dr martin luther king i am always encouraging energized by the turnout so many members of our community i think it is critical that we use this opportunity to come together every year to regroup and recharge ourselves in our mission of continuing dr king's dream i am also aren't we are able to host such an inspiring abene belmont high school as support the medco transportation program for us students the education of our youth is critical if we are ever to attain the goals of racial harmony social justice that dr king inspired to as strong supporters of education we all must remember that  the grades report cards transcripts g p s and even reading writing and arithmetic all seem to be so urgent and pressing these days they are not the sole purpose behind the existence of public schools as stated by dr king and one of my favorite quotes we must remember that intelligence is not enough intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education here in belmont i believe that on a daily basis we are attempting to create and poss a student character and the belmont public schools our students not only learn the three r s but also learn the fourth our responsibility i believe it is important for our children to understand that because they have been afforded a great deal in this world they are responsible for returning the favor and giving back to society all in the vision that dr king imagine i also believe that this message is getting through bellman high school students and only a mass an amazing number of community service hours that far exceed our forty hour a graduation requirement our students can be found giving of themselves to work with all students of our society hospitals soup kitchens homeless shelters and nursing homes our students can be working in part the responsibility of service to the next generation by working with elementary children all in the vision of what dr king imagined for this world as we gather here this morning i am thankful for the opportunity to slow down for a few hours and reflect on all of our accomplishments and remember that there is so much still to be done as i observed my students here at belmont high school i am confident that we are truly on the right path thank you and that this time i would like to introduce reverend thomas foster smith interim pastor of the pace on our church today as we celebrate the life and legacy of the great american the reverend dr martin luther king jr we gather to recall the challenge he left to us to build a society in a world where all people are treated with dignity respect and love help us find the strength to love each other in belmont in boston and around the country and around this world help us to reach out to overcome long established barriers of race class religion and clan learning from each other growing with each other and so becoming the beloved community of which dr king spoke where all lives matter the community reflecting your highest ideals for all humanity let us meet fear and violence with faith and love so the cycle of retaliation and destruction plaguing our world today might soon be broken and so that all of us might live together in peace let peace begin with us here this day we pray thank you i'm good morning again my name is barbara watts and it's my great pleasure to welcome you here today on behalf of myself and about money human rights commission to celebrate and reflect on the values of dr martin luther king to seek and pervert preserve social justice equality and to celebrate community we cannot walk alone today's breakfast is the result of the generosity of many people  many of whom are listed in the program thank you to all of you thank you also to today's guest speaker philip martin senior investigative reporter at the b h he is volunteering his time to be with us today thank you for your generosity thank you also to the many public servants who gather with us today and for their time today in their service every day would you please stand in calling your name when i call  state senator william brownsburg or also wave state representative dave rogers middlesex district attorney marian ryan former selectman paul solomon assistant police chief james mcclean isaac police captain and the liaison to the belmont human rights commission captor peter hare we're also pleased out from the school principal dan richard and thank you all thank you all for being here thank you for supporting belmont against racism in the belmont human rights commission y she graduated from wellesley high school in the medical program she received her be a from tufts university in childhood education and master in education curriculum from cambridge college she has performed at the newly new orleans heritage jazz festival in the apollo theater in new york she has been known for many years throughout the boston area as well as in her travels to jamaica gone not intend zinnia as a profound was a recipient of the martin luther king scholarship at boston university where he earned a master of divinity degree mr mclean has directed the medco programs in arlington wayland and sharon he has also worked for many years as a social worker serving young people with special needs both mclean love to perform stories together celebrating life everybody here and it's so wonderful so we're going to do a little song called response which means my turning then your turn and we've got always of course use the clapping of the ng now you have feet touching the floor so your feet came in so i'm going to say something you're going to repeat after me dr martin luther king was a very special man before we have children might not know who dr martin luther king was although many people do but it's always good to bring something in for the children that have a little something i'm going to ask any child that is between fifteen and under who can tell me what university dr martin luther king went to beijing and if you think you have the answer it has to be someone fifteen years old fifteen years young it's important that we can celebrate our young people they should be a part of every single thing we do every planning every part so again for our young people give them a hand and thank our despair helping the  rock that my grandmother had and my grandmother used to always say that you need to be on solid ground like a rock my remembrance of dr martin luther king is based on what's in this wrong about the rock of being solid my first experience with dr martin luther king was as a very young child watching t v with my grandmother and my grandmother telling me a lot about martin luther king i didn't know who he was i saw that there were always been a pawn of every movement and children of everything thing and she say you have a lot in common with dr martin luther king you know he went to church you know he sang in the choir do  that he was in boston massachusetts do you know that he attended the church that we go to baptist church in roxbury massachusetts that he knew reverend has to be his wife beulah did you know them do you know dr martin luther king actually sat in  deal with many things but i want you to always remember this is i have this rock and it's solid that everybody has their place in importance now as time went on and i'm going to do this very quickly and the time when i was also in the medical program and wellesley experience things in the boston public schools and so forth was in operation exodus them my second experience with dr martin luther king was when i was in high school in my but we decided to do something else what we did is we formed a group and we went to the gardens this is something you probably do now and we asked the parents to support us which they did and it was a little  talk to each other about different things and one of the common things that we did was to play red rover bring somebody over we started that on the hill and something very and that does not mean that you can't make a positive difference in this world just as much as dr martin luther king jr did because every body in here young old black white thin on boy you just need love to get on board