The most powerful woman youve never heard of T. Morgan Dixon and Vanessa Garrison
T. Morgan Dixon: I would like to tell you
about the most powerful woman
you’ve never heard of.
This is Septima Clark.
Remember her name: Septima Clark.
Dr. King called her the “the architect
of the civil rights movement,”
because she created something
called Citizenship Schools.
And in those schools, she taught
ordinary women the practical skills
to go back into their communities
and teach people to read.
Because if they could read,
they could vote.
Well, these women took
those organizing skills,
and they became some of the most
legendary civil rights activists
this country has ever seen.
Women like Diane Nash.
You may know her.
She orchestrated the entire walk
from Selma to Montgomery.
She was a cofounder of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
and they integrated lunch counters,
and they created the Freedom Rides.
Or you may remember Fannie Lou Hamer,
who sat on the floor
of the Democratic National Convention
and talked about
being beaten in jail cells
as she registered people
to vote in Mississippi.
And her most famous student,
Rosa Parks.
She said Septima Clark
was the one who taught her
the peaceful act of resistance.
And when she sat down,
she inspired a nation to stand.
These were just three
of her 10,000 students.
These women stood
on the front lines of change,
and by doing so,
they taught people to read
in her Citizenship School model
and empowered 700,000 new voters.
And that’s not it.
She created a new culture
of social activism.
Pete Seeger said it was Septima Clark
who changed the lyrics
to the old gospel song
and made the anthem we all know:
“We Shall Overcome.”
Vanessa Garrison: Now,
many of you may know us.
We are the cofounders of GirlTrek,
the largest health organization
for Black women in America.
Our mission is simple:
ask Black women,
80 percent of whom are over
a healthy body weight,
to walk outside
of their front door every day
to establish a lifesaving
habit of walking;
in doing so, ignite a radical movement
in which Black women reverse
the devastating impacts
of chronic disease,
reclaim the streets
of their neighborhoods,
create a new culture
of health for their families
and stand on the front lines for justice.
Today, all across America,
more than 100,000 Black women
are wearing this GirlTrek blue shirt
as they move through their communities –
a heroic force.
We walk in the footsteps of Septima Clark.
She gave us a blueprint for change-making.
One, to have a bold idea,
bigger than anyone is comfortable with.
To two: root down in the cultural
traditions of your community
and lean heavily on what has come before.
To three: name it –
that one thing that everyone
is willing to work hard for;
a ridiculously simple goal
that doesn’t just benefit the individual
but the village around them.
And to, lastly:
never ask permission
to save your own life.
It is our fundamental right
as human beings
to solve our own problems.
TMD: So to the women all out there
gathered in your living rooms,
rooting for us, acting crazy
on social media right now –
we see you.
(Laughter)
We see you every day. We love you.
You are not alone,
and our bigger work starts now.
VG: You got us onto this stage –
your leadership;
auditing blighted streets in Detroit;
working with hospitals
and health care systems in Harlem;
praying over the streets of Sacramento,
Charlotte, Brooklyn, Flint
and every community that has seen trauma;
changing traffic patterns,
making your streets safer;
and most importantly,
standing as role models.
And it all started with
your commitment to start walking,
your agreement to organize
your friends and family
and your belief in our broader mission.
TMD: It’s important to me
that everyone in this room understands
exactly how change-making
works in GirlTrek.
One well-trained organizer has the power
to change the behavior
of 100 of her friends.
We know that is true,
because the [1,000] women
blowing up social media right now
have already inspired
over 100,000 women to walk.
(Applause)
But that is not nearly enough.
And so our goal
is to create critical mass.
And in order to do that,
we have an audacious plan
to scale our intervention.
A thousand organizers is not enough.
GirlTrek is going to create
the next Citizenship School.
And in doing so, we will train
10,000 frontline health activists
and deploy them into the highest-need
communities in America.
Because when we do,
we will disrupt disease;
we will create a new culture of health.
And what we will do is create
a support system
for one million Black women
to walk to save their own lives.
(Applause)
And our training is unparalleled.
I just want you to imagine.
It’s like a revival, tent-like festival,
not unlike the civil rights
movement teach-ins.
And we’re going to go
all across the country.
It is the biggest announcement this week:
Vanessa and I and a team
of masterful teachers,
all to culminate next year,
on sacred ground,
in Selma, Alabama,
to create a new annual tradition
that we are calling “Summer of Selma.”
VG: Summer of Selma will be
an annual pilgrimage
that will include a walk –
54 miles,
the sacred route from Selma to Montgomery.
