thank you for joining us today for our 2025 Ramsey County and city of St Paul Black History Month committee um this year the Black History Month committee is presenting empowering progress African-Americans in the labor movement which will be a panel discussion we'll start with our land acknowledgement every Community owes its existence and vitality to Generations from around the world who contributed their hopes dreams and energy to making the history that led to this moment some were brought here against their will some were drawn to leave their distant homes in Hope of a better life and some had lived on this land for more Generations than can be counted truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of Heritage indifference we begin with this effort to acknowledge what has been buried by honoring the truth we are standing on the ancestrial lands of the Dakota people we want to acknowledge the ajib way and Hooch chunk people who also call this place home we pay respects to their Elders past and present please take a moment to consider the treaties made but never honored or kept with the tribal Nations that entitle non-native people to live and work on traditional Native lands consider the many legacies of violence displacement migration and settlement that brings us together here today please join us in uncovering such truths at any and all public events I'd like to give a huge thank you to our 2025 history months uh sponsors we uh uh the Ramsey County Child and Family Services Department and of the city of St Paul we have the talent and Equity resources Equity division our uh human rights and equal opportunity Rio as we like to call them right um St Paul Public Library thank you very much Office of Financial Services parks and wreck fire and Emergency Services thank you all so much for sponsoring this and uh the office of technology and Communications my department uh public works department of safety and inspections DSi we like to call them and uh city council thank you all so much for sponsoring this event the association for the study of African-American life in hist history the 2025 theme is African-Americans in labor the founding of Black History Month when Carter G Woodson established negro history week in 1926 he realized the importance of providing a theme to focus the attention on the public the intention has never been to dictate or limit the exploration of the black experience but to bring the Public's attention to important developments that Merit emphasis the themes reflect changes in how people of African descent in the United States have viewed themselves the influence on social movements on racial ideologies and the aspirations of the black community um our moderators sorry our uh presenters today participants of our panel will be uh our panel that's moderated by Professor William Jones he like to go by will will is an author and professor of US history at the University of Minnesota uh will would you like to introduce yourself yeah good morning thanks for having me on the panel um yeah as neiah said I'm a professor at the University of Minnesota uh I teach uh black history American history and labor history and the connections between them my most recent book it's called the March on Washington jobs freedom and the Forgotten history of rights and I'm looking forward to this discussion thank you and then we have uh Elder Gan n dedes so uh Gan N is a Workforce Pioneer uh Arts Advocate and educator focused on promoting African-American artists Ganan would you like to introduce yourself hi I'm Gina and pay no attention to the introduction because I've been retired for 33 years I'm still acquainted and work and associated with the workforce and I see where things have changed and where things have not changed and I'm very glad I'm retired I'm from Chicago and it was a culture shock when I moved here I lived in Chicago raised there went to the University of Illinois then University of Wisconsin I'm very happy to be here thank you and uh we have Elder Frank White Frank is an author historian and advocate for St Paul Rondo and African-American baseball history uh Frank would you like to introduce yourself uh thank you Nehemiah uh good afternoon everyone U I'm honored to be on our panel today originally from St well lifelong St Paul uh resident um and uh I've worked in uh Recreation for about 40 years I've been involved in sports um and eventually rebranded myself or reinvented myself as an author and and a historian and and now considered an elder which obviously means I I have a couple years under my belt and I've retired several times but I'm still working and actively involved in uh writing and research so thank you thank you and uh last but not least uh Lise Louise uh Louis suin is an educator labor leader excuse me educator labor leader and advocate for workers rights uh workers rights women's rights and social justice she's an advocate uh Louise would you like to introduce yourself thank you I'm so pleased to be here today and my background as you said is in education I was a 39-year ninth grade English teacher both my parents were teachers so it uh um I feel very close to the person I'm going to talk about today uh I'm celebrating my 50th year in the labor movement this year I W uh will be my 50th year of being a delegate to what was originally the Minneapolis uh uh Labor Union Council City Labor Union Council it is now the Minneapolis Regional retire Regional uh labor Federation and I am um also involved in five or six uh organizations like the Minnesota AFL CIO State retiree Council an officer of that and Minneapolis Regional retire Council and about four or five other organizations of retired workers and we don't really retire we Tire again doing what we love which is what we're doing today thank you so much now we're going to circle back to will um who is our moderator and we'll kind of get into our panel discussion okay well um I think this is a great panel that we have here to talk about um experiences uh in in work and in Labor uh and I I thought I would uh start with uh Mr White maybe you could just talk about your own career and some of the things that helped create success for you in your career uh William thank you very much uh for me I it's it's hard to define success I guess but I started off in my career wanting to be a CPA and and eventually uh got involved in Recreation and worked there for a number of years uh Sports still being involved in in my life very much as as a a volunteer coach and administrator and uh so all of my working career has really been centered around uh Public Service uh to people and and history of curator and and then also uh an author uh with published articles in in a number of different history magazines so I it's hard to for me to define success um and uh but but I love what I do I have a great Passion so I think my success is is really my passion for the things that I've been able to do um in in my public service career thank you very much Mr Rus do you want to tell us about your career and some of the things that helped create success yes I looked at that question what created success I'm not sure what success is I do realize that success is different for each one of us and I'm not sure I was successful I know that I did a good job I didn't always do a good job when I started off teaching I was not a good teacher which is why I left that profession which is why I think we have to be open to to change and to rebranding because we don't know where our work is going to take us and how it's going to affect our lives I do know that I changed jobs fairly often and each time I changed jobs I had to Rebrand myself and I did part of the way I did that was I went back and took um graduate courses in different areas based on what I was doing and what I where I thought I might be next so I was always trying to keep up and get maybe one half step ahead I don't know that I ever did but that's the way my life went uh I wanted to be a translator and interpreter however I didn't know how to type and when I started off I avoided typing because that's what black people were and black women were pushed into the secretarial field so I ended up teaching school and then I saw that I wasn't good at that and then I went on to working in Social