NPHC Council of Presidents Town Hall

Foreign Foreign foreign [Applause] foreign Thank you thank you foreign Thank you see this place thank you foreign good afternoon welcome to the second annual National panhellenic Council fraternity days on Capitol Hill this afternoon we have our Council of presidents that will be here for a town hall meeting united we stand the fierce urgency of now nine organizations nine leaders One Voice

On May 26 2023 a national statement was issued from our panhellenic Council on today our leaders will participate in two panel discussions panel a around gun violence and laws and economic empowerment and Entrepreneurship and panel B Reproductive Rights Health Equity and diversity equity and inclusion at this time I’m gonna ask

Sister Donna Jones Anderson the 35th National president of the National panhellenic Council to come forward and bring greetings following her sister Stephanie Brown James will come forward for the purpose and the issues Ms Brown James is the national social action co-chair for Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated just ice good afternoon everyone

It’s so good to be in a room with the divine nine you look so beautiful today and we are happy that the fraternity started this endeavor one year ago the divine nine and mphc or so co-mingled and in 1930 the nphc was founded and on the same principles that we’re doing today

We had to fight for our rights we had to fight to vote we had to fight for women’s rights and so 93 years later we’re still here and we still have work to do I’d like to introduce um any of the divine nine members of Alpha Phi Alpha could you please stand

Alpha Phi Alpha thank you for representing Alpha Kappa Alpha please stand and be recognized Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity please stand and be recognized Omega Sci-Fi fraternity Incorporated please stand [Applause] my beloved Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated Source please stand be recognized Phi Beta Sigma fraternity please stand and be recognized thank you

Zeta Phi Beta sorority Incorporated please stand to be recognized the grand Centennial swords of Sigma gamma rho sorority Incorporated please stand and our baby brothers Iota Phi Theta Thank you there is there is much to be shared this afternoon so I won’t belabor my comments but I’m so happy and proud to be here I’m happy and proud every time I see all of our colors come together we are stronger together this event proves it

And let’s uh learn a little bit about our social issues from our national leaders thank you very much [Applause] and now we’re here for Miss Stephanie Brown James from co-chair National social action from Delta Sigma Theta [Applause] good afternoon everyone it’s truly an honor and privilege to be

With you today we know that our more than 2.5 million members across the country are tuned in and are listening to not just what we do but they’re looking at how we will have an impact together and I can just say on behalf of the social action chairs from our

Various organizations this is a committed group making sure that we are talking about the issues that are most pertinent to black people today we know what they are we’re talking about diversity inclusion we’re talking about gun reform the importance of not erasing black history and culture from K-12 and from our college campuses

We’re talking about economic empowerment how we can have access to resources all of these issues that we deal with every single day day in and day out I want you to know that the National panhellenic Council is ready enable and needs all of us to have our

Voices raised loud and often so a couple of maybe about a week or so ago you would have seen a national statement came out from our Council of presidents talking about our commitment to work together on these issues and we hope that you spread that message far and

Wide we know that when it comes down to the work of our local and State uh chapters it’s important that we come together to have as loud and stronger voice as possible so please look at the statement that was created I think you can find out on the mpac’s website or

Your various organizations website and let’s get ready just in closing uh there are dire times when it comes to the challenges that we face as a black community but we know that as we have done them the past we will continue to step out step forward be steadfast but

Only if we do that together so get ready because this summer is going to be active and as we go into 2024 the attacks are only going to get greater so it is upon all of us to make sure that we remember that we are here on behalf

Of the people who we stand shoulder to shoulder with in our chapters but most importantly in our communities so we thank you all for being here and we look forward to the wonderful conversation and action items that we’re going to get from our presidents today thank you [Applause]

Good afternoon everybody y’all do look beautiful today and handsome I’m going to call off all of the international presidents for this panel and when I call your name please come to the stage International president of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity Incorporated Chris Ray [Applause] Grand bassless Omega Sci-Fi fraternity Incorporated Ricky Lewis [Applause]

International president and CEO Stacy NC Grant from Zeta Phi Beta sorority Incorporated [Applause] International Grand Vice Polaris Myron coveton of Iota Phi Theta paternity Incorporated oh my God now I am going to call the monories for this session Derek ivory Ryan Thomas Keisha Johnson and Samaria Robinson

I would like to call up the international Grand basilisk for Sigma gamma rho sorority Incorporated Rasheeda Liberty to give remarks at this time and she is also the councilwoman for for the divine nine they always say stay ready so you don’t have to get ready but I want to just commend our men

For standing in the gap for so many in this country now we heard the stories about black women and how powerful they were in the election and it was almost as if they were elevating the power of the black woman and decreasing the power of the black man

I happen to be married to a black man I’m raising a black man and so I know how important it is to promote that power where it’s not intimidation where is power so I do commend our men of the fraternities for the work that you’re doing to really be together as a

Collective because we’re more powerful together so this is not about gold boots it’s not about the brown and gold the alpha crests it’s nothing like that this is about the work that we have to do in our communities today we had the ability to meet with the vice president of the White House

Uh Kamala Harris and one thing she gave us was an analogy of the Frog and I thought it was so powerful in what she stated she said that you can have two frogs in two different situations two different pots one pot you can put the frog in and gradually heat it up and

They just get used to it and eventually die and then there’s another pot you can drop them in in boiling water and they jump out of that thing we need to be the ones that’s jumping out of something in 2023 with these three gubernatorial elections and in 2024 we need to be

Jumping we can allow the heat that is on us to attack us and then we look around and we have nothing our history this wonderful all these beautiful Shields that we lay on and these Founders that we represent that will disappear very quickly and we can’t allow that running

Our Collegiates off the campuses the main feeder for our sisterhoods and our brotherhoods can’t be tolerated it’s those strategic actions that are happening we know that it’s an attack on affirmative action that’s coming and from what I hear it’s probably going to be successful what that means is it’s going to be less

Of us being educated on these campuses we need to pay attention we need to make sure that we stand up and be prepared for what’s ahead of us and so I just want to leave y’all I can preach they say I can be Pastor or evangelists

Rashida Liberty but I I definitely I’m a Believer as brother Alpha my Alpha president here my vice chair brother lonza said I’m a Believer but I believe one thing and that is is that we can do this together we have the power we have lost so many elections because we didn’t get our

People out to vote and our younger people are disengaged in the process it’s a lot of faces of wisdom in this room we need our younger faces in this room and our Collegiates to stand up and do something very strategic because they have the power and I’m gonna tell you

Something about those gen Z’s they ain’t going to tolerate it they’re not going to let the boiling water get there they’re going to jump out of that pot and they’re gonna make something happen but we’re standing here today to do that and I thank you all for the attention

And I appreciate each of my Council uh members the Council of presence for the hard work that you all do in your communities different colors same mission [Applause] thank you Rashida it’s been a great day a great day at the Capitol a great day for us to come together and understand

The issues in our community on our on this first panel we’ll talk about gun violence we’ll talk about economic empowerment so we have three three additional three additional panelists I’m sorry three additional supporters of me up here and one is Keisha Johnson of Sigma gamma Casey

Johnson of Sigma gamma row and I have 200 grads because we understand and believe that uh the audience that we’re trying to reach in the audience that we need that needs to understand this more than anything are the undergraduates so we’re hoping these two Future Leaders in

Our communities are are those two one is samoria Robinson of Sigma gamma rho she was gonna beat me if I got her name wrong and Ryan Thomas of Omega sci-fi I’ll bring you greetings on behalf of my my bosses brother Ricky Lewis the 42nd Grand boss of the Omega Sci-Fi

Fraternity I bring ingredients on behalf of a single parent black family home who dealt with all these issues in this community in East St Louis I bring you greetings because this commitment that we have is the commitment from all D9 it’s not a commitment from Omega sci-fi it’s not from Kappa Alpha Psi

I’m a resident of Ferguson right so when I had the issues in Ferguson everybody came we couldn’t do it by ourselves the community couldn’t do it by themselves I was the District representative for when George Floyd got killed I couldn’t do it by myself I had all colors on the

Ground supporting that struggle and supporting that that fight so these new issues that we have are not my issues they’re not iota’s issues they’re not kappa’s issues but if we don’t unify and address these issues then we’re going to lose and we’re going to continue to fail

So now is the time these panels these discussions for us to get together and understand the issues and call each other get best practices and those things so we can fight the fight together don’t be afraid to call what his lines are going to say I need your

People I need your troops on the ground with me this time we’ll have the moderators come forward and ask questions of the panelists and uh my job is to somebody got to tell them to be quiet because they all they all they all have a tendency to go over just

A tad bit so thank you guys for your attention and I’ll call up uh Casey Johnson first foreign [Applause] set of questions will come um we’ll relate to criminal justice and economic empowerment um well the first that will be criminal justice and then we will have questions

Uh in regards to economic empowerment so the first question the root causes of gun violence particularly impacting African Americans within the communities that are D9 organizations serve include the intersection between poverty racial segregation and systemic disinvestment please discuss programs or projects amongst your organizations that Target improving these conditions and anyone

Can answer yeah let me take this one uh I’m in the game capital of the world Los Angeles uh any given year La Chicago Detroit young black boys and young men are killing each other here’s what we found that works is the sigma Beta Club the Kappa League the alpha minimum program embodied

Program that related to Delta signal state that started we catch these young black boys early and put a young man in front of him a grown man in front of him and changed his trajectory data shows that you add a black man in the life of a young black boy is going

To automatically change the trajectory of his life it’s not Ricky Lewis talk I’m just talking about data where there’s no man around he’s gonna go find somewhere else to try to get that manhood thing and generally he gonna do something he ain’t got no business my mama would say ain’t gonna

End up in the penitentiary and I don’t know about anywhere else but in California they give these young black boys 20 25 30 40 years in the penitentiary in the 18 and 19 years old and the penitentiary is full of African-American young boys and Latino boys so what happens is the minimum program

All of us are doing mentoring whether it’s young black girls Latino girls young black boys Latino boys mentoring works I’m just encouraging all the brothers in here when you go back home we know life is hard man the wife is pulling you one way the job is pulling

Away the fraternity is putting another way Church putting another way bully pull you one way 100 black men we ain’t got for 24 hours of the day we know that but if we can give a little bit back to these young black boys I’m convinced that it’ll change the structured their

Life more go to a college unless we’ll go to the penitentiary [Applause] so one of the um being National president there are so many highlights but I think one of the most difficult times that I had was last summer in Philadelphia we were we had a community service project where we

Was teaching young men how to survive gunshot wounds providing bleed kits and what you would have to do in case of an emergency getting them prepared because in their world that’s what they expect at some point somebody that’s close to them is going to get shot

And so we were teaching them how to survive that that was tough what I recognize is is that poverty continues to be the animal in the room so when I think about our programs and and all of us hats off to all of our organizations that continue to find ways to pull

Individuals up out of poverty education initiatives finding ways to find resources for individuals to stay in school the scholarships that we provide which is critical for many families don’t take for granted the fact that thousand dollar scholarship at your chapter gave don’t take for granted that 500 scholarship that your chapter gives

But what I’ve realized in this journey is that the work is so much and we have to continue to lean into it in various ways what I’ve also seen is that the the rules are changing as we continue to play in the game and so systemic poverty continues to stay the

