually to have a true truth and reconciliation and a truth in unity process, where to understand how we move forward. We have to be honest about our own past. And I look at how South Africa was able to do it. I look at how Chile was able to do it. I look at how Northern Ireland was able to do it. I look at our Columbia was able to do it. I look it out, Canada did it twice, but an ability to be able to be honest about our own paths and have that be a framework to understand what we need to do in terms of understanding our own future. I
00;39;08;06 think that becomes absolutely crucial. And to your point, coming up with race neutral policies, when we're already coming from a place of such significant deficit becomes complicated because actually in many ways what it ends up doing, it ends up exacerbating that level of differentials. I mean, one thing I think we saw in research showed about the impact of even things like the, of the impact of, of loan, forgiveness, and debt forgiveness, where, where on a surface, it sounds great. But when you understand the level of debt that we have in the differentials of debt,
00;39;38;41 when it comes to African American and white communities that a debt forgiveness, actually what ends up happening is when you look at the data over a 20 year period of time, it actually ends up exploding the debt differentials again. And so we, we need to be honest about that. And, and as a, and as you know, they're a party, uh, uh, you know, validators continue to justify, you know, what's often missing from these conversations is that we have to be able to bring an intentional and
00;40;05;47 explicit and a sustained focus on addressing racial disparities across the problems that we are trying to solve.
00;40;12;16 [Wes Moore]: It's not just going to be effective. It's going to be one of the ways that we're actually going to be able to address these problems from a long term for a long-term basis. And it is not, it's not in a way to play gotcha. Or it's not no way to play. I told you so, but if we are really, if we really want to live up to the ideals of what this country laid out in the first place, it needs to be something that we have to be honest about our levels of history and loving your country doesn't mean lying about it, loving your country means being willing to step up and do
00;40;46;55 what it takes to make it's greatest promises. It's greatest documents, its greatest joys and its, and its greatest promises. Something that is going to be real for everybody to be able to understand and enjoy and not just be, look at it with a sense of, of not just, uh, not just cynicism, but frankly, uh, you know, it becomes even worse than a sense of cynicism. It actually becomes a real sense of a, you know, a real sense of, of a neck
00;41;13;32 and unintentional pain, um, that I think we have a lot of people who continue to feel about where they are and about their prospects for the future.
00;41;22;43 [Jason Grumet]: So I'm going to turn to questions here in a minute, but there's one more topic I really want to kind of explore with you a little bit. And that's the role of the private sector? We're talking a lot about government. I think we see the ambition and the potential of government. I think Congress has done some pretty remarkable things in the last several months, but we also see the limitations and a lot of what we focus on. A lot of what Robin focuses on is this changing voice of the private sector. You've commented that you're seeing the words black lives matter, pop a lot in mission statements. Um, what are you seeing is the
00;41;53;45 kind of opportunity in the role and that kind of durable change from corporate America? Because there are certainly a lot of people who say, look, they were all there for their tax cuts. You know, now we have this kind of ballooning, inequity growing deficits, which diminish our opportunity capacity. So it ha but they're clearly fundamentally concerned about their communities. There's some significant efforts moving towards a broader conception of the role of the corporation. You're working with a lot of the nation's top corporate leaders. How do they envision their role
00;42;24;32 in being part of the solution?
00;42;26;18 [Wes Moore]: Yeah, I think, uh, it's, it's crucial that we have the private sector who understand, you know, their role in being able to enact change. Uh, and, and it's for it's, it's on a few different levels and it's for a few reasons, uh, you know, one is in order to truly create the type of growth and the type of expansion and the type and the kind of margins that the province is open to see. It means how do you increasing more customers, how you increasing more people that actually have the capacity to buy your products. Uh, and then with that, how then are you
00;42;56;60 using your increase ability and increased leverage to be able to be able to expand your, you know, you know, not just expand your market share, but also expand the opportunities within our largest society. You mean, I, and I think about it where, you know, when we have booming economies, when we have low unemployment, uh, that's just not, not just good for the communities that are being served, but that's good for corporations. It means more people out there and purchasing. And so I think there's a few different things that corporate that corporate America can really do. You know, some of it's just on their own internal, practical side where this
00;43;28;18 actually provides a good opportunity and an important opportunity for them to think and rethink about the different pathways that they have for people, all people, people of color, people who come from impacted communities to be able to have not just entry level into their business and operations, how are they doing it and thinking about it from the level of gender diversity and, and adding to their, to their spaces. So we've seen it work before, but we have to make sure we can make it a universally accepted policy and a universally accepted priority for the
00;43;58;50 private sector. How are they thinking about their boards and their C suite and their supplier and their vendor diversity?