Service and I saw that I was becoming part of a system that I didn't like or care for and didn't believe in so I left there and went to the YMCA programs one of the things I think that helps me that maybe helps me having been able to do a good job is that I've had good mentors and I think it's important to either the interesting enough person to get have people that want to Mentor you or you have to ask someone to Mentor you and telling them that there are many things that you want to learn from them so so I'm as long as I had mentors and as long as I knew what I thought I wanted where I wanted to go even though I wasn't always sure I kept plugging at it and ended up as a consultant with the YMCA to help strengthen YMCA organizations so whereas I never wanted to teach I ended up being an educator Anyway by being a consultant I was still an educator and that pleased me very much um so I retired after 39 years and feel feel very good about that the other thing that's most important in my for success in my career is being able to balance um work and life it's not important just to work and have the work be your life it's important to have a life along with your work and I learned that from my father who always told me that work is just a means to the end not the end and as a result of that I have most of my friends are not in any of the professions that I've been in so I've had a rich life before I retired and still have it in fact it's gotten richer that's wonderful thank you for sharing that um miss sunden you would you like to talk so you're going to talk about your own career and also the career of Nelly Stone Johnson is that correct so um I'll I'll let you decide the focus but would you talk about some of the the the roots to success uh in a career from that perspective yes thank you so much yes I you're right I am going to not talk about myself today and which you'll be glad of but I am GNA talk about Nelly Stone Johnson Nelly Stone Johnson for those of you who live on the the other side of the river from Minneapolis uh you might not have the long history that we have in Minneapolis with Nelly But Nelly was a Minnesota born civil rights activist and Union organizer uh she helped shape Minnesota politics and public policy for over 70 years uh she was a powerful Champion for human rights civil rights women's rights and labor rights and her lifelong Mantra was a good educ education leads to a good job which equals a successful life so that Mantra has I've uh learned long ago as uh uh with her mentoring because I had the Good Fortune to serve with her on the Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council uh as I said many many years ago uh Nelly was born Nelly Saunders Allen uh in 1905 her parents had a dairy farm near hinley and were among as you might uh guess uh some of the very few black farmers of black Farming Farming families in Minnesota in the early 1900s uh her father uh who was uh I think taught her everything she knew about organizing and about uh uh how to uh change life and her uh father co-founded the Twin Cities milk producers Association he was in the nonpartisan league and the and then the um farmer labor party and I always say that it isn't just this frigid weather we get get from North Dakota it's part of our Minnesota History that the nonpartisan league and the and the uh Farmers Union and Farmers uh farmer labor party came uh from that direction her mother was a teacher Nelly uh distributed this is an example of two strategies for organizing that I don't think our young or organizers have probably thought of yet and the first one was that her father gave her a a packet full of uh literature flyers for the nonpartisan league and uh put her on horse her horse and sent her to school in the morning because she had to go from the farm into town to go to School in hinley and she was he instructed her to stop at all the neighboring Farms on the way and give the farmers the flyers for the meetings of the nonpartisan league so this was back in the at the age of 13 she was already an organizer and she was organizing on Horseback now also as a teenager she joined the NAACP now if you can imagine um a a teenager in uh outside of H uh joining the NAACP way far ahead of her time in when she graduated from high school in 1922 she moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota uh as many uh farm girls in um Minnesota always did however University of Minnesota of course was not ready for Nelly because the University of Minnesota was not very welcoming of young teenager from uh uh who was African-American so uh she was uh got involved with a radical uh uh organizer or um at the time who was hanging around campus and she became part of uh some organizing and some for some pretty uh far off the charts radical uh movements but she did learn through that experience how to be a powerful public speaker and she was a keynote of several uh organizational uh meetings but she had to uh earn a living so in 1924 she was hired as an elevator operator at the all male at the time Minneapolis Athletic Club downtown and she earned $15 now you know that we have spent the last decade trying to get $15 an hour as minimum wage right but no no no no no Nelly earned $15 a week as an elevator operator and when after their wages were cut to $12.50 a week that got her dander up and she began organizing the workers uh in her elevator she had them kind of trapped if you will in the elevator going up and down the uh uh from floor to floor and she would convince them that they needed to start a union and her compatriot the guy who is running the freight elevator did the same thing so these two uh organizers the freight elevator operator and Nelly running the uh uh um the passenger elevator or got convinced all the work workers at the Athletic Club to start a union what uh she joined and and later became president of the Union that they started which was local 665 Hotel restaurant workers which in 1936 was a precursor of what the union we have now Local 17 Hotel restaurant Workers Union of the Twin Cities so that's her um start in uh organizing the only one I know of who who used elevators and horseback for organizing that's great so a model for young organizers today get on get yourself a horse and get yourself an elevator you bet I think people don't remember that elevators used to have drivers uhuh um um so I've been asked to give sort of historical interludes in between between some of these questions and I just want to pull out a few themes that I saw uh in these this discussion so far um I think some of you may be um familiar with the historical debate between uh two black leaders in the early 20th century web de booys and Booker T Washington um and essentially their debate was one of how to improve your lot as as a worker um WB Deo felt that it was it was critical for black workers to have political rights to gain um and and and particularly to gain access to education and that that was a um a way forward and I think uh Miss sunden mentioned that um this was something that Nelly Stone Johnson also believed in and repeated uh Booker T Washington's position was that it wasn't so much that uh so important actually that you had political rights um but that black workers needed skills and uh that they could make themselves valuable to the economy and improve themselves in that way and I think you know as it's great I think this year that um Black History Month is focused on the importance of organized labor and it strikes me that that is an approach that is kind of left out of both the duo approach and the bookery Washington approach which is one that you can improve your uh position as a worker collectively with other workers by organiz izing with other workers and I think Nelly Stone Johnson is a great example of um a black leader who you know both valued education she certainly valued political rights but she also knew uh that workers needed to cooperate and band together in order to fight for the things that they needed and that's something that I think we can we can dwell on in this Black History Month theme uh this year so should we move to the next uh question so um let's go we can go through in the same order so that we did before so Mr White maybe you'd like to talk a little bit