It will also include rigorous training.
Picture it,
as women come to learn organizing
and recruitment strategies,
to study exercise science,
to take nutrition classes,
to learn storytelling,
to become certified
as outdoor trip leaders
and community advocates.
TMD: This is going to be unprecedented.
It’s going to be a moment in time
like a cultural institution,
and in fact,
it’s going to be the Woodstock
of Black Girl Healing.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
VG: And the need –
it’s more urgent than ever.
We are losing our communities'
greatest resource.
Black women are dying in plain sight.
And not only is no one talking about it,
but we refuse to acknowledge
that the source of this crisis
is rooted in the same injustice
that first propelled
the civil rights movement.
On December 30 of 2017,
Erica Garner,
the daughter of Eric Garner,
a Black man who died
on the streets of New York
from a police choke hold,
passed away of a heart attack.
Erica was just 27 years old,
the mother of two children.
She would be one of 137
Black women that day –
more than 50,000 in the last year –
to die from a heart-related issue,
many of their hearts broken from trauma.
The impacts of stress on Black women
who send their children and spouses
out the door each day,
unsure if they will come home alive;
who work jobs where they are paid 63 cents
to every dollar paid to white men;
who live in communities
with crumbling infrastructure
with no access
to fresh fruits or vegetables;
with little to no walkable
or green spaces –
the impact of this inequality
is killing Black women
at higher and faster rates
than any other group in the country.
But that is about to change.
It has to.
TMD: So let me tell you a story.
About three weeks ago –
many of you may have watched –
Vanessa and I and a team
of 10 women walked 100 miles
on the actual Underground Railroad.
We did it in five days –
five long and beautiful days.
And the world watched.
Three million people
watched the live stream.
Some of you in here,
the influencers, shared the story.
Urban Radio blasted it across the country.
VG: Even the E! News channel interrupted
a story about the Kardashians –
which, if you asked us,
is just a little bit of justice –
(Laughter)
to report that GirlTrek had made it safely
on our hundred-mile journey.
(Applause)
TMD: People were rooting for us.
And they were rooting for us because
in this time of confusion and contention,
this journey allowed us all to reflect
on what it meant to be American.
We saw America up close
and personal as we walked.
We walked through historic towns,
through dense forest,
past former plantations.
And one day,
we walked into a gas station
that was also a café,
and it was filled with men.
They were wearing camo
and had hunting supplies.
And out front were all of their trucks,
and one had a Confederate flag.
And so we left the establishment.
And as we were walking along
this narrow strip of road,
a few of the trucks reared by us so close,
and out of their tailpipe
was the specter of mob violence.
It was unnerving.
But then it happened.
Right on the border
of Maryland and Delaware,
we saw a man standing by his truck.
The tailgate was down.
He had on a brown jacket.
He was standing there awkwardly.
The first two girls in our group,
Jewel and Sandria,
they walked by because
he looked suspicious.
(Laughter)
But the bigger group, we stopped
to give him a chance.
And he walked up to us and he said,
“Hi, my name is Jake Green.
I heard you on Christian
radio this morning,
and God told me to bring you supplies.”
He brought us water,
he brought us granola,
and he brought us tissue.
And we needed tissue because
we had just walked through a nor’easter;
it was 29 degrees,
it was sleeting on our faces.
Our sneakers and our socks were frozen
and wet and frozen again.
We needed that tissue more
than he could have possibly understood.
So on that day, in that moment,
Jake Green renewed
my faith in God for sure,
but he renewed my faith in humanity.
We have a choice to make.
In America, we can fall further
into the darkness of discord, or not.
And I am here to tell you
that the women of GirlTrek
are walking through the streets
with a light that cannot be extinguished.
VG: They are also walking
through the streets with a mission
as clear and as powerful
as the women who marched in Montgomery:
that disease stops here,
that trauma stops here.
And with your support
and in our ancestors' footsteps,
these 10,000 newly trained activists
will launch the largest health revolution
this country has ever seen.
And they will return to their communities
and model the best of human flourishing.
And we –
we will all celebrate.
Because like Jake Green understood,
our fates are intertwined.
Septima Clark once said,
“The air has finally gotten to a place
where we can breathe it together.”
And yet,
the haunting last words of Eric Garner
were: “I can’t breathe.”
And his daughter Erica
died at 27 years old,
still seeking justice.
So we –
we’re going to keep doing Septima’s work
until her words become reality,
until Black women are no longer dying,
until we can all breathe the air together.
Thank you.
(Applause)