martin luther king when he was seven years old used to sing in the children's choir this is the song he used to s saying even in my school i'm going to let it shine even in my home i'm going to let it shine let it shine let it shine i know what i was seventeen years old i used to go to a conversational church not far from here and i remember my mother saying dr martin luther king is going to be in washington d c and he's going to end poverty he's bringing a whole lot of people to d c some would you like to get on the bus and girl i said oh she said they'll be thousands of people there and i said well then i won't make much of a difference and then she said well some  what if anybody thought that and then i thought about it and i changed my mind and when i and i went on the bus that day and it you know what it changed my whole life because now as i speak about the story i was there in one thousand nine hundred sixty three i saw all those beautiful people like these beautiful people here today with love in their hearts trying to warning to make a difference i saw all those people and i joined hands with them as we sang we shall overcome we shall overcome someday as my wife linda said so beautifully but it's not just about us the older ones it's about the younger ones too and i happen to be associated with the medical program here and in belmont and last week a young man said to me mr mclean i'd like to say something at the program you know and i thought to myself wow how can i say no to that so i want to bring him up here right now mister m professor ups i want you to come on up and share with us because it's really all about you in the future you're the future generation so come on up  early on miss mclean mr mclean's wife she was mention a lot of important things and i realized i have a lot to be thankful for like i wouldn't be here today as well as martin luther king of people have like walking to school and not feel safe because a metal detector and this fight site almost every day after school walking into belmont high school i still say eighth i feel like i'm grand and what i really solid education again the store clerk he says he greets us and welcomes us into the store and we feel more openly i know this is a big difference in the way society has changed over the years because i'm pretty sure martin luther king was granted he was not allowed to go a certain stores at certain time periods i'm really grateful for that throughout thank the day i just want to say that i'm really appreciative to be participating in the meadow foundation and being given equal education although i do wish to so my friends from boston we'd be more than delighted to join me and to partake in a solid education where the school look really good on a college resume for that takes a lot of coverage it takes a lot of faith also not too long ago i was having lunch with a group of fourth graders and i happened to ask them you know what do you know about dr martin luther king and i one of them said to me oh he tried to help black people and then another person said i don't know but there's a holiday coming up and i'm going to get to do what i want to do and then another person said he and then i asked them a very important question for people to age i said is there anything in your life with dying for and one of the girls at the table said yes if my mama was crossing the street and there was a car coming i would run out there and try to save her i said that's wonderful and then i pointed to another boy at the table and i said what about him would you try to save him she said no but if there was a truck coming i would say hey you better get out the way there's a truck coming i'll never forget that day because one of the young people had brought a pink bunny and a gray bunny and it was sitting up on the table and i said look let me see if i can explain a little bit about d king used in these two bunnies let's make believe let's make believe that these two bunnies are on their way to mcdonald's to get a big mac one of the young people at the table said that's how it was wasn't it for black people i said yes that's how it was for black people but not only black people white people too because you see it wasn't that long ago not that long ago that it was against the law in many places in our country for you and i to walk into a restaurant sit down and have a hamburger together and dr martin luther king gave his life to change that he gave his life to not only change that but many other things like voter registration war all children of all races going to bed without hunger yeah he he gave his life to change that because you see he believe that everybody in this world has a purpose he believes that this universe was working to it the goal and if you would ask him what he thought the real problem was he'd say it's not so much white people liking black people he said this is a struggle in this society between good and evil and you've got to decide you know he'd say which side you're on and i'll never forget his words about a month before he died he said you know i don't know if i'm going to live a long life i really don't know that but if you get people gather together and you start talking about me don't talk for too long you know don't mention a whole lot of things about my nobel peace prize or things like that because those are very shallow things just tell him he said tell them that dr martin luther king tried to love somebody that he tried to feed the hungry and he tried to clothe the naked and if you going to call me anything he said call me a drum major a drum major for love you and you and you and you and you and so thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to share with you in helping to make a difference our community service director alice is in the audience here so so many high school students helped set up and are serving today and there is there's extra coffee and things around but right now we're going to invite the children under twelve to go to the back of the auditorium the cafeteria and they'll be met for daycare and games and the belmont high school girls basketball team will be working with the older grill and susan hagler will be working with the younger group again with volunteers from belmont high school's belmonte and club and we'll just take a few seconds and then to introduce our guest speaker so if week if the children can move out quickly if you have a younger one and you want to walk to the childcare room with your child please do  now we're hope to start shortly there there is more decaf in regular coffee and water and more snacks over on the tables on the right and we only put small bottles of water on the table but there is plenty more water if anyone needs it and if someone sits should have opened up and people are welcome to come and forward into some of the children's ok i won't write good morning everybody and welcome i'm so happy for the turnout we never know how many people we're going to get and so it's great that you're all here so i'm going to introduce the speaker philip martin was has served as senior investigative reporter for w g b h f since two thousand and ten he's reported on topics ranging from human trafficking in new england to carbon offset schemes to police shootings training and race to the fishing industry in new england and w g b h t v mr martin is a regular panelist for basic black in addition he serves as a executive producer for lifted veils productions a nonprofit public radio journalism project dedicated to exploring issues that divide and unite society his color initiative and occasional series reports about global the global impact of skin color aired on g b h program the world mr martin has worked as a supervising editor senior editor for n and was n p r s first national race relations correspondent from one thousand nine hundred eighty to two thousand and one his most recent honors include a two thousand and fourteen national edward r murrow award of journalism for a special report underground trade he's won many other words including the marketing hands ray dubey g b h producer of