about your own experiences in the workforce and a particular social justice issue that uh impacted your experience there uh thank you so in my own in my own uh career one of the challenges that I found was early on when when I left uh St Paul or the Ronda neighborhood and I was the director at the Martin Luther King Center I ended up going to Richfield to become the uh director of Park and Recreation there and it was difficult because I was the only person of color on the entire city staff um and it was a real Challenge and in fact I found out later on that there were workers within the system that did things to undermined my existence because they didn't really want me in that position and uh and and and I still got through that I fought through that I stayed um and uh so I I think over the years I ended up being a positive Ambassador for the city of Richfield and which would relate later on as things changed and this has impacted um the entire metro are one of the factors is as we've changed who we are the demographics have changed in Richfield before I retired a number of Latino families began to move into Richfield and and their their the sport that they wanted to play generally was soccer there were other sports but but generally the males wanted to play soccer and what it did for us is our Fields were permitted so you couldn't PL a soccer field unless you had a permit so it made us as well as Minneapolis St Paul and if you look at all of the surrounding Metro areas it made us look at how the influx of immigrants have changed our recreational programs and Facilities which has impacted our our work it's it it's empowered our work structure to be different our thought process to be different how we provide services again for those individuals that now live in every community and their choice maybe isn't the traditional baseball softball or tennis in fact if you look across the board you know there's a number of activities I I think Asians play a uh a sport called Kat and and and they use like a volleyball net but they actually kick the ball over the net and don't hit it there's volleyball and and so we've had this influx again which has made us change how we provide services so socially from a social standpoint it's really made us look at providing our work structures when we're open how we open facilities programming to meet the needs of all of those individuals that now again live in our communities far different than maybe back in the 60s and the 70s so there's a small take on on on my answer to that thank you very much um Mr Rus do you wna do you want to take up this question about a social justice issue that impact you in the workplace well the social justice issue that I have lived with and worked with all of my seeming like all of my life is that of equal equal opportunity and one of the reasons we don't have equal opportunity is because our biases some are conscious and some are unconscious some are just white people against people of color and some are color people of color against other people of color and it seems like we need to be able to um look at that within ourselves because until we can level the playing field we're not going to have equal opportunity and so I think that each of us is responsible in our own way to understand number one the bias in ourselves and how we move past that or how we not allow that to affect our decision making and to look at ways in which we can identif y bias and be strategic about pointing it out whether it's with a group or with well of course you need concrete examples always but to be paying attention to everything that we do and what other people do so that we can help make a change because we're either going to be part of the solution or part of the problem and for me it's important to be part of the solution and so that's what I've been working at all of the time is and this bias seems to be coming out in fact whenever I go to the doctor a new doctor I ask about their bias have they looked at it and do they see themselves do they see it and I've got some issues right now uh with the medical profession but the bias is out here and I'm working as a volunteer with restorative justice and one of the things we always say is what we're doing is no blame no shame you know no judgment and I have to deal with the fact and I bring this up I can't imagine anyone not having some sort of a judgment or opinion about someone who has done something to harm someone else but is how do we let that affect us in the way we treat people and the way the kinds of decisions we make so bias equal opportunity is for me the most important social justice issue right now as we talk about work because we have to be able to impact our Workforce differently than we are now and we have to be able to be out there figuring out not necessarily just by ourselves with with others the best ways the best strategies for moving forward not just standing still for moving forward to being a part of the solution because right now a lot of us we are a part of the problem and that can't go on so we have to have justice social justice within our own ranks and within any of the ranks that we are connected with thank you very much um Miss sunden do you want to address question from the point of view of Nelly Stone Johnson absolutely because she's a terrific uh example of how she used local state and National politics to change policy to uh policies and laws to advance social justice and she did that her entire life in 1941 she met uh Hubert Humphrey uh who uh and she eventually became his civil rights advisor and throughout his whole political career which started in the City of Minneapolis as mayor and then of course ended up as Vice President of the United States she traveled with him to Asia as his civil rights uh adviser and uh he they uh were always connected politically and the one of the most interesting things the two of them were a part of is that in 1944 uh Hubert Humphrey brought the Minnesota Democratic uh party at the time it was just the Democratic party to the table and Nelly brought the farmer labor party to the table and they merged into what is now the Minnesota Democratic farmer labor party and you know that in the United States there is only one dfl party the Democratic farmer labor party and that is the state of Minnesota and Humphrey and Nelly Stone Johnson were at the table that made that happen and the next year uh she was used her political uh and skills to uh uh get herself elected to the Minneapolis Library board as the first African-American elected to city-wide office in Minneapolis and later she continued as a trustee of the Minneapolis Public Library System those of you in the St Paul Library System May uh may know that uh and she also uh one of her uh first uh a actions that was so impactful was that she led the drive to create the Minneapolis Fair Employment Practices Department that was the first of its kind in the nation and then a decade later she led the initiative to create a Statewide version of the Minneapolis Fair Employment Act so uh she almost single-handedly changed uh a state state law and City policy uh in one Feld swoop in 1950 she authored the Minneapolis NAACP initiative that led to the desegregation of the entire United States armed forces now if that isn't influential I don't know what is so it was her activity that that's that authored the beginning of that in 19 a decade later in the 60s she raised funds for the freedom marches of Martin Luther King and then at the age of about 60 she got to be an entrepreneur and now I know young people these days really want to be entrepreneurs but she had your Beach she started that in 1963 she opened her own sewing and alteration shop in downtown Minneapolis and uh and she'd probably now be an anchor uh business to the the hot North Loop and she continued her business in Downtown Minneapolis for over 30 years so if you add that up she started at age 60 and another 30 years she was 90 before she quit that uh uh uh gave up that business uh in 1979 she was Van White's campaign manager in his successful bid to be the very first African-American member of the Minneapolis city council and for the next decade she was uh our Minnesota representative on the Democratic National Committee and in 1982 now these