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thank you very much so our plenary
speaker today I'm going to abbreviate

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his very long and amazing bio so we can
hear from him

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Reverend Starsky Wilson from st. Louis
is a pastor philanthropist and activist

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he is currently president and CEO of the
Deaconess Foundation and pastor of st.

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John's Church in st. Louis and if you
don't know Deaconess it's an incredible

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faith-based grant-making organization
that is focused on child well-being as a

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civic priority for the st. Louis region
and it's a great example of collective

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impact that aligns policy advocacy
organization and community engagement

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with its grant making I
can't tell you it's amazing just sitting

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and talking to Reverend Wilson just the
ideas and reflections upon the role of

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museums and libraries and I think his
experience when he was appointed in 2014

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to co-chair the Ferguson Commission
in response to the tragedy of Michael

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Brown's death really I think his
reflections upon that in addition to his

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work at the Deaconess Foundation will
set us off on our journey today and

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tomorrow so I really thank you so much
for making time to be here and we look

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forward to your comments thank you
[Applause]

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good morning
it is indeed a pleasure to be here thank

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you very much kit and to the team at the
Institute for Museum and Library

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Services for the occasion to be with
each of you this morning I it is

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appropriate for me always and of course
thanks to the partners at William Penn

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foundation and the reinvestment fund as
well for support of this convening it is

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always appropriate for me to do level
setting with folks to let people know my

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defaults I am a preacher I am a black
preacher in case you didn't notice I am

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a black preacher from the south
who happens to be

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serving at a foundation and spent some
time leading commissioned those things

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being said in public space I have to let
you know because I also serve a very

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diverse church at st. John's Church in
st. Louis and that church has folks from

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all different cultural backgrounds there
in the inner city in st. Louis and so I

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am reminded at times that I have to give
certain people permission to do things

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and so I'm going to do this so those in
our church who grew up in black church

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traditions they grew up talking back to
the preacher

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what I found out is service to this
church in a previous church I served

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which is also racially diverse is that
my European brothers and sisters find it

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rude to speak when other people are
speaking

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and so I actually have to give them
permission so if there are things that

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seem to connect with you you disagree
with you disagree hold that to yourself

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but
if there are things that resonate with

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you I invite you to speak back to me it
might actually help me keep my time just

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for the record the other thing actually
of context wrong is there's a set of

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images that will be rolling on the
screen that is behind you I find it

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inappropriate with spoken word to invite
people into the experiences of people in

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very difficult and even tragic
circumstances and so I've come to try to

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share with folks to get them closer to
the experiences that we have had in the

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st. Louis metropolitan community since
the August 9th 2014 death of Michael

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Brown and the following community
uprising with different sets of images I

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invite you they will rotate on a loop so
I'm not clicking through they will

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rotate on that loop to invite you to
engage in the experience and some of

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these things I will connect with
throughout the time of the presentation

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and if it is the case that you just get
tired of looking at me there are better

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things perhaps more engaging things to
look at there

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I'd like to begin with a reflection and
a quote from my grandfather my

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grandfather RL Turner is the late RL
Turner was a cook in the army

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and he's one of those folks everyone
needs these folks kit when you can't

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remember who said something you need
somebody to attribute it to and so there

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are three or four voices I have like
this this is one of the things that I

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know my grandfather actually said
one of the things he always told me he

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said things like every man needs a truck
because if you got a truck you'll never

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be out of work right he also said things
this common wisdom like there are two

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things they ain't making no more of time
and land

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and not giving me any more time and
they're gonna be any more land

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this common reflection on the fact that
there will be no more land produced

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there will be no more space produced
calls us to be thoughtful about how we

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use the spaces that we have
he of course was always trying to remind

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me he was focusing on the time part do
what you can while you can and make good

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use of your time be expedient in your
engagement be a good steward of that

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which God has given you but this piece
about land I think is appropriate for us

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in time and space today that we're going
we're not getting any more space and so

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perhaps there's something we should be
doing with the space that we have to

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make the best and optimal use of that
space I am particularly reminded of the

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sense of scarcity about land that my
gran father instituted to me when I

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consider the modalities of public
protests that we see taking center stage

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today I am it is
cognizant this comes to my mind when I

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see and remember the images of the
Occupy movement taking up space in New

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York in public parks in spaces for the
sake of recreation community building

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and
reflection I am reminded when I consider

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the meetings that occurred some in the
basement of my church to organize with

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folks in the BLM the black lives matter
movement and network the shutdown

