This public forum was held on November 5, 2019, in Smith Hall at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. Conducted as part of the Kennedy Library Forums series, it featured a moderated conversation between Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Harvard Law professor Kenneth Mack.
Alan Price: Good evening. I'm Alan Price, Director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. And on behalf of all my Library and Foundation colleagues, I thank you for braving the weather and the traffic and coming out this evening.
I'd also like to acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters of the Kennedy Library Forums: lead sponsors Bank of America and the Lowell Institute; and our media sponsors, the Boston Globe, Xfinity, and WBUR.
I'm also delighted to welcome all of you who are watching tonight's program online. And, to borrow something that you may have heard from the last Forum, the thing to remember to do the moment the Forum ends is to turn your cell phones back on. See if that works.
We are so pleased to have the opportunity for this evening's conversation with Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who represents the 13th Congressional district of California, and has served in the US House of Representatives since 1998.
I'm looking forward to hearing Congresswoman Lee describe her career and her lifelong commitment to improving opportunities for all Americans in her own words. So I'll be very brief in mentioning her current service on the House Appropriations and Budget Committees; her work chairing numerous caucuses and task forces; and her service as former Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus; and former co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Congresswoman Lee, thank you so much for joining us tonight.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: It's an honor to be here.
Alan Price: Now, you may not realize that we have the Profile in Course Essay Contest that many high school students submit Profiles in Courage essays, and we have a great conversation about them. You may not realize that in the past five years, you have been the subject of essays in great numbers, in some years eclipsing the number of submissions for President Obama.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Whoa! [laughter] I had no idea.
Alan Price: It's quite impressive. And I will present you with one of those essays for you to read in your travels.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Alan Price: So if you are ever at a loss for "am I making a difference, am I inspiring people," you are. And we see it here every year. So thank you.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Wow. Thank you so much. [applause]
Alan Price: I'm also delighted to introduce our moderator for this evening. Kenneth Mack is the inaugural Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of History at Harvard University. His research and his teaching have focused on American legal and constitutional history, with a particular emphasis on race relations, politics and economic life.
He is the author of Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer; and co-editor The New Black: What Has Changed – and What Has Not – with Race in America. He's currently working on a book that examines the social and political history of race and political economy in the United States since 1975.
And, perhaps more important to me, I followed Ken Mack in law school by one class. He was in the class with Barack Obama, and I was just in awe of both of them. And it is great to have him here in the building with us today.
Please join me in welcoming our special guests. [applause]
Kenneth Mack: Well, first, it's an honor to be here and to have a chance to have a conversation with you tonight. Like many in the audience, I'm a great admirer of your service in Congress. So I thought we would just start with a biography, because in some measure when you read about your biography, it seems intertwined with the causes you've worked for in your career in public service. So I just wanted to talk about, you grew up in El Paso, you go to a Catholic school. You wind up moving to Southern California. And then I notice you worked with the NAACP to integrate your high school cheerleading team. And you were later a single mother while attending Mills College. Can you tell us about your upbringing and your young adult years and how that influenced your— you know, the causes that you've taken up in public life?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Well, first, thank you, all, so much for inviting me to be with you. Thank you, Ken, very much. It's really wonderful to meet you. And I know who you are, and thank you so much. And also, to Alan and to the whole Kennedy Library family.
You know, let me just preface by saying, I was here before in a dialogue with Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, who talked about Barbara Jordan. And Cokie Roberts was the moderator. And I talked about Shirley Chisholm. And it was a phenomenal moment for me here. And I'm reminded of that tonight as I now am here with you.
So thank you, all, very much.
I, yes, was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, which is, of course, a border city and an immigrant community where the African American population is– then, it was about 2%. And so, we lived in a Latinx and African American community. My family— there were several military bases there. My dad was a military officer, but my mother and grandfather– we were one of maybe the original ten African American families in El Paso, so we didn't go there because of my father; my mother actually met my father there. My mother had three sisters, born and raised in El Paso, and I have two sisters. So there are three girls, three girls.
And, my grandfather, W.C. Parrish, was the first African American letter carrier in El Paso. He spoke fluent Spanish, had his degree. And that was, working for the postal service was, quite naturally, the best job any African American could get in the day; it's still a good, these are good jobs. And I just have to always salute our letter carriers because I can remember his retirement check and me going out to the mailbox and picking it up; it was $200 a month.
So I grew up in a community that was fairly integrated with Latinx and African Americans, but attended St. Joseph's Catholic School. That's important because when I started elementary school — boy — in the day, schools were segregated in El Paso. And so while the best, one of the best schools was the black school, Douglass School, where my mother went and had the best teachers in the world, my family decided they didn't want to engage in any more, form of segregation. That meant no more segregated schools, no more nothing. So they sent us to Catholic school. I went to St. Joseph's Catholic School where there were two African American students. For eight years. So that's my sister and myself. You talk about trauma and having to navigate that was quite difficult.
But I was taught by the Sisters of Loretto. And I had not, I didn't know really who they were as an order of nuns, but when recently I found– they came and presented me an award, not knowing that I had actually been in many ways raised by them. But they're an order of nuns that teach community service and why we have to fight for peace and justice as part of their religion. And so, I became a Catholic at ten years old, and I was very committed to my faith as a young child, but having, being influenced by these nuns, not knowing why and how they were influencing me.
And so, I grew up in El Paso. And finally, after I graduated from the 8th grade, my family decided that was enough of Catholic school, even though the schools then were integrated, but California had the best public schools. So they decided to move to California. And we moved to Southern California, San Fernando/Pacoima area. And when I got in high school, I wanted to be a cheerleader.
And now, you know, going to California, we thought, well, the end of segregation, no more racism, no more this, no more that; finally we can live the way everyone else lives, and, boom, we faced de facto segregation and racism in a whole different context. And it was really quite shocking to me.
So I wanted to be a cheerleader, and part of the process was, you go before a selection committee and this little committee would select the cheerleaders. And of course, if you didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes, you weren't going to get selected. So I didn't look like the cheerleader, so I could never become a cheerleader.
So I couldn't accept that. And because my family had been involved with the NAACP in El Paso, Texas, I actually was working then, I was on work study at a credit union. And my boss, who was the chair of the board of the credit union and also he worked in the credit union, he was with the NAACP. I went to him and he said, "Okay, we'll help you out."
And so, the NAACP helped me organize. Mind you, here I'm 14-and-a-half, 15 years old. But I knew injustice. Because, and I'll share another story about my birth in a minute. But I knew what this meant. And so, I went to the NAACP and said, "I want to be a cheerleader and I can't be one because I'm black and I don't look the part. But I know I can do my cheers. I know it." So they helped me organize. So finally under pressure– and I'm telling you, we had to pressure the school to change their selection process to where the student body could elect cheerleaders.