are kind of bookend uh of trips in 1982 she traveled to Africa for the US depart state department with vice president Mandel so that's two uh trips with two US vice presidents one uh and she was uh advisers to to both uh Nelly's uh one of Nelly's nieces uh Peg said that she would go over to the Sew sewing shop to the alteration shop after school and hang around and she said there was a nonstop uh visit group of visitors who would come every day politicians and uh wannab be politicians wanting to come and get Nelly's advice get her thoughts and get her support So a woman of influence in politics in order to change policy and law to advance social justice thank you that's great um just to again a little interlude um I think I I saw s of three main themes come out in this one is the importance of persistence and not accepting not just accepting discrimination and bias um the importance of equal opportunity um I think we're in a moment in which many people are treating equal opportunity as if it's discrimination against white people and I think it's important to remember that you know come out of this uh struggle as demanding equal opportunity for people be regardless of their race um at a time when we face I think a really serious backlash against that principle um and then finally the importance of um building power uh and getting access to political power um I think all of those themes uh come together in the history of of one particular Union that I think is very important for the history of uh the Twin Cities and the United States uh the Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters and Maids um which was a union that was founded by men and women who worked uh in the railway industry in the early 20th century um and who faced intense discrimination they were most of the Railway unions in the early 20th century were the most powerful unions in the United States and they did not admit people who were not white and who were not not men um and so workers on the industry who were excluded from the union um worked in mostly in the service jobs uh either working in the um in the stations helping people get onto the trains uh or working on the trains themselves serving food cleaning um providing for the passengers and those workers got together in the 1920s and formed their own Union they said if you're not going to let us into your Union we'll form our own Union and it became the first predominantly African-American Union in the United States and they were able to uh by organizing not just force the labor movement to recognize them they got a charter from the American Federation of Labor um but they forced their Company the company that they worked for to recognize them um and Grant uh a Union contract to them um they also Force the federal government to recognize them as a union so they were you know excluded from these Provisions but they persisted and demanded and eventually won uh acceptance into this system the Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters was particularly uh important in St Paul which was a a railway Town um and and and had a very large organization in St Paul um and in other cities across the country became not just a union but also a political vehicle and a political organization um it was led by A Philip Randolph uh who was known in the early 20th century as the dean of civil rights uh and it was a Philip Randol who through the organizing a March on Washington in 19 in the 1940s during the second World War uh one uh what became the basis for civil rights laws that would be passed later at the federal level so he won an executive order um we've heard a lot about executive orders uh these days uh the uh Banning employment discrimination um through the through the March on Washington which was largely organized through the Brotherhood of sleeping carp Porters and the people who were allied with it in cities across the country um they they were able to start winning um what what became known as equal employment uh opportunity laws um so they passed a um the they passed one in one of the first ones was actually passed in Minneapolis at the city level then the state of Minnesota passed one um it was resisted at the federal level uh until the 1960s and A Philip Randol and other civil rights leaders organized the March on Washington in 1963 with one of their Central demands being the passage of what they called a Fair Employment Practices law uh this would become part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and many uh many experts consider this to be the most important civil rights measure passed in the 20th century which created the equal opportunities um Comm the commission uh it's now known as title seven of the Civil Rights Act which Pro hbits employment discrimination based not just on race or religion or or nationality but also based on gender and that was a a a law that now I think many of us uh take for granted that that it's illegal to discriminate against somebody on those bases and not to hire somebody because of the color of uh and and the very long fight that was involved in fighting for those rights um so thanks to all three of you for those really fascinating stories um about the history of work um let's turn to the last question and let's just mix it up a little bit uh and start with Miss sunden um based on your knowledge of Nelly Stone Johnson's life what would you say still needs to be done well I think so often these days of uh how much we could use her voice and her compelling presence Nelly was a a tall woman and she had um kind of a a long bony fingers and when she poked those fingers into a a legislator's lapel or a CEO's lapel or whatever they got the message and they did what she wanted so I'm all I think so much we could we could use that voice right and that compelling presence right now but um I want to also go back to her what we need now uh is uh goes back to her lifelong Mantra which was always started with a good education um which leads to a good job which leads to successful life but that good education she was passionate about probably because her mom the teacher but um she was uh appointed Trustee of the Minnesota State University board by Governor Rudy perpich back in 82 and then subsequently served On The Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Minnesota state colleges and universities board and I served 12 years on the Minnesota state colleges and University board uh F trying to follow in her footsteps to influence the opportunities for students of color from Union families to attend and that's why the we started the Nelly Stone Johnson scholarship program uh in 1989 and the scholarships uh through uh the scholarship uh dinner this spring that we'd like to invite you all to is going to be April 3rd and the scholarships are continuing and have continued for 38 years and those are again for students of color from who can find some somebody in their family who is a union member and they can atttend any of the Minnesota state colleges and universities however she was particularly I think uh uh partial to the technical education and to and I was all also in my service on the on that board uh as the technical education leading to a very good job with good benefits with retirement and of course we know that um not all jobs are like that uh there's also she was also awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by St Cloud State University but uh in 1997 the Minneapolis School Board uh named a school after her Nelly Stone Johnson Community School in North Minneapolis it's still is Nelly Stone Johnson community school and it was the only school that was ever named after anybody who was still alive and she and so we had a little bit of trouble with that but um she also uh now you will find her in two places that I hope that the particularly you St Paul will will take advantage to go and find her one is you will find her uh sitting at her sewing machine in the workers memorial wall and the workers memorial wall is in on the capital approach it's about two blocks south of the capall building itself and when you I hope you go to see that wall it is a fantastic uh was done by a wonderful uh stonemason and designed so that you'll be able to pick out labor leaders different labor leaders like President