the year award and many of them are too numerous to really mention encourage you to google him at g b h to read some of his work and to see for yourselves why he is so highly regarded mr martin earned a master's degree from the fletcher school of law and diplomacy at tufts university he studied international protection of human rights law at harvard law school and journalism at u c berkeley he is an adjunct professor at brandeis university's heller school of public policy i'm so pleased that he could be here with us today mr martin letter to speak from the heart without notes like the young man did over here he was phenomenal wasn't  to be here from the human rights commission and human rights commission all together like to janice who i was sitting here with the same table mary mcquillan who has helped me tremendously on this presentation and pes solomon who  kid from detroit and i rally from our front porch on the east side of detroit when the first fires burned the nights of the night of april fourth one nine hundred sixty eight when we heard that martin luther king jr had been shot to death in memphis and i was very young but i knew the name martha king because he was second to god in our home my mom cried my dad cried my dad never cried big strapping guy who worked at chrysler and ford he didn't cry but he cried that night and i wanted to do something some kids i knew in the neighborhood were doing something some still rocks i wanted to throw a rock some were rocking cars back and forth on the east side of detroit that evening i wanted to rock a car back and forth some lit fires but my mom and dad they wouldn't have any of that that was not going to happen i wanted to do something i wanted to do something martin luther king's wife mattered in a matter that he believe that their lives mattered my folks said do something continue doing what you're doing my folks both had third grade educations from the american south and to what they told me the best thing i could do was to continue doing what i was doing which was reading and learning but they also had no illusions about the building constraints of going further in life regardless of ability my folks picked the picket signs and they marched they knew about the constraints we call institutionalized institutionalized racism we call it discrimination guided by stereotypes and that brings me to the moment what if we do nothing ferguson bastien and the cost of non in gauge can that's the address today and it goes way beyond ferguson way beyond boston question of police killings of unarmed black men are not a new social phenomenon but they received renewed attention in two thousand and fourteen and today this nation our nation is sweltering with racial tension at the height of winter well if we do nothing what if we do nothing absolutely nothing absolutely nothing as the fires raged around us as children ask do black lives matter can you imagine if we if we do nothing in the face of the national outpouring of grief trayvon martin michael brown to me a race eric garner can you imagine if we do nothing over the belief the concern born of experience and example that black lives do not matter or at least do not matter in comparison to the lives of our right colleagues our friends our countrymen and women nearly fifty years ago on march twenty fifth one nine hundred sixty five after completing the fifty four mile march from selma across the mess famous bridge valleys and across the trying hills mud we have been drenched by the rains he said our bodies are tired and our feet are somewhat sore let me ask you this how many of you were stuck on i ninety three last week and the folks stuck on i ninety three last week quite a few of my friends were stuck and i'd already three last week too was a man trying to get to the hospital i was trying to get to those are not have jury selection i was inconvenienced there seems to be a consensus consensus that it was not the best way to demonstrate the black l matter or at least should matter but but a young woman i corresponded with on twitter says that if they had done nothing absolutely nothing would we be talking about black lives matter in january two thousand and fifteen now i'm the journalists so it's not up to me to answer her question that's up to you but i took notes these are the notes she a black woman who a patent the white kids on the highway was frustrated with trying to convey what many supporters at leat believe that black lives indeed matter air lives matter many retort but the reality is in our nation common wealth as demonstrated by poverty rates police homicides and various indicators of economic inequality and in just a she said suggest something entirely different black lives she said don't matter nearly as much as white lives and even white lives if one is poor or viewed as a townie in faster care home with speaks bad grammar has a record and may not have attended what we call a good college their lives also may not matter as much in comparison to the way our society favors the sons and daughters moms and dads grandmothers and grandfathers a irate i mean furious over the demonstrations on the highway he told me it inconvenienced him greatly and he said even though he understood with these young people were coming from he would not have change himself to concrete barriers he would not have burnt down variety stores in ferguson he would not have marched he said the best way to communicate the inequality of injustice and economics in the nation is to teach the truth but who truth i asked not not here to discuss the boast effective ways to propagate a message but only to ask this question and i'll be asking this question again and again what if we do nothing or what we do amounts to little change quite a few millennia and some black folks older black folks are marching these days interviews with black life matter organizer do not see a yancey of roslindale recently she told me they march that is to say black life matters blacks whites asians latinos young owed because she said it batters that the reality on the streets matched the credo of our nation the poetically expressed hope of martin luther king fifty what if we do nothing and if we do something what is it and what do we mean and what does it mean to massachusetts lawmakers have proposed bills that would increase the penalties for protesters on highways who block highways meanwhile federal legislation has also been proposed by a member of the congressional black caucus to change the grand jury process for indicting police officers accused of using fatal excessive force this latter proposal is highly unlikely to get out of committee let alone pass the firm or the state legislation will likely pass easily girl interpret this as a message that black lives do not matter when it becomes easier to rein in the demonstrators than to address the reason for their demonstration we are living in a racially tense time difference where poor people black people where disenfranchised people from paris to philadelphia boston to berlin are restless and you throw religion in class on top of skin color and it is truly a volatile time before proceeding just a quick comment about another what does that mean but us that me colorblind take it out of your vocabulary it me it makes little sense psychologist keith  university and many other experts will tell you we see color even when we think we don't or say we don't and black this is universally and subconsciously viewed negatively it leads to what we call micro aggressions like marking your door when i pass by or hesitating and even failing to get out of an elevator for black and brown people or young man who was here i think he spoke about an experience at a variety store i've had that same experience i've been followed around the changes when i put on a suit but if i'm walking around that having jogger finished biking quite often i'm followed around as well professions of color blindness are not a good thing it in fact blinds us to the realities around us it broadens us to racism and what is racism exactly we operate under the influence of racial