Order of the day because many of us continue to be complacent in the spaces that we are in we have not made it as you sit in this room you haven’t made it because there is a generation of our people that are not getting it at all

You are literally as we love to say and I see some of your posts we are our ancestors wildest dreams while there are still nightmares being had the degrees that we have are not ours they’re for the world the work that we do is not for you to get posts and likes

Is to absolutely train the Next Generation to continue the work this is hard work and it requires generations of us to roll up our sleeves and to get to work we are literally perpetuating the work of our Founders who recognize who was just removed out of slavery

And here we are trying to fight to not go back into slavery in a different kind of way open up wake up understand the game is real and I hope that as you know someone always says we’re preaching to the choir the question you got to ask yourself is

Are you even truly doing enough so I appreciate my brother’s comment if you take your last breath on this Earth they need to be able to say they left it all on the field Period period absolutely I just want to build on what my brother presidents have shared as there’s some disturbing statistics about these social determinants that are challenging how we operate and that lead to the violence that we see in our communities we might be the first generation not to

Leave the Next Generation better off than we found it that is the scary reality that we face and as we talk about our programs and our organization does the same with youth mentorship and through our workshops and our programmatic thrusts of Zetas helping other people Excel my

Challenge for us as the D9 is to really fill in the gap by being relatable it is not just providing the one-off workshops or opportunities to create programs it’s how to build relationships with Community organizations and Partnerships that youth in our community recognize our faces begin to trust us

And begin to understand that they are loved and appreciated the way they show up in the world they’re fighting for identity and also struggling with being accountable to Authority and some of the ways that we can help while we give the workshops on financial stewardship while we work on mentorship

Is being able to see a young person be able to have conversations where you’re relatable and not so far removed and holier than thou but therefore the grace of God you are here and if they can feel that in authenticity they start to open up small segments of trust

That will allow them to think differently about harming someone who looks just like you because at the core of who we are as organizations it’s the uplift of the individual that creates the good for the collective so the one way that we can move forward with our programming and these social

Determinants is to go a little bit deeper in those bewitching hours that I call them from the time they get out of school till the time their parents come home there is a lot of idle time and we know who operates in idle time so if we can be intentional about how we

Fill that Gap in new innovative ways that meets our community where they are and that they see us more relatable touchable approachable then when we come in the community they’re like family is here and we do the work collectively because we are stronger together so if we are

Going to be able to solve for these issues we can’t keep doing the same things we’ve always done or we’ll keep getting the same results foreign Theta that we’re doing we’re in the process of actually restructuring our youth Mentor program which is the Iota youth Alliance and even rebranding it

One of our main initiatives was Eye shield and Ice Shield was directly designed to initially deal with police brutality and exactly what to do when you’re put in that situation and now we’re even going to put a focus now on what to do uh we’re going to add a

Emergency services component in the sense we’re adding education to uh it was it was structured around the Collegiate level so now in the midst of the past couple of years looking taking a deeper look into the community the amount of guns that’s coming in into the community and getting in the hands of

The younger generation now I’m talking about high school and yes and now I’m talking about elementary school grammar school and to give them proper education even on a bigger on a bigger note we have to be mentors every single day um back home I’m a part of what’s called

Uh bless which stands for blacks and law enforcement um serving the community so that when we’re going to take a piece of that and I’m going to incorporate that into our Eye shield into our Iota youth Alliance once we relaunch it and it gives the proper education we provide mentorship

And we we give them people that look like them we’re from the same communities as them and this is what they do not see on a larger scale and they don’t see it consistently enough but again as members in the npac we have to continue to be

Loud not just for uh just because we’re here on Capitol Hill we have to continue to be loud on an everyday basis and make sure that it resonates in the community [Applause] well thank you panelists um I do want to say thank you on behalf of all the

Collegiate members in this room because it’s important that we hear this from you all because you know we are the future and it’s nothing like hearing all of this advice spoken from you all through us you know and I appreciate it so now for the next question investment in neighborhoods is key to

Addressing gun violence police training equipment and Technology as well as increasing hiring and development community policing and neighborhood stabilization are all rooted as solutions to reducing gun violence however these resources take money what can be non-organizations do to support these Investments I’d like to start with that question

With challenging us to look at violence Interrupters that exist in our communities I live in New York and in New York we have life camp and there are violence interrupter organization and there are many like life Camp across the country that we can partner with to be

Able to do this work we don’t have to independently try to address what we see happening we also have abilities that we can collaborate with others who are in this space there’s an attorney Royce Russell Esquire who’s a member of Kappa Alpha Psi and he wrote a book Cardiac

Arrest which speaks to how to handle unlawful police stops not just from the emotional standpoint but what tactical things you need to do like make sure you get down a badge number know how to make that complaint so that something is documented on anything that is unfair in

The policing so one of the best ways that we can work smarter and not harder is to seek out who is creating that space for violence Interrupters that can help to fund some of the workshops and the Outreach that you do additionally most of the district attorney offices Across the Nation have Community

Engagement offices I sit on the African-American Advisory board for the Queen’s district attorney and one of the things that we do is reach out to other organizations to collaborate so as members of Zeta Phi Beta sorority Incorporated get engaged as a part of what we’ve always done the challenge is

How do we connect with other groups so that we don’t have to be at a cost alone of having the education but we’re able to find alternative ways to look at reducing gun violence and having that presence as well as with our schools and the superintendent for education

Challenging them to add programming that talks about how to be responsible and de-escalating what could potentially lead to gun violence and then there are many programs that our members will partner with community-led Grassroots organization with fathers who just sit outside one night a week watching what’s going on in community getting back to

Who we were as a community and as people where you could talk to somebody else’s child that you can hold them accountable now you know I’m gonna tell your grandmother I’m going to tell your father but when we create these programs and layer them with other opportunities

For them to get learning or them to get access to something that we give away now gun violence is not just about gun violence protection it’s about how do we create a healthy Community how do we help you with good health wins and make sure that you’re vaccinated how do we

Make sure that you’re registered to vote so it becomes a holistic approach on how we partner with organizations and groups to address the root cause but not solely underwriting the bill because we’re bringing those who are invested in our communities to underwrite these opportunities so go ahead

Um in addition to that I think most of our organizations we have different individuals uh here and there that in law enforcement um that serving the criminal justice realm but on a larger scale from the nphc standpoint we don’t have any uh solid Partnerships when it comes to creating these opportunities to educate

Our community one of the biggest law enforcements uh law enforcement sub agencies is called Noble for those of you who are familiar with Noble stands for um National Organization of law uh Black Law Enforcement uh officers so I’m not sure if there’s anything like that created but it would be Monumental

To create that partnership on a national level with the nphc so some of the things that we’re speaking of uh speaking of here today Noble specializes in that and it would be a Monumental partnership just to be able to facilitate to the D9 organizations so that we can get out in the community

So one of the things that I would I would love to see the divine nine uh show up in is just thinking about how we leverage federal grants County grants state grants that can funnel to some of the 501c threes that we may have in certain communities that we know that are high

Risk to be able to fund some of the programs that we’re talking about that our communities need this is the reality you folks wake up you’ve got your degrees you go to work you have your families you go to your attorney sorority meetings and the work in the communities that we do

But it’s tiring and some of it requires resources to continue for us to do it for perpetuity and for longevity so strategically what we should be thinking about is divine nine organizations is how are we trying to acquire federal dollars to fund some of the programs that we’re doing at the local level

We do good work and we need dollars instead of it coming out of just our pockets which it ends up being it ends up being very limited and so strategically what we should be talking about as a divine nine is who at our national level are are are are solid

Grant writers folks that can go after those Grant dollars at the federal level or at the state level number two as a former mayor of a city three terms normally what’s great is when people actually show up so when we talk about the violence that’s happening in our communities and

You’re talking about ways a lot of those programs can be funded if you actually show up and demand your local elected officials to move those dollars because when you don’t tell them where to move the dollars and they just move to their own personal pet projects hint hint big secret

So a part of it is US showing up for those meetings maybe it’s the maybe it’s the divine nine the mphc in that Community rotating this is your month Alpha Phi Alpha to show up to uh the council meeting here in our city maybe it’s your so what ends

Up happening is that there’s a presence from our communities and when we start talking about the budget season for your cities maybe we need to be a part of that they are moving millions of dollars around for projects for other organizations and we’re not even in the mix

I’m telling you what’s happening all the time and we need to get smart on that to help to fund some of the programs that we know can undercut the violence that’s happening in our communities and just to to reiterate before brother president speaks Noble did have a

Partnership with us that needs to be renewed because they came to try to regain trust at the mphc conference so now it’s an opportunity for us to go back and renew that partnership in real time yeah Madam moderate I dropped the mic on all three of these they said it all thank you

[Applause] all right thank you all for those answers uh as we continue to the next question I know you guys addressed this a lot about the youth and the children in our communities so the next thing we would like to ask are what are your thoughts to the underlying roots of gun

Violence amongst children what type of programs or projects can denounce organizations Implement to address these issues yeah I think we just kind of touched out and I think I think we touched that one Ron all right help so another question that is uh also can be asked is how can denounce

Organizations partner with grassroot organizations and community members that are familiar with and have knowledge of why gun violence is prevalent in their neighborhoods or in hot spots I think we touched that one too well we’re going to help you out my brother with just expanding on that we did touch on it

But I think we also talked about amongst ourselves mental health being part of that impact on violence and Zeta 5 Beta sorority Incorporated is the first organization to sign an mou with Mental Health America that does the research and free screenings I’m mentioning that because this applies to

All of our organizations you can get free screenings which cost a significant amount of money but it’s normalizing the conversation that there’s not a stigma around mental health there are some preventable opportunities before we get to a violent outcome if we deal with the mental health implications so being able

To take the screenings and support our youth early on with what they’re dealing with and how they’re living in the world can help to mitigate some of this violence if we can get to the issues like mental health and the other social determinants that make mental health a

Greater issue when you’re talking about poverty lack of access to health care when you’re talking about the economic disparities all of these things weigh on the mental health and capacity and if we don’t know how to deal and we haven’t been taught how to manage our emotions

Then we harm the thing that is most precious to us and that should be our brother and sister so looking at that as another layer and way an opportunity for us to mitigate gun violence is to address the real mental health issues in our community thank you

Uh thank you and thank you moderators we’ll transition to economic empowerment economic equality is a crucial part of establishing holistic and racially quiet equality for our black community it’s not important for black people to be able to contribute to our economy as workers and consumers but to be bald small business owners

I truly believe that we’re pulling the same rope that 99 of us leave this room and go back to our communities and pull the same rope support each other’s communities and support the greatness and the leaders that we have then we will start affecting change in our communities well this part of the

Moderation this is part of the session we’ll talk about uh economic empowerment we’ll start with Ryan Thomas first all right we’re going to ask a question that you know you guys haven’t already all right here we go first question new topic many companies were willing and did indeed invest in Black businesses in

Response to the black lives matter movement as sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota how has this proactive stance by companies lessened or changed in recent months if so how can African Americans maintain a momentum and focus on the continued need for Investments um so so the vice president so