Dave Row is you'll see in there and it's also the Twin Cities and it's uh both uh sides of the river and we have uh the the workers memorial service is always in front of that wall every year every spring to memorialize the workers that were lost on the job that year so that's one place you'll find her and so it's kind of a little puzzle to be sure you find her cuz she's sitting at her sewing machine but the second place now I'm very excited to tell you is that her full length statue is in the capital just off the Rotunda of the capital in um up the hill in and uh in the north Portico and it is f length statue that started out be uh with an 18-year Quest by representative uh Joe mullery to get it passed by the legislature and then uh we I was the fundraiser and we raised enough funds from the labor movement uh so that we had enough money for a fulllength statue of Nelly so Nelly Stones Johnson's statue which you will notice if you have a Keen Eye I hope you watch for it now is that she has under her arm uh some flyers from the uh farmers of farmer labor party and then the other thing I hope you notice is she'll have she has her finger pointed at you and so that was her favorite uh attention getting device so if she was talking to you and she was wearing clothes that she made herself so uh that statue was uh uh unveiled by one of her great great uh granddaughters and it was also as a great uh uh picture on uh if you go to the videotapes of that unveiling ceremony Channel 11 has some on uh YouTube uh you will see um Governor uh walls is kneeling try encouraging and helping the little uh four-year-old granddaughter to unveil the statue pull the the veil off of the statue and uh uh also uh uh uh Flanigan is uh I'm sorry I'm stuttering here but the um the lieutenant governor Flanigan is also on her knees but when lieutenant governor Flanigan made her comments about Nelly uh when we unveiled the Nelly statue she said something that has stuck with me ever since and that is that she as a person of color also now when she comes into the Capitol Building she F feels so much more at home and so much more that she belongs there because she knows Nelly is there and that Nelly has her back thank you the importance of memorializing this history the people um M dades do you want to talk about some work that needs to be done yeah I would like to build on to what has already been said about organizing and education in say and say that education is so very important and I'm not just talking about formal education I mean education to Life Education to how you can serve there all kinds of ways to be educated to be able to accomplish and to be able to use what I consider very important is your influence to make things to help us move toward equal opportunity especially women we just don't always remember or think about how we can and how we are influencing people every day so as women we need to pick up our power to be able to help things advance and we need to do it individually we need to do it collectively but influencers are sometimes many maybe more important than sometimes even the actual people who are elected to do something so we we are not using our influence and we have it and we don't believe enough in ourselves to accept the fact and move with it that we are influencers and that we have power we have so much power to make things happen to help things change to organize because we're always organizing something whether it's a luncheon a meeting a group Council our families we are the organizers and we are not living up to what our potential is and I think we cannot wait for anybody else meaning the men to to do all of this we have to do it um because we have the power and we can do it and again if we're not going to be part of the solution we are definitely a part of the problem so a lot of it also depends on how we show up in this world in our work life our outside life how do we show up how do we make ourselves known how do we make ourselves he heard how do we help others move into some very positive ways how do we make ourselves believe that we are here doing our best and that people are looking to us and to be able to stand on our shoulders to move further just like I had people whose shoulders I stood on to get where I got and I know that people are standing on my shoulders moving in very forcefully in some very positive directions so we have to level the planing field eliminate bias and make sure that we have equal opportunities for things and we have to educate people's understanding what that means and how we get it thank you very much um Mr White do you want to round out this question what what work still needs to be done um so I'm going to take a little bit different approach on this and and U with all due respect to what's been said I I agree with many things however I would say this we're at a point in time in where education uh in many forms is important however you have people doing formal education coming out of school with with degrees they can't even find jobs so so we really need to take a look at a a a bigger picture in terms of as uh Ganan just said many different ways of Education I I think the term um it it takes a village I I got to I got to tell you I'm so tired of hearing it takes a village we're we're at a point in time where we don't really even talk to our neighbors in communities we're we're being very challenged by what's going on obviously we need to respect one another we need equal opportunity um and and and I get that although again we're such a capitalistic driven Society I don't know when we're going to get to equal opportunity but I understand I understand exactly what Gan is saying I I just think that we're at a point in time where we really need to respect one another if we're going to get anything done we've got to be able to to whether it's look across the table look across the street look next door uh at our workplaces we need to look at those individuals that coming into the jobs they look different their hair may be different what they wear on their heads may be different we need to respect and value everybody that again is involved in our communities and and now I said earlier a little bit about soccer and Facilities um I I'll just tell you we we are such a diverse place in Minnesota today far different than where we've been in the past we really need to again look at people value people value who they are value their intelligence Sometimes When We Make fun of people that speak a different language well those people are intelligent too they're just speaking a different language uh and and so there are so many places that that we need to improve but the bottom line to all of it is uh Ganan mentioned this is is respect and and we need to Value people if we're going to go anywhere if we're going to prove who we are today in Minnesota and we have a great state and there are a lot of people that have built this state that are African-American um uh and people of color and I and I in some of the pieces that I've done uh and I think they're attached maybe to to uh this system there are a lot of people that again have built Minnesota and and and I think we just need to continue to to reach out to one another respect one another um because without each other we're not going to get there we're at a time obviously uh will said earlier we're at a divisive time and obviously if we listen to the news every day we know what's going on right now there are all kinds of challenges being put in front of us that are being created to divide us this is a time where we really need to stand up and value one another for who we are whether it's at home whether it's the workplace if we're talking about empowering the workplace every time you go into your job you need to Value those individuals that are there right be they man woman they different skin colors they speak different languages you need to Value them and value who you're working for because the goal of the job is again to make everybody better individually we're not going to get there so so to me I I I think that would that's a part of what what needs to be done thank you yeah you're here so I hear um that we need to remember and commemorate uh the people who have come before us uh that we need to Value education that's