and class stereotypes which stereotypes through the prism of law enforcement however can be fatal in some circumstances and it's the reason why brandon sanders a brookline father married to a hispanic woman tells us son when he says i'm exists he also tells his son that's him right there respect the police but he told me that conversation has change lately because he talks to a son about how to behave around police and he hopes it will keep him safe sunder said and i quote it's really a fine line it's hard to say because no matter what he's responding to his own experience he said in cleveland in los angeles it's hard to say because no matter what if there's an officer out there who's got an agenda no matter what you do you can't really stop that he said in a voice of almost hopelessness for someone so hopeful so talking to  son is what he does black labs matter well many retorts air lives matter indeed lives do better no doubt most people believe this sincerely but subconsciously some lives matter less than others i know this for my work examining modern day slavery what many began calling at women of all colors poor that's what they have in common i've heard many men say of children young women some young men often drug dependent individuals brutalized and exploited graduated recently out of foster care she was being held against her will this was in providence all she was just a prostitute he said after learning her circumstances how was it that some models matter less than others and when if we do nothing about this for a lot of complex reasons we as a nation by example of our collective tears lament lives lost in france very differently than we lament lives lost in nigeria for example lament lives lost here then we lament lives loss there for historical cultural reasons we see lives lost in parts of asia differently than we see lives lost doesn't put the same value on life the jury and so doesn't put the same value on life and that message seeped down to lowly privates in the field in vietnam including a gunner including a gunner named james duffy testifying at the winter soldier investigation in detroit in one thousand nine hundred one he said i swung my machine gun into this group of peasants and opened fire for actionably the gun jammed after one or two rounds which was pretty lucky because the group of peasants turned out to be a work party hired by the government to clear the area and there were two guys guarding them about fifty meters away but my mind was so psyched into killing groups that i never even paid attention to look around and see where i was i just saw gooks and i wanted to kill them if young people perhaps some of you at the time had done nothing to expose the contradictions the atrocities the human rights concerns during the vietnam era but if we were stuck in the way in west more than prism of the world would we know that in vietnam people care and love their children as much as people care and love their children in the usa in vietnam a place where fabric cried when his dad or a kidnapped victim of human trafficking was brought back to him shed tears real and emotionally steering as any tears in belmont as in eighty years in new york as any tears in los angeles has any tears in detroit in thailand a man told me to justify his sexual exploits exploitation of young girls and boys the thai people don't value life like we do an echo of westmoreland's in the  a man told me recently that the iraqis don't value life like we do you can see how this seeps down into our culture the whole notion of not valuing life the perception the belief promulgated by misperceptions as a result of misperceptions rather you cannot burn down a village in vietnam have this type of display shoot african americans trying to escape hurricane katrina on a bridge leading out of new orleans turned brutalize children away from the u s border some already having been raped without assuming that those lives really do not matter or do not matter much and i'm not a religious man and i don't pretend to be but this week i was absolutely encouraged by something i felt was extraordinary this was a twelve year old filipino girl philippine girl two years cascading like water falls from her eyes she was on the same stage as pope francis and she asked and pope francis a pill to everyone to show compassion because he said this young girl he spoke of this young girl and those who are prostitute at the school consider prostitutes he spoke about her with compassion and spoke about her and some real live human being this was not a stick figure this was a real live human being he said her life  he humanize this situation and what do we do and what if we did nothing about it and if we do nothing do black lives matter certainly not to nigeria's president who who rightly bemoaned the tragedy in paris but has worked over time to do nothing about the mass human trafficking of nigerian girls and the sweat of nigerians in the north by an organization vocal  wrong do block lives matter certainly not to the relative handful of black thugs in some neighborhoods who take black lives but some love to describe as black on black vi there of course are white thugs who take white lives more than eighty percent of murdered white people lose their lives to other whites what is called white on white violence but it's a term you will never or rarely ever hear echoed in media or in most academic treaties block lives were not well considered by the producers of sixty liberia it's not possible for some people to matter when their stories their lives their multidimensional selves are simplified stereotyped treated by two dimensional non complex but follow chinese characters on the big and small screen in popular novels in newspapers and on television and in the fox news blo our lives matter indeed it matters that we investigate those lives we all have a story to tell we had many to discover war and the civil war in the country being waged between the seventies the government the contra forces and i happen to come across this group of young nicaraguans very young of they were on the front lines of a bloody conflict that left a trail of corpses and graphically headless bodies and but whose names rarely appeared in u s newspapers they were part of the statistical data detritus of war i was talking to a young a young man fourteen years old when i asked him what can we do to make your life better and he said with this almost faint bravado this and this f you know sort of macho cheeseman he says you can tell ronald reagan to leave us alone that's what you can tell us he said in spanish and then he said and this stayed with me for years can you send me a record of michael jackson that's what he wanted the that because after the bravado after that was all over he said can you send me a record of michael jackson you know i tried i also try to find out what happened to this young man years after the conflict in nicaragua ended in the years after neither he nor i were no longer young lives matter but they attempts again not always consciously but sometimes fairy consciously there are attempts to diminish black lives by hanging around black necks crucibles of imperfections these are parents has at least two versions one version is that a police officer in westchester county new york named aaron hess inexplicably jumped on the hood of the car in a mall parking lot driven by  car driven by henri he was nineteen years old at the time a college student pace university this version is that he the police officer started firing wildly through the windshield the other version is that has fired as henry tried to run him over leaving the officer with little choice but to lunge on to the hood since then we've learned from a civil suit that another police officer who testified he said in th civil deposition that he was shooting at officer s who reviewed that night as an aggressor not at mr henry he did not know that he was shooting at another police officer that evening he said he was shooting at the person who was aggressing against a civilian here's what's relevant before we learned that we were