And so, we forced an election. And so, girls tried out in front of the student body. Well, I tried out, and guess what? I won. And that was my first election. [laughter] [applause] At 15. But also, a Japanese American girl, Jeannie Tanaka, won that same year, so I was breaking the glass ceiling for girls of color who had never had a chance to be a cheerleader.
And so that, for me, was a very important moment in my life because then I realized how the rest of my life had to be about fighting for what was right and for equality and for equal opportunity and for justice.
But let me go back to El Paso real quick, if I can. My mother, when she was about to deliver me, she needed a C-section. And she went to the hospital and they wouldn't admit her because she was black. And as it goes with the unfortunate, terrible history in the African American community, in the history of slavery, my grandmother looked like she was white because her mother had been raped by an Irishman. So we had all this going, like so many black families. She was a domestic worker and she would lose her job. And so, this man just took advantage of her and she got pregnant.
And so, my grandmother, because she looked that way, told this hospital, "This is my daughter," talking about my mother, "let her in." And they were a little confused, but they finally let her in thinking that this white woman's daughter was okay to get in.
But when she got in, she was not tended to. They put her on what was called a gurney, left her in the hall. She became unconscious because she was about to deliver and she needed a C-section. And so, a nurse saw her, delirious, about to go under, and she almost died. And they rushed her in. And it was too late for a C-section. And the way they delivered me – and my mother almost died – they delivered me using forceps. I had a scar above my eye until a few years ago. They delivered me. My mother almost died and I almost didn't get into this world. And that's because we were black and because they did not allow for black women to be admitted into this hospital.
And so, women's health right now and looking at black maternal and child mortality rates is a big deal because we haven't come that far when you look at the numbers of how black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth, and their babies are more likely to die than any other race in the country.
And so, that's how I got here. And I heard that story, my mother, my grandmother told me that story over and over and over again. And for me, it's natural to do what I'm doing now, and to fight like I fight for whomever, wherever, whenever I see injustices because I almost didn't get into this world because of racism.
So that's how it all started.
Kenneth Mack: Wow, that's an amazing story.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Yeah, that's how it started.
Kenneth Mack: So I want to move forward just a little bit in time to something you mentioned earlier. Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. You meet her in 1972 when she's running for President. And I think you bring her to Mills College. And you actually serve as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic national convention on her behalf. I know you've talked here before about her, but for this audience what did Congresswoman Chisholm mean in that time and the fact that she was running for President? And what did it mean to you?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Well, you've got to understand who I was at that point. And it's probably still who I am. I was an activist. I was a revolutionary. I was a progressive black woman. Black student union president. And community worker with the Black Panther Party. And I helped on serving kids breakfast. I'd bag groceries. I drug my two little kids to survival rallies. We did everything in terms of community service. So I was not going to register to vote; there was no way I was going to get involved in politics. I didn't think the two-party system was working; it wasn't working for me. I mean, I was on welfare, trying to get through school. My kids went to class with me; they know statistics better than I do. Because I didn't have money for childcare, so I had to drag them to class.
So I figured these candidates– and this was in '72. I had a class in government and part of the course requirement, it was Dr. Fran Mullins, was to work in a presidential primary campaign. Then, it was McGovern, Muskie, Humphrey and whomever else. I said, "Flunk me, I'm not working in any of these guys' campaigns." I never flunked a class in my life, but I was willing to flunk this government class.
So at the same time as this class that I'm flunking, I invite Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to Congress – as the BSU president I invite her because I had a little budget for speakers – to speak to the student body and to the Black Student Union.
So Shirley came out and she spoke. And lo and behold— Well, first, she spoke fluent Spanish; a lot of people don't know that. She talked about immigrant rights. She talked about education, because she was an educator. She was against the Vietnam War. She was an unbelievable candidate. She talked about coalition-building. And she was one of the first board members of NARAL; she was pro-choice all the way. I mean, Shirley Chisholm was a phenomenal lady.
And she was talking and speaking, and I'm saying I've never heard a member of Congress speak like this. Then she said she was running for President, a presidential candidate. It was like, really? Because you know, of course, the news, they just didn't cover her.
So I went up to her later and said, "I didn't know you were running for President. I have this class in government. I'm trying to pass it." [laughter] That was it. I said, "You sound like a candidate I could work for and try to pass this class." She looked at me, she says, "Wait a minute." I had a big Afro, jeans, power to the people. [laughter] She said, "What are you talking about? You've got to get involved in politics because if you're not on the inside trying to make changes, you're going to just continue to raise Cain. And yeah, change comes from the pressure. But, she said, you're smart enough to be in there helping us change the system. So you need to register to vote."
I said, "Not me. That's like bourgeoisie." You know guys know what that is. [laughter] "I'm a revolutionary, so I'm not going to register to vote. Do I have to do that to work in your campaign? I'm just trying to pass this class." [laughter] She said, "Yes, you do."
So she took me to task. I said, okay, took a deep breath. And she really mentored me. And that encounter with her at the Black Student Union, well, at the Student Union Ballroom that night where she spoke really changed the trajectory of my life because I told her, "Okay, I said, who do I call? What do I do? Where's your campaign housed?" She said, "I don't know. I'm leaving it up to my local supporters. I don't have a lot of national money. This is a grassroots campaign."
So I go back and I talk to my professor. I said, "Okay, I found a candidate. I'll try to pass this class. What do I do?" She said, "That's up to you.” She said, “that's the point of the class, figure it out." Okay, so I ended up figuring it out. I organized the Northern California Shirley Chisholm presidential primary campaign from my class at Mills College in Oakland, along with other students there. I got an A in the class. I went on to Miami as a Shirley Chisholm delegate.
And the rest is history. And that's how I got involved in politics. And haven't turned back since.
But it was that one encounter with a woman who was a role model, who I connected with, who encouraged me, and really in a tough-love kind of way, to do this. And getting an A, I was really proud of that. She writes about this. If you ever read her book, Unbought and Unbossed, it's called the "California Primary," Chapter 6. She writes about this whole thing. But she busted me out because she said I was on welfare. I never told about the stigma of being on public assistance and she did, she wrote about me being on public assistance. I said, oh, my god, when her book came out, "don't tell anybody that!"
So that's what happened.
Kenneth Mack: That's an amazing story.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Yeah, that's what happened.