00;44;05;22 [Wes Moore]: How are we considering the fact that we, you look at basic issues of capital, how difficult it is for organizations that are led by people of color to actually gain basic access to capital, maybe see it in the, in the, in the level of, of VCs where only about 2% of the VC capital goes to organizations that are led by people of color by African Americans. But we also see in the world of philanthropy, we see in my own space where 80% of the population that I serve that the Robin and serves are people of color. But the reality is in the world of philanthropy, only
00;44;35;18 about 10% of philanthropic dollars go to organizations led by people of color. And so actually in response to this Robin Hood pulled together a new initiative called powerful, which is really focused exclusively on funding and elevating nonprofit leaders of color who share our mission from this, you know, increasing mobility from poverty, because we know that that, you know, when you can, when you can add that lens, when you can add that function and bring strategies that are instead of from people who instantly understand the racialized experience that are, that are facing communities
00;45;07;01 of color, it's going to actually help elevate the field. But even from the private sector side, their ability to think about their own boards, their own C-suites their own practices and also their own voice because when the private sector wants to get things done in Washington, they have no problem getting anybody on the phone. If a large corporation wants to make a point about a certain policy that's being thought through or certain policies that is good, that or certain adjustment that's going
00;45;34;12 to be made, they have no issue getting a Congressman or a Senator or the president on the phone. But what about when it comes to issues like things like the child tax credit, or what about when it comes to other issues that we know that they could have a significant impact and actually not just helping to lead on the debate, but helping to control the debate, will they use the same level of influence there will they use their same level of voice there?
00;46;00;51 [Wes Moore]: And so this is where I think when we're talking about these larger societal changes that we're hoping to make, this is not just something where, where foundations or corporations, or, or just thinking about it from the philanthropic aspect, but thinking about all the other levers that we have to be able to address this issue of economic of economic justice is actually a quote that sits on my desk from Dr. King. And it says philanthropy is commendable, but the philanthropist can never forget the economic injustice that makes philanthropy necessary. And
00;46;30;56 corporate America has a role to be able to address that level of economic injustice. Again, not just because it's just the right thing to do, but because it's going to help your business significantly as well.,
00;46;44;49 [Jason Grumet]: Let me start to turn to a couple of the questions that I think they, same conversation that David Brown at Exelon, which has a strong corporate history of promoting diversity, acknowledged that the debate over many of these proposed solutions has devolved into partisan bickering. Interested in your thoughts on what are some tactical efforts to break through these challenges? How do you avoid having, you know, racial justice align in the same kind of partisan trenches that has disabled so many efforts to date? You spoke about that a little bit, but are there some particular tactical ideas that you'd like to?
00;47;13;50 [Wes Moore]: Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's a great question and an important one. And, uh, and, and I think, you know, part of the way that I know that, uh, that, that, that I lead part of the way that I know our organization leads is, you know, I, we move on data. Uh, I, I don't move on emotive splurges, right? I move on data and the data of the interplay of racial injustice and economic injustice is so blatantly clear. And so there are actually ways, and you'll see the policy positions that we
00;47;43;35 pull together, the policy positions that we recommend, the thing that we're working with everyone from. And I, and I, you know, I consider myself very blessed that we sit at a bit of this. We sit at this fulcrum of corporate power and philanthropy and the community. You know, I feel very blessed in the idea that, that my date will consist of meeting with fortune 500 CEOs and also meeting with a single mom was working three, and he was working three jobs and still living below the poverty line. And regardless of which
00;48;13;03 conversation you're having, we move with data and it's helping people to also understand when we're having this conversation about, about racism that racism, you know, sometimes we get a confused that we think racism is an act, right? That racism is a, if a person doesn't say the N word or a person doesn't that they're not racist, racism is not an act. It's a system
00;48;37;17 [Wes Moore]: It's understanding the racism. There's one of the most reliable predictors of life outcomes across several areas to include life expectancy, academic achievement, income, wealth, physical, mental health, and maternal mortality. I bring these things up, not because it's an emotive splurge, but I bring these things up because it's data and racism is a system that would allow an African American with a college degree to right now have the same net worth as a white high school.
