- 2 weeks ago
Civil rights attorney Mawuli Davis and Moms Demand Action Executive Director Angela Ferrell-Zabala sit down with ESSENCE to discuss our Black future and critical voter issues.
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00:00The perception is this, I have a 24 and a 26 year old graduates of Howard University and
00:06have voted and their peer group, they're really on the fence about whether or not they're even
00:15going to vote, right? And we are no longer in position to say, do it because of what your
00:24ancestors sacrificed. They're just not hearing that as an appeal to vote. They want to see some
00:31tangible results for black people. And one of those that I think would be one of the clear,
00:40a clear statement is an executive order around reparation.
00:45Hello, everyone. I'm Essence news and politics editor, Melissa Noel. This month we are celebrating
00:56Black History Month at Essence with our inaugural Black Futures List now, highlighting select change
01:03makers across the country who are fighting for our economic and racial justice. Today,
01:09I have the pleasure of being joined by a few of our honorees. First up, we have Angela
01:15Farrell Zawala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, and civil rights attorney Mauli Davis,
01:23founding partner of the Davis Bozeman Johnson Law Firm, for a really important conversation
01:29on the issues that matter to our communities as we approach the 2024 presidential election.
01:36And I know we have a lot to talk about. So I want to just say thank you, first of all,
01:42for joining me today. Thank you. Thank you.
01:46I want to start off, of course, on a positive note. And I want to ask each of you to tell me
01:53what it is that gives you hope about our black future as a community. You're going to start off
01:59hopeful. Well, I'll jump in and just say there's so many things that give me hope about our community.
02:05I just the way that I get up every day and I work on gun violence prevention, which is a really hard,
02:11traumatizing issue. We understand how pervasive it is in this country and we understand
02:15the impacts of the black community. But I get up every single day and make the choice to do this
02:19because I know I wouldn't be here without hope. I wouldn't be here without hope. I know that our
02:25ancestors, I know my family members have moved us to a place where we can do this work and our voices
02:31can be elevated. I also look at young leaders nowadays that are stepping up and taking things
02:37into their own hands and using different modalities to do that, whether through art and culture or
02:43whatever it may be, they're finding the spaces. So I have a lot of hope and I'm going to continue
02:47living on that hope to make sure that we can fight for safer communities. Thank you for that.
02:53I share a lot of the same hope. My hope is based largely on the work of our ancestors and their
03:01ability to accomplish incredible feats in spite of meager resources. And we have so much more in
03:11the resources than they had, but they had will, they had integrity. And so standing on those ancestors'
03:19shoulders allows us to be able to see above the negativity. It allows us to see beyond
03:30the challenges that we have in the young people. We have a couple of young people that we work with,
03:37organizations, the Black Man Lab, the Black Woman's Lab are really youth-focused gatherings where we're
03:44creating what we call safe, sacred healing spaces. And we're able to hear these young people's, their
03:50voices, their needs, their desires, to be able to help them reimagine what the future could look like.
03:59I also have the honor of working at one of our great HBCUs, Clark Atlanta University,
04:05in the Dr. Mack Jones political science department. And so my students, they come in and they're on fire.
04:13You know, they, they are ready for a new day. And not only are they ready for it figuratively,
04:22they are prepared to work towards it. And that, that gives you the fuel that you need in, in our work
04:29as, as organizers, uh, public policy makers. And I do have a challenging day because we do civil rights.
04:37And so often our civil rights are violated and it's hard to win in this arena under the current, uh,
04:44structure. But we believe that we have all that we need, um, in our classrooms, in our organizations,
04:52in our community, uh, to be victorious in our struggle for liberation.
04:57Now, and I thank you both for kind of, you know, starting that conversation, uh, here, looking ahead,
05:03right? We have so much we have to talk about for right now. We know what's happened in the past,
05:07but we also know that it's important to look ahead. So I think it brings us really greatly into the
05:13conversation where Angela, I'd like to ask you, you know, Moms Demand Action looks at all forms of gun
05:21violence, not just the school shootings that make the news, but the everyday gun violence that is
05:27impacting black and brown communities. Can you share with us how you believe we can build not only on
05:35awareness, but also take action on a policy level, starting within our local communities,
05:42similar to the ways that you have and many of the, the people that you work with do?