Kenneth Mack: I want to ask about another influential figure in your life, Congressman Ron Dellums. You wind up working for him, eventually rising to chief of staff. And eventually, when he retires, being elected to his former seat in Congress. He's one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus which you actually chaired. What did Congressman Dellums mean for you as a young person? And what would you say his legacy is?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: During this period in my life, when I was doing the Shirley Chisholm campaign, Ron, I met Ron, probably, maybe even after I met Shirley. But he endorsed, he was the only member of Congress to endorse, Shirley Chisholm for President. And I met him. He was from, he represented Oakland, Berkeley. And he was an iconic human being. First of all, Ron beat an incumbent in the primary. And his whole agenda was peace and justice. And he beat this incumbent being against the Vietnam War. So he was not only an anti-war candidate, he was a peace candidate. And it was unbelievable how he did this.
And so, I got to know Ron very well. And we traveled a lot together to conventions. I was with him in Miami when I went as a delegate. I wasn't working for him, but I was a volunteer for him also. By then I was in graduate school at UC-Berkeley, in the School of Social Welfare. I have my MSW; I'm a psych by profession, okay? Psychiatric social worker. [applause] So I'm a clinically trained psychotherapist, that's who I am, my professional background.
And so, I wanted to work for him, who was also an MSW, a clinically trained social worker. And so, I was at Cal – again, still on public assistance – and I wanted to work as a Cal in the Capital intern. Now, mind you, during that period I don't think there'd ever been a black Cal in the Capital intern. Which means you have to go to DC, shut down everything, and not too many of us had any money to go to DC. And me with two little kids and my little Volkswagen and my little house, I wasn't going to do this.
So I wrote to Ron and his district director took me out, interviewed me. He said, "Well, if you want it, you got it. You just have to get the school to sign off." So the school signed off. They said, "We can pay you a dollar an hour to do that." I said, how am I going to do this? So I called the kids' grandmother and she said, "Yeah, sure, I'll watch them for the summer." She lived on a farm in Texas. So I sent the kids to their grandmother. I shut my house down, locked the car up. Went on to DC.
And I was a Cal in the Capital intern for this great, iconic figure who taught me everything I know about the legislative process on Capitol Hill during the Watergate era. I was there, I saw Richard Nixon's helicopter take off from the White House. So, speaking of the Watergate era, if you think that was something [laughter], that was nothing compared to what we're dealing. So I was there that whole summer.
So I went back, and by then I had started a community mental health center. And Ron had asked me during the summer if I could come back. And I said, "Well, I've started the center." Everyone said, "Are you crazy? You can raise enough money for your mental health center. You go back and work for Ron." So I did just that.
And Ron Dellums is, he's legendary first of all. He's a statesman, but he never lost that common touch. He was a progressive. He also chaired the Black Caucus at one point. He led the effort to make sure the United States was on the right side our history with South Africa, the right side of the apartheid movement. And, he introduced the sanctions bill at least, I think, 13 times. Finally the Congress overrode Reagan's veto, putting the United States on the right side of sanctions against apartheid South Africa. So he's very well respected in South Africa and known for the anti-apartheid movement as a leader here. And I was working with him then during that period.
But also, he was the first African American to chair the military budget. And, my whole perspective on military and national defense spending, he was on the Intelligence Committee, so I have a real, I have experience in foreign policy and international affairs and military policy because he was the chair. He became the first black chair of the Armed Services Committee. Now, here you have this progressive African American man, never had had an African American chair of the Armed Services Committee. When he came and was appointed Armed Services Committee, so was Pat Schroeder. And the chair then was so racist and sexist, he didn't even give– they had to share chair; they sat in the same chair. That's a true story. So that's what he had to deal with.
Then he becomes chair in the '90s of the Armed Services Committee. And he, it taught me a lot about the military budget and the excessive nature of it. The fact that now it's up to about $700 billion, and I know how to drill down on that budget. There's at least $150-200 billion in waste, fraud and abuse that could be put into housing and healthcare and domestic priorities here in our own country. It's just gone. And not even touch the strength of our global leadership and national security. Ron taught me all of that.
And he, as chair of the Armed Services Committee, with his political perspective of cutting the budget, he is known in his legacy as being probably the fairest chair of the Armed Services Committee, ever, because he allowed his members to amend the bill, to do what they needed to do. He would make his arguments about why that's not the correct place to be in terms of military expenditures, but he allowed them to do their thing. And then he voted against his own bill; he would move the bill out of committee and he would speak against his own bill on the floor.
He was a man of principle and integrity. And he was amazing to watch navigate the legislative process as a senior statesman, a committee chair, and not give up his principles. And I think that's what we all can learn, is how you maintain who you are, what you believe in, and yet know how to work the system to reach the goals that you're trying to achieve.
Kenneth Mack: That's great. So I want to fast forward a little bit in time. You eventually rise to be his chief of staff. You leave, start your own business. You're elected to the California Assembly, California Senate. You work against the three strikes bill – minimum sentence of 25 years for three felony convictions. And eventually you are elected to Congressman Dellums' former seat. And I want to ask sort of who mentored you. So finally you're in Congress. You've been a staffer and you've had experience with people who are elected to Congress, but now you're there. And I want to ask you about two people in particular who've been in the news lately because they just passed – Congressman John Conyers and Congressman Elijah Cummings. Could you talk about who mentored you? Did the two of them have any role in your early years?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Major influence. And let me just say, and this is really something that we're working on in my district. I was the first African American woman north of Los Angeles elected to the California Assembly, then elected to the California Senate, and then elected to Congress. And I had to break a heck of a lot of glass ceilings. But there have been no African American women elected to any of these seats since. And that is a real problem and challenge that I'm working on in Northern California. Because, there are a lot of reasons, but that's unacceptable, to be the first and not be able to break it open for other women, especially other women of color and African American women.
When I came to Congress in '98, in many ways I hit the ground running. I came in a special election. Ron was sitting there on the floor, so I had a chance to give a speech. They needed one vote to get off of the floor the campaign finance bill; and it was called a discharge petition, they needed one vote. So I was told by the chair of our California delegation, "You could do that, you know, and be that one vote to kick this bill over at that speech when you're sworn in." So after I gave my speech, after I was sworn in, I turned around and signed the discharge petition. So I was the 18th to let the campaign finance bill go off the floor. So that was kind of how I started off, with a bang.
So the people who– so, in many ways, I hit the ground running. I knew a lot more than a lot of the members who had just come because I had worked for a member of Congress for 11 years. So of course, things change and now as a member I'm on the firing line; I'm out front and I have to, you know, know that and realize that. But I still felt like kind of a staffer.