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movement that began to spring up in the
fall of 2014 stopping up highways across

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the country in concert with one another
these young people from Chattanooga to

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Atlanta to st. Louis who took public
space for the sake of shutting down

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public op operations in order to get a
point and a message across those who sat

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in the street and can feel and West
Florissant in st. Louis near the place

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where Michael Brown's body lay they
decided because there was no more land

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being produced they would reinterpret
reuse and stop up for the sake of

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repurposing the land that was used
particularly public land

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there seems to be it seems to me a
desperation about public space I was

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reminded of this in August late August
of 2014 I got an email I got an email

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from a staff person from one of our
local museums this email from the staff

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person at one of our local museums in
st. Louis invited me or my colleague

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Mike Kinmen the leader and Dean of the
local Cathedral to provide space for a

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what was called the Ferguson Freedom
Ride a group of activists led by

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patrisse cullors one of the cofounders
of the black lives matter movement and

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Darnell Lee out of New Jersey who is one
of the lead

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as well helped to organize from coast to
coast more than 450 people on - and in

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two and a half weeks - descend upon the
community in st. Louis and Ferguson the

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problem was that with 24 hours left with
all of these people who had raised funds

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to make it there the public university
institution that told them that they

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could convene there for four days
all of a sudden told them that they

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couldn't come when they got a better
sense of what they were going to do

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the museum official reached out to the
church leaders because the public

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university decided that they would not
house this particular group and so from

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public space and public space to sacred
space these activists found a place to

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abide and to engage there are images you
will see here of Patrice and Darnell and

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their images you'll see of a sanctuary
full of people with black power fist up

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because they are in that church space
which wasn't very comfortable familiar

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just for the record
the church didn't have best history or

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some of these things about dress code
and deportment and behavior and

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progressive sexual orientation all these
Madison so and so wasn't exactly the

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space they expect it
but the public spaces turned them our

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direction
poeple said I'm sorry that's what I

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called my grandfather when I'm not in
these more formalized settings pawpaw

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said there's two things they're making
no more of time and land and so when the

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public spaces and land turned them in a
different direction they found

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themselves in the church it seems to me
what we've had what we have is a problem

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of shrinking public space spaces where
we might connect spaces where we might

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learn from one that one out of the first
spaces where we may grow spaces where we

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make dialogue for the sake of getting to
a different answer spaces where we may

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be exposed one to another
come to know one another and dream

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together this is part of what I
experienced in this shrinking public

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space with the BLM movement it is also
perhaps what has led to what some would

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call the desperate tactics of occupy and
desperate tactics of BLM to shut down

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spaces and even to reclaim spaces that
we thought were ours in the first place

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on the anniversary of Michael Brown's
death actually the day after the

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anniversary on August 10th 2015
there were people actually in this

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gathering this gathering of folks whom
you seal it by Bree Newsome here and

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rahael testa maryam wearing a t-shirt
that will be in the Smithsonian Museum

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for African American culture we found
ourselves barricaded from a public space

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in the US federal courthouse here that
Cornel West and Reverend Assad Ruffo

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sake who
overcome the barrier as we overcome that

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barrier we're seeking to enter into the
federal courthouse to deliver a letter

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from a group of clergy to the US
attorney but we are barricaded from this

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public space and so we began to take a
seat I should also say connecting the

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sacred and the public part of what we
did before we went in was we took sacred

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oils from various traditions and we
anointed the space for the sake of

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reclaiming it for God's people we are
clergy by the way as we sought to do

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that we then sought to enter the space
without being without being let into the

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space that was paid for by tax dollars
we took a seat there in the front of the

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doors and for taking such action in this
previously articulated public space we

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were summarily erect arrested 73 of us
and that morning action later that day

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young people led a shutdown of a highway
and there were some 120-plus of them

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arrested this for you may note it didn't
go over well with the governor who had

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appointed me to the commission
but I want to suggest that this raises a

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question what might this have to do with
you what might an occupy and shut down

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protest modality that speaks to a
scarcity of sacred space say about

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previously public spaces in the spaces
that we have known to be public like

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libraries and museums I want to offer
that in this sense of scarcity museums

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and libraries may well be a redeemed
and/or redemptive public spaces for

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catalyzing beloved community
yeah I very intentionally use this term

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that is eschatological that is
theological that speaks to our hopes

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this term popularized by dr. King of
Beloved Community Aegina Bernard Hill of