00;49;07;41 That's a system. And so I think the way we can get past a, uh, you know, uh, uh, levels of partisan bickering on it is that understanding that this is not a partisan argument. This is a, this is exclusively an argument that's based on two things. One is based on data and two it's based on a love of country. It's based on this idea that we come to this because we understand. And because we believe in the promise of this place called America. And so that's why I
00;49;37;47 think, you know, we actually have opportunity to rise above many things that are, that seem to be politically impossible because we are going to lead. And because the data is so unbelievably clear and pathways to be able to address it. When you look at the data are also very clear, then it's just about building up that level of consensus to be able to get us to where we need to get to.
00;50;00;13 [Jason Grumet]: Alright, well, you know, uh, we have a quaint affinity for data too. So I, I do believe at the end of the day, facts are necessary if not sufficient. And, um, I agree with you. We have a, a good body of evidence. Um, all right, questions are blowing up on YouTube. I'm not going to get to all of them, but I want to get to a few of them. And I think as you and I might be able to, uh, continue the conversation offline and get back to somebody,
00;50;19;37 [Jason Grumet]: The folks who we won't be able to, uh, respond to directly A question from Harry Johnson notes. Currently there are 45 million people unemployed. It is projected that only about half of them will be reemployed. How do we think about that other half? I'm wondering how to answer that. Does national service appeal to you as a idea to both accelerate integration, but also opportunity? What are we going to do with the entrenched that is probably going to be with us for a few years?
00;50;46;57 [Wes Moore]: Uh, it absolutely will be. I mean, because we've, we have watched, we've watched 11 years of, of job growth go away in 11 weeks. We we've never seen this before. And, and, and not only have we never seen this level of job growth go away and that level of speed, uh, to your point, uh, you know, to your point also, the in great question was to Johnson because to your point, uh, the pathways of getting back are incredibly complicated, because if you look at two thirds of the jobs that had been lost, two thirds of the jobs have been lost, have actually been
00;51;18;18 lost in things like the service industry, right? Hotels and restaurants. That's a thing we're still dealing with a crisis that we don't know what the bottom looks like. You know, the only thing that we know about the bottom of this COVID-19 crisis is we're not there yet. And so when we know that we then do have to fundamentally understand that this is going to be incredibly complicated, because oftentimes those many jobs we've lost, those are low wage entry level jobs. And so those are also incredibly difficult jobs for people to be able to gain back access to. Um,
00;51;49;23 I'm a big believer in the idea of national service. I'm a big, big believer in the idea of paid national service. Um, you know, I say it, I say that not just because the data continues to show us then when people are involved in their society, young they'll also, or just early, there'll be involved in their society generally for life. I also saw what national service did for me. You know, I joined the army when I was 17 years old. I
00;52;15;40 joined the army when I wasn't even old enough to sign up myself.
00;52;18;43 [Wes Moore]: And my mom actually had to sign my papers, um, because I tend to be, wasn't an adult and I couldn't make that decision on my own. I saw how the military helped change my life and how some of the proudest moments in my life have been not when I was wearing a suit or not when I was wearing jeans or a tee shirt, but it was when I was wearing the uniform of this country. And I'll always feel that way. Now, I'm not saying that everyone needs to join the military. But what I am saying is when you
00;52;48;48 think about the level of need that we have within our society, I think if we can create pathways and opportunities for people to find that thing that makes their heart beat a little bit faster, if you can find people who can say, and you can look at the fact that we have such a stratified educational system within our society, that we have so much infrastructure that needs to get built, that if we're going to have a very real conversation about the, the, the, the homelessness crisis that we are
00;53;19;35 staring at right now, that is only now bound to get worse, because we are now, you know, now that we have, you know, a more terms on evictions and more turns on, on utility shutoffs, and those are about to cut off in weeks. And the reality is we have no economic stability that we are standing on. So we are now about to watch potentially the largest explosion in evictions that we have seen in our nation's history. We have a lot of work to do when it comes to basic infrastructure, basic build-outs basic supports for our
00;53;50;21 young people and for everyone after that. And so how then do we engage people to know, and to understand that their involvement and their service to our nation is going to matter, how do we rethink things like childcare? Because we're another thing we're about to have an explosion of is the need for childcare. And is there a way that we can rethink that entire process rethink what it means to pro to provide parents the supports so that they
00;54;18;43 can return back to the economy, rethinking the way we're thinking about our entire educational framework, everything from the school years to the school, days, to how we are to our students, to teacher ratios, to how we're paying those individuals. We have a chance to actually rethink a lot when it comes to our society and the idea of national service and getting people involved, getting people connected and giving people a vested interest of what our society is going to look like can and should be an
00;54;46;49 important and a core part of what that rebuilding is going to is going to mean.