When we had the opportunity to be with the vice president today one of the things that I thought was very telling uh was the fact that they understood that we now see corporations shrinking in their investment uh in D.I uh and in those spaces that we talked about expanding opportunities for

Uh black companies and and for understanding the importance of diversifying whether it’s the workforce or uh and having those crucial conversations we can’t let up off the gas this is the reality is that we get an opportunity as divine nine organizations to receive information from institutions

That are in places that are seeing the field being leveled right before us and so we have an obligation to figure out smart ways creative ways to get information to our communities the challenge is is that some of us feel like we have done enough that’s that’s the thing that continues

To bother me it’s like we’re not tired enough and the reality is is that there are companies that are scaling back their Investments uh their understanding and we have to make sure that we use our Outlets to make sure that we continue to amplify that we’re watching you

But also be intentional about making sure that we move with our dollars in spaces and places the segregation happened not because it was wrong and because it just economically didn’t work for the businesses that were segregating us and so we have to find new ways in 2023

To use our dollars or the lack thereof in certain spaces on those who don’t support us so it’s hard but there’s a lot of smart people in our organizations and that’s why coming together thinking together acting together is the only way to be able to impact that type of change

As it relates to economics in those areas let me say um man we got a lot of work to do so many Arenas but only 24 hours in the day whether it’s whether it’s gun violence Economic Development mentoring Reproductive Rights so when we got so much stuff to do

And we get tired we talk about amongst ourselves as Council of presidents about self-care and we run we run we run we get a piece of chicken and some french fries and we run and run and run they eat a donut and then we run and run and run and get

A cup of coffee and then get to the airport let me get me some Oreos you’re running you’re eating bad you’re not drinking enough water you’re dehydrated and when you get home you still got work to do still got work to do um so it’s just tough and I think Chris

Said it right is that collectively we all have to do a better job in terms of the economic development piece we just have to hold these companies feet to the fire in terms of supporting us what we need to do um we impact a lot of folks in our

Community not with our organizations not with our organizations and our families and our friends but it’s so much work to do um police violence it’s just a lot of work we need to do uh and we spread thin in many situations uh but the economic development piece is critical we have to

Stay vigilant about it we have to encourage corporations to support what we’re doing with whole our black dollars if we need to do that buy some shares in these companies and go to the board meetings and hold them accountable so there’s a lot we can do

We have the bandwidth to do it we just got to really mobilize in terms of how we want to handle the economic development piece I I want to add one piece to this when we think about the companies and holding them accountable and both of my brother presidents talk about the economic power

Of our dollar we have to be courageous enough to really put the action behind it so those who want to scale back on their opportunity to have the diversity equity and inclusion we’ll scale back on spending with you so we need to be courageous in who we

Target and we highlight that our 2.5 million members will no longer purchase or invest in doing business with those who don’t want to invest in doing business with us but until we do that collectively it’s it’s wishy-washy Oh They’ll be upset for two weeks they might even do

One boycott and they’re back to giving us their money it’ll blow over we need to be courageous enough to take a stand and follow it through so that they understand that there are real Economic Consequences to how they want to now no longer invest in diversity equity and inclusion and when

We do that as a collective they’ll start paying attention when it hurts their bottom line [Applause] something something that I touched on earlier and actually on what President Grant said it’s it’s all it’s all well and dandy to walk the walk but actually talking to talk uh talking

To talk but to walk the walk that’s a whole different Realm 2.5 million just imagine if we said we was going to do it and then actually did it because let’s be honest there’s some cultures that stick within their own there’s some cultures that stick together okay

They have all the real estate they have all the businesses they have all the constructions why because they stick together one of the main uh underlying things that we’ve probably heard up here today is unity but on that 2.5 million when will we see it I touched on relationships earlier in

The sense where anybody meaning even these corporate organizations these Fortune 500s they will do to us what we allow them to do to us and that’s the main thing that that we have to realize in all of these organizations we have a multitude of individuals that are gifted

And talented as to where we can show up and say hey we don’t need y’all to let us in because we’re in now now what thank you for those responses [Applause] alrighty do you all need a break for water before I ask the next question okay we use it black entrepreneurs face

Disappropriation will disappropriate disproportionate oh um let’s run that back black entrepreneurs face disproportionate barriers to success when starting their businesses including inequitable access to capital resources and opportunities what can be done to break down these barriers well we’re excited that as the Council of presidents we are expanding our

Partnership and sponsorship with the small business administration highlighting and realizing that small business is a part of the Cornerstone of this country and being able to build that economic structure of wealth not just for yourself but for those that you employ and the community around will make a difference so through the ability

To build capacity for our businesses so that our mom and pop shops that you can have the best sweet potato side sweet potato pie this side of the Mississippi but you might not have a back office structure you might not have the ability to receive funds when we had covid

Happen and then there were the PPP loans because our businesses weren’t prepared they folded and closed so when we look at this partnership that we’re investing in it’s an opportunity to build that capacity through training through certification to become minority uh Enterprise business Enterprise or minority women-owned business Enterprise

And being able to build that technical assistance in where you don’t have to pay for it but you can receive it so that you can grow your Enterprise in a profitable way that allows you to not only support your community but it allows you to then partner and joint

Venture and there’s so many more opportunities that come out of it our organization has launched the women who win initiative that allows for us to highlight members in our own organization that have their own businesses or have started on that entrepreneurial journey and they need to

Build that capacity so each of us have ways in which we support our small business owners and allow them the space to grow and scale and when we partner with SBA it now means that at our conferences at our conventions we can have these resources ready and available

Work that we do with JPMorgan Chase to build that economic develop development for our entrepreneurs it’s important it’s personal to me because professionally I get to do that in one of the largest redevelopments in the country a 19 billion dollar JFK International Airport where we’re pushing for businesses to become

Certified so you can do business with the government there’s a lot of money available but if you don’t know how and you’ve never received the training then you continue to be a consumer instead of an owner so we’re excited about how this partnership with SBA and our individual

Economic thrusts will be able to build those economic structures in our communities so yes [Applause] what she’s not telling you is is that later on today the SBA administrator Who was appointed by the president of the United States of America is going to be here signing that document saying that we

Fully are partnering with the divine nine to push information and resources to small black businesses that’s power so what that means that if you are a small business owner they’re going to be able to put the proper counselors around you to get you to where you need to be

To be able to compete for federal dollars Federal contracts in order for you to go from here to there which means that you will hopefully hire more black folks that will change the trajectory of their family’s life and then allow for them to start their own business and so

Forth and so on and etc etc right one of the programs that we’re doing and I know that some of our D9 organizations are doing it but we started a couple of years ago um beginning to track the dollars of our members black spin the first year

I think it was like three four million dollars that we were able to count in receipts this past year it was over 10 million dollars of our knowing that our members gave at least 10 million dollars to Black businesses and those were the brothers who reported

So a part of the process and I think it’s important again for all the divine nine to track how much money that we are giving to Black businesses to show our Collective truly economic power we developed a we developed an app where now brothers are going to be able when

They get their haircuts to where they they they they go to certain establishments they’ll be able to quickly upload the receipt we’ll be able to uh account for it and be able to give a more accurate number now imagine if we could absolutely say without a doubt

That we are spending 50 100 200 million dollars in our black community and say that as a divine nine not individually but collectively so that means now the companies need to come and talk to us that’s again leveraging our buying power not trying to hypothetical it you know

Being hypothetical this is what we think we’re doing but literally showing we got receipts and we’re about this life now you need to come to us with the right kind of policies or we’re going to pull these dollars back and go somewhere else that’s how you move strategically that’s

How you move the power I think one of the one of the biggest components of empowerment when we speak the word is knowledge and education I’m 100 not ashamed to say before covet I knew nothing about the SBA I’m a small business on in Jersey City and we’ve had

Me and my brother we’ve had a restaurant for six years now and had I known about the spa we wouldn’t have spent our hard-earned money on on Startup and it was it was it was a good penny to start up but here we are now six years later

And now jumping into the into those Realms because now the knowledge and the education has been put out there so now what I’ve found myself doing is educating us hey you thinking about going into business did you know did you know did you know and a good eight times

Out of ten they looking at me like like a deer in headlights like are you serious no I’m serious go on to the website knowledge knowledge where to get it how to get it who to contact who to call how to go about it what does the process

Entail okay and you know and also that it’s not going to be a snap of the finger either you know it is a process but the first step is knowledge and how to go about it thank you so guys uh great first off great answers great discussion points uh

Thanks to moderators so we want to start we want to transition to some questions from the audience we about two minutes uh for each question and answer uh first I want to give our two Collegiates a round of applause and say thank you because we do this for them uh for the

Future the youth so they can understand those things that we need to be doing so I’ll I’ll if you if you have a question please raise your hand and you know he’ll bring the mic to you and we’ll you’re going to yell at some of the other Collegiate because they picking their hands

Test uh Roosevelt Williams Phi Beta Sigma uh I’m the new mpac president at my school and I looked on the website um I’ve been like looking on the websites looking to find information to help me at my college to see as a president what can I do to help my

Divine eye and it’s not a lot of information like to help us like at all our emailed so what do you advise us as presidents to do to help our divine on our campuses because it’s no like information or like real training for me

To come in to know what to do to help my whole Devon like I can help my sigmas because it’s a blueprint for us but how do I go about helping my dog absolutely we’re going to give the money to the npac president brother Lewis is uh helping out

Expeditiously the 35th the 35th president yes thank you um congratulations on being president um we are working to update our website there are some resources there um we just um updated our handbook which will be most helpful for you with all the programs and projects Um we have our national Leadership Conference in October we would love to have you come there’ll be lots of workshops SBA will be there job opportunities are coming there’s so many things that we’re gearing up for do you have access to your area coordinator because that’s the front line for you

Contact your area coordinator and they can help you with anything my email is nphc President 35 at gmail anytime I’ll answer any question you have thank you [Applause] good afternoon my name is Dwayne Dixon I serve on the national clergy Council of Iota Phi Theta fraternity

What I am interested in is have as a as a council of presidents have you given thought to how to Leverage The Power of faith-based communities inside of our organizations we got a whole bunch of black preachers with a whole bunch of congregations who happen to be Greek and

I think that that represents an untapped power and I’m just interested in thoughts from the panel on that I loved oh go ahead brother let’s go real quick uh I think what I’ve seen in Los Angeles and other places they have some some Sundays in phc day some of the

Churches I think that needs to be promoted more uh maybe once every quarter in mphc Day on Sunday and everybody wear their colors and we donate monies donate money to the church or donate Monies to a special charity I agree all of us have a lot of preachers

In high places who do outstanding work uh you can look across the board of any International preacher I can almost assure you he’s probably going to be a member of one of these fraternities uh he or she can be one of the members of fraternity sorority so yes we need to

Elevate that more whether Lewis also took some of what I was going to share on that because we do have the days of going to worship together I’m a woman of faith and I understand the power of prayer that the challenge that we can also look at in galvanizing our Interfaith committees

And our clergy is making the church more accessible outside the walls of the church so it allows for people to see Ministry in real hands build time uh someone quoted Susan Taylor one of my mentors that said hands that serve can be more powerful that mouths that prey