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Louisville Presbyterian seminary speaks
of Beloved Community as a multicultural

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multicultural multiracial community of
love and justice where love peace and

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justice were love is the governing ethic
this is the space that many of us hope

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for it is reflective quite frankly of
the work and the aspirations of 3,000

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citizens who engage in the Ferguson
Commission process gave more than 30,000

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volunteer hours to make worth more than
189 policy recommendations and

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call-to-action calls to action for
various sources of public engagement and

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accountable bodies what they said
ultimately is that we desire racial

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equity in our community we want that for
ourselves and that we decided to do this

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together the question is how might we
resource that in order to get there I

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think as I kind of walk briefly through
my experiences I want to suggest that

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there are a few things we need that
museums and libraries may help to

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provide that will help us get to this
sense of Beloved Community even with the

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limited time and space that we have
if I was in church I'd say is that

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Alright I'd ask you know is it okay that
I share that with you before I went

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further
first I want to suggest part of what we

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need is sanctuary
now I'm reminded so I serve a small

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church small church pastors do
everything Matt fat in st. Louis

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language small church pastors do earth
one of the things I found myself doing

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at this small church when I was called
to the church you're about 25 people

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worshipping in the sanctuary that holds
about 300 plus people that didn't make

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for a hope filled reality and so every
now and then you had to do something and

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one of the cheapest things you could do
for the sake of helping people know that

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this face this building that's almost
100 years old that now seems almost

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empty one of the earliest things that I
sought to do with I painted stuff and I

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you know I don't you know don't don't
remind my wife because I don't like

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paint stuff at home but I painted stuff
at the church I painted sunday-school

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rooms I painted nurseries i payment
classrooms I planted offices it was

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something I could do with the young guys
or the churches you know just send your

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grandson down here on Saturday we don't
paint stuff right and and but one of the

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most significant things I paint it was
the doors I

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painted the doors of every outer door of
the church we paint it red

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for those who wonder why you see so many
church doors red there is a narrative

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particularly from Western churches and
those with traditions like ours from

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Protestant mainline with roots in Europe
that red doors of a space particularly

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of a church or sanctuary in time of war
suggested that it was safe space if a

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soldier someone who was fleeing an enemy
found their way through the doors then

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that enemy who is pursuing would not go
over that threshold there were times

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quite frankly we had to remind people of
this history when on the night of the

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announcement of the no true bill in the
Darren Wilson case churches were used as

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sanctuary and we had to first negotiate
with police that when people are running

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from tear gas if they come inside the
church you can't come in in order to

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have in order to work toward the love
community in order to get to the kind of

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dialogue that we desire our public
spaces must be sanctuary now I must

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suggest to you that this is not our
default because we really don't

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understand sanctuary we believe
sanctuary is neutral space when

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sanctuary is actually safe space and
those two things are different

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what do I mean I want to suggest the
sanctuary affords me things that are

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counter to what I see in the world those
who do you

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that when you work with young people
from tragic and traumatic circumstances

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and poverty is trauma violence is trauma
when they come into a space to do work

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with those who seek to serve and support
them that can't just be open space that

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anyone can say anything they need that
needs to be space with boundaries that

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needs to be space with perspective and
that needs to be space that's consistent

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and I'm offering that part of what we
need for the sake of fulfilling the

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project of Beloved Community through
participatory democracy and dialogue and

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collective action and our neighborhoods
communities and cities is actually

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sanctuary we need safe space now now now
I know you're saying well it's yeah

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everybody's welcome to safe space no our
defaults are all

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the same museum space that welcomed all
of our meetings of the Ferguson

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Commission that welcomed mainstream
institutions of st. Louis that welcomed

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the governor when he wanted to announce
that we were going to have a commission

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we're gonna work toward our issues that
same space I happen to try to go into on

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a Sunday with my son and because there
was some fights that broke out at the

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zoo that's on a place very near where
several of our museums are the museum

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doors were locked so not only could I
not get in but young people who were

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fleeing difficulty in another public
space could not get in and part of the

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understanding part of the defense was
that the actual museum was not owned by

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the public but rather owned by the
Society of donors and members and such

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that it could keep people out
museum supported by taxes from our zoo

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museum district that all of those
citizens including those young people's

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parents pay in order to make sure its
doors stay open this space that is open

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for neutral dialogue found its to lock
its doors from young people on that

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occasion hi the same citizen who was
welcome in when I was invited by the

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governor was locked out when my son
needed to get in there my ten year old

