2020 Summit for Civil Rights – What Is To Be Done? How Can We Help?

 

President Richard L. Trumka of the AFL-CIO began the panel “What Is To Be Done? How Can We Help?” with a reflection on the torch lit by John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr., citing the importance of unions and foundations as “moral legacies” for structural change in the United States. This panel was made up of Na’ilah Suad Nasir, President of the Spencer Foundation, Fred Blackwell, CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, and Otis Rolley, Senior Vice President, U.S. Equity and Economic Opportunity Initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation. These panelists, moderated by john a. Powell, Professor of Law at University of California Berkeley Law School, discussed what it would take to build lasting coalitions, structures, and bridges based on a shared humanity and lasting power for meaningful transformational change. Derrick Johnson, President of the NAACP, closed out the conference with a few words on moving from protest to power at the ballot box and the importance of holding elected officials accountable. The Summit was then closed with a prayer from Reverend Timothy T. Boddie.