told immediately after the shooting in october two thousand and ten in pleasant hill new york the d j henry was legally drunk immediately after michael brown was shot and ferguson we learned that he took cigar as from a store others used the word armstrong armed or robbed a store after eric garner was choked to death we were told that he was someone loose cigarettes on the street with twelve year old tamir rice in cleveland we were told he was brandishing a toy gun that looked real your own kids actually may only a toy gun that looks real the question is this did any of these offenses or perceived offenses merit fatal results taking a life killing someone the crucibles of imperfection or around black victims of police shootings are often what makes white americans hesitate to criticize to take issue to disagree with what many other see is at least questionable behavior by police officers many people complain that they have to be a virtual saint to be killed by an officer and then find empathy in much of the space that we call white america black lives matter to martin luther king but so too did white lives and asian lives and brown lives the lives of the poor the lives of the disenfranchised the lives of those who marched with black americans for the right to vote to eat where they wanted to eat and travel wherever they wanted to travel on the nation's interstate in accordance with the nation's laws zone was a hero of mine she was a woman to travel to michigan to demonstrate during the civil rights movement and she was murdered killed by the ku klux klan as much to martin luther king as the black man who died with him in mississippi james chaney but the relatives of goodman and sworn have often said aloud that the murders might not have been investigated at all at that time if two white men had not been among those murdered with the vietnam war had ended when it did if not for the tragedy at kent state when national guardsmen shot and killed white college students who were marching  the conflict but how many of you have heard of orangeburg south carolina if you would raise your hands orangeburg south carolina where white police shot thirty on arm black students one thousand nine hundred sixty eight kent state we know about kent state tragedy tragic terrible moment in our nation's history but few of us know about orangeburg two black lives matter in that context three died all because they protested segregation the year was one nine hundred sixty eight black lives did not matter and what if these students had orangeburg and can't state and all around this nation did nothing interestingly in two thousand and fifteen it is not this is in reference to the bubble we live in it is not  our black men in this country who are more likely to die the hands of police it's on our native americans who are often an afterthought in our consciousness by way of example the canasta band of  point to the october two thousand and twelve shooting of couric a notch an armed thirty five year old man who was shot by a utah sheriff's deputy wow riding as a passenger in a car driven by a white friend who was an injured the car was being chase they may not have been innocent but they were armed there are a lot of details and certainly more than one interpretation of what happened but the case has frustrated native americans whose modern lives are rarely explored by media and society a bubble again native american lives and many native americans believe this to be true matter less than black ones even there's no other way to explain why redskin is still the name of a sports team and why we use i poverty on reservations continue to exist off the pages of most news magazines out of sight and out of mind and what if we did nothing my friends what if we did absolutely nothing what if we do nothing about the systematic problems within our justice department in our economic lives i for one of the officers working day and night to keep shot by a doraine man targeting a class of people men and women in blue and i personally have met an extraordinary police officer and it met extraordinary police officers i've also seen sergeant donna gammon she's on the only over blonde hair i work with her quite a bit i've seen done a gap in the boston police department work overtime to put human traffickers behind bars and to protect exploited children and women this is a human tech trafficking law enforcement task force you're seeing right here but the issue is not one of individual police officers or even individual minutes a pallet that do the right thing it is the system that has to be examined in reworked and it's up to all of us to decide what to do in our own capacities as teachers as journalists as doctors as lawyers s s as police officers if lives mattered act like it matters behave like it matters legislate like it matters a like it batters black wives matter only if they truly bad imagine a psychic place in our society today such that a young protestor cannot feel hope he or she is justified shutting down a highway and when he or she shouts black lives matter you can shout right back of course they do  martin luther king went to jail for his beliefs because things were not normal and he believed to make them that way to make them norm required upsetting a lot of people i'm going to quote martin luther king here the only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that recognizes the dignity and worth of all of god's children the only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that allows judgment to run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream the only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy the normalcy of true peace the normalcy of justice if martin luther king did nothing with black lives matter nearly as much today what if generations of people did nothing what black lives matter nearly as much today with their a been a deval patrick a barack obama the young man that wants speaking from the heart earlier today we have a long way to go to get out of that bubble far longer than white americans believe as evidence by a pew poll but perhaps not as long as black and latino americans believe as evidence by that same poll but many believe that if the nation settles for normalcy for inequality if it waits for the problems to work themselves out the failure to indict those police officers when it's warranted in the systematic problems with grand juries the tensions will increase and undermine our sense of nation income inequality  do something as many young people are doing and many not so young people are doing do something to end the grief do something to make sure that all lives that thank you my friend thank you mr martin's eloquent overview of really the challenge that we have in front of us our society and our each of us really so we're going to take about ten minutes or so if you have questions that you'd like to ask mr martin that would be great i know that a lot of you have probably thought sort of going on in your minds over the last couple months i just want to also let you know that we there is a group meeting in belmont to talk about some of these issues on an ongoing basis so while this might not be a place that you can really express everything you're thinking about there is a place for that a belmont so i think the best way to use this time is to ask questions of mr martin since we have here and to hear more from him so does anybody have a question ye parents had their own holiday the children stayed whole had activities the next day i noticed came to the homeroom teachers of which i was one and it said send all student lacked students who did not have a no who were absent yesterday to the auditorium i wrote on the note that this was discriminatory it proceeded to kids that are good down the hall he they didn't just do nothing they all stood up and say we shall overcome and that to me was at least the spark of what the childer did your thing i could do was i called the mayor's office of human rights that day the jeep jones came over and nothing changed but at least he came over and we try to thank you so much