So Elijah Cummings, God bless his soul, a phenomenal human being, smart, brilliant, committed. He towered over so many, but yet in his community and on the Hill he related to everybody. He just was a decent human being who never lost the common touch.
So Elijah, when I first was elected, we were sitting on the floor and he said, "Yeah, I know how you feel. You got some big shoes to fill, and boom, boom, boom." And I had known him not long before I was elected, but I had known him. He said, "So let me see what I can do to help you." And we talked.
And then Elijah and I came up with this, "Okay, so in your district, you've got to carve out your own, you know, agenda. So let's talk about what would be a whole new agenda for you." And because, yes, I was on the public safety committee in the legislature and I was one of three people who voted against three strikes and go so many death threats, you would not believe, because it was a tough vote, but it was the right vote, because we see what's happened. But only three people in the legislature, House and Senate, voted against three strikes. So I'd done a lot around that.
So we talked about criminal justice reform. So Elijah said, "What if we do this? I'll come to your district and we'll do a town meeting on gun violence, on criminal justice reform, and on second chance, the whole bit in terms of reentry." I said, "Really? You will? Yes! Elijah Cummings!"
So Elijah came out to my district. And no one could believe that this new– he had been in Congress only a couple years, but people really knew him. That he was coming to Oakland, California, to do with this with Barbara Lee, and C-SPAN covered it for three days. I mean, it was just phenomenal! And by the time Elijah finished introducing me to my district on the whole issues around criminal justice reform and public safety, and second chance and reentry, that did it. It was like Elijah kind of lifted me up in my own district and they said, "Yeah, okay, you're going to be okay." [laughter]
So he mentored me the entire time. We were close. I'm really close with his wife. And this is one little side story: you know, Presidents have little Super Bowl parties, and I was probably the second or third member of Congress to endorse Barack Obama. I was the first in California, first member. And for a long time no one else did. And finally Adam Schiff was the second. So it was Barbara Lee and Adam Schiff for Barack. And then Elijah had endorsed him.
And so, the first Super Bowl party, I get a call from the White House: "The President would like you to come over for the Super Bowl." I said, "Why me? Really? He just got there." Got over there and there was Elijah, and Elijah's looking at me and I'm, "Why are we here?" [laughter] So we enjoyed the first Super Bowl party with Barack Obama and Michelle Obama at the White House, Elijah and myself. Which was really great.
So I have a lot of moments with Elijah that I recall. One was when I voted against the authorization to use military force right after 9/11. [applause] It was the hardest vote. Three strikes, really difficult. The resolution, 60 words. It was a blank check; it was just the President's authorized to use force, forever. I was talking to Elijah, I said, "This is going to be really hard. I've been trying to get them to craft this in a way that made sense, but they won't do it, they want this overly broad thing."
And the memorial service was about to take place at the National Cathedral. So I was standing there in the cloak room, not going to the memorial service because I wanted to kind of walk through what I was going to say on the floor, how I was going to do it because it was really a hard decision to come to. And I was talking to Elijah, drinking a ginger ale; it was raining outside. I said, you know, "What do you think? I can't get to the voting for this, and I know all hell's going to break loose." Elijah said, "Yeah?” He says, “We may or may not agree with you, but you have to follow the Constitution, how you feel this is constitutional or not, and you have to follow your conscience."
And Elijah said, "Just know that I'm going to be with you whatever you do." And that was the last member of Congress I talked to. I put down my ginger ale. I ran down, got on the bus, went to the memorial service. And it was after the memorial service, Elijah encouraged me to go; he didn't go, but he said, "Yeah, I think you should go, it's that moment for you." So I went. And during the eulogy, the head of the Cathedral, Reverend Nathan Baxter, in his eulogy, he said – because the rest of the prayers were like a drumbeat to war, if you go back and listen to them – he said, "Look, as we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore." And I was very settled after talking to Elijah and hearing that that whatever happened, I was going to vote no because this was wrong.
This was three days after the horrific attacks. We didn't know what we were doing. We didn't have an end date, we didn't have a target. We kind of had some idea, but you don't give any President, Republican or Democrat, just an authorization to go to war forever. That's been used now 41 times, 18 or 19 countries. I was able to get the repeal though in the bill this year, and it's in the Senate now. So if anybody wants to get their Senator on record so we can get this off the books, now is the time. But anyway, Elijah helped me through that, also.
And let me tell you – I wish I had my phone here – there's a picture which was drug up just recently, a few days ago. It was a picture of John Dingell, who passed away this year, Elijah Cummings, John Conyers, and me. [laughter] That picture is really something. And I don't think there's a picture of the three of them at all together, except that picture, and I'm in that picture. And the only woman. We were introducing, I believe it was the single payer bill that John introduced.
I've known John Conyers since I was a staffer because he and Ron were very close. And I've traveled with John Conyers to Cuba, to Grenada, to Africa, to Haiti. He was very involved in Haiti. And he was just a brilliant progressive man who in many ways, in spite of all the transgressions and all of the issues that ended his career, his legacy is something that I will forever be thankful for. Because if it weren't for John Conyers, you know, I wouldn't be here today.
He led the charge on the Voting Rights Act. He actually established the Poor People's Caucus. I do a lot around poverty; we all fight for the middle class, but we have to remember the poor and the most vulnerable and low income families. John Conyers introduced the first single payer bill in Congress, HR 676. And he was a brilliant civil and human rights leader who early on understood that the LGBTQ community deserved civil and human rights. And he understood that the struggle for racial and gender equity was a struggle, that we had to work in an intersectional – now, that's what we call it – an intersectional manner. And we had to have these coalitions. His staff was phenomenal. And he was a man that he would call me – he called me Bobby a lot of times, or Lee; one or the other, Bobby or Lee – "What do you think about this? What do you think about that?" He actually called me as a staffer for ideas about what to do and how to move forward.
Finally, one thing about John, one story about John I'll always remember: We went to, this was in '76 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Black Caucus had a conference. And that was during the period that Ben Chavis and the Wilmington Ten were incarcerated. And John was on the Judiciary Committee. I was staffing for Ron Dellums. And John and I and his staff decided that we had to figure out a way to get Ben Chavis and the Wilmington Ten out of jail. So he took that on in a big way.
And so, when we went to this conference in North Carolina, John said, "Let's go see Ben Chavis in Burgaw, North Carolina." I said, "What?" Just out of the clear, blue sky. We didn't have clearance, we didn't have anything. And I still have pictures of John Conyers and myself and a reporter going to the prison to see Reverend Ben Chavis and the Wilmington Ten. And he said, "I don't care if they let us in or not, we're going to go there.” He says, “I'm a member of Congress, I'm on the Judiciary Committee. This is a railroaded case. And we're going to get them out, and I have a right to go in to visit him." And he took me with him to help out. And we did it. And that's how John Conyers was.
