Category: Uncategorized

Following news of Chuck Berry’s death on Saturday, plenty of fellow musicians shared touching tributes to the rock ‘n’ roll legend on social media. Among them being The Rolling Stones, who considered Berry a huge influence on their own music. 

“The Rolling Stones are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Chuck Berry,” the band wrote in a statement on Facebook. “He was a true pioneer of rock ‘n’ roll and a massive influence on us. Chuck was not only a brilliant guitarist, singer and performer, but most importantly, he was a master craftsman as a songwriter. His songs will live forever.” 

The band’s lead singer, Mick Jagger, also shared a tribute of his own, writing, “I want to thank him for all the inspirational music he gave to us. He lit up our teenage years, and blew life into our dreams of being musicians and performers.” 

He concluded: “Chuck, you were amazing, and your music is engraved inside us forever.” 

Guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood also shared individual tributes on Twitter.

“’One of my big lights has gone out,’” Richards wrote, while Wood called Berry “my inspiration, a true character indeed.”

Other stars, including Brian May of Queen, Carole King, La Roux and Bruce Springsteen, also paid tribute to the rock ‘n’ roll legend. You can see more tributes here. 

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Coverage + articlesList=58cdbe95e4b0ec9d29dc887e,5671bf13e4b0dfd4bcc04eb2

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

A team of black and Latinx fourth graders became the target of racism during a robotics competition in Indiana, but they didn’t let that stop them from going to the world championships.

Last month, the Panther Bots, a five-student team from Indianapolis’ Pleasant Run Elementary School, had finished participating in a robotics challenge at Plainfield High School when their competitors saw them in the parking lot and yelled to them, “Go back to Mexico!” according to the Indiana Star.

“They were pointing at us and saying, ‘Oh my God, they are champions of the city all because they are Mexican. They are Mexican and they are ruining our country,’” Diocelina Herrera, mother of one of the Panther Bot students, told the Star.

But the students, three of whom are Latinx and two of whom are black, did their best to ignore the hurtful words and strive to do better.

“I feel like what they say doesn’t affect us,” Elijah Goodwin, a 10-year-old Panther Bot, told local news station WTHR 13. 

“When you are a good team,” he added, “people are going to hate you for being good and I think what people say can make you greater.”

The students’ attitude proved successful.

After winning several awards during robotics challenges at the Indiana State Championships, the Panther Bots earned a ticket to the Vex IQ Robotics World Championship in Louisville, Kentucky.

“Well, our scrappy little robotics team did it!” Lisa Hopper, coach of the Pleasant Run Elementary School’s Panther Bots team, wrote on Facebook after they earned their spot. “It has been an exciting journey.”

Officials at Plainfield High School told the Star that they were unaware of the racist comments made during the competition, but called the behavior disheartening and unacceptable.

Hopper thinks the students were targeted because they aren’t white. Their school, Hopper explained in a team sponsorship presentation, is a low income Title I school.

“For the most part, the robotics world is kind of a white world,” Hopper told the Star. “They’re just not used to seeing a team like our kids. And they see us and they think we’re not going to be competition. Then we’re in first place the whole day and they can’t take it.”

And it seems that the students’ graceful response to the racism has helped them fund their trip to the championships.

On Saturday, a Go Fund Me Account set up for the Panther Bots surpassed its $8,000 goal to help pay for their travel expenses and robotics parts. Their fundraising page is filled with comments from people who read their story and praised their determination.

“Keep up the interest in robotics and don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t worthy,” one donor wrote. “You have earned your success!” 

The Panther Bots have won six awards for their robotic creations, according to the team’s Go Fund Me page. During the Indiana State Championships, they ranked fourth in the state for teamwork, 11th in the state for skills and programming and won the Create Award for best robot design, which earned them a ticket to the World Championships.

Now, the internet is rooting for the Panther Bots’ next win.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Fans and musicians around the globe mourned the death of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s wild founding father Chuck Berry at the age of 90.

Instead of a wish for Berry to rest in peace, the estate of famed guitarist Bo Diddley tweeted a message to the music legend to “rock in power.” The estate of John Lennon — whose own music was inspired by the rhythm pioneer — posted a quote from the late Beatle hailing Berry as “another name” for rock ‘n’ roll. 

Berry’s rock anthems like “Johnny B.Goode,” “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Maybelline” set the stage for future generations of fans and countless budding musicians pinning their hopes on playing the guitar like Berry could.

Rocker Huey Lewis honored Berry as “maybe the most important figure in all of rock and roll. His music and his influence will last forever.”

Keith Urban thanked Berry for his “poetry, passion and potency.”

The Jacksons tweeted: “Chuck Berry merged blues & swing into the phenomenon of early rock ‘n’ roll. In music, he cast one of the longest shadows. Thank You, Chuck.”