not just formal education but but all of our ways of learning um and recognize the power and influence that we do have and use it in positive ways um and and to respect the people that we work with and the people that we live with uh regardless of where they come from and what their various contributions they make to the community try to to Value everyone I really that Mr White's Point really resonates I think um so I just thought I'll close out uh just talking about uh some of the the history um I think we're many of us are familiar with the March on Washington uh largely it's often called Dr King's March on Washington because I think we Associated primarily with his I Have a Dream speech and I've written a lot about this this event and I wanted to just take a few a moment to talk about the broader history that I think is really essential for understanding the importance of that March one is how did people get there at the time the March on Washington was the largest demonstration in the history of the United States about uh a quarter million people participated and it wasn't because Martin Luther King sent out a Tre a tweet saying come meet me at the Lincoln Memorial um it was a process of organizing that depended upon networks that people had built over the past 20 years um I I mentioned earlier that A Philip Randolph had first called for a March on Washington in 1941 and he called it off when he he demanded that the president issue an executive order um and when he called it off he said we need to be able we need to be ready to organize another March and he continued to hold that belief until 1963 when it was he who initiated the idea of the March on Washington in 1963 and so part of the reason that it was so successful is that people had been working over the course of those 20 years to build organizations that could actually bring a quarter million people to the nation's capital um those organizations were civil rights organizations like the NAACP uh the SCC core um they were also some of the most important ones were uh organizations of black and white women women's clubs uh the National Council of negro women was the largest organization of African-Americans in the country at the time it had roughly 800,000 members and they uh had organizations in every city in the country that could help to build this March um the official organization that uh initiated the March was the Negro American labor Council which is an organization that most of us have never heard of um it was a relatively small organization it was about 1500 uh black Union activists in cities across the country um but what was important about them was that they weren't just uh Union activists many of them were leaders of their own Local Union but many of them were really important leaders in their Community they uh were often uh deacons at their churches they were um often presidents of their local NAACP branches or their core branches so they had tremendous influence and it was these people who fanned out and they they started to um to Charter uh buses and trains and in a few cases even some people coming from California chartered airplanes and because they were uh heads of unions they had resources available so they could put the money down to pay for these vehicles um to rent the vehicles and then they went out and they sold tickets for the vehicles uh in their communities and so they said to their union members and the members of their churches and civil rights organizations go and sell these tickets and they would sell tickets on the bus and that way they got the back from people who were participating in the March on Washington but they were able to bring um hundreds of thousands of people to the nation's capital because they were very well organized and they were members of organizations that had been built up over the previous decades and I think that is the central lesson that I take from that event that it's not you don't just call for a March but you organize a March over a very long time and I think if we want to take power in our community and we want to improve our own lives and the lives of people that we work with and that we live with uh and respect those people uh we need to we need to organize ourselves and we need to be part of unions and Community organizations that can mobilize people and build the power uh that M dadus was talking about so thank you very much I I'm a professor I like to lecture but I'm going to stop that and I think we have um we have time for questions if people have questions for any of the panelists so I'll just highlight I think there were just a few um questions that were asked um see here so I have uh one question it looks like or uh for looks like maybe you Louise um from Jericho Gomez as a black woman organizing uh was dangerous did Nelly ever have issues with the law oh thank you for the question um well not uh she also uh had a lot of very influential political friends so if uh she did there were people who could uh defend her and uh get her out of trouble um but she uh and she always did say that that it was um it was of not a often not a safe thing to do but she had such because of uh her uh pre compelling presence and because of her um stature and because of her who her friends were um I she I think throughout her career she was mostly uh safe good stuff thank you for that Louise uh we do have another question here um um well it looks like maybe Margaret had answered some of that uh as well um in our chat in I'll just share the the statement here Nelly had many many death threats throughout her life uh she ignored them and kept it moving a cross was burned on their property in Pine County but her entire family W was decent and respectful to others therefore they had many friends in Township the neighbors baned together and protected the Allen family that's that's her niece that responded so thank you for that right that is so awesome um there's another question here um someone wants to know what someone can do if they never have been engaged in labor organizing what's a good first step Miss sundon do you want to well take that question it's uh it's probably too easy to say uh uh go to meetings and get involved but and uh and then you know to volunteer for for things and when you at uh you uh uh volunteer a lot there are a lot of volunteer activities right now there are days on the hill in St Paul there all the unions have their on the hill there are um always openings on to run for executive board to run for office out on uh there are we're we're looking even for a um somebody to run for political office over on our side of the river right at the moment so there it's um it it probably sounds too simplistic but get involved at uh whatever level you are comfortable with to to start with and the more you get involved the more skills you develop the more you uh if you find uh uh as was uh spoken about if you find a good Mentor all the better and uh somebody who will help you um move into a leadership role absolutely thank you so much for that Louise um and I know for for some of us here uh who are employees whether you're with the city of St Paul or Ramsey County we have unions so definitely reach out to your union stewards or uh those who represent you and just get involved because I know there's there's nothing better than working together for the causes that we all care about and it only takes one small step uh just showing up you don't have to be super active but just being there is is is a lot um I I just put two links in the in the chat that um I mean I think I I would reiterate that if you um the first thing you should do is find out if there's a union in your workplace and get in touch with it uh with the people who are involved um and and get active in it uh most people do not have unions in their workplaces so it often takes a little bit of looking around and I put the uh the Minnesota Federation of Labor um in the chat that's a good place to contact them and ask them about opportunities to work with a union um there's also an organization called the uh emergency workplace organizing committee which is a group of mostly young workers who have been trying to build unions where there are no unions um and I put that in the chat and they would be happy to talk to