00;54;52;20 [Jason Grumet]: Well, I think you're going to get a lot of people's hearts beating a little faster as I really appreciate that, uh, that response. I think we have time for maybe one more question, which is kind of particular, but I think important and it's focusing on, I think the one really strong bipartisan example to focus on these issues, which is opportunity zones. Question comes from Susan Gates and she asks, what do you think of the opportunities zone initiative in terms of its potential to alleviate policy poverty and what changes need to be made to make the program more effective? I know this is an area that you thought about a bunch. Um, it was one of the kind of leading edge ideas before all of this
00;55;25;05 crisis unfolded, but, um, how would you grade the opportunities zone initiative? I think this is a template we can build upon.
00;55;30;54 [Wes Moore]: Yeah, I would, I would give it a grade right now being complete. Um, because I think the intent of the opportunities zones is a strong and a good one that we need to have greater levels of investments and, and, and economically barren, and frankly left behind communities. Uh, I think how we incentivize people to be engaged and involved with involve with them also with the, you know, with the kind of thing that, that 10 year ban, uh, was good in theory, but frankly what's ended up happening is, you know, if we also created a policy and a platform
00;56;02;48 that because we haven't leveled those, those measures of entry into it, we're essentially watching the same people. People were already invested in bellwethers who were already involved in, in, in areas that have had not just for swing, but also have been the main beneficiaries of what we've seen from the opposite, from the opportunities zones.
00;56;20;36 [Wes Moore]: Now, granted then now one thing about the opportunity zones it's nascent enough that we can, and we should be making adjustments. So the way we think about the efficacy of it, um, but it brings up a bigger question though, when we talk about the communities that we're involved inside of the opportunity zones, the communities that have been engaged with an opportunity zones, and what are we doing to really, truly insincerely rebuild communities? You know, I, I grew up in neighborhoods that frankly were, were chronically neglected and the truth is, is that we knew it, you know, and, and when we see poverty and how it
00;56;53;05 shows itself, it shows itself in every single way. It shows itself in the water that people are drinking, the air that they're breathing, the food, they're eating, the schools, they are attending the way they are policed. And so if we're going to talk about development within communities and frankly, historic communities that have been left behind, it needs to be a holistic development that we're talking about. And how then do we not just incentivize, you know, incentivize, uh, you know, entities and, and business to come in, but how are we then rethinking
00;57;24;13 all of the different, various structures that were involved in there? How are we rethinking how our budgets are being allocated? Because that, along with incentives for private sector investment, and along with incentives for private sector dollars, and it should be diversified investment and diversify, private sector dollars, those things are going to create kind of a lasting sustainable change and are going to bring things like the opportunity zones, which is the hope of a lot, which, which is a hopeful
00;57;49;25 platform for people, but to bring it to something where it can actually, where you have that hope of a platform, actually meet the intent of what we're up at the attempt and the reality of what we're hoping to accomplish.
00;58;02;11 [Jason Grumet]: So Wes, you know, like you have done a lot of these, uh, zoom based activities for the last few months, and I'll tell you that a lot of hour long conversations feel 50% too long. This one feels 50% too short. My friend, I really wish we could keep going here, but I want to, I want to bring this to close where we started, which is with this really beautiful book, right? I mean, it is a, it is an exceptional experience and honestly, it's an easy, fast, it's an easy, fast read, but I think this is the Bob and Elizabeth Dole series on leadership and having done about 20 of
00;58;35;05 these, um, you know, you are really top of the class, my friend, I think that what you've shared with us today means a lot. Um, the work you do means a lot. I think your example means a lot, and I will, I will just close with, um, the caution you offered early in your book, which is you're exceptional, but it's not an excuse for the rest of us. Right. I think, you know, there was a wonderful piece in the Washington post this morning by, um, by Christian Cooper, focusing on why he doesn't believe we should prosecute
00;59;03;02 Amy Cooper. And his basic answer was cause if not her, it's all of us. And so I just want to end this by acknowledging that we're all in this with you, and we appreciate what you've given us and look forward to continuing to work together. So I thank you.