He would come up with ideas and then he would move on the ideas so fast. A lot of people used to criticize, "Well, he didn't talk to me." John says, "I can't wait on that, we've got to get this started."
I was at his funeral yesterday. And it was a beautiful service. And, he– God, his legacy. He has two sons, and his wife Monica. And I hope you will remember his legacy. For those who don't know who John Conyers was, read about him, learn about him, because many changes in this country that we have benefited from were a direct result from John Conyers's life.
Kenneth Mack: I want to pick up on something you mentioned. I mean, there's lots of things we can pick up on; there's so much to talk about. But I want to pick up on Barack Obama. So, you mentioned you're the first member of Congress to endorse Obama.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: From California. I think. Maybe Elijah was. He may have been before me. But I know from California, I was one of the first two or three in the whole country.
Kenneth Mack: You endorse him in March of 2008, and the Democratic primary is not–
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: No, I endorsed him in December.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Oh December! I got the date wrong.
Kenneth Mack: It was way back in December.
Kenneth Mack: Oh, well, that's even more. Alright, so things were very unresolved.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Before Christmas in December, yes.
Kenneth Mack: Yes, okay.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Because I wrote an article for the Atlantic magazine about my endorsement.
Kenneth Mack: Yes.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: And I said, "Given someone who works on foreign policy also and the state of the world," I made the argument in my op-ed or article that, "Barack Hussein Obama was the right man at the right time to help us move toward global peace and security."
Kenneth Mack: Was it also important to elect the first black President? What was the symbolism of that moment?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Absolutely. But it wasn't because he was black, but he was smart, he knew what he was doing. He understood foreign policy and domestic policy. I met him when he ran for the US Senate. We had some events for him in the Bay Area, so that's how I met him and got to know him. But his spirit was– it soared for me and I said you've got to have somebody at this moment in time in the White House whose spirit and heart and head all kind of work together.
And, so he was a person I thought could bring coalitions together. And I think we saw that. And I knew that he was a progressive, really, but I knew he was going to have to calibrate that to win. But I never was disappointed in how he did that. But I knew that it was all of these combined, all these attributes combined that made him a candidate that I couldn't say no to, I had to endorse.
And I'm going to tell you though, I was at church one Sunday. And I go to– I'm a member of the Allen Temple Baptist Church, progressive Baptist church. After service, this African American woman came up to me and introduced me to her son. And she had tears in her eyes. And this was a young man who was, I think, 15 years old, very smart. I think she told me she had him in Catholic school. And, she had tears in her eyes and she thanked me for endorsing Barack Obama. And she pointed to her son, introduced me to him and she said, "You know, he didn't know that a black man could ever be President. And when you endorsed him, Barack Obama, he now believes that it can happen. She says, so thank you for doing that. But he didn't even believe in America anybody black, a black man, could be elected."
So that's when I realized how profound his, you know, his being a black man running for the office of the President was in terms of what young people saw, young black boys and families. And everyone. But specifically young black men. And that's when I knew, I said, okay, this is good. There are going to be all kinds of unintended consequences of my endorsement around my community and around the country. But also in terms of him being our President.
So it was important. And also, I was able to go with him actually on Air Force One to Kenya. And, I was there when he spoke to the African Union, and when he was with his family. It was really a wonderful, wonderful visit, to see him in that context also, as an African American with roots, with family roots, familial roots in Kenya. And it was just– he was just like he is here, he was just normal; he was like a good brother. And I was so proud of him just being our President.
Kenneth Mack: Yeah. Maybe one or two last questions before we open it up to the audience. You eventually become the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, you know, which Congressman Dellums was one of the founders of it. Could you educate our audience, both on the historical mission of the Congressional Black Caucus and specifically what does it– what issues did you work on as chair, what does it do now?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: So, the Congressional Black Caucus. Again, the first 13 members included Ron Dellums and John Conyers. Now we're at 55 members strong – 23 women. When Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman. When I was elected in '98, I was the – check this – the 20th African American woman ever elected to Congress since 1789, the first Congress. So. Please. So I mean, really, you could see how– how, in a historical context, how this is major, to be able to break through this white male-dominated system. And it's hard because as a black woman inside you're fighting to change the system, but also you're fighting for your people and your community and whatever issues your championing.
So the Black Caucus is the conscience of the Congress. And it constantly, over the years, and when you look at its legislative history has fought for jobs with justice, it's fought for equality, for civil rights. We have now five committee chairs. I mean, the science– the chair of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Representatives is an African American woman, Eddie Bernice Johnson, from Texas. The chair of the Financial Services Committee is Maxine Waters, Auntie Max, from California, dealing with Wall Street and the financial industry.
But these people have been in Congress for 30 years, and it takes that length of time just to build seniority to get to where you can become a committee chair.
You look at Bobby Scott from Virginia. Bobby Scott is phenomenal, he chairs the Education and Labor Committee. And the late Elijah Cummings, of course, elected– was the chair of the Oversight Committee.
And so, you have major members of the Congressional Black Caucus who have been there with the experience and the knowledge now chairing major committees. Started out with 13 members years ago.
And when I chaired the Black Caucus, we probably had maybe 40 members then, maybe. And it was quite an experience, and it was a phenomenal experience because I chaired it the first two years that President Obama was in office. And so, there was that tug of war constantly. Not a lot of tension, but a lot of "wait a minute here now, what are we doing," you know, trying to reach common ground on a lot of issues that we wanted to just go straight at and do. But we had to bring other Democrats to the table and try to get Republicans. But President Obama, I mean, we told him early, "That's not going to happen. Mitch McConnell said his goal was to make sure you weren't successful and to defeat you." So we didn't believe that ever. And he didn't get any Republican support on much of anything, President Obama.
So we were trying to watch his back on Capitol Hill; at the same time pushing the envelope. And I can remember several policies that came down, or several proposals that I said no way to. I said, just no way, this is not good. And we're going to have to revamp how we do this. Because I had had that experience on some of these committees, knowing where it would go. One had to do with a nutrition program that the First Lady had begun, which was really great, and which I supported. But they were trying to take the money from food stamps or some other account. I said, no, no, no, no, no.
And so, Black Caucus held it up, and we worked it out. And so, I was there at the bill signing and it was great when the President acknowledged those of us who helped get that done right.