people about how to um how to form a union for sure and and if any other connections are needed and you work for Ramsey County or city of St Paul you can definitely reach out to me and I'll get you connected to whever um you can within your your uh bargaining unit if you're unioned um and then we do have another question here um it looks like philson um Abraham sent a question how are you feeling about the rights of workers in Minnesota National and international especially black bipac workers and that's not directed anyone so feel free to answer if there's multiple responses anybody want to take that well everyone is under attack now particularly uh the the today's uh newspaper on uh art our side of the river uh says the headline says slew of Minnesota companies Beyond Target Go mute on Dei you know Dei is now the the target excuse me of Target and the target of almost everybody and we you know in one way or another Dei involves us all in our families and so that kind of um allout attack is uh we can be glad we're in Minnesota where we have state law and where we have uh uh State uh organizations that are helpful and people are already coming here for safety and coming here to be a a part of communities where they feel safe but we're all going to have to work extra hard at you know what am I going to do H uh if my they come for my nextd door neighbor because that's what has uh it may come to yeah I mean the question asked about nationally and nationally we're seeing a pretty vicious assault on the rights of workers um Frank mentioned the importance of immigrant workers in our communities and the work they do and uh if their their rights are under really vicious assault um there's been an attack on the federal uh apparatus for enforcing labor rights uh the National Labor Relations Board um the the leadership has been fired and they are essentially paralyzed um and as Miss sunden mentioned I think we have a lot of protection in Minnesota that people don't have in other states and I think particularly if you work in the public sector uh the the public sector laws protecting worker rights are fairly robust in Minnesota and I think it's important that people know what they are and take advantage of them and use them to protect their jobs and then and their co-workers um and there there's we still do have the right to form a union uh regardless of where we work and people I think need to really take advantage of that now because the it's not clear that those rights are going to stay with us and Professor Jones I think one other attack that's particularly hateful now is the attack on and defunding and uh firing of everybody in usaid because you the that that division of the our federal government is is the one that makes that is humanitarian Aid not just in this country but throughout the world and because of that attack on usaid and the lockout of the workers there are there's you know truck loads full of food that's now rotting because it can't get to the to the little you know Starving Children in in countries and uh the the PE the workers have either been fired or are in fearful of it so um Kennedy uh I said that it it is the one thing that that makes us uh human that humanitarian Aid is what makes us a a uh so special and we need to that's the one that really gets to me when I think about it yeah and you know in particularly for an Agricultural State like Minnesota I think we have to remember that that that Aid is um is purchased from American farmers and farmers are now finding themselves with contracts that they thought they were going to provide from the federal government that they're not they're not able to sell their crops and so it really has a a negative impact on our International situation but it also really touches us at home you know also to mention the people who are employed by the federal government um many of whom are in in Minnesota who are now finding their jobs in at threat uh here's the exact quote from I'm sorry just uh uh from JFK uh American humanitarian Aid was our political obligation as the single largest counter to the adversaries of Freedom powerful statement so one of the questions about in the in the chat is about the uh Starks Barbershop this Mr White can you tell us a little bit about that um well a a bit of it I I know we're going to have a an open conversation about that on the 20th at HQ Brown so if really people wanted more detail uh we'd surely like them to join us but but uh the Starks Barber Shop the the one that probably created the most controversy but or let me let me go backwards here so this gentleman was really an entrepreneur he had barber shops downtown he had them on uh Western and Selby and and then in on Grand Avenue where melister is now and then eventually moved to one to St Clair and Cleveland and that was the one that became more of a controversy because the the commun the neighborhood there the Klux Clan got involved and after a couple years I mean they continued to make it very difficult for him even to build the place but after he built it after a couple years uh there was actually a shot fired through the window um and and eventually he would he would leave but uh it it became a situation where where the Klux Clan was involved but more than that I think it was the neighborhood not really accepting him because of bias and we go back to what Jean was said or maybe all of us are saying it was a difficult time but his I think the the the peace for me that continues to stick out is when we talk about individuals that help grow St Paul here was a gentleman that was an entrepreneur we might have looked at him as just a barers shop entrepreneur but that was a part of success and and and he continued to move his place on Western and Selby was right across from the big hotel that was there back in those days the clientele for black barers was white people it wasn't black people and so again he was a uh maybe an entrepreneur ahead of his time that that we all again transi as people transition to the Rondo neighborhood sometimes we forget about the Turner Starks and those individuals that created businesses successfully in downtown St Paul so Turner stars is one of those people for me that stands out a friend of mine now Mike Corey is a guy that's really put together that and has worked again with the man family uh who are relatives of Turner Starks um and has put together a a great piece of History uh about him and the family so um and for me the connection goes back to earlier St Paul and and and then developed as people transition to Rondo so thank you we we put that link in the chat too so folks can sign up for that speaker series that you'll be part of for the Starks barber shop I I didn't hear that oh I was just stating we put the link in the chat for folks to be part of to U go to the event that'll be on the 20th for Starks barber shop at Halle Q brown and it's free I also want to say we right now we're talking about adults but as adults and leaders we are the ones that are responsible for creating Future Leaders and if we're not sharing uh these historical facts and figures and teaching our young people children from the time they're two or three some of the issues and how the kind of the kinds of standup people they need to grow up to be then we are for me we're we're failing because the younger ones are the ones that are going to have to hold up hold us up and we they don't know anything about what has happened in the world to anybody because they're not getting it in school and we do not have organizations or small groups or churches and whatnot who are holding sessions to teach children their their history like they're doing now in Florida they have Saturday schools because they have taken the African-American history out they have Saturday schools just to teach young people about African-American history and we think that because we are here that that not needed here and but if you talk to a lot of our young people they don't know any of this so where is our commitment to influencing to Foster growth and more inclusive education it starts with us because we're here and we have the influence and the power and the knowledge to make it happen ganne I think I think to add in on that I I uh some of the work and I know others that have been