05:47Yeah. So thank you for that very important question. There's many things you talked about
05:52building awareness. And I think I don't want to overlook that, uh, making sure that we're where
05:58the impact is most greatly felt is really important. And we know black and brown communities
06:04in particular are disproportionately impacted by gun violence in this country. It is a public health
06:09crisis. And frankly, it's been a public health crisis in black communities for some time, uh,
06:14one in three black people are someone that they care for. It's been shot and killed by a gun. That's a
06:20big number. And so we want to make sure that we're doing the outreach where the people are,
06:25whether that is, I talked about young leaders, whether we're talking about, uh, talking to young
06:30folks at HBCUs. Uh, we're talking about talking with people in their communities and make sure that
06:36they're, they are included in strategy. Um, it's critical because they often know exactly what is
06:43needed. They just are lacking either the, the resources to accomplish or really scale up what
06:48they're doing. We want to make sure that we're centering the stories of black survivors and
06:52students and volunteers, and also leaders and elected officials that have stepped up, um, to help
06:57address this crisis and so many others. And that gets to electing people that actually represent us,
07:03uh, whether it is, you know, again, we have so many champions right now that are doing the incredible
07:08work, but also looking inward and seeing how do we represent ourselves? Are there folks within our
07:13own ranks that we should be pulling through or building a bench that represent at every single
07:18level, whether it is, uh, governmental or elected officials, or it's, uh, in different industries,
07:24we need representation and that's how we, uh, make sure that we have a greater impact. There's also so
07:29many policies when it comes to gun violence prevention that we can uplift and work on from
07:33community violence intervention and prevention and healing funding that is critical. These are
07:38often frontline in communities where the violence is taking place, where the shooting is happening,
07:43where the trauma is living, and they're right there doing the important work, but often are
07:48under-resourced. We want to make sure that we're addressing root causes of the violence. While we can
07:53have policies that are, uh, good about making sure we're keeping folks safe when it comes to gun safety,
07:59we want to also make sure that we're looking at all the intersections of the things that
08:03get us in a position where black and brown communities are disproportionately impacted.
08:08And, you know, I would be remiss if I didn't say we need to work on things that disarm hate.
08:12We know that people that have been convicted of violent or threatening hate crimes shouldn't have
08:17a gun. And we want to make sure that we're checking all gun violence, including, uh, police gun violence.
08:23So there's lots of things to be done and we are constantly looking for ways and listening
08:27with to communities about what they need so that we're building our strategies and walking alongside
08:32folks doing the work, um, so that we can actually get to the end that we want to see.
08:36No, and I appreciate that. And just a quick follow-up there, you know, you named a lot of really great
08:42things there, but for a lot of voters, sometimes they may feel overwhelmed about where to start.
08:47So can you offer any advice there on how, what's a simple way that someone can get involved in
08:53potentially helping to advocate for policy or doing a little door knocking or just something
08:58simple where they could get started right now? Yeah, that's a great question. I get that oftentimes
09:03I travel around the country and meet different folks. And even my, I'm a mother of four and I have
09:08my two oldest, the twins are 22. And I often have these conversations with them. It starts very local.
09:15It starts with your household. It starts with your block. It starts with your community,
09:19your church, wherever you go, having those conversations and just talking about what's at
09:24stake, what's happening, but not just talking about all the things that we know as black community that
09:29are like impact us that not just talking about, for instance, the gun violence that are happening in
09:34neighborhoods around us are the fact that we have so many survivors of gun violence in this country,
09:39but also what can we do about it? There is possibility to do something. This is not an inevitability.