And so, we had to make sure that we not only watched his back, but that things were right for him and the country as we moved forward. And so, that was my role in many ways. I was running the interference, mediating a lot.But also just really having an unbelievable time making sure that his agenda and our agenda became one agenda. Jobs, of course, and the recovery, because we were right on the brink of a depression, so we made sure that in the Recovery Act we had funding to expand community clinics. That came from our caucus, from Jim Clyburn. You know, I got a lot in the recovery bill that the President supported that didn't come from the White House, but that was our Congressional Black Caucus provisions.
And so, we worked like that. We'd get proposals from the White House and we'd amend it, and we'd talk to the President about that. And one of the biggest efforts as chair of the Black Caucus that I mounted was around the Affordable Care Act. And what I did was, because I support single payer and the public option, and I decided, and so did a lot of members– so we have what we call the Tri Caucus, which is the Black, Hispanic, and Asia-Pacific American Caucus. So I was chairing the Black Caucus. Lucille Roybal-Allard was chairing the Hispanic Caucus. Mike Honda was chairing the Asia-Pacific American Caucus of which I'm a member. I actually chaired a health task force. And then, we brought in the Progressive Caucus, and that was Lynn Woolsey.
So we formed during that period the Quad Caucus, because we wanted to make sure that the provisions that we wanted in the Affordable Care Act were included, the issues around racial equity, closing disparities based on race. Racial issues around health disparities with HIV and AIDS, breast cancer, prostate cancer, all the disparities that immigrants and people of color and African Americans, still, are dealing with in an unequal health system. So we wanted to make sure those were all covered.
We wanted to make sure the expansion of community clinics had been included in the bill. And we wanted a single payer or public option, and we didn't bend on that. We wanted that. And so, we all came together and came up with our, I think it was, five principles.
So then we went over to the White House. And I have a picture of me sitting there like, "Yeah, we got to have this. We have over 110 votes, Mr. President. We want it all." And he said, "You bring me the votes, you got it all." He was really cool with it in how he negotiated. He put it back on us.
So we'd go back and we'd start negotiating. And we get almost 90% of what we wanted in that bill. So we call the President in August and we have a conference call with him on the line, because we were out of session. And we said, "Okay, this is where we are. We still want that public option." He said, "Okay, you've got to bring me the votes for it." We said, "Okay, we're going to." And then, "We want the health disparities." "You've got that if you got the vote."
So we went through everything. There were a couple pieces which we didn't get on immigration, which we should have gotten, but we couldn't get the votes for. And so, we negotiated, I'd say, about 90% of what we wanted in that. And the public option we just couldn't get some Democrats to vote for. So what we did was write into the bill, which in many ways I said, well, we caved, but we didn't cave, because we wrote in, you know, states have the option. If they want to develop single payer or public option, they can write and get a waiver and do it. And California and other states are going to do that, probably. But we said states can do that. But that was like a compromise that we didn't like. But we wanted to get the bill off the floor.
And so, the President was really happy that we were able to negotiate most of what we wanted that he could support. But those provisions never would have gotten in the bill had it not been for the Quad Caucus. And those are really good provisions in the Affordable Care Act that really address the expansion of minority health education. When you look at the Affordable Care Act, aside from the coverage and what it does in terms of, you know, access, there are the provisions of it that really made a heck of a lot of sense for communities of color and low income communities.
And so, I'll never forget. It was a close vote, I mean, with Democrats even, because some Democrats didn't want to vote for it. But Nancy Pelosi, to her credit, she led that whole effort, even when others were getting a little weak-kneed on it. But, she'd call the White House and say, "No, no, no, we're going to get the votes." And we got the votes. And I'll always remember that Sunday, because the vote was on a Sunday, and we were invited to church in Virginia. And I spoke at the church on behalf of the Black Caucus because I was chairing. The whole Caucus went to church service that day. And I spoke. And when we came back, we were spat upon by the Tea Party. They were all at the Capitol. And they were spitting at John Lewis. And the security people had us go underground. And it was like a terrible day after church to have to go through all this stuff with these people just calling us names.
Oh, you talk about the N word. You should have heard and felt what we were going through that day. It was awful.
We passed the bill though. And we got it done. And I'll never forget, the day after it passed, President Obama called me up and he thanked me. And it's those moments that you say, Okay. And I'm sharing it tonight, but nobody will ever know all the little details and back stories. But that's kind of the work we did with the Black Caucus, when he– the first two years. And it was like amazing work. And it was hard work. But it was very wonderful to see the outcome. And I was happy.
Kenneth Mack: So we've had a chance to talk a little bit about your biography and sort of, how you came to the public service issues that you've championed, your experience, mentors in Congress and some of the tough decisions you've made as in the AUMF and the chance to actually be in leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus. I know you're in the Congressional leadership now.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: First black woman, ever.
Kenneth Mack: Okay. So we've got a little time for questions. So I'd like to have as much, sort of, equity as possible. What we're going to do is we're going to have people line up at the two microphones. We'd like people to, if you've asked questions in past gatherings, try to allow other people to maybe ask first. We want questions to be short, so we can get as many possible; so, short. And we want them to be in the form of a question. So please, questions. And we can go, I think maybe to the left, to the right, then the left, then the right. And we'll just keep going.
Q: Thank you so much for your courageous vote against the war on Iraq resolution. Because I was running for Congress in Connecticut and it was a lonely place to be when I took a position against the war. So we're now dealing with impeachment, and I'm glad you brought that up with the Watergate inquiry. Would it be possible for you to consider draft articles of impeachment that go beyond the Ukraine scandal, to include the racist abuse of power, the unconstitutional and border issues with children and their families, and the emoluments violations.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: We talk a lot about that. And let me just give the state of play. All of the committees are continuing with their investigations to cover all of the crimes, which are many. Many of those will be able to– would go to the Judiciary Committee under the Ukraine – okay – provisions. And it– to do 17 or 18 articles right now, you’d lose, we'd lose public support, I think, because it doesn't mean you can't in later add 10 or 11 or 12 or file additional. But I think what you're going to see, and again the committees are investigating and coming up, we're putting everything over now and giving it to the Judiciary Committee very soon. They'll figure out how– there may be 10 or 12 charges that other articles would cover that you could put into the Ukraine article, also.
But I believe, and as a progressive, I think this is– you have to do this right. And we have to do it in a strategic way where you cover– emoluments, I'm on the lawsuit. I think this could be covered, but it may or may not be, but it certainly could be another article. And so, I think what you're going to see, once the committees complete their investigation, is a really factually based, substantive and doable impeachment articles, you know, which would pass with support.