So when when we are able to partner with the clergy on the initiatives that we’re talking about gun violence Economic Development all of these areas and it’s a part of an extension outside of the actual Church service hours it then begins to bring another level of relatability to those who serve in faith-based

Institutions and how they can open up their doors to also host some of these programs initiatives and workshops across the country so that after church hours we’re still doing Church business so I think that’s an opportunity for us as a D9 so we can get together we can

Come and worship together we can take beautiful photos but then where’s the follow-up work from the church because the black church has been the leader in advocacy for the history of who we are as a people but somehow someone has put our Collective voices on mute and we

Need to unmute ourselves and be more actively engaged as a D9 when it comes to the faith-based institutions being at the Forefront of the work that we do so thank you for that question and that is a challenge for us as a council of presidents to reimagine how we can

Create that programming in a different way that can have some actionable results so just really quick on that so we have a program within Sigma call Sigma cares where we have uh when I first became president and we’re trying to Galvanize all the pastors that were that’s in our

Um in the fraternity well first and foremost the first thing we got to get them Financial that’s the key that’s the key right because the challenge with getting the programs that we’re doing to their members is that they don’t even know what’s going on in the organization

I mean we literally have great programs that could be the front line could be the churches but we have brothers that are pastors that are not plugged in and so until we can continue to help them understand that there are initiatives that we’re getting federal dollars something State dollars for that could

Help the very people that we’re trying to help in the community uh the reality is is that many of the folks that we are trying to help us in their churches but they’re not plugged in the way that they need to be plugged in and I think

That’s a big piece to where we need to also try to bring them back into the fold to be able to make that happen so there’s that from the Iota perspective we have a member uh by the name of uh Bishop Talbert Swann who is very very

Heavy even on the social uh justice uh realm and he is he’s from Massachusetts he’s at the Forefront in terms of on a lot of social uh justice issues that has and continues to affect our community so one of the next things that you know we’re personally going to task him with

Is creating uh that Council of clergy not only because it’s a lot of work it is a lot of work as we keep saying we have a lot of work to do just so that that does not fall uh all on him even though he’s doing a magnificent job he

Can’t do it by himself thank you so we’ll take one more question let’s take this last question can you take two more ladies first oh thank you brother thank you um so I’d like to to ask a question on the based on the uh economic empowerment

Um topic so I think one way that would help us uh the black community would be to repair us economically would be reparations so I would like to know where do you all stand um or us as the D9 are you discussing it are we determining A Way Forward

Um this is rolling out in cities and several States Across the Nation um so other than H.R 40 uh I would like to know where we stand as a D9 Collective on reparations lineage-based reparations thank you so I know that collectively we have not had that conversation we haven’t

I will tell you that individually and personally I’m all about it okay reparations for both it’s about reimagining what reparations is right we ain’t getting a 48 acres and a mule you know reparations for me would be forgive all my student loans that’s my reparations [Applause] but everybody don’t have student loans right

I don’t know what theirs is but reparations for me would be to forgive all my student loans but what I will say is this and I know that our chairman is here our chairwoman is here and I know that that’s part of the conversation that we

Can have I know that at this moment no we don’t we haven’t but I know that other individual presidents may have some views on it but it’s not something we’ve discussed as a council when I just happened to live in Cali and uh Kelly’s already said they’re gonna

Kick everybody down uh like 1.5 million dollars per black person and they having a fit in California uh I don’t know if that’s gonna really happen but at least they’ve talked about it uh but as president Ray said we haven’t talked about it as a as a council than Madam

Chair that might be something we want to bring up on the agenda item have somebody come in and talk about it yeah but that thing sister brought up a great great question for dialogue about reparation all right thank you guys let’s give this panel a spanning Ovation great job guys

Way to address the issues in our community we’re going to prepare for the next panel of the uh panelists can come on to the stage thank you thank you foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign let’s once again [Applause] at this time we’ll start the introductions for panel B good afternoon

I am now Juan Johnson I am the international director of social action for Phi Beta Sigma fraternity Incorporated I have the distinct honor and pleasure to introduce our panel for this uh for on Reproductive Rights Health Equity and d e i so first I would like to welcome to the

Stage the international Grand ambassadors of Sigma gamma rho sorority Incorporated chairwoman Rashida s Liberty Next I would like to welcome to the stage the general president of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated Dr Willis lonzer thank you next up is the international president of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Incorporated Danette Anthony Reed [Applause] I would like to welcome to the stage the national president of Delta Sigma Theta

Sorority Incorporated LC cook homes [Applause] and last but certainly not least the national director of public policy of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated Rawls Andrews thank you [Applause] the moderators for this panel will be led by Beverly fields of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Incorporated she is the international connection and social

Action chair we also have the distinct pleasure to have three collegians that will be joining us that is Jordan Hall of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority from the alpha chapter at Howard University as well as Kima Leonard the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity from the Phi Pi chapter at High Point University

And zura Hall from my own soul War Zeta Phi Beta sorority Incorporated the Ada Upsilon chapter at University of Maryland College Park [Applause] good afternoon so we have two hot topics with us this afternoon so we’re going to jump right in but for the Dei and CRT

Panel discussion we’re going to give a little context for our audience of what those topics are really about because they affect every single one of us in this room so what is critical race Theory what is critical race Theory it’s the premise that racism is embedded in U.S social institutions our Criminal Justice

System education system the labor market housing market Health Care system this institutionalized racism stems from laws regulations rules and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race now what it is not is attributing racism to white people or other racial groups or entire groups of people which is what

The opponents of critical race Theory want to state and then what is diversity equity and inclusion diversity means having people of different genders races ethnicities sexual orientations and other demographic categories in various institutions and private entities equity but first opening up opportunities for different types of people to succeed and

Get their fair share of their American dream and inclusion it requires creating conditions at work and school where all types of people feel welcomed valued and able to make their voices heard so we have Dei Frameworks or policies within many corporations and in public institutions that seek to promote fair treatment and

Full participation of all people particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination so what is our problem what is the challenge we’re going to be asking the panelists about the numerous states that have either passed or introduced legislation to ban discussions books and policies or to cut funding

For education training or activities about race these efforts are essentially attempting to erase and prevent exposure to African-American history and culture and require the elimination of Dei policies and public institutions our schools our libraries and government agencies so we’re gonna delve in this is a Hot Topic this is what

Everyone’s talking about now so let’s hear from our presidents on some of our questions good evening mphc good afternoon to 5 9 of the council presidents I’m so grateful to be here thank you so much for having me I’m gonna start us off with our first question Americans have witnessed major

Accomplishments by African Americans with success stories in media business law politics technology and other professions and even the election of our first African-American president so are the concepts of critical race Theory and diversity equity and inclusion still relevant or do the opponents of these Concepts have a point well I’ll start it off

First and foremost it is absolutely still relevant uh one of the challenges that we as human beings have is as our experiences uh are uh time oriented when we experience something in in the now it’s very much in your face it’s very much tangible uh visceral you can feel

It deep inside but as that experience subsides or it is not directly in your uh realm of Engagement we have a tendency to forget about it and and kind of put it in in the back of our minds and I’ve often said to myself personally that we have the the hearts and and

Forgiveness as a people that lets us try to forgive our brothers and sisters of their transgressions and we move forward but we must take on a mindset of of the warrior uh people that constantly has that staff and or spear in their hand and they eat with the

Other hand and they kneel rather than sit because all of our engagement all of our experiences are not going to change ultimately and is we have to go biblical until the corruptible put on in corruption right and those who uh can put on an immortality place it on meaning that

When we have been transformed we would see a different response but now the human nature of people is still there it is still very much in our faces and the basis of where we start has to be from our faith perspective and the reality is

Is that we will have to fight until we leave and then for those who are believers in Christ until Christ return then it will change then so we have to have a mentality to fight uh a complacency remover many of us don’t want to go to the cities uh some

Of some of the brothers are oh we don’t want to go to Dallas Texas where where do we live in this country where we are really truly accepted you believe this red and blue State scenario that in blue States you’re treated more fairly the last time I checked Eric Gardner died in

The blue State not in a red state so the reality is we must fight for our right as people it’s people of color as people who are brown and and we’re not so monolithic that we’re black and some brown I’m mixed you’re mixed everybody’s in here got you know somebody’s got Indian in

Their blood you know y’all to looking at your hair I remember my hair but but long but but in all seriousness we have to remember that we must train up our younger brothers and sisters with the concept that we must be engaged we must be ready to fight

And it was mentioned earlier and I lean to my predecessor and said pastors could have their congregation pay for their dues so they could be members of their organizations and keep them active and engaged so that we ensure that everyone on the playing table all of our key

Stakeholders are at the table so our mindset has to change our tactics have to change yes we can do uh what is it uh we can do economic boycotting that’s a tactic but there are new tactics now because the chess game has changed that we have to incorporate so yes it’s still

Relevant but we have to change our mindset in order for us to play and engage appropriately to move us forward into the future yeah and to add to that we are in a fight like never before because um in terms of relevancy it’s more relevant than ever before if we think

About the inroads that we made and talking about mindset I think some of us maybe thought we made it right if you look at um you know the 40s the 50s the 60s especially the 50s 60s 70s 80s we thought we were making all those inroads but for every single thing that happens

There is a backlash and the thing is you talked about with respect to uh oh yeah we got the first black president oh so we don’t have a race issue oh yeah we got the first black this add another so we don’t have uh an issue with diversity equity and inclusion the backlash

Created an issue that I don’t think any of us anticipated or not in the way that um the hate that has come out the um trying to dismantle every single thing from what we’re facing now with the uh Supreme Court getting ready to hear it for in a few weeks about uh

Dismantling what’s left of affirmative action to diversity equity and inclusion programs to your point that are being threatened so we have to fight like never before we certainly have to make sure that our voices are collectively heard there are the voices of a few that go to

School board meetings that go to the state legislature and their voices are heard you know for one person to be able to change and get school get Books banned in an entire School District we have to be in those rooms we have to be in the room I love Hamilton in the

Room where it happened we have to be in every single room if you think about it we have to be in the school board rooms we have to be at the state legislatures we have to be there to make sure that our voices are heard so that there’s a not just a few

Who are really pushing you know the rhetoric about critical race Theory and how it’s going to hurt hurt their um little children and all those types of things we have to make sure that we’re educating our members and that we are in those rooms to make

Sure that our voices are heard with the truth we also have to make sure that we are able to um to educate our youth we have to do that ourselves while we are fighting this fight because it is a fight it is a fight for our lives and I like that frog

Analogy too because we have to fight it’s hot already so we have to make sure that we’re we are reacting as such this isn’t a simmering situation it’s already hot and we have to fight so let me add a little please let me just add to that because I hear

Two things that I totally agree with that my uh colleagues just mentioned you got to hear our voices the voices have to be heard and then we also have to educate we have got to educate and we’ve got to start with our younger members

As well as we go through so what I call this is going back to the future so if you think about it we’re going back to where we were they’re banning our books what they’re telling us we can’t teach you we can’t train you you can’t know about

Where you came from and what has happened Back to the Future so this is what I think we need to do they ban in our books we need to take our books and make sure they’re in our churches they’re at our youth organizations they’re in all pieces and places where