09:45This is not a natural disaster. This is something that we actually can take steps to manage and
09:51measure and change. And so I think having those conversations is really important. That's a very
09:56first step because as you said, oftentimes people are pulled into so many things in their day-to-day
10:01lives. And while this is something that impacts them and that they're concerned about, they really have
10:05to prioritize where they put their energy. I think just having a conversation, once you have that
10:10conversation, you might get a small group of folks and say, hey, what can we be doing in our
10:14neighborhood or our community, or how can we be utilizing the resources that we have to make it
10:19different, to make really, you know, material impact and change. Law and policy, very important,
10:26but we also need to figure out what are the day-to-day things that are going to help people
10:30not just to survive, but to thrive. So I always say, let's start with having those conversations with
10:35folks. You can always reach out to our organizations, Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action. There
10:39are others around that are doing incredible work, but I think having that conversation first and
10:43getting people in the habit of understanding that even when we see tough stuff going on around us,
10:49even when it feels like insurmountable, that if we put one foot in front of the other and we get a
10:55team of people to do that, our neighbors, our community leaders, then we actually have momentum and
11:01power to make some difference and make some change when it comes to this issue.
11:06Thank you, Angela. And Mauli, to bring you back into the conversation here, you know,
11:11we're talking about gun violence and when it comes to policing, we know that policing and race were
11:18signature issues of the 2020 election presidential campaign and achieving police accountability on the
11:26federal level, however, has been met with several obstacles. The George Floyd Justice and Policing
11:34Act was passed in March of 2021 by the House, but it did not actually go through in the Senate.
11:41And President Biden had an executive order on policing that he signed on the second anniversary
11:47of Floyd's murder in 2022, but that has yet to be implemented. What kind of impact can these setbacks
11:55have on voters and voter turnout? And what are some things that you think that we can do about that?
12:02Because in some ways we are hearing and seeing voters being despondent a bit about what their impact
12:11really can be. Sure, sure. No, that's a great question. And what we as civil rights lawyers here in
12:19in the deep south, realizes that what we're experiencing in terms of police violence in our
12:27communities, it's not localized. It's really a national issue that continues. And so often we want to
12:36really isolate that police violence is happening just in the south or just in the rural areas, but it's
12:43happening in our cities, in our small towns. Because really what the system has said is that
12:51Black lives are really not valued, right? And that's why the organizing effort has to continue to lift
13:00it up. One of the things that's been interesting is that we have one of what we believe is probably one
13:06of the most horrific death cases involving police violence of Deacon Johnny Holloman, Sr., who was a
13:14deacon leaving the Bible study on his way to his wife and had a minor traffic accident and was tased.
13:23Ultimately, he dies at the hands of an Atlanta police officer. And the coverage has been different than
13:33the George Floyd and right after. It's almost as if certain media outlets have put a wet blanket kind
13:41of on, like essentially America's had enough of seeing Black bodies, because there's a video of seeing Black
13:51people tortured and killed at the hands of police, but it continues to happen. So even though it's
13:58underreported by certain media outlets, it doesn't mean that the numbers have in fact decreased. Here
14:04in Atlanta, which has often been called the Black Mecca, we have right now excessive force cases at 100%
14:13African-American. And Atlanta, even as the Black Mecca, is not a 100% African-American city. And so it
14:22demonstrates that there is and remains a crisis of policing in our communities and communities of
14:31color, but in Black communities in particular. And our work is for our elected officials to be held
14:40accountable, that they have to address how will you deal with the policing of our communities and not
14:49allow police unions and other police interests to outweigh what we are lived experience. This is what
14:58we see. This is what we're dealing with. And it's real. And so the organizing efforts, Southern Center
15:05for Human Rights has been incredible in their work here in Atlanta and in the South to lift this up.
15:12Attorney Tiffany Williams Roberts has done a tremendous job of highlighting that policing is still an issue.
15:21So as we attack these individual cases, we also have to address the system, the system that says
15:29our lives are valued less, that we can withstand more pain than other people, all kinds of misnomers that
15:39put our young people at jeopardy on a daily basis as they drive, they walk, they go to school,
15:46they shop. In all of those spaces, we are at risk. And so that's why our organizing has to remain
15:56consistent. And we have to keep pushing it up to the top of the agenda. And I agree. I think there is
16:03some fatigue by Black folk as it relates to electoral politics that, you know, what do we see tangible
16:11that has changed as a result of our voting efforts? And so we also push for the issue of reparations.