for your incredibly inspiring talk appreciated so much early part of boston's early busing play bus in history thank you very much thank you for being here and huge fan of your work and listened to n p r all the time with my kids and was very moved by the our coverage of human trafficking and i just wanted you to know that your work matters thank you very much thank you for that so i have a i have kids in the schools twelve year old the fifteen year olds they could not be here this morning because they're sick my daughter was supposed to be helping with child care so i have them at home reading letter from birmingham jail and stat at least most of it it's quite on and my fifteen year old when we're listening to the coverage of the eric garner verdict set i feel embarrassed to be white and and i had tried to be pretty fair and fact based and speaking with them about these lack of indictments and about you know subconscious sort of behaviors and intention and what we can do in our community and in our lives and i'm just wondering how you might respond to a fifteen year old white girl with a big heart who  are that's the first thing the in the answer your specific question about it when i say that i mean this whole notion of guilt about by ethnic association or skin color association another thing to throw out of our way of thinking it's has nothing to do with stick guided by you or if you will your you be your of phenotype rather than it should be guided by a collective sense that if these problems are not solved it's not just a problem for black people it's a problem with white people it's a part for everyone it's a press for the nation if we if we take the term nation seriously then we have to realize that if these problems are not soft i mean kennedy and johnson it took them a while to come to them to realize wait a minute this is not just affecting black people they're the ones being murdered and they're the ones who can't vote and they're the ones being trampled on but this is affecting the nation how can we and i say to the soviet union at the time at the height of the cold war that your human rights policies are problematic and johnson realized this if our own human rights problems are problematic how can we advance as a nation materially spiritually economically if groups of people are held back that i mean most folks realize economists realize that you always have to have of really well oiled and a motor that's working basically in concert that you can't have problems here and problems there and saying well you can't have any economic inequality which is what we're experiencing right now income inequality without the nation really advancing together though it may in fact advantage of easily some individuals but ultimately you cannot in the long run you cannot you cannot keep that that will going do you tell this to a fifteen year old probably not all of this is quite a bit doesn't it but i think what you do tell her is that it's not a question of guilt it's a question of acting  i don't i think guilt is a is one of those emotions that burdens us we don't need it don't if you're doing nothing feel guilty about that if you're doing something exult in that i hope that's you not a good education yet comment on that absolutely thank you very much all those things i mean but if if someone were if someone was to tell us that we have made no progress in this country with that makes no sense if someone mean to say that of course we've made extraordinary progress i would not be talking to you here in belmont in two thousand and fifteen if we had not had some extraordinary steppingstones people i think every day starting with my folks starting my parents but also starting with people i don't know total strangers of people who basically work in various ways extraordinary teachers by the way who worked in extraordinary ways to get us from point a to point b that's an individual cheap and helped by a village of people who worked with me but systematically to your point and and don let me just also add this i mean deval patrick talks about his story coming out of poverty in chicago a father was a jazz musician of ending up as the governor of the commonwealth  student in milton that milton the cademy he is very thankful for the steps and for the people around him that brought him from point a to point b if you will but he also recognizes as the president recognizes as many of us have to see and recognize that it's not just a question of individual achievement of education is an extraordinary equalizer but sometimes that too is not it ameliorates the problem quite often the problems we have to deal with as you pointed out correctly are largely structural we we live in a country and such as that can deliver and in vote for a black president  in two thousand and eight who says yes we can and we believe him we marched with him and indeed we can but that president always it also knows that there are structural problems in our economy in our in the way we the way we administer justice in the country the paradigms that exists that of that basically dictate how we behave toward one another and so on and so forth in terms of so our social norms and so on and so forth those are things that also have to be addressed if we have to get from point a to point b structural problems in the country is is something that we are we don't often talk about when we talk about racism bigotry because we talk about it as individuals but we have to talk about the same thing we have to talk about the structures that are under law i problems in our in our nation share from belmont thank you very much i have to one practical question and one more general question please you mentioned about the legislative actions that is happening locally in response to the protest so i want to know what  actual actions that we can do to say bad oh echo back that lives do matter to send a message to the state that such legislation would not be welcome the other is that you said on a national level the congress  congressional black caucus is preparing or already submitted and legislation about the grand jury process also i want to know more how we can support that locally and more general question is that i think one of the will end up living in that bubble knowingly or unknowingly what are the some actual actions anything that we can do to reverse the process  imagined it should be also reverse mexico or medical would not be needed so i think that's the that's one of the some of the action extra things that we can do to undo that happen but something else has to happen it really does have to happen i think we recognise in our state particularly in the areas surrounding boston that life is becoming far too expensive for the majority of people in this state by that we mean of course something as simple as rents i was sort of chuckle when i see the seventy night live skit with the guy saying the rent is too h is too high it's what the market bears when you argue against it it seemed it seems that you're arguing against the very pillars of capitalism but what you're actually arguing is how do we keep people in homes who work sometimes two even three jobs how do you do that mayor ration bastien i'm not sure what's happening in belmont so i can address that but i know mayor walsh in boston is talking about several thousand new units of affordable housing in order to keep people in boston in order to keep people from general being gentrified out of the city in their efforts going on in new york with de blasio who also recognizes  income inequality is a real issue this is not made up it is a real issue in our in our society in our country and it takes and it takes on it's obviously not just about out of class it's also about race it's about all types of issues now all right i know affordable housing and and it's time for some to reexamine you know like how people live how you can basically get from point a to b on a salary that never budgets that wages that never grow it becomes it's necessary to have that discussion as far as your first question about the massachusetts legislation that is not