We have to now take the lead to make sure we educate and make sure our young people know where we’re going those are the things we have to do and you know why I think they’re scared now this now I’m telling you what I truly believe they’re concerned because our new

Generation is not as um racially opposed if you want to say it like that then their generation so they’re thinking I got to keep them in line so how do I do that I don’t think the Young Generation is going to take it so we just need to make sure that

They’re educated and know the direction and give them the guidance on where we want to go [Applause] say the question I always ask when we are faced with something right in our like how did this the question is how did this happen and what was happening and what we were

Not paying attention to is that the strategy was already being laid out now what’s interesting is you know we’re all a part of our sororities and fraternities we are very political with who’s going to be next president General president who’s going to be next Grand bass we work on those strategies

But the and we start working those immediately how does she get elected we’re gonna have to figure this out for the next four years because this can’t happen again am I right am I wrong we’re working in our Collegiates are working on it on their campuses like I’m

President next year you know so we’re all ready strategically thinking about what happens in our Orcs but the world was moving around us as soon as Obama got in office they said oh no then Stacey Abram rolls up oh no and they got busy so what I’m wondering is

And I’m just gonna say it out loud the critical race theory is first what they’re going to start to do is weaponize the divine nine and now we become hate groups rallying points so when our companies say we’re going to invest in that that conference we’re going to sponsor this

We’re going to sponsor that they’re going to look at it and go oh maybe we should pull our money out of that maybe Macy should take those dresses off the shelf and not pay that million dollars a year to our organizations this is what’s coming because they’re

Already working on it we’re talking the awareness just came up a little bit in the room but I want to let you know that that agenda is already in place and probably has been in place for the last three or four years so we have to start thinking ahead we are playing checkers

They playing chess we got to be Chess Masters real soon to get this thing right clear effective and constant communication clear effective and constant communication uh good afternoon D9 Raul Andrews I bring you greetings on behalf of our 34th Grand poll Mark Rubin a Shelton the third Esquire critical race

Theory in reality is Jared Scott so don’t teach critical race Theory teach Dred Scott over and over and over again critical race theory is Plessy versus Ferguson keep teaching Plessy versus Ferguson and then read the entirety of the 13th Amendment and then try to figure out where Criminal Justice Reform

Fell flat 13 didn’t give us everything we needed it gave us something but they still laid the groundwork but if we don’t stop and start with clear constant communication because hearing at one time does not fill this room it’s not going to fill the room next

Year it’s got to be over and over and over again and instead of running memes which we’re we got people who are very good in all our organizations of running means we need them to run that same Effectiveness with our communication thank you what engaging and conversation thus far

And I believe my International president already got into this question a little but I think it’s so important that I’m still going to ask it so given that legislation Banning critical race Theory and diversity equity and inclusion is trending throughout the country with success in certain jurisdictions what

Strategies can the Divine and other organizations Implement to First ensure that African-American history and culture remains intact and relevant and second that diversity equity and inclusion are considered in institutions especially in the workplace place so in other words how can we as the divine nine fill the gap for what’s not

Happening in the classroom Back to the Future but now what I’m going to talk to you about is what do we do in the past we have villages right and we’ve got to pull our villagers together to make sure that again we educate and again that we tell we all have youth groups

Why not that be a piece of that youth group is to tell them a little bit about where we came from what they need to understand and be aware of what is Deni and make sure that they know so I would just say build our Villages through our

Youth groups and then and then above and beyond that would be the direction I would go I think we have to also make this work relative and when you’ve brought up workspaces I thought about my personal Journey I’ve been in finance for 25 years and I saw that there was a gap

With our senior leadership team at a major tech company I went and I made myself a job at the seat of one of the most powerful CEOs in this country and in that space I took the time to educate more to senior leaders and then we started hiring and bringing on we got

A very powerful system a Delta Sigma Theta at the top of the helm that sits now at that seat and I would say that work was very intentional at that time and so we started looking for divine nine leaders within our business and saying you might have to leave your

Discipline to come do this work and they were like no I work in finance I don’t know nothing about that you know but what we had to do was we had to try to help bring awareness to a group of people that were blind as to what was

Going on so that created jobs that created donations and that also created an investment in school structures from our company where we said there is a gap with technology and those students learning Tech we’re going to these hbcus and we’re going to get them but they are

Not equipped enough yet to come to our company so we got to go back to the preschool years and we got to build those schools for those and we did that work right but even before then the main thing I say about Dei my sister president said do you know what it is

Diversity is I was invited to the party inclusion is I got to dance at the party Equity is you played my song so when we make it that tangible for our young people they start to understand like there’s a separation we use d-i-d-e-i-d-i but we don’t understand

That those are very distinct things we can invite you into a classroom and now you’re mixing in we’re diverse school okay inclusion are you teaching what we want to hear about our history are you teaching Texas history like they’re doing down in Texas where I’m at to my

Son where we have to educate him and say we’re going to give you a little something else about what happened down here in Texas and are they playing your song are you making it diverse enough where I’m actually feeling like I’m a part of the system

And that is what a lot of these companies have done that’s a lot of what school districts have done they have integrated and made it diverse but they’re missing inclusion and Equity they’re not paying us at the right rate did I hiring us at a rate that’s greater or equal

And they’re not educating us and keeping our topics top of mind enough and at an equitable level that’s what Dei is just want to take that moment as di professional now transition from finance a couple years ago I think I know stuff but that’s the work that we’re doing

You definitely know stuff but but I just wanna add to that one thing when you think about Equity because this is something that everyone has such a hard concept um a hard time understanding the concept of true equity Equity does not necessarily mean equal it doesn’t mean you’re treating everyone

Equally because if you treat everyone equally since we’re starting from different places on the playing field there’s no way that there will ever be equity and so it’s really important to make sure that we understand that those of us who are in Corporate America who are

Able to influence it goes back to being in those rooms where things are happening to be able to uh to influence it’s putting the pressure on our workplaces and this is something that was touched on in the last panel in terms of how we really can collectively

Let our voices be heard you know not with our dollars with our uh support so all of those things have to be done but while at the same time again we’re fighting the good fight we really do have to do as a couple of others on my sister president on the panel talked

About with respect to educating our own we really do have to we each have youth groups Delta has Delta Academy Delta gyms in body so both male and female being able to make sure that they understand being able to put the books in their hands not only for our youth

Groups but beyond Partnerships across the divine nine partnership with churches partnership elsewhere so we can make sure that the tools are put in our people’s hands so that they really chew if they’re not getting it at home we know we’ll all do it at home with

Each one of our children at least I hope that’s I hope that’s the amen from everybody in this room but for those who are not getting it at home to make sure that they have Avenues to be able to still have the exposure and still have the understanding that’s very very

Important that while we are doing the other work that that we are able to provide that education as well you know I would just add in supplement that and and having spent uh almost 25 years in the in the pharmaceutical industry in Global Drug development sitting at the table

In what I would call a very uh mixed or heterogeneous environment where you know different echelons or different parts of the business work together we need to do a little bit more than the traditional mentoring internally with our membership and Those whom we touch because uh it is difficult to navigate that space

And we come whether you come from an HBCU or predominantly white institution many times you need to understand that there is already a boatload or a heat or heavy things on top of your shoulders to hinder you from moving forward but let me say first and I’ll say foremost Faith

Does matter your belief in your prayers do matter uh but being excellent at what you do is required of you too you can’t lean on the shield or lean on my shield when you coming in and you’re asking me to help you to get a job and you come in

And you drop the ball uh follow-up when you’re given an opportunity to get a professional Endeavor and I have a young AKA in my house who I’m still helping to groom along with my wife on the importance of follow-up not that she doesn’t do a good job but to ensure that she understands

The big picture of what that looks like now and how those things have changed and while there always will be room for diversity Equity inclusion in the job and this is one of the reasons why Alpha Phi Alpha at the outset of my presidency signed a an agreement with the national disability Institute

To try to educate our Brotherhood on the significance of not only physical handicap and physical challenges uh but also the environment in which we support because we advocate for our community we need to understand that the needs are not always visible that’s why I’m a mental health proponent

And this was before all of the the shootings were starting to take place like they are now but in in in essence our reach and our ability to be catalysts for education for empowerment for enlightenment about the diverse nature of the community we live in the challenges that our communities have but

More importantly that we keep beginning to build out our leaders who will follow us who are coming into the organization as well as our mentorship programs to ensure that we like it was in the 80s and 70s we were bilingual I could speak Jive and I could speak street but I

Could speak proper English when I walked into the classroom or into the business environment and understood that it doesn’t make me less black to speak the way I need to to engage the people that I’m in talking with I mean I mean just like folks will tell you the Sphinx is

The Sphinx but if you’re kin it it’s it has another name if you follow the commit belief in faith both are right it doesn’t say one has to be uh right and you don’t have to use the other you have to just be able to understand whom you’re engaging and I think those

Rules of Engagement have been have changed and it’s important that we are living in the now and and empowering our new leaders and those coming with us and the people we Mentor for the environment they are embracing in the future it is time for first only and top blacks

Fight blacks as I call them to step up and be willing to hire and hold people accountable no matter what they look like to the same standard so the reality of it is if the recruitment pool is not diverse then you need to reject the recommendations of that recruitment pool

If you’re in a position to do so if you have an internship program and you’re not making sure you’re touching all of the bases before they get home let’s make sure we’re sending people out to do the right recruitment but you know the thing that disheartens me today

Uh brother and sister presidents there are people who are not seated in the back of this room because they were scared to leave their jobs because this event would not be deemed worthy and some of the organizations for which they work sponsor some of our events and so

Self-selection we know can be a problem that that is a problem in intake and it’s a problem in the job but somehow when we’re sitting down doing these mousse we have to communicate yes create the pipeline but make sure we get to see our people so when the question becomes

Should the church be paying dues no but State Farm should be Johnson and Johnson could be JP Morgan and Chase can be so when you do that make sure that our people come and you don’t run into the situation that all too often happens in our community the only person they have

Is non-financial and inactive and how they’re going to be received we know so let’s get these five blacks to be real servant leaders and may I add one last out brilliant statement that is why our brand is so important listen I love when Sprite wants to partner with

Us and they want us to step but we do more than stepping we have people in every Endeavor that is nameable within this universe within our divine mind from Physicians scientists lawyers business professionals Educators family men and men and women people who take care of their families our

Diversity is so strong our Founders respectively and collectively recognize now as the nuance and Innovation that propelled a generation now more I I’d say higher than even any other organization on the planet for black people only Freemasonry trumps it in terms of time that’s 300 years in case you didn’t know

And it wasn’t always diverse but ours led the way and showed diversity on top of it that’s why we’re feared fear of a black man fear of a black hat fear of a black woman because you are articulate you’re bright you’re unstoppable if you’re not afraid

So if you live in a spirit of timidity or fear you will fail and it’s not always it’s not always bad to fail if you recognize what you went through but you already have a spirit of Victory you’ve been given that by your faith now you must act upon it and remembering our

Brand to the young brothers and sisters in here I understand that we old fogies and whatever and you want to wear your suit so tight you can’t get your finger in them in the jacket that’s fine but but there’s a uniform when it comes to our organizations where we do what we do

