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9:10 am: On to comments from Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick who discusses the importance of ACORN driving their public policy leaders. "Lyndon Johnson would never have signed the Civil Rights Act if people were'nt on the streets in the civil rights movement." In South Africa and places across the world that have seen significant social change the story was the same., it was the people on the street driving for change.
This is why ACORN continues to be such an important movement for grassroots democracy and social change.
9:00am: Well I'm here again at the ACORN Convention for Day Two of the ACORN National Convention. We're welcomed by Detroit City Councilman Cockrell urging strangely for those in attendance to hit the casinos in Detroit...
---DAY TWO---
12:00pm: Rep. John Conyers, see the video here: here.
11:28 am: Congressman Maxine Waters comes on the stage.
"Whenever we get together with ACORN, Maude Hurd (ACORN National President) and I reminisce about the time they put her in jail in DC and we laugh it was raining hard in Washington and I went to try and get them out of jail, because they had been in our committee room raising hell! That's what ACORN is supposed to do," said Chairwoman Waters.
Referencing the theme for the conference"Building Dreams Across America" Rep. Waters said, "A lot of folks expect you to walk away and not have those dreams" but we need to all wakeup and believe we can make the dreams happen.
"This organization [ACORN] doesn't just talk about doing things, they actually do things."
"Too often when it comes to taking people to the street, people come to Washington and can talk the talk but can't walk the walk."
Waters thanked ACORN members for helping to move progressive movement to reach goals like extending unemployment benefits in a veto proof majority. "I don't think [the President] is fool enough to veto it. I dare him to veto it."
11:10 am: Olivia Dorsey from Philadelphia has been a member for ten years and watched ACORN grow to fight for economics justice.
"We don't let anyone rip up our community and we demand fair play."
She discussed recent actions against Jackson Hewitt, and H&R Block to stop the rip off rapid payment and to stop the worse tax preparation." Set up free community tax sites, delivered $44 million back to our communities.
"People who work hard deserve fair pay, and deserve pay sick days." ACORN is currently leading in state fights for paid sick days and living wage campaigns around the country.
Also they have been on the frontlines of the payday loan fight.
"The people united will never be defeated."
10:30 am,: Reverend Jim Wallis, author of the "Great Awakening", introduced.
"We have seen 40 years in the wilderness since 1968, its time to come out of the wildernesss."
Rev. Wallis, related a story on his recent book tour and a caller called in to say, "we need some good news" and the Rev. Wallis had some good news for the crowd, "the hold on politics of the religious right on faith and politics is over."
Not to say there is anything wrong with religious leaders but he went on to say you can't say God is on one side or another because "God is not Republican or Democrat" and religious people should stay an independent swing vote to make sure issues of justice are addressed by both parties. According to the Rev. Wallis, we need a movement with a spiritual grounding, like the civil rights movement, harking back to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's last campaign in Memphis, and the passing for Robert Kennedy and the Poor People's Campaign 40 years ago.
The number of people in poverty is unchanged in 40 years. Working mothers have to take on multiple jobs, foreclosures, food crisis, education, 9 million have one or two jobs and still raise children in poverty, these are big mountains according the Rev. Wallis.
But the Rev. Wallis says, "The bible says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed what can we move?"
In his latest book (just finished it personally, recommended reading), Rev. Wallis outlines the biblical roots of the call to fight poverty and inequality at home and abroad and the growing movement within the mainline protestant churches, the Catholic Church and a new generation of evangelicals moving to fighting for social justice in the midst of immense challenges like Hurricane Katrina and genocide in Darfur.
According to church historians says Rev. Wallis, unless your spirituality changes something tin society it can't be called "revival" citing as an example William Wilberforce who put forth his bill nine times for at the time what was a radical idea, to end slavery in England.
"Hope means believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change," said Rev. Wallis.
Breaking into electoral politics, Rev. Wallis said no matter who you support, there needs to be a strong outside force pushing the next administration for justice.
"Imagine if Robert F. Kennedy was president and Martin and Malcom were there pressing from the outside."
You can't change the politicians, you need to change the direction, and ACORN is an organization that can change the direction of the country by pressing from the outside and I have no doubt ACORN will be making their voices heard regardless of who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
9:25 am: Maude Hurd, president of ACORN, welcomesthe crowd "We need a government that will protect the common good." She highlighted ACORN's platform on health care, foreclosures, living wages and the other common challenges now hitting low income communities and working families hard across this country.
"I ask anyone here, how many more cities will have to be destroyed before we find a Government that will be prepared and Act. Three years after Katrina and the only thing that will help New Orleans is a regime change. Its time for a regime change now."
"Once there was a place we could go to to do this all at once, it was called Congress. Now its just us, ACORN and our allies fighting for justice, its time for a regime change."
In communities across the country with ACORN affiliates, people know about the organization, in their red shirts they've been known to descend on city council meetings, the steps of state capitals, the headquarters of predatory lenders making the voice of working families known.
"Mark my words, we have big shoulders, we may not win all the battles, but they have to beat us first and they are going to have to whip us good, we're going to fight them until we win, living wages, our houses, urban renewal, stopping predatory lending, voting rights, ..we are on the move.. let's get to work!"
8:15 amI'm here in Detroit as 2,000 members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now parade into the Grand Ballroom of COBO Center amidst chants of "We're fired up and we ain't taking it no more" or "We are the ACORN, the mighty mighty ACORN".
ACORN is made up of 300,000+ member families made up of low and middle income residents organized in communities across the country fighting home foreclosures, organizing to rebuild the Gulf Coast, taking on living wage campaigns and working to bring about national healthcare and end poverty. The theme for the Conference is "Building Dreams Across America" and setting an agenda for restoring the American Dream.
ACORN members can be viewed as the ground troops on the frontlines of the most pressing domestic issues in this country, driving locally and nationally for the type of just government all Americans deserve. hey do this not only by organizing their neighbors on pressing issues and taking direct action but by running one of the largest and most effective voter registration programs this country has ever seen. Check out this video to find out more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLCSnbN1lRI
Speakers at the event include Senator John Edwards; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, (D-Calif.); Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners; U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, (D-Mich.) and many others.
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