16:20And it's been huge, right? Huge at both, you know, local, some local municipalities, state,
16:28national, but because we're seeing stalling, you know, at the national, at the federal level,
16:33how can we keep people engaged and, and, and, you know, that burnout, that fatigue that's happening?
16:38How do you count? How can we continue to counter that?
16:42We encourage people to be in an organization. Kwame Ture would say, organize, organize, organize.
16:47And I think that is our work that we're at a point that everyone has to be in an organization,
16:54period, right? There's no, just pick one or pick two, but be in an organization and not on the sidelines.
17:03We don't have any time for just analysis and critiquing. We have to be engaged in taking control
17:11of our own destiny, our own future, one that we imagine, one that we see and not fall into the
17:19the idea that it's only what they say can happen, can happen. Whatever we want to happen, can happen
17:27when we're organizing around it and addressing the issues. We have been getting out organized for,
17:33for a long time. That's the reality of it. And there have been times that we have peaked and we see,
17:40oh, wow, we can do this. We got Georgia. We were able to do this. So the question for each of us,
17:47are we prepared to do more? Are we willing to overcome any of our differences and find where we
17:56can be unified around certain things and do that work together? I'm hearing from both of you,
18:02consistency, collaboration, and also just the engagement in the groups that do actually exist
18:09to help push, you know, efforts like this forward. So I think that brings me to the last question I
18:16have here, which I will pose to both of you, which just has to do with, you know, we're talking about
18:23voting here and the issues that have mattered to our communities when it comes to these issues of
18:28policing, gun violence. As we talked about a little bit, youth involvement and activism.
18:34Is there any candidate that's currently, you know, on the ballot for president, you know,
18:40here in this 2024 election that is being responsive to these, you know, these issues that we continue
18:46to see not only in the polls, we don't need, just need the polls to tell us, we see it in our own
18:50communities that people are truly concerned about. And Angela, I'll ask you to, to go first.
18:56Yes, absolutely. The first thing I'd like to say is that the election is just where it starts.
19:02When we exercise our electoral power, that is just the beginning. I think sometimes that's not
19:07communicated that way. People think that you vote and the person's in and everything's solved. I think
19:14what Maloui said is absolutely right. We have to hold people accountable and organized. Like we have
19:20to hold their feet to the fire for what, you know, we bring them in to represent us. So we have
19:25the obligation and the power to make sure that we're holding people to account. And with that
19:30being said, I think some of the few, there's so many people that are actually doing incredible
19:35work all up and down the ballot. We'll start at the top. You mentioned presidential,
19:39the Biden Harris administration, hands down, has been this strongest in history when it comes to gun
19:44violence prevention efforts. They've done everything in their power and worked hand in hand with us to
19:50make sure that they're passing, like the bipartisan Safer Communities Act that happened, BISCA, we call
19:56that, that was a bipartisan effort that broke a 30-year, nearly 30-year logjam at the federal level.
20:04But all down, they're doing everything from making sure funds get to violence interruption groups on
20:11the ground. They're making sure that they're looking and centering survivors and communities most impacted.