up to me as i've said earlier and i wouldn't be here to to say that the proposal and not just as journalists because this really isn't up to me to forward the proposal but to massachusetts legislators to of to basically address the issue of protesters on highways i think the bad is something that is being done and it's up to folks in this room to decide whether that's a good thing or bad thing or if it if simply after scates a larger issue the issue that which they're demonstrating about the failure to in many cases around this nation as the justice department has pointed out this past week here at home eric holder with the exception of arizona a case out of arizona this past week the killing of a homeless man there's been failure after failure after failure to indict police officers when those indictments of seemed to make sense largely because of way grand juries are convened but the way the district attorneys and the relationship between district attorneys and and police officers that happens to be real again that is up to you a citizens civilians police officers district attorneys legislators to decide how you're going to address an issue that is clearly problematic otherwise we would not with that see the types of demonstrations and tensions that exist in this country right now we cannot hide from the fact that there has to be some redress to the issue of of the of justice department or some sense that the justice department does not treat treat all people equally i hope that answered your question some my great pleasure belmont has a new group in town and over the last few years the belmont community chorus has come together today under the direction of chorus director mary louise schechter i present to you the belmont community chorus uh and now the composition shine which is a spiritual song arranged by rollo deal worth who is out of st louis missouri residing in chicago these days and has some wonderful wonderful choral arrangements  much to our wonderful community chorus morning my name's john breaux botham and i'm a member of belmont against racism zz board of directors and if this time in the program we turn our focus to the met coast support fun and it's my honor  belmont board of selectmen and he's been a member of the medco family since one nine hundred seventy eight morning everyone and welcome and thank you all for coming out today to support our program and on of the legacy of dr king last week my daughter ashley and i went to see the movie selma which was one of the much is that dr king led to obtain voting rights for african americans in selma alabama the movie was very disturbing and lightning in the motional for us i think what was so profound was that we didn't walk away failing he but instead  togetherness which was dr king's intention he didn't want us to focus on ignorance or the color of our skin but the content of our character he knew that we had to enter great our country to make it a better place for all belmont has been successful in helping that to occur my daughter has been in the medical program for twelve years and i have had the honor of meeting many wonderful people within the belmont community that have been braced us  the program and have identified how it has changed their lives as it has for us through bar in many ways people kindness and generosity the boston children have been able to participate in many activities get support for their academics enjoy many of the aunts and build relationships with their peers and teachers it has also supported many school initiatives for high school students your kindness and shores them a safe travel home  without transportation it takes our children two hours or longer to get home for some children they are not arriving home until around nine pm or later for us parents we are worried and nervous until our children enter our doors knowing that bar has made it possible for our children to arrive home safely has put parents minds at ease all that has taken place would not have been possible without your help at this time the belmont against racism fund has provided so much assistance to different causes that it has been depleted we are hoping to replenish the fund so that we can continue to our children a chance to protest a play explore in a brace the many opportunities that are available here is where we need your help because this can only be possible through your contribution so please support our children so that they can continue feel like they are part of the belmont community thank you almost of association with medco my wife and i and our family in boston and i feel very passionately therefore about what i'm going to say it's about three minutes long please pay attention in two thousand and one when i was on the boston school on the belmont school committee we decided to have meetings in boston for the first time those meetings turned out to be very important they were the best that we held all year they were well attended typically by a hundred parents and siblings the attendance was testimony to the commitment of the boston met co parents to their children's education at the first of these meetings i asked the parents what's the most important thing we could do to improve the medco program the answer was  ensure that our children get home safely as you've just heard sean it was unanimous and it was so obvious my reaction at the time was to say well we're going to immediately raise fifteen thousand dollars to provide after school transportation for these wonderful students and with the help of bar and the january breakfast on earth dr martin luther king we raised eighteen thousand nine hundred dollars in two thousand and two last year we raised just over seven thousand dollars that is not enough when we enroll the met coast student we should ensure full participation in all educational programs including those that take place after school well folks just like in two thousand and two  support program in two thousand and two and we're going to do it again this is a worthy cause are met coast students as you just heard boarded buses before day away and return home after dark every day to get the education that belmont provides the least we can do is ensure that these children all get home safely this is a worthy cause so dig deep and make your contributions that we need we're also looking for volunteers to help in the fundraising this is a worthy cause this is a righteous cause if we can raise eighteen thousand dollars in two thousand and two then i say we can raise twenty thousand dollars in two thousand and that's my challenge to you are you going to help me are you going to work with me are we going to do it thank you so much you know for many many years ralph jones his wife sherry jones and his company the cadmus group have consistently been by far the largest contributors to the medical support fund this is something they have done very quietly never asking for publicity and always ready to make sure the needed funds are available so this once i would like to ask and receive our appreciation if you have your checkbook ready right now you can write a check to make it out to belmont against racism and you can put medco on the memo line and if you do not have your checkbook ready don't worry because we have these pledge forms and all you have to do is fill those out and put them in the on below and we will be getting in touch with you and for those listening from home please consider sending a check to belmont against racism p o box six four nine belmont zero two four seven eight so while you are writing out all your checks and pledge forms we have some wonderful entertainment for you at the end of the song members of the bar board of directors will be circulating through the tables to pick up those manila envelopes but right now please join me in welcoming leo grace hicks swinson a belmont high school student and resident of boston she attends belmont highs through the mexico program and will be singing the great song  support fund was raised because of the constant cutting of the medco budget a lot of the programs that are listed and if