providing resources to teachers kids aren't being taught some of those things because teachers don't know that that History either because in their education time they weren't taught that history so again we really need to help inform teachers of our history so that they can also pass it on as as well as doing some as you said doing some additional pieces um of of sharing our history I I feel bad because I I think we're failing in our history I think we're losing our history and and and I think that's unfortunate and and we don't have time to really talk about all of that but I I agree with you we need to provide that history of who who people are and who shoulders we we've stood on and who shoulders young people need to stand on in the future but we need to really as you said help and and part of that for a while I was I was frustrated with teachers but then when I thought more about it teachers don't know that history either because they didn't learn it when they went to school because it wasn't provided then so yeah I agree right and I just wanted to uh share a few more a few more uh bits of information in the in the chat a lot of us know Elder mmud aladi um he does a speaker series the new school for African thought um every fourth Friday um and that's something where I I love to attend I see a lot of Youth um attending there too where they can go and get some of that history from someone who's been teaching it for a long time um the other organization I wanted to highlight who's been part of our African-American um Black History Month events is ncad the network for the development of children of African descent um that is a African-American organization that takes a multi-generational approach whether it's for the elders whether it's for the Youth um our parents you know the schools they work with the school systems we tutor through the libraries um I I get to Advocate and assist in tutoring in that organization but it takes a approach that teaches you your history and instills that value within our youth so that they know who they are so regardless of what someone can tell you you know the power that you hold and you you're looking at life in a different through a different lens um we so those are just a few uh tidbits we put in the chat and then I also wanted to uh make sure that we highlight and thank you for joining us and celebrating we're coming close on time here so we want to thank you for uh joining us this Black History Month I always forget to introduce myself um and some of our our members in our committee um but it it takes a lot of us to do this so I always I don't like to introduce myself but my name is marvn trip um and I'm I'm part of the Black History Month committee one of our um committee members is Ashley O'Brien who has been astronomical at helping us put our events together this year so I want to make sure that we highlight some of our events that are um coming if you want to check out more empowering progress events that This months there's some QR codes that you can check out just scan them and get more information on some of the events we'll have this month there is the celebrate Black History Month at Arlington Hills Library so we have two events on the 20th um one with the speaker series that's also with the city of St Paul which Frank White and the uh Frank uh Starks Barber Shop will be part of that um and we also have the Arlington Hills Library where we'll have kind of some events and things going on all of this is free uh to the public there's some QR codes for you to sign up get registered um and then for our uh final event this month we will be having a empowering progress African-Americans and labor career fair so you will be able to get head shot you'll be able to get a resume help here's a QR code so you can check that event out as well um this last page kind of lists some of the things that'll be happening on the 27th um with the black business expo and financial empowerment lunch and learn um care our career fair and our future work force youth discussion and we have quite a folks from the city of St Paul and Ramsey County who have been again instrumental in putting this together all of our events are free we'll have some refreshments and things at our final events and really any of the events that we provide but we want to just thank you thank you thank you for all to all of our sponsors and all of you for taking your time and just sharing knowledge with us and being part of this black history month we know that it's it's under attack right whether it's our unions whether it's how we show up whether we highlight the the challenges that we faced and try to find Solutions together because Elder dures I agree with you a th% if you're not part of the solution I say you are the problem right so yes yes yes and we and maybe St Paul is a part of the problem because I don't know how they've involved um Minneapolis because here we have these two cities right across the river from each other you're doing this what is Minneapolis doing who knows about it and when when what is it going to take for the two cities to come together in more ways than they are now that will Empower us to move forward and help level the playing field absolutely you're you're absolutely right I have nothing to say there but I know it starts at one step and we can start now yes you're getting off to a good start and what point do you involve other communities though for sure for sure you got Richfield you've got minona you've got all these areas where there are people of color there are women we need to really get more involved and men too I won't leave them out absolutely well I know there was one last uh question in the chat that was kind of talking and we're we're done with time but they were kind of talking about some ways some things that you can do if you're not part of you know some of our uh labor unions and things like that one of the things things I do is like we've all echoed over and over again is get involved I know the Poor People's campaign I'm part of that that's something that Martin Luther King and our elders our ancestors started where you can work for you know workers rights and all of the health housing like everything that you can think of so really just look it up Google is an amazing tool for you to look at things that you can get involved in in your community and just it takes one step just show up for sure yeah this is a great beginning and you started it last year I don't know when you started this it's what I just suggest that you look at your long range plan on how you're going to involve the next level of people yeah another thing that maybe maybe I could suggest is uh which would be Hands Across the River if uh you'd like to come over on Lake Street for some really good um uh Hispanic and uh uh food those all those really good restaurants on Lake Street are uh not being um are not full these days because people are afraid and so you could do some service to make sure that those those businesses um uh Hispanic owned businesses are are uh don't go out of business because of the loss of uh of uh people you know going to have that great food so come on over and also if you'd like to contribute to the uh Nelly Stone Johnson scholarship fund for uh uh uh graduates of of color uh you can go to give Minnesota we're on give Minnesota good stuff and there there's actually a CH a link in the chat too for to look at the upcoming uh dinner and things and just get more information on the Nelly Stone scholarship I think it's awesome if part of the Union you kind of get some different perks and things too so it's awesome well I again want to just thank everyone for being part of this conversation taking your time and investing in enrich history and things that we can share out to our employees and our community you know to really highlight the things that need to be heard so I cannot thank you all enough for taking your time and blessing us today with your presence and your knowledge well thank you for inviting me it was quite a pleasure and an honor to be included and to be able to share some of my thoughts and ideas for sure amen for sure thank you stay in touch and make sure you join us for some of our other events that'll be happening later this month I will peace