00;59;16;25 [Wes Moore]: well, I, I thank you. And if I can just, uh, you know, very, very briefly close, um, you know, with a, with a very quick story and that, you know, my, my grandfather was the first one in my mom's side of family born in this country. Uh, he was born in Charleston, South Carolina. And when he was just a, a, when he was just a toddler, uh, my great grandfather was a minister and he, uh, he was a vocal minister and eventually he started getting verbal threats and those verbal threats that they're in turn to physical threats and a, and the KU Klux Klan actually
00;59;47;31 ran, um, him and my entire family out of the country. And the majority of my family always said that they would never come back to this country. And the majority of them have not, they went to Jamaica and they stayed, but my grandfather always said that this was the country of his birth, and no one had the right to run him out. And so he actually ended up coming to school here. He went to Lincoln University, uh, uh, which is an HBCU in Pennsylvania. And this was a man
01;00;17;02 who was, you know, five foot, six with a deep Jamaican accent. But, um, who loved this country more than anyone else I've ever met in my life. Any believe in the hope of it. He believed in the promise of this country. And despite the fact that he happened to not just live and exist and, and come up in, in some, in some very hard times in this nation's history, we're literally, he became the first black minister in the history of the Dutch reform church and the same threats that his father received, that his
01;00;48;46 father received my great grandfather years before when he was a toddler, he was getting those same threats when he became the first black minister in the history of a religion, a religion that was also the official religion of apartheid, South Africa, the Dutch reform church, but he never stopped believing in this country.
01;01;08;10 [Wes Moore]: And, and I, and I, and I'm so thankful for everybody on this zoom, I'm thankful for you because I think that's the approach that we have to have when it comes to this work. We can never stop believing the hope of this country that its history has been uneven. Its history has been, has been challenged, but we know it can be better cause we've seen it get better. And we know it can get better because the ideals and the promise and those documents that the many countries in the world have
01;01;39;21 followed that many countries have modeled themselves after that's our North star. And that's what we keep pushing for. And we know that those answers are not going to come from a singular group or a singular party. It's not going to come by, by, by hurting a single group or hurting a singular party. It's going to come to the fact that when all of us together collectively move together, to be able to make sure that our most vulnerable are supported and then our greatest promises are actually upheld. So it has been a true joy and a real honor and a, and I'm thankful
01;02;10;46 for now, but frankly, I'm just thankful for the chance to be able to walk, you know, with you all in the future as well.
01;02;19;28 [Jason Grumet]: That's a North star. We all got about six hours left in our day to day and, uh, some tough days ahead. And, uh, I'm looking forward to working with you on that. So appreciate your time, appreciate your work. Thanks everybody for joining us. And, uh, we will try to look at the questions we couldn't get to and be responding to folks over the next couple of weeks. So everyone have a lovely afternoon. Thank you.
Share
Five years ago, the death of Freddie Grey and his treatment at the hands of police in Baltimore sparked historic protests and unrest. In his new book, Five Days, Wes Moore explores the uprisings in Baltimore through eight distinct perspectives, examining critical questions about the deeper causes of violence and poverty. Today, the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers has generated unprecedented international protests and has brought new attention to the critical issues of systemic racism and inequality.
Mr. Moore will discuss his book and how lessons gleaned from the life and death of Freddie Gray and what happened in Baltimore can shed light on this moment in history. In addition to being a combat veteran, best-selling author, and social entrepreneur, Mr. Moore is the CEO of Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty organizations in the nation.
The Bob and Elizabeth Dole Series on Leadership features in-depth conversations, film screenings, and book lectures to help our country better understand what makes for effective, strong leadership across a variety of institutions.
This Dole Series Conversation is sponsored by Kathleen K. Manatt, Michele A. Manatt and the Anders-Manatt Family, the Bill & Susan Oberndorf Foundation and Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock.
In light of restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, BPC events have shifted to all remote formats, such as video teleconferences or calls.
More Upcoming Events
Sign Up for Event Updates
BPC drives principled and politically viable policy solutions through the power of rigorous analysis, painstaking negotiation, and aggressive advocacy.