When you go kick it with your boys and your lady friends you do that but there’s nothing wrong with putting on a uniform and following the vision of our founders there’s nothing wrong with speaking appropriate English and representing the best of who you are it

Doesn’t diminish you as a black man or a black woman or a Latina or Latino or whatever ethnicity you may be if anything it adds to the diversity of who we are and makes us stronger but you represent the essence of what every founding member of respective organization here represented was hoping

For an opportunity to go beyond what you can imagine and if you don’t recognize the importance of that branding and who we are when we walk through the airport and you got slippers on and you got on uh uh whether that Bonnet and you flying like that

You don’t realize that you come from Kings and queens and you walk and you don’t have a belt on because prisoners can’t put a belt on and it looks fashionable one of my professors said that they created a turd and I don’t mean to be crass a black man

Would wear it if it was fashionable own your identity own Who You Are if you’re an alpha you’re an alpha if you’re a sigma you’re a sigma if you’re an Omega you’re an Omega if you’re a Kappa you’re a Kappa and the beauty of our queens and you’re out I don’t want

To forget you Iota if you’re an Iota you’re an Iota but the and our Queen should be lifted all of the sorority women treat them with respect even if they can’t recognize you’re being respectful we saw that last night yes we did I’m not flirting with you

Just because I want to make sure you got a ride I just want to make sure you’re safe so jump off that edge if you will amen amen I need you all to understand that as black men we are still Kings and we’re going to treat you as a queen with respect

So I want you to own that with us today that’s a part of the critical race Theory too they want to diminish you and tell you that the libraries came from Greece when in Timbuktu is where the first library was so let’s not let we’re family we look

You all are visiting with us but the brothers we found out last year when we started off we set the groundwork we’re family when we come together we are real with each other everyone’s brand is respected and but when you all join us we’re going

To lift you all up we love you ladies we love who you represent you are the crowning jewels in our in our Crown because you represent the beauty that Bathsheba and that the Queen of Sheba is talked about in the realm of Ethiopia when they said she was so beautiful she

Was not even comfortable to any woman they had ever abused before that’s who you all are to us so do not forget your place and do not disrespect our respect of you I’ll leave it there amen amen amen Well audience I think he closed that subject out and I would say to all of those opponents of critical race Theory and d e and I if we all took on that attitude and those words of wisdom they better watch out okay we are on the Move we’re going to

Move on now to reproductive Health and Justice reproductive Health and Justice again another Hot Topic that impacts all of us and we’ll have our first question from Jordan thank you so as we switch gears we are actually approaching the anniversary of the overturning of Roe versus Wade so let’s start with defining what

Reproductive health is the terms reproductive health and reproductive Justice bring very different Health Care issues for each and every individual so what comes to mind to you all when you think about reproductive health and reproductive Justice yeah I’ll start reproductive Health goes far beyond the decision the Roe versus Wade decision in 1973

And Delta has long supported reproductive equity the right to choose we’ve long supported that since the very beginning but if you think about it and certainly coming up upon that year anniversary um of the devastation that I know many felt um has been very difficult

But if you think about it it goes far beyond what ends up being the lightning rod if you will when it’s focused specifically on abortion think about the fact that it goes far beyond that though so reproductive Equity really is around not only choice but being able to have

Access to adequate health care so the challenges of uh the lack of Health Equity that so many of our people face that’s involved in it if you think about reproductive equity and the right to choice at the same time that that choice is being taken away and it disproportionately affects our communities

Same time that’s being taken away it’s also being taken away the resources that are needed to be able to take care of families and children again disproportionately affecting our community it also focuses on maternal Health itself and the fact that again maternal health and maternal mortality very much more impacts our communities

And our black mothers than it does any other population mental health is involved in it when you look at things like postpartum depression making sure that there’s an understanding so it goes so far beyond and I touched on the economics of it in terms of not having the resources so

Reproductive Equity is about choice but it’s about focusing on all of the other issues that I just mentioned as well because it really goes far beyond just the ability to choose and so let me add on to what my sister just talked about when you think about reproductive health

Like she said it’s more than abortion infectious disease sexual abuse cervical and prostate cancer we talked about the insurance uh all of that has to do with reproductive health so that’s the first thing we have to understand how wide it is and then we have to understand what some of the statistics are

Let’s take prostate cancer 1.6 percent of the men who get prostate cancer look like us they’re they’re they’re they’re people of color and they’re two times more likely not to to recover so the first thing is we have to be aware of all the different pieces that are part of reproductive health

So we have to also be aware and that we also have to make sure that we’re again educating that folks are getting the right Health um insurance that they need and they also aren’t sweeping things under the rug but they’re going forward and taking the practice to ensure that they are in

Good health so those are all key pieces that we have to do and I’m gonna I could talk about mental health but I’m gonna leave for some others to talk about because that is very important I I wanted to also add on to what has been very eloquently expressed and I’m a

Scientist by training in uh in the field of pharmaceutical medicine uh now at least in this stage of my career but reproductive equity and and and rights also include the ability to be able to even have a child there’s something that is not often discussed or the challenges

That come with the attempts to have children the the the broad stroking of banning abortion Etc covers unfortunately things where there are challenges when a a birth experience may go wrong and you can lose the mother and the child so when we talk of from a topic

Pregnancy I mean there I don’t want to go that deeply into it but there are num a number there is a number of of components that are very complicated that make this entire narrative very difficult and very challenging to to to navigate it’s not just a simple religious decision per se but sometimes

Can mean the the life of not only Someone’s Child but the life of someone’s spouse’s will or a person who is bearing because not everyone is always married when they’re having children or choose to have children we also uh and I think this is a very

Important one that uh sister then if I can just expand a little bit around uh uh sexually transmitted disease management as well and that also plays a role when we see um many vaccinations like Gardasil which can be used for human papilloma virus and other um very challenging and very personal

Uh intrusions into our lives when we when we choose to have very superficial relationships and may not know about everything someone has encountered or they may not know because they are asymptomatic but at the end of the day this narrative is about you as an individual having an Engaged

Conversation with your health care provider and your ability to make the decision and and in this day for a woman to be able to make the decision about her body it took me having a daughter to expand even what I thought I had a very broad perspective on being who I am

But her rights her ability to not only do well and make all the money that she can make and be rich and do all the things that she may want to do but to make sure that when it came to her body and her personal choice

That she can have that right and not a man or man in a room who don’t know her who don’t know anything about her who maybe don’t even care about her per se are making decisions that really belong to a woman and it’s her personal choice you’re not

Telling us that we have to go and have a vasectomy we’re not being mandated by law for that I’m just going to let them ride on him for a minute there should be some hand clapping because that’s real you know that’s one of the reasons why I

Can make that statement you all are you all should be given that ability to make that decision and uh it is something that we have to and it’s going to continue to be ever evolving this is when when the law gets involved it makes it all very

Complicated so I thought I would just add those pieces in Remembering those folks who are trying to have children who are impacted by it too so so our original stem was Health Care but we’re seeing fewer and fewer of our students get admitted to medical school

Or nursing school so we have to Triple down on increasing what the pipeline looks like so that the doctors and the nurses will look like the patients and the caregivers we haven’t doubled down and I’m gonna tell you the Open Secret organic chemistry in college organic chemistry of God so if you

Really want to attack something now now here I work with uh the the American Psychiatric association I run the largest fellowship program for Psychiatry trainees in the world almost 200 residents coming through and all of them tell me but particularly those of color that the people who work

In organic chemistry in our universities aren’t they don’t want to be the dean they want to they be well tenured in their careers but they want to run organic chemistry because what they know and what the health professionals here know they decide who gets to go to

Medical school and who does not if you got an A in everything and can’t get through organic chemistry you’re not getting in so we got to do something one to work right now on the organic chemistry problem that’s going to start in our guide right our Kappa League and

All the other mentorship programs uh when we get to College you know like our achievement Academy but the reality of it is we got to go back to these universities and apply pressure because if we don’t have people who have Dei in mind when they teach in organic

Chemistry We’re not gonna have we’re going to continue to receive I was I I just want to address uh Health Equity in general and I was sitting here thinking and every time I hear the term Health Equity a lot of times we in our mind go right

To maternal Health but I was able to witness something happened back in 2013 that was a real deal live full blown experience in my face a very personal one my husband went to the emergency room and was very ill we didn’t know what was going on did blood tests and

They told them hey you got to get your emergency room you’re really sick and before he was even diagnosed they said we got to start chemo on them now in the emergency room I go out into the hall and I’m like oh you know you know how we do we calling

On the we we pleading the blood of Jesus okay and that’s what got him through he’s doing well now but I think about I looked and I talked to a family and a woman had found they found a golf ball size like it was on her lung

And they were still trying to figure out like okay we need to figure out how to get her a room we got to get you checked in your insurance and that and my husband’s back here getting full-blown chemo immediately before they just got an indication by that creatinine level that it was something

Serious going on he ended up being diagnosed with multiple myeloma from there fast forward stem cell transplant fast forward had an impact with chemo Vanderbilt since in the MD Anderson had a double lung kidney transplant that’s what the power of corporate Insurance did but I look at they wouldn’t even give

Someone a transplant three organs three organs a cancer survivor a cancer that can come back but it won’t because we rebuked that and put that in a pit of Hell but that cancer to allow him to come and get a I mean six months he was on registry

Boom it wasn’t even I’m sorry running six months I’m I apologize it’s three weeks December 31st January 21st he had a transplant the power of insurance so I’m watching this happen and we’ve been blessed right but that’s that corporate insurance that made those things happen

And I don’t know where that woman is and I think about that often with that lung situation I wonder did she survive so those are the real Health Equity issues someone in one room getting all the treatment they need someone in the Next Room trying to figure out what the

Insurance plan is going to be they kind of piddle them away in their life so think about that that’s happening every single day in hospitals all across America and one footnote for my fraternities two out of every five instances of infertility is the man so we talk about Reproductive Rights and

Think it’s the women two out of every five situations is the man so we have as much interest in this issue as the women do and we got to act like we have as much interest in it uh Dave hardric is back there my fraternity brother works

With the oral Lee Foundation before you run out of this room if you’re interested in cancer research and the work that’s going on and how you could get involved get to uh Dave hardric and the last thing my nphc president uh from the college what’s your college

Texas college so here’s what I’m gonna do when I was at the White House earlier today I told them that I would drop mental health workshops in every D9 no charge and what I’m telling you is come to me as soon as this is over we will give you

A program no charge and you can say you’re doing mental health workshop on the college campus right now [Applause] before y’all check the tape that’s a Kappa talking to a sigma not another Kappa brother it’s divine nine we’re gonna put it together because what’s the use of having these jobs

And having access to these resources and I’m gonna give it to Harvard but I can’t give it to Texas College does Harvard gonna get theirs did Howard get there did HT get there so let’s do it I mean on the conversation of mental health um happy men’s mental health

Month to all the men out there um with this next question I wanted to focus on a specific group of men black men often there’s a stigma or fear of seeking preventative health care or going to a doctor as you mentioned a healthcare facility when a Health Challenge exists particularly among

African-American men so what strategies would can we be employed amongst the dni organizations to address this problem and then do any of the male D9 organizations have initiatives regarding prostate cancer um first of all great questions and I think when we talk about Mental Health it is this is a family problem