Writer Stephen King said Berry’s death “breaks my heart.”

The Rolling Stones have said they are “deeply saddened” by the death of Chuck Berry, describing him as a “true pioneer of rock ‘n’ roll and a massive influence on us.”

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Coverage + articlesList=5671bf13e4b0dfd4bcc04eb2

Clarification: This article has been updated to reflect that Diddley’s Twitter account is not the guitarist himself (he died in 2008), but that of his estate.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Charles Edward Anderson “Chuck” Berry sunrise 10/18/26, sunset 3/18/17 St. Louis, Missouri.

Convicted of armed robbery in high school and served time in a reformatory from 1944 to 1947.

After release from reformatory worked in an automotive assembly plant.

His influences were Louis Jordan, Nat King Cole, Bennie Goodman, and Muddy Waters.

He owned a nightclub in St. Louis called Berry’s Club Bandstand.

From 1962 to 1965 he served time in prison for transporting a 14 year old girl across state lines.

In 1979 he served 3 months in prison for tax evasion.

In 1986 he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its opening.

He was married to the same woman for 68 years and had two children.

In 2004 Rolling Stone named him the 5th out of 100 greatest artists of all-time.

Peace, love, joy, gratitude, faith, courage, compassion and blessings.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Rock ’n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry has died, Missouri police said Saturday. He was 90.

“The St. Charles County Police Department sadly confirms the death of Charles Edward Anderson Berry Sr., better known as legendary musician Chuck Berry,” police said in a statement posted to Facebook.

First responders were called out to a home on Buckner Road around 12:40 p.m. and found a man later identified as Berry unresponsive “and immediately administered lifesaving techniques,” the statement reads. They were unable to revive him and he was pronounced dead at 1:26 p.m.

Berry penned a great number of hits in the 1950s and 1960s like “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock and Roll Music” that influenced generations of rock groups, including The Beatles. Merging a captivating stage presence with his own blend of blues, country and jazz, Berry helped define the fledgling rock’n’ roll genre, later becoming one of the first musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Born into a middle-class family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry picked up the basics of guitar from a neighbor and started performing music as a teenager. In 1952, he formed a trio with Johnnie Johnson on piano and Ebby Harding on drums that rose to fame in the local nightclub scene. To pay the bills, Berry worked as a hairdresser. But soon enough he wouldn’t have time for that ― a trip to Chicago netted a recording session with Chess Records, during which Berry performed an old hillbilly tune called “Ida Red.” Changing the name to “Maybellene,” Chess sent the track to an influential New York DJ, and it became a hit among the teenage set.

According to an oft-cited line by John Lennon, “If you tried to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’” Berry’s music became so well-known, he toured the country with only a guitar, trusting he’d be able to find musicians in each city he played who could serve as his back-up. Many of his lyrics focused on teen culture, although he was significantly past that age by the time he started traveling around singing about cars and dates. 

But in the nascent era of the Civil Rights Movement, Berry’s status as a black man with a following of young white people ― a lot of them girls ― caused certain conflict. He’d been known to take refuge in police stations to dodge protesters after his shows, which sometimes featured police presence themselves, according to an Esquire profile. After a teenage coat-check girl who worked briefly at a club he owned alleged Berry had an affair with her, the guitarist served two years in prison. A tax evasion charge sent him to prison again, briefly, in 1979. Then, in 1990, a police raid on a recording compound he owned turned up a stash of marijuana and images of Berry with nude women ― including one underage ― but charges were later dropped.

Notoriously interview-shy, Berry had been living out his later years in Ladue, Missouri ― near his hometown. He never stopped writing music, and performed regular gigs at a local restaurant and club called Blueberry Hill. 

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry has died, Missouri police said Saturday. He was 90.

“The St. Charles County Police Department sadly confirms the death of Charles Edward Anderson Berry Sr., better known as legendary musician Chuck Berry,” police said in a statement posted to Facebook.

First responders were called out to a home on Buckner Road around 12:40 p.m. and found a man later identified as Berry unresponsive “and immediately administered lifesaving techniques,” the statement reads. They were unable to revive him and he was pronounced dead at 1:26 p.m.

Berry penned a great number of hits in the 1950s and 1960s like “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock and Roll Music” that influenced generations of rock groups, including The Beatles. Merging a captivating stage presence with his own blend of blues, country and jazz, Berry helped define the fledgling rock’n’ roll genre, later becoming one of the first musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Born into a middle-class family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry picked up the basics of guitar from a neighbor and started performing music as a teenager. In 1952, he formed a trio with Johnnie Johnson on piano and Ebby Harding on drums that rose to fame in the local nightclub scene. To pay the bills, Berry worked as a hairdresser. But soon enough he wouldn’t have time for that ― a trip to Chicago netted a recording session with Chess Records, during which Berry performed an old hillbilly tune called “Ida Red.” Changing the name to “Maybellene,” Chess sent the track to an influential New York DJ, and it became a hit among the teenage set.