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son needed to get inside like the other
young people who had been pressed across

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the park this was not sanctuary
even though it claimed to be neutral

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space I want to argue I want to trouble
the conversation just a little bit that

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you will have about what it means to be
safe sanctuary and not just neutral

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space and what it means to have a full
museum or library culture that

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understands this matter such that it is
not the default of the security guard or

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the staff who happens to work on the
weekends to lock the doors

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we see
pictures here of the church a sacred

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space and I even quite frankly recognize
the challenge in that the context of

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religious pluralism the church or the
sanctuary as we have known it in the

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Christian tradition the place of the
pulpit or the Bema and judeo-christian

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circles is not exactly will not serve
fully the purposes that we require for

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this moment a community is a way to
diverse then too many perspectives and

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so my sanctuary with the cross hanging
and blacklivesmatter signs

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even exactly on me the space
that will be sanctuary for all we need

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space that is sanctuary not only do we
need sanctuary but we also need story

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one of the great challenges early on and
I my first the first week of the

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uprising I unfortunately watched from
North Carolina the great challenge of

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the conversation was that it told one
story but the young people from my

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church were telling another what I saw
on CNN every morning was different than

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what I saw in the pictures that were
being text to me

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stories seek the truth
there is a challenge in capital interest

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interested narrative shaping and we saw
that we see that in all of these uh

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prizes because they they're spoken to
you through the lens of our biases I

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want to suggest that your spaces or
spaces where we might in community seek

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truth through story not just seek
accuracy through detail-oriented

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research
this is why this sense of truth and

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story is why Deaconess Foundation found
it critically important to invest early

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in August of 2014 in creating a Ferguson
youth organizing fund

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that we knew that there were people who
are telling young people's stories

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speaking on behalf of seeking to support
but no one knows your story like you and

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so our investment was to support more
organizing and even to invest in the

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Commission's work once we understood
that we can influence how the Commission

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did its work if this would be as Lindsey
Lupo has written about 100 years of riot

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commission politics in America seeking
to get the best answers off the shelf to

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reproduce and process people's emotions
so that they felt better about the issue

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six weeks later if we were just gonna
have some meetings so we could say we

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have meetings and we would not actually
go to people where they were reach out

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to people and hear their pains if we
would just make presentations of papers

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and never offer people the public space
to tell their stories then there would

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not be worth investing in but the the
definition of collective action requires

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us to listen to and to amplify one
another's stories the libraries the the

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museums become space where we might do
that you see some of our meetings going

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through these spaces in order to hear
people's stories and give them an

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opportunity to be heard this is how when
we use and think about the collective

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impact framework we might actually get
to a common agenda on that is actually

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common because it is developed in common
space

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we need sanctuary we need story but we
also need sources

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this is the part where the preacher says
I'm almost done

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we need sources
the Commission the Ferguson Commission's

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report is found at forward through
Ferguson org

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there you get a sense of the story of
people because they're more than 70

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folks who talk about how these issues
impact them and how these

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recommendations may impact them as well
I tell people all the time you can

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download the report into a little spiral
document but it won't have the stories

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so that's just a compliment you don't
know it unless you know the stories

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but the great power that we see there is
also in the sources part of our aim was

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to suggest that we needed to engage
racial equity and it's one thing to have

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dialogue and hear one another but it's
another thing to do that to have

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sufficient supports in that document the
community that says that what we desire

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is a future of racial equity in our in
our region well we lay out is a path

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toward racial equity but we did so
recognizing that we did not have

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sufficient supports and sources to
inform our aspirations

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within the repositories of these
libraries museums it seems to me there

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are sources to give context for our
lives our hopes and even our tragedies

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what would it mean for our collective
learning to be fully engaged and to have

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engaged and to be engaged by our network
our deeply rich resource in our

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community of our museums of our
libraries I was reminded of this

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recently on a research trip to
Greensboro North Carolina I was there on

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the coincidence of history had the
occasion to be there to study the Truth

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and Reconciliation the Greensboro Truth
and Reconciliation project I have deep

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interest as life turns right so God
gives you these kinds of tragedies

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you've got to have context for them so
you begin to study and that's what I

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began to do I began to study
reconciliation processes across the

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globe and recognize that the only one
carried out an American song US soil was

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in Greensboro and so I went there to
learn from those folks the Greensboro

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truth and reconciliation project while I
was there I came to meet a card Barnes a

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high school student from Dudley high
school who was such an activist I like

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people that good troublemakers like that
I like him he's such an activist that