20:17So we've had a great time working with them and there's so much more to be done. So we are going
20:22to do everything in our power to make sure that they come back. We also do not want to roll back
20:26progress that we've made. We want to continue moving forward and do so much more. I think around the
20:31country, there's so many people I'm looking at. Our very own representative, Lucy McBath, who was one of
20:36our Moms Man Action volunteers in Georgia, who is absolutely incredible, has her own story, our son,
20:45Jordan Davis, who we want to get back in and is doing incredible, incredible work. We have Mayor
20:51Quentin Lucas in Kansas City. We have our own volunteers who are stepping up and not just advocating
20:56for good policy, but now going and running for office and winning and writing that good policy. So
21:01I think there's lots to look out for, but at the end of the day, and this is what I tell my 22 year
21:06olds, because they are a prime. And when they go, especially my son, who doesn't like a person or
21:12doesn't have exactly everything that you are looking for and necessarily a candidate, there's two things
21:16I say. Number one, we got to look broader and look at how this is going to have a bigger impact on so
21:22many things, because if we're not showing up and making our voices heard by voting, even though we may
21:27not always be the most excited, like my son is, you know, he's constantly thinking like,
21:32do I want to vote for this person or this person? It's like, you have to make your voice heard,
21:37because if you don't, someone else will make decisions on your behalf. So that's one. We don't
21:41want to roll back incredible, important progress that we've made. And I think if you don't like what
21:47you're seeing, then we need to get up and we need to step up and we can also run for office,
21:53up and down from school board all the way up to us. You're thinking about our two chambers and us
21:59government, we can run for office or we can go to organizations, as was said earlier, that are
22:07actually doing this important work, we cannot be on the sidelines. And so there's so much that we can
22:12do. And there we can drive and really drive that hope forward. Because there is if we have a vision
22:18for the future and what we're looking for, and we walk that walk and walk the path doesn't mean it won't
22:22be hard, but we will continue to move forward and we will get to where we need to get to.
22:26Thank you for that. So get up, get out, don't sit at the keyboard and complain, actually get
22:31involved in what actually exists. I pose that same question to you, Mauli, as well about,
22:39is there any candidate that is speaking to these issues right now that we are talking about that
22:44are so important to black and brown communities? I think there's a challenge. And I think the
22:52Democratic Party has a challenge and that there has to be, the perception is this, I have a 24 and
23:01a 26-year-old graduates of Howard University and have voted. And their peer group, they're really
23:12on the fence about whether or not they're even going to vote, right? And we are no longer in position to say,
23:20do it because of what your ancestors sacrificed. They're just not hearing that as an appeal to vote.
23:29They want to see some tangible results for black people. And one of those that I think would be one
23:37of the clear, a clear statement is an executive order around reparations, right? I think that the time has
23:46come, I think there has to be some radical movement. And I don't think it's radical anymore. I just think
23:52it's about really raising an issue that undergirds all of what we experience when we look at what's
24:00happening in police and when we look at what's happening in as it relates to our treatment in public
24:07health. All of that's undergirded by the fact that we have yet to reckon with the
24:14vestiges of our enslavement and Jim Crow and this countries are not really being honest about
24:24our issues around racism, white supremacy, structural racism, institutional racism, and those issues. And
24:33reparations allows us to really begin to frame that better. And that needs to happen. And an executive
24:40order can be issued. The work Cam Howard has been doing around this issue in terms of earn the vote,
24:48earntheblackvote.net. I'd encourage people to take a look at that. The Democratic Party is going to have
24:54to do something different on a national level in order to really engage young black voters and a lot
25:02of black people who are wondering what are we getting for our loyalty and allegiance. And so that's
25:11going to be a challenge, but I think it's time. We've worked around this issue since I was a
25:16law student and that's been quite a while. And I think we're ready. I think the Democratic Party has to
25:24have the courage to do something differently and it can't be so evenly matched with other politics that
25:32it's hard for us to really see and feel the difference. I know Angela has had great results
25:40as it relates to this administration in the space that she's been working in. And I think that has to
25:48be lifted up more as well, because these young people are getting most of their information from
25:53social media and they don't still feel the results that I thought we were all expecting when this
26:02election in 2020. Yeah. I want to thank you both for joining me today and really sharing. I know we
26:12only had a limited amount of time, but I think we got in quite a bit of information here, especially with
26:17resources and organizations that our audience can go to to find out more information. And as each of
26:23you said, to get involved. So I want to thank you both, Maui Davis, Angela Farrell Zavala for joining us
26:30this afternoon. Once again, everyone, my name is Melissa Noel, news and politics editor at Essence.
26:35We celebrate Black History 365, but of course, especially this month, we are spotlighting our honorees for
26:42our inaugural Black Futures Now list and the work that they are doing, particularly in this important
26:48presidential election year. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Melissa.
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