I think if it's too broad, the public and public sentiment, as our speaker talks about, the Democratic process, the public weighing in and understanding what's taking place is extremely important. They get it on Ukraine. They get it on what has taken place in terms of the unbelievable quid pro quo that has taken place, and how the abuse of power and the lawlessness around Ukraine is evident. So I think we have to strike while the iron is hot, but also make sure that they're comprehensive, factual and can move forward with public support.
Q: As a Gold Star family member and a Vietnam veteran, I want to thank you personally for your leadership in Congress on ending the wars. It has been appalling. And you have been our shining star for peace and justice. So hooray to you. And my question is, what are our next steps to ending the never-ending, continuous wars that two-thirds of our federal budget are now being spent on.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Well, thank you very much, thanks for those gracious comments. And look, this is like in my DNA. My dad was a military officer. And I know–. He was in the Second World War and Korea. And he was a proud veteran. So thank you. He always reminded me, you don't send our troops in harm's way until you absolutely have to. And what the state of play is, of course, you see what's happening now in Yemen. We're trying to stop the war in Yemen and Saudi Arabia and trying to stop escalation over there.
But, also, we're trying to repeal the two authorizations that they're using to justify these actions, 40-some-times now. So one is in the National Defense– NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act. I have the 2002 authorization repeal; that was Iraq. So far it's in the Senate, and actually most Democrats in the Senate are supporting it. That's going to conference. So if you all want to get on that and let the Senate know, keep that repeal in. We got it in the House bill and that's it.
Secondly, in the defense approps bill, I got in the repeal of the 2001. I've tried this for 18 years. Finally got it in, and got it off the floor. But again, you've got the Senate to deal with.
And so, the big deal now is getting the Senate to hold those repeals because that would do a heck of a lot. What we're saying is, look, if we're going to use force, if we're going to go to war, just come to Congress. We'll debate it. And we'll decide if we're going to give the authorization to use force. I mean, I'm not a pacifist, and I don't think anyone in Congress are pacifist, but we think that we have to uphold our constitutional responsibility to give the authority to use force. And let me tell you, Congress has been missing in action. And so, just know we're woke. And your Massachusetts delegation has been phenomenal, I've got to give them a lot of credit. Jim McGovern has been unbelievable in this. All of your delegation has been just steadfast in helping me get this through.
So it's going to get done. Nothing's easy in this country, but it's going to get done. So just kind of keep pushing for us and help us. Thank you very much.
Q: Good evening, Congresswoman Lee. My name is Gary Bailey. I'm the assistant dean of community engagement and social justice at Simmons School of Social Work here in Boston. Could you speak about how your social work training, your clinical social work training has impacted or impacts your work in Congress? And the reason I ask that is, any time there's an incident in the Capitol, we see those folks who are MDs reach into their desk and grab their medical bags and go running around the halls of Congress. But I wonder about those of you who are part of the social work caucus who have the skills to understand the person and environment. How do those skills come up? And how do you use them in the work that you do?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Thank you very much for that question. And, I chair the Social Work Caucus. There are only about six of us there, five or six social workers in Congress. And again, my background is clinical, so I like to look at the impact, and I do this, of policies and funding priorities on people and communities. Is it a positive or negative? Is it going to hurt people or help people?
And so, that's the framework and the prism I look at just working on legislation. And it's helpful because as a psychiatric social worker, you know, I'm able to listen. You know, we have those skills; we're taught how to listen. So I may not say one word in a meeting until necessary. But when I say something, people say, "Oh, yeah." Because I've kind of done my clinical deal and figured it out.
And so, that skill comes in really handy. People love to talk, members love to talk. Talk, talk, talk. Sometimes they're not listening to each other. And given the total chaos oftentimes in committees, we're focused strictly on what we're going to say, our message, and no one has listened to the other person at all; it's just focus.
So I try to encourage my colleagues, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you may want to listen to what he has to say, first, before you say what you have to say." And so, that's something I think that social workers can bring to– more social workers can bring to Congress because we need people who can listen, who can analyze, who can think critically, and who can make decisions that are going to be good for humankind. And I think that’s one of the biggest skills and I think that social workers can bring.
But also I think, in terms of just public policy, I chair the task force on poverty and opportunity. And it wasn’t until– I mentioned John Conyers who started the Poor People's Caucus. Until John brought that Poor People's Caucus, and I kept telling members in our caucus, "Look, we're fighting for the middle class. We have to do that, but we've got to fight for the people who are poor and low income people and the most vulnerable." And that comes from, well, my own experience, but it also comes from seeing how that has not been a priority.
And so, I've made it a priority as a social worker. And so now I have 100 members of Congress. Of course, none of which are social workers, on my task force. So, it’s a– we have a social worker leading a task force on poverty and opportunity. And so, we're able to spread our wings a little bit and convince the lawyers and the MDs that looking at impacts and looking and listening a little bit more, and focusing on people who don't have access to opportunities might be a good thing to do. And they're learning, and they're doing that.
Q: You mentioned that Ron Dellums helped put the Congress on the right side of sanctions against South Africa, but Congress is still on the wrong side of sanctions against Israel. In July, you were one of 17 members of the House – thank you very much – who voted against the anti-BDS measure HR 246. The entire Massachusetts delegation actually voted in favor of it. Why is that Congress continues to provide this bipartisan unchecked support for Israel and its illegal occupation and system of apartheid? That was another issue that Ron Dellums was concerned about. And unfortunately, in 2016, Barack Obama actually expanded the aid package, a new ten-year aid package agreement to Israel. I know you've been kind of concerned about this issue, but you can't seem to make any progress in Congress with that. What's going on with that?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Well, I think it’s about– First of all, I support – and again, we have to understand the context now of the Middle East and what's taking place now – I support a two-state solution. And I will continue to support it. I have introduced legislation in the past, way back when a two-state solution was popular, calling for a two-state solution and got criticized from every which way. And so, any movement that's going to stop that process from moving forward, I'm not going to support. And don’t– I believe in justice and peace for the Palestinians, as well as the state. And I believe in security for Israel. I've been there eight times to the Middle East.
And so, it's something that I work on constantly. If my votes– if a resolution or a bill comes to me that I have to vote on, if it doesn't lead to a two-state solution or peace, I'm not going to vote for it. If it does, I'll vote it. And that's just kind of how I do. You can talk to other members about why they vote which way, but I'm really clear on the Middle East in terms of what I think I need to do. Sometimes I'm criticized from the left, sometimes from the right. But I've got to stay the course. And that's a two-state solution and peace and security for Israelis and for the Palestinian people.