you have seen that through email or not just get in touch with me we're talking about mentoring programs funding for open circle social competency when burke spring crafts support medical participation and taking the eighth grade washington d c trip tenor effect faculty and staff student guided tour of boston people sort of felt like well when you're drive in boston it's only twenty minutes away but when you've got ten bus stops leaving from park to get to belmont when you're talking about two hours that was a very pertinent for the middle school teachers transition gifts ongoing late taxi funding for high school field trips grant for the medical conferences that bentley college registration for teachers and school staff to attend the annual met the directors educator conference this fund has all of that up until the turn of the century was in our budget not anymore and i want to say to you that march nineteenth something we do every year is met the lobby day at the state legislature to an all morning event and what i did recently was ask our teacher of the year well i asked them to questions shay and i said first leave your wife home take me to the white house he said no but he did say when i asked if he could run some programs to teach all of us how to be effectively lobbying contacting your legislat remember met goals in only thirty districts and that's out of three hundred plus districts so there are a lot of legislators that support this program and it's not in their community but we have to do this all the time contacting our legislators and we have this one day event where we invite our resident communities i met go families children included to come to the state house to meet with the legislature the governor etc spend an entire morning and i think that's an apt lesson that we should all  learn member six years ago today we were celebrating at this breakfast and the first african american president was being inaugurated what we have seen since is twenty six states have now voted to suppress the vote they want to make sure no other black person goes to the white house ever again that is what we try to teach the children in terms of what is your responsibility why should i register to vote that's why that's why i just wanted to share that with you and hopefully that you will contact  us we're going to be sending out a lot of literature as we head for law but you can make any day of the week to contact your legislator and the legislators of all the school districts in the state of massachusetts because we should not have to raise funds to provide this kind of service and that goal has proven itself over and over again and in twenty sixteen we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of medco it was supposed to last three years that's all thank you so much has been a jam packed program i thank you thank i thank all the participants next we have the honor of our own state senator will brownsburg or he's going to give us an update on some things he's doing and  welcome to well welcome hearing from you in a time philip martin gave us a great call to action to address and justice to joanna's question earlier about how do you respond to that of course the answer is do something and the second answer is pick something and focus on it and we've got the medco program as one action to take as senate chair of the joint step state legislatures judicia y committee it's my personal top priority to lighten the footprint of the criminal justice system on communities of color the recent street policing incidents have provoked such a passionate response in part because they are part of the much larger problem of what is being called the new jim crow the mass incarceration of people of color across the country now even in massachusetts where i believe that most police and prosecutors certain their own police chief and our own da marion ryan take an unlighted approach to community law enforcement the new jim crow is a real problem the new jim crow is the result of a set of legislative policies which have a hugely disparate impact on people of color in the name of protecting people from drugs guns and predators we've created a draconian sentencing system which leads to overcrowding in our prisons prisons cannot rehabilitate people who are jammed together in dangerous prisons conditions probation and parole officers cannot help people find jobs and readjust when their efforts are spread out across too many offenders we simply need to dial back our sentencing policy hole and there's a whole cluster of issues underneath that on broil that cluster of issues been central to my thinking for a couple of decades and finally i feel i'm in a good position to help make help lead on them and if reappointed as judiciary jerald be conducting a series of hearings across the state we will focus especially in communities of color and work with community leaders to assure that the hearings are inclusive and our goal will be to build a consensus around a set of reforms which will respond very directly to the concerns raised by by ferguson and eric garner and echoed in all the conversations we're hearing today and in this room and around the country many of my colleagues including state legislator of dave rogers have been feel as i do and i think of a lot of partners in this in this project i'm very hopeful that the stars may be aligned in this session to achieve real progress so things are happening i'm the vice chairman of the human rights commission and i'm going to be very brief just want to thank everyone who's been involved in making this a wonderful morning beginning with our guest speaker philip martin that was  been running the this breakfast it had been created and been run for many years by the money against racism and they handed it off to us last year and we're very happy to play this role with their continued support another initiative that's going on right now in town that the human rights commission which is a town pointed committee or an official committee nine members pointed by the board of selectmen the is a very exciting program that will be that begins very and there's a p b s series that's beginning in january and three part series it airs at ten o'clock at night we're going to be showing it after the fact at seven o'clock at night and having discussions about each each of the programs and the first one of these programs will be january twenty ninth there's a there's something on your on everyone's table about the program the first one is on january twenty ninth at st joseph's parish next is february fifth at the first church unitarian and the third is that temple center on february twelfth then there will also be a very interesting program at first church led by richard weissbourd on march seventh which is  speak he'll be speaking about how to raise caring ethical happy children and finally on april sixteenth nick kristoff himself will be speaking in  will be a ticketed event tickets are free but you'll have to sign up for a ticket i'm sure it'll sell out and he'll be speaking at the general middle school on april sixteenth those are the end of my announcement and i would just now like to introduce i mean a member of the belmont by high faith community who will do the benediction thank you let the religions agree and make the nations one so that they may see each other as one family and the whole earth as one home and may they all live together perfect harmony raise a i mean just a word about the belmont chorus we started again the last monday in february we made here in the belmont high school choral room starting at seven thirty in the evening and you were all welcome to come and sing with schoolchildren on february twelfth one thousand nine hundred two honor lincoln's birthday it was in in honor of also their guest speaker booker t washington there are copies of some of the words on the on some of the tables please stand and join us in singing that concludes our program think you want thank you mr martin thank you all participants and thank you all for being here also for those of you who have a few extra minutes i am we could