First of all when I say that everyone every gender is involved and I think um and and I’ll give her credit uh uh uh almost in the Supreme bathroom I’m sorry International president I know too much International president uh Reed said it earlier today that helping individuals and it’s really

Older Generations the the Gen z’s are more open about talking about how you feel and and and and things of that nature so kudos to your generation we’re the ones stuck in the mud but it’s it’s important to understand that there is not a shame uh there’s no

Shaming there’s no uh real uh uh uh we want to make it a comfortable environment to talk about sensitive things and we have to and let’s let’s give tribute to it our families traditionally have not talked about sickness and illness no one knew Uncle Charlie had cancer no one knew Uncle

Robert was had Parkinson’s or you know he was in the corner he never came out of his room or he had mental health issues and challenges those are very real things they impact all families and I think the divine nine can be a catalyst to help promote a comfortability of about talking about

Mental health if it impacts your family personally you’re you’re your extended family or community of friends or the community in which you live in um but I also want to make sure that I mentioned and Alpha Phi Alpha has an initiative through our Surgeon General uh which is uh our Administration

Appointed a brother and a team of Brothers as a Surgeon General in the deputy and surgeon generals of the fraternity they educate Alpha Phi Alpha men on health issues across the board prostate cancer and gastric cancer and lung cancer are just a number of topics that we’ve talked about through webinars

That are held on a continual basis uh throughout the year and we still run into challenges I’m going to be transparent today where Brothers don’t attend because the reality is we are afraid as people about really understanding what might be life-threatening to us just like for any dentists in the room

You know that you got your folks who are scared to come and see you but they need to come and they need to madly brush their breath and teeth and get themselves healthy no it is a sign of good health when your teeth are healthy if you see people with a lot of

Cavities or carry Dental caries they’re likely not very well so there are lots of things your skin other things that show the color of your eyes the the whites of your eyes should be white and not yellow you know all sorts of things that should tell you signs or indications that you

Need to go see your health care provider now but in reality black men don’t do that black people women do better job I will say that but but most black men do not do a good job of staying on top of their health and I’ll leave it there I think I’ve talked

A little amen we call him pastor Pastor um one of the things and just the light in the room a little bit there is something around survival rates in men being diagnosed with different conditions when they have a woman a spouse in place so part of your survival involves mating properly

And I do mean that in all seriousness in all seriousness because when men now when my husband after that all that I said Oh no you’re going to the doctor no more by yourself because they’ll tell you I’m all good no no no what did the red blood cell count say

What did the protein in your urine say and we also are the biggest advocates in the room for our husbands for our children for our spouses so there is something serious about having advocacy nearby you to take care of you to say I see something different in you you’re

Going to the restroom a little too much you know you’re losing weight you look different because we don’t see those things as black men you sometimes don’t see those things and believe it or not I watch someone wither away from mental health issues physically wither away and

They didn’t even know that they were losing their appetite and they literally were withering away because of what was going on what I call as neural diversity there was something going on neuro and they weren’t even tracking so I say that in all seriousness that men you need to

Take someone with you to the doctor you need to ask the right questions and don’t be fearful to go to the doctor because it’s a fear there with our brothers it’s a real fear most don’t have a primary care physician may I add one very quick question and let me point

And then to Sister Elsie I’m I’m we’re all adults in the room are we not are we if men are afraid to go to get your prostate checked the digital rectal exam get a female physician I have a female physician Primary Care and it is important that you understand

That that is a part of you checking your health it does not appear to be very pleasant and you’re correct but it is a very important part important and necessary part of you maintenancing your body especially as you get older and if you have a history

Of prostate cancer or any type of cancer in your family so you have options be a little Brave take your wife I take my wife with me sometimes sometimes and uh it it can be it can be beneficial to talk through this as you get older

And just thought I would add that part to sorry sister else oh no no worries I just wanted to add a couple of things because uh everything that has been said is is absolutely spot on but when you think about making sure that um mental health and wellness is brought

To the Forefront I think it’s very refreshing that all of our organizations at this point in time are doing something to address Mental Health um Delta has its Live Well program focused on mental health and wellness and it runs the gamut not just the things you think about with respect to

Uh Mental Illness but across the board all of the various things that could impact your mental well-being from grief to postpartum depression all the way so looking at it really holistically and looking at how to be proactive about that mental Wellness but if we think about what we’re collectively doing

Think about the impact that that can have not only on our membership of in excess of 2.5 million but our communities where our communities are unfortunately still facing the stigma and I would say that’s both male and female but especially male it’s called like we see it especially male uh you

Know it’s a sign of weakness but female is the sign of I’m not superwoman I can’t do everything all the time well you know what you can’t do everything all the time and maintain mental health and wellness we’re all talking to ourselves and I said that’s a reminder

For all for us too uh but but if you look at um the impact we could make with removing the stigma with being able to talk about it that will make such a difference and I would say the other thing that I think many of us have in

Common is that we have Partnerships so even uh the organisms that we have a partnership with the National Alliance of mental illness that we just signed and they’re going to do something uh brother wrong very serious to what you talked about in terms of every Collegiate chapter being provided grants

To be able to focus on Mental Health and Wellness initiatives and workshops so everyone will receive that those dollars but we also many of us have Partnerships with the American Cancer Society so we not only focus with that on that partnership with those cancers that disproportionately affect women we focus

On it across the board so prostate cancer is one of the things that we focus on as well because we all know as you said sister Rashida that um beside our our men are our women and there’s a reminders to go to the doctor and there’s the nudging and the pushing and

The oh I’m going to take you and there might be a little fighting going on just to make sure that they go because they’re gonna be like no I don’t want to go uh but uh most of us are Relentless and making sure that it still happens uh

Whether it’s our spouses or our brothers or our close friends and cousins and the guy down the street you know we are just trying to make sure that that we all stay well and live well which is very very important Mental Health sorry madam president I was just saying

You got to get you a mate you can’t wait till it’s too late please don’t come with your teeth in your hand and your blood pressure medicine [Applause] I’m gonna talk to her y’all but but there’s no Health without mental health and and the reality of it is we have to prioritize our mental health in the same way we prioritize our physical health when we prioritize our physical health at all so while I applaud all of

Those who have already started on the journey as well as those who can if you have diabetes you go to a medical doctor cancer medical doctor what I’m telling you is don’t let your mental health go to WebMD so I’m working with medical doctors who are specialized in Psychiatry so when we

Come to you if you invite us it’s not going to just be Mr Wrong I’m bringing one of my doctors probably either from your organization or certainly from your home state to be in Partnership when we roll these things out so we’re rolling out a campaign that we just announced in

San Francisco last week called Mental Health Care works it takes 10 to 15 years 10 to 15 years from the onset of a mental health problem for somebody to take the first step to action 10 to 15 years after what we’ve been through in the pandemic do we have

Another 10 to 15 years to win so we’re going to shrink the curve and the reason why I can offer drop in these workshops is because I have board approval to take the first 2.5 million dollars out of our endowment to launch the campaign before

We ask anybody for any money and what I have to make sure we do is that there’s Equity built in my campaign because I can be in Denver but not in the right neighborhoods in the same way I can be in Northwest Washington and not

East of the river so if you don’t ask me to come there’s a possibility you’re going to be late to the party and I don’t want you to get left out so Mental Health Works First Step campaign there’s a lot of information already on the website and if you and Raleigh Durham

Charlotte DC Baltimore or Denver you’ll see stuff starting in July for those of you who didn’t do anything during Mental Health Awareness Month in May minority mental health month is July so all of us still have time to get our game together and say well we were waiting for BB Moore Campbell minority

In mental health month we wasn’t just trying to jump out there with the masses this is all about us let’s make it be about us right thank you [Applause] well I don’t know about y’all but I am very much grateful for the Insight that our Council leadership has provided for us

Hello testing one two there we go there we go um as I was saying I’m grateful for the Insight that our Council leadership has provided to us today uh and I have one more question before we move into audience questions on a matter of impact there are a number of reproductive

Health issues where in African-Americans are disproportionately and negatively impacted with regard to health outcomes what are our organizations our step organizations addressing and what strategies or best practices are you implementing toward improving the disparate Health outcomes for African Americans so March of Dimes Saint Jude and our

SIDS work at Kappa Alpha Psi and I’ll pass icon yeah we are also working with March of Dimes as well and the American Cancer Society but more importantly we’re also educating our membership and through our external Partnerships our communities on the fact that you can shop around for

Your health care if you get a negative outcome from a position get a second opinion that is something we do not do enough of and we often are accepting poor medical decisions versus trying to find out what the best medical options are and and and I’ll give quick example and I’ll move on

Uh cardiovascular disease many of you have heard that often we would prescribed beta blockers as opposed to using a a an Ace and Angiotensin converting enzyme treatment or an ARB and that was not the best medical therapy for the patient a black patient to get a beta blocker they really needed

An ace on r and just but if you took your Physicians uh decision as the sole choice for you you need to understand then you’re going to have a negative outcome potentially shop around and get the best medical decision for you to give you guidance Alpha also works with several um medical

Organizations for mental health we have a partnership with everyday health so they’re a little bit different than some of the others but phenomenal from a medical we work with American Cancer Association and I want to say it’s AMA but American Medical Association and we do Saint Jude’s we have similar Partnerships

Um a number of our charitable partners are really in that um that space if you will in terms of American Cancer Society Saint Jude’s March of Dimes um I mentioned our newest the National Alliance of mental illness uh all of those are very critical and then another

Thing that all of the Divine is focused against through the mphc and then further with Delta through our Delta research and Educational Foundation the all of us initiative and all of us initiative really looking at making sure that we our communities are included in clinical trials because we know that the

Importance of that because those drugs those are the kinds of things like uh brother laundry just mentioned that you would find out in a clinical trial with respect to the the efficacy of the drugs with specific uh populations so it’s critical that we are in that space as

Well the one other thing I would add is just around advocacy so in addition to all the Partnerships we have making sure that we are advocating with the laws making sure that at every level uh whether from the federal level all the way down to the local level so state and

Local levels that we are advocating we are making sure that we are there fighting for um the um the laws that will make sure that we have the Health Equity that we solely need and with sipping gamma roll we just passed mental health awareness month and

One of the things we did was give to the Loveland Foundation although they can’t tell us what members specifically or how we participated we knew that by giving them the donation that our members would be able to use that as a service to have one hour free treatment we also

Stretched our Partnerships with March of Dimes we have a partnership with project cradle care specifically for merchandise around maternal Health but we also want to train health care workers so we stressed that partnership with March of Dimes to train health care workers be sensitive to our needs in our community

Meaning that they’re being taught the behaviors and then with Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital we went behind the walk run as part of our Centennial we gave them a million dollars towards cancer research in their graduate school program so that our children that are being impacted at or being treated as

Saint Jude wonderful institution by the way but are being treated are able to get the they’re able to do the research and believe it or not we have put a lot of our members and also members of divine nine on those research projects with that million dollar Grant so just

Wanted to kind of throw that out there we’re we’re all all of us research I mean we have very similar causes but we’re stretching our causes in different ways to speak to all the aspects of our community I can’t believe we forgot good health wins good health wins we that’s a