And again, you're not hearing that from many sides right now. But that's where I am.
Q: Hi, Congresswoman. Thank you so much for your public service. I just want you to know we're all rooting for you.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Thank you.
Q: I am a doctoral candidate at UMass-Boston at the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development, and my dissertation is on the underrepresentation of black women in Congress.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Ah! Great!
Q: And as you probably know, more black women have run in 2018 than ever in our nation's history, but it's still not proportional. So I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit about some of the barriers that you feel still exist for black women running for office.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: I'd love to read your dissertation! There are a lot of barriers, but black women are breaking through regardless. I mean, look at Ayanna Pressley! She's a wonderful, brilliant woman, committed to her community, to peace, to security, to justice, to really changing how we do our politics and government in making government more responsible to the people. And so, we have these breakthroughs.
And, I think one of the issues that has been a problem has been money. We've got to get money out of politics. I have to work ten times harder, and I'm in leadership, to raise money than anybody else. Because people see me, as "Oh, you're safe, you're in a safe seat." And forget that you're in leadership and on the Appropriations Committee and you have 500,000 in dues and you have another 250 to the party and boom, boom, boom. It's like, "you don't need money."
So I show up and they'll contribute to other candidates who are not black women, even if they're incumbents. And, when you look, and you look in my records and you can look at some of the incumbent white women around who the same argument could apply to, like "you're in a safe seat," or, "you don't need it." Ten times more money.
So money is an issue in politics for black women. And I work ten times harder to raise what– I'll have 20 fundraisers to raise X-amount of dollars that someone else could raise in one event. Okay? So black women in Congress work ten times harder to raise money.
Secondly, in many ways, when you– especially if you're in a primary, oftentimes they, the public, may not think you can win because you're a black woman. Because they think that's not quite a plus yet. So it may not be verbalized, but it's in the subconscious. Okay?
And then thirdly, we come to elected office later in life because we've been– for obvious reasons. The discriminatory nature of the system, but also we've been working hard for other candidates, I mean working really hard in our communities. We've been doing so much. We've been caregivers, we've been this, we've been holding this down, we've been doing that. And so, we come later. And so, now it's like, well, you're too old to run. But when you look at the age of black women in Congress, with the exception of three or four, everybody's over 60. I mean, but that's because we came later. Because that's our life. So you have that issue to deal with.
So you have a lot of stuff that’s, in many ways, it's structural. But it's also cultural and it's in the consciousness. People– Again, my psychiatric social worker training is coming out. It's some subconscious stuff going on in the public.
You know, I was so glad, I helped her a lot, Stacey Abrams; she is the governor of Georgia incidentally; she won that. She won it. And I went down there several times. I did an event for Stacey at my house in Oakland and I was so glad she came so close, because she is in your face – I'm a black woman, I'm not going to change, this is who I am, and I can represent all of you, in rural and urban Georgia, and the whole nine yards.
And so, I think it's shifting now, we're seeing it. But lord knows, I mean, gosh, it's time! So I'll look forward to reading your dissertation, you can send it. Thank you.
Q: Thank you so much.
Q: I just want to start by thanking you for being here tonight and thank you for your continued service in Congress. We talked a little bit about President Obama tonight. And my question is pertaining to President Obama was recently in the news calling out woke culture, and I couldn't help but notice that you're wearing a "stay woke" button. So I'm just a little curious as what your interpretation of woke culture is.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Well, I have to tell you. I ended up in the dictionary. In Webster's dictionary, Merriam-Webster dictionary, when I– I think young people just kind of started saying– so I used it in a speech at a Netroots conference about three years ago in Atlanta. And I kind of said what staying woke meant to me in terms of fighting racism and injustice wherever you see it. You've got to stay woke and you've got to– that's how I see it, okay.
So someone in the audience picked up on that and it ended up – you can see now – it's in the dictionary with name on it, the definition of woke. Okay? Really, when you see your name in the dictionary, it's like, oh, my god! That's kind of different.
And so, my definition of woke– and I appreciate young Millennials and the young people because they are woke. They are going to be the salvation of the world, for real. You talk about whether it's climate change, whether it's healthcare, whether it’s– And they may or may not be registered to vote now, that's the thing. Our job is to convince them that they are valued and that the political process and the system can work. Because a lot of them don't believe that yet.
But in terms of their consciousness, in terms of what should be done around mass incarceration, climate change, healthcare, housing. I mean, I get so many letters. I mean, I have some of the largest homeless population in the country, in Oakland, in my district. It's like the Tale of Two Cities now. And it's terrible what gentrification has done.
Young people care about issues. They care about social justice. They care about homelessness. So I say, you know, to them, anything I can do to help them and to encourage them and to work with them, and to hopefully convince them that they should register to vote and get engaged, I am going to do. And that's kind of where I am on that.
So I be woke.
Q: Yes, stay woke!
Kenneth Mack: Last question, we have time for a short question.
Q: Okay. Welcome to Boston, Congresswoman. Thank you for never backing up. My question is about healthcare. I actually am a healthcare operations consultant, but I also had a real job in healthcare, too. So, I know you are in support of single payer, but given how hard it was to pass the ACA, and also the fact that the ACA has never been fully implemented, do you think it's really a good idea to blow up the ACA and start over with Medicare For All?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: It's not a good idea to blow up ACA. And that's not what this is about. I would never do that. I worked too hard for ACA. So I think we have to strengthen ACA. And I'm on the Appropriations Committee and I see how, even though they couldn't get the votes to repeal it, how they're undermining the ACA. And I'm fighting every step of the way because they cut out all the funding for the navigators, for the advertising. They're just to just dismantle it.
So there's nobody who fights harder to preserve and expand ACA than Barbara Lee.
Q: Thank you
Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Having said that, I think ultimately we've got to get to a better system of healthcare that's universal, accessible, affordable. And, it’s got to be– I mean, no one complains who's on Medicare about Medicare and the VA. I mean, the government has to take responsibility for certain kinds of interventions in people's lives and supports in people's lives. So we've got to get to that.
But that doesn't mean we give up ACA. Okay? There are millions of people who are not insured now because of whatever reason. And so, we've got to make sure they have access. And so that's kind of where I am. And some people don't agree with me on that. But I do agree as a person who supports Medicare For All and single payer. The first thing is we've got to keep ACA expanded for those who want it, get the money back, put the money back into it and cover as many people as we can.
Lee, B. (2019, November 5). A conversation with Barbara Lee Interview by K. Mack. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Kennedy Library Forums. https://www.jfklibrary.org/events-and-awards/forums/11-5-barbara-lee