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when he ran for student body president
in his high school that Dudley high the

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administrators and local leaders
wouldn't put him on the ballot he was

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too much of an activist he was connected
with his brother by the name of Nelson

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Johnson Nelson Johnson was there at
North Carolina A&T who is really a

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rabble rouser and they said just because
you're with him we're not gonna put you

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on the ballot but I'll tell you how the
people work he got written in and won

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the election six hundred to two hundred
votes

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so there had an opportunity to sit down
with card and there we were able to put

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in the context I was able to deeply dig
into the story of that of that student

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movement in North Carolina A&T to to put
in conversation with what we experienced

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in Ferguson the matter of of troops and
state troopers being called out shooting

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into North Carolina A&T college over
four days a shootout on the campus to

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put that in conversation with the
Greensboro massacre where people have

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been killed by the Ku Klux Klan and a
labor rally to put that in conversation

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with the sit-in movement that began
there on February first in the 1960s

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there at that lunch counter and
Woolworths and that I was able to piece

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together for my meetings at faith
community church where the Beloved

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Community Center is and my gathering at
the International Civil Rights Museum

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there at the there in Greensboro
downtown but at the same time by

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coincidence of history I had the
occasion to speak and to preach at the

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book at the black lives matter movement
national network convening which was

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also there

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it seemed to me
that there was an ordering of context

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and source and resource for the movement
today with those young people gathered

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from all over primarily North America to
learn and to convene them to grow on how

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they would do their work together to
articulate will would be their

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collective mode of operation and
collective agenda in a space in place

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where student movements had begun and
really changed the nature of the civil

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rights movement
but without the connection without the

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space of the museum that preserve the
story without the the call into account

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then they don't have sources and
grounding for their work it seemed to me

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I this reminded me when I when I went
there of seeing the share on the shelf

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at the library and the Central West End
in st. Louis sister Adams I remember

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walking in shortly after the Commission
report was released and I saw those

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copies of the compliment to the report
on a shelf that said new arrivals

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treated as if it had an ISBN number
was the commission's report inviting

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people to read and to engage and I and I
thought this is what folks need if we

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have an aspiration for racial equity but
those 3,000 people who committed to this

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process and who informed this document
are not the 2.8 million people in the

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region who actually need to know it so
the library became a resource and a

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source for people to get this
information then I began to wonder

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whether it could also be then a source
for accountability what does it mean for

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these institutions to be those that keep
the scorecard the the data the

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indicators to regularly report to the
community about what it has said it

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desires to do in the libraries to
research to resource and to research

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that but then also in the museum's to
create convening space whereby we can

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come back to that which we have said
before

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so that these things don't become simply
resources on a shelf or rather living

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documents that are represented to
community in spaces so that we might be

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accountable to one another and serve as
accountable partners I think this can

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all happen I believe these the necessity
of resources at the necessity of story

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and the necessity of sanctuary can be
made manifest so that we might build

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Beloved Community together in our
neighborhoods in our cities and in our

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nation but that only happens it seems to
me if these institutions choose a game

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to belong fully to the people and to the
public

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there are these critical I try not to
fall into the false Western binaries but

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some things just capture me
one of the critical questions of this

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movement with young people is whose
streets

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one of the rhetorical chants it goes
back and back and forth kind of like

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call-and-response in the black church
the antiphonal course that we see in the

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Psalms there is a calling of one and an
answer by another young people yeah

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whose streets and others call our
streets whose streets our streets

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this is an invitation not to be neutral
but to decide that he will be with the

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people this was made more resonant when
people decided to come into a public

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space and the symphony there at Powell
Symphony Hall and to rework and to remix

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00:31:42.330 --> 00:31:47.330
an old labor song and what they called a
requiem for my ground after they dropped

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banners over the balcony they began to
sing songs together which side are you

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on friends which side are you on
justice for my brown is justice for us

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all this this question in this call was
an invitation to decide that they would

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be with the people and this is the
question for all of our public spaces

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and institutions if we decide to be on
the side of the people to be ourselves

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public institutions then we can make
manifest the necessities of

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participatory democracy the necessities
of collective action that necessities of

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collective impact and perhaps even the
hope of racial equity in our nation the

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first who must decide which side are we
on

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this is the question I leave with you
today with my thanks and gratitude for

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the opportunity to share god bless you
[Applause]

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[Applause]

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well thank you so much for leaving us
with thoughts challenge and I think of

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platform to start our conversation