Big one and it helped push our community Through covet yeah we drove that you all and you also give yourselves a round of applause [Applause] and good health wins funded us so it’s a turnaround of a situation that said we’re going to tap into these resources and we’re going to fund you as

Organizations which has taken us almost to I believe a half million dollars each yeah and we’re in year three of the partnership and uh things continue to go well it will get to five years and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it goes far beyond that based on the impact

That all of our organizations collectively have been able to have in the immunizations big impact and the only other thing I want to add is not only are we working these type of things but we’re also working in advocating for social justice so for example to impact the maternal

Health piece we’re looking at some of the bills that are going on and we’re working with the mommy bus act where we’re sitting and writing letters saying you need to approve this because this is going to help the health and wellness of our of maternal Health Care especially for minorities so besides these

Organizations we’re also looking on the social justice side which I think is important as well before we take questions from the audience we have one more burning question for our panel and we’ve talked a bit about reproductive Health in men but sexual abuse and violence is also a

Critical issue that’s often not thought about in terms of reproductive Health but the impact for example of rape may include unintended pregnancy sexually transmitted disease HIV infection miscarriage and other health care issues and African-American women are disproportionately impacted with over 18 percent experiencing sexual assault within their lifetime hyper-sexualized depictions of women of

Color particularly black women have been around since the 1400s and have manifested themselves in our culture the myth that black women are vessels for sexual desire has been used to justify enslavement rape forced reproduction and other forms of sexual coercion what can D9 organizations do to address this sexualization

And current images of black women in the media TV social media music and movies you know that’s a tough one because um what you said are facts and it’s true that’s how we often look at it at our women and as us and I would say that what

Brother lonzer said was a good start because I think if we lead the way and saying what we’re going to accept and what we’re not going to accept how we want to be treated how we’re not going to be treated from the woman’s side and Lead that way there that’s the

First step but then we need our brothers to make sure that they’re also supporting us and treating us in the way that you should treat what I would call a lady so those things I think we have to start by doing that and that’s from our undergraduate side to our graduate side

All the way through because it makes a difference I would Echo that from the standpoint of uh brother lines I think you said it well in terms of the brand so making sure we start with our own brand which we know could use some work sometime

Let’s just call it like we see it uh if we walk in the footsteps of our Founders and if we truly are their wildest dreams what does that mean how does that mean that we show up and it doesn’t mean that we show up in such a way that it degrades our brand

But that it continues to build up Our Brands and we will like you said sister Nanette lead the way and lead by example but education Beyond not only our members but with our communities in terms of the importance of um making sure you can even recognize domestic violence making sure that there

Is an opportunity for those to feel safe to be able to address it whether it’s domestic violence other types of of uh of issues that are facing us it we need to make sure that we are providing that education and it truly also goes back to that advocacy and social justice as well

In terms of fighting for laws that are much more stringent than they are now and again educating on those as well you know I thank you for your word sister Elsie and I want to I want to be well first I wanna preface by saying it may seem like I’m

Coming down on our Young Generation Brothers you know I was where you were 33 years ago 35 years ago thought I was cool all the ways were working you know six four could dunk a ball and was smart I mean it was a pretty nice mix but I know that

There’s more to us as fraternity men and all of me all the old men that are laughing and remembering exactly what I’m talking about but but on a serious note it is very important to understand that your image as black men is important I’m not saying don’t have a good time I’m

Not saying don’t be fashionable I’m not saying don’t go out here and kick it because you got to go find your your your your love or your life she gonna she’s not gonna look get you if you look and square unless she’s Square I don’t know

But what I am telling you is there is a responsibility with how you carry yourself and the same goes with our young ladies as well you know uh uh I’m not here to run any male or female down but many times we are so caught up in what’s popular that we forget

The core things that some of us even learned when we came into the organizations that we joined Alpha Phi for teaches their sphinxman as a sphinx and I will have uphold High Scholastic standards high moral character Brotherly Love personal progress loyalty and the respect of Womanhood to the best of our

My ability we learned I learned that 37 years ago as a sphinxman right but we as organizations and and I won’t lecture to our sisters in the sororities because I know they do their thing but we all have to make sure that the standards are upheld and that what’s on

The line is understood your reputation and your character and your integrity means more than what you look like more than those 450 dollar pairs of jeans that are ripped up that you want to put on but I’m don’t don’t get bad because I’m wearing a 400 tie don’t I’m not I’m not

I’m not guilt-free right I’m just pointing out that let’s make choices that uplift our community together let’s teach each other to respect if that this is why the fraternities get together so we can have mutual respect because the black community is looking to us and the black men are looking to

Us for leadership because he wears Kappa Alpha Psi because he wears Omega sci-fi or Phi Beta Sigma I dis or Iota Phi Theta should I disrespect them it’s ignorant if anything we are about lifting up black men in our history in our first meeting I shared with the

Brothers in the that were in the room when Omega Psi Phi was founded at Howard University our beta Champion president sent them a letter congratulating them before being a part of the of the new world of fraternities that is the spirit that we should work in Brothers in this next 100 years and

And I know they were teasing out as a baby baby brothers but one of your Founders is here that’s what I’m saying you all are living things that we can’t live now you cherish your founder y’all he better be in here for free and y’all and you lift that man up

Because you all stand on his shoulders you I’m not telling you anything you don’t know but this is what I’m saying we take so much for granted as this great group of the divine nine I’m very proud to serve with the distinguished presidents and when I see

Women of saying if I bet I know find a Womanhood I know that the the pretty puppies the pretty poodles pretty poodles I can make a mistake you messed up on a word can I do that hello thank you it was not a disrespect I have

All my lexicon and I don’t keep Sigma gamma rho in my head respect for Womanhood is a principle of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated that’s what I heard you did but I you know or I cause speeds on with the sigmas I mean all of our history is rich

So let’s lift each other up and I’m lifting you upset Trust I just I just want to mention one additional thing and bringing this back to Center y’all let’s bring it back um that we can all do and that’s really promoting positive images in the media

If we keep having in the media the negative images not the negative energies the violence and all that we can collectively promote positivity in the media part of that is being in the rooms where the decisions are made in terms of the films that will come we each though have an opportunity to

Support the films that are so critical that show us in a positive light one of the things that we’re about to do and um all together is working with Oprah with respect to promoting The Color Purple Now The Color Purple goes through a long journey but the it gets to Triumph it

Gets to overcoming it gets to so many things that are critical and important so that’s something that we will be proud to support but we have to continue to do that for again the other positive image just because we can make a difference in the box office we don’t

Have to support the negative images we do have to support those that um that show us in a positive light and we truly can make a difference that way as well because that oh I’m sorry okay just the one thing I want to add to about the positive images

When we are asked to represent Who We Are make sure that we so show Service First because we do so much with service and they don’t always know that but they know we can step they know we can stroke that’s nice that’s our fun and you do need the release

But service the impacts that we make to our local communities our Global communities we need to let everybody from all over this world know we’re phenomenal but they don’t know us for that and we that’s part of changing our brand service is the key my sister’s in Greek

Them if abuse has been a part of your experience or has been in the past a part of your experience let’s apologize now because that’s been a part of your experience you haven’t been acknowledged some of that is self-hatred and so for all of you who doing all this mental

Health advocacy there’s a thing called adverse childhood experiences or Aces we have to get underneath that to see what it is and then all of us need to know that 988 is out there if we’re in crisis right now or we know somebody else is let’s use 980.

I just wanted to hopefully wrap us up brother pick me you know we I told you we passed as an evangelist but um I wanna we talked about a lot of topics here today and we talked about Collective I heard a term the term Unity Collective One Voice

Together when we are in those rooms and we are representing our orc don’t forget the other eight orgs because you are not powerful by yourself it’s the collective divine nine that means something to these corporate corporations and although we think we can stand on our own we need each other

And it is more powerful when you say I am a proud member of Sigma gamma rho sorority Incorporated is one of the nine organizations that represents two and a half million and can set seven and a half million to flight that’s more powerful in a space than

Talking about your solo spot so when you’re in those corporate tables you have the ability to influence bring the full divine nine Collective to the table if a corporation wants to partner with you they should be partnering with everybody because now you only tapping into this little space you’re not

Thinking about the power of the whole so I’m just going to challenge us to think like that we think like that as a council of presidents we have people come to us and bring the idea we all have a choice of whether we want to buy into that particular program but we do

All have that ability to have a seat at the table and when it comes to our Wellness brother Piggly I’m wrapping up I’m wrapping up and wrapping up we have now started talking about our own Wellness at the conclusion of our cause right before Dr Grant praise

That’s our honorary Chapel but we talk about what we’re going through as National presidents because it is a heavy yoke and I want us to remember that for your National presidents it’s not about the handclaps it’s about the power and our impact that’s what we go to sleep thinking every single night

Across all nine organizations [Applause] so in as much as we’ve convened two panels in this National town hall meeting in as much as we have heard from our national leaders of the National panhellenic Council there are three things that are getting ready to happen so we don’t want anyone to leave the room

So first a small business administration is going to have a press conference right here with us so we don’t want no one to leave the room so I want to make sure everybody understands that Town Hall thank you secondly the social action chairs would you all please stand so [Applause]

On behalf of this team of colleagues we have been working over the last three to four months on this particular npac fraternity day on the Hills the fraternities were meeting and then our sisters joined us when we started working for the national Town Hall that you’ve just had a part where

We brought the sororities in it has been a collaboration over those days weeks throughout the nights and we used to often joke around that a lot of times we were having late night calls after a long day of work in our professional lives but the camaraderie was that we were all United

United we stood we stood in support of our national leaders so we want to thank you all for the opportunity to allow us to serve you thank you all very much for that but there was one message that the social action chairs wanted to send out

Across the country because we knew as we talked that there was a generation that needed to get the message that was given here today and that generation is coming they’re our children that many of us are raising and we wanted to make sure that young people had a part

In the program as you’ve witnessed our Collegiate leaders [Applause] and early on Saturday morning I Rose from what I call a wonderful dream the lyrics of Lift Every Voice insane serves as a reminder for black Americans that each generation has had to live their voices along with those in our communities

To demand and protect our human rights so we pay tribute to James Weldon Johnson born June 17 1871 for writing these words and then I heard a fine gentleman our 26th General president of Alpha Phi Alpha the late Dr ozell Sutton who was asleep at the Lorraine Hotel on April 4

1968 in the room next door to Dr King’s Room and in his Reflections about that day he said history Keeps Us grounded that the bullet killed the messenger but not the message so he left us with a charge to keep and in reflection of our history my spirit moved me from my colleagues

That these historical icons could easily tell all of us that we have a continued commitment and a love for country and now we have a charge to keep Lift Every Voice and vote till Earth and Heaven ring ring with the harmonies of Liberty let every voter rise high as the listening Skies

Let our Revolt ReSound loud as the rolling sea cast your vote full of the faith that the dark past has taught us cash your vote full of the hope that the present has brought us facing the Rising Sun of our new day begun let us vote till Victory is one

That is our choice to keep the vote The Ballot Box is how we save democracy thank you all God bless we’re going to ask that our presidents go to the holding room

source