According to an oft-cited line by John Lennon, “If you tried to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’” Berry’s music became so well-known, he toured the country with only a guitar, trusting he’d be able to find musicians in each city he played who could serve as his back-up. Many of his lyrics focused on teen culture, although he was significantly past that age by the time he started traveling around singing about cars and dates. 

But in the nascent era of the Civil Rights Movement, Berry’s status as a black man with a following of young white people ― a lot of them girls ― caused certain conflict. He’d been known to take refuge in police stations to dodge protesters after his shows, which sometimes featured police presence themselves, according to an Esquire profile. After a teenage coat-check girl who worked briefly at a club he owned alleged Berry had an affair with her, the guitarist served two years in prison. A tax evasion charge sent him to prison again, briefly, in 1979. Then, in 1990, a police raid on a recording compound he owned turned up a stash of marijuana and images of Berry with nude women ― including one underage ― but charges were later dropped.

Notoriously interview-shy, Berry had been living out his later years in Ladue, Missouri ― near his hometown. He never stopped writing music, and performed regular gigs at a local restaurant and club called Blueberry Hill. 

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

“Saturday Night Live” is experiencing a creative renaissance and its biggest ratings in two decades under Donald Trump’s presidency. But Dave Chappelle has a message for fellow comedians enjoying the fruits of the administration’s blunders: “Trump’s kind of bad for comedy.”

Speaking with CBC on Sunday, Chappelle offered his take on the current president’s relationship with his chosen profession, agreeing that comedy has “a role to play under Trump,” but warning that there’s a risk of regurgitating the same material. 

“Most comics in the states are starting to do the same jokes, just because Trump is so on everybody’s mind,” he said. “So it’ll be nice when we don’t have to talk about him that much.”

Despite his concerns over Trump’s omnipresence, Chappelle said he still believes the state of comedy today is “strong and healthy,” citing the return of some of his favorites like Chris Rock and Jon Stewart to the game.

“I think that most of these guys you see working are wildly courageous,” he explained. “It’s such a strange time, being bombarded with so much information, and I think comedy is an important valve for syphoning through all that.”

In November, Chappelle hosted the first “Saturday Night Live” episode after the election and delivered a stirring opening monologue in response to Trump’s surprise win. After joking that America actually elected “an internet troll as our president,” he recalled a recent visit to the White House for a BET event that made him feel hopeful about the country’s direction. 

 “I saw how happy everybody was, these people who had been historically disenfranchised, and it made me feel hopeful, and it made me feel proud to be an American,” Chappelle said. “So, in that spirit, I’m wishing Donald Trump luck. I’m going to give him a chance, and we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.”

For more from Chappelle, you can watch his two comedy specials that premiere on Netflix this month.  

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

It was a big week for hate. It was no different than last week.

Acts of violence and intimidation against minority groups are becoming so commonplace that they’re tough to track ― though we’ve been trying. This week, reports on three incidents highlighted how fear and hatred have permeated the everyday lives of Americans.

In a township outside of Indianapolis, Indiana, school officials confirmed that a group of fourth-graders on a winning robotics team were told to “go back to Mexico” by other students ― and that parents joined in to hurl racist slurs their way. The Indianapolis Star reporter who brought the February incident to light this week characterized the backward thought process behind the verbal assault:

If you allow racism and hate to dictate these things, minority students from the Eastside, poor kids from a Title I school, aren’t supposed to be smart. They aren’t supposed to be talented. They aren’t supposed to be technologically savvy. And they definitely aren’t supposed to be able to best white students from surrounding communities.

Over in Orange County, California, a waiter was fired for demanding patrons’ “proof of residency” in the United States. “I need to make sure you’re residents before I serve you,” the waiter reportedly said to Diana Carrillo, a 24-year-old Californian, her sister and two of their friends.

Carrillo was quick to invoke President Donald Trump, whose administration has been criticized by civil rights groups for failing to respond in a meaningful way to hate crimes across the country.

“I feel that’s the direction we’re headed in, given who’s the president,” Carrillo told the Orange County Register Friday.

Often, Trump’s name is brought up during actual crimes. On Thursday, a man was charged with aggravated harassment after allegedly kicking a Muslim Delta employee at John F. Kennedy International Airport and promising that Trump would kick the victim out of the country.

“Are you [expletive] sleeping? Are you praying? What are you doing?” the suspect, 57-year-old Robin Rhodes said to the victim, according to a complaint that KTLA obtained.

“You did nothing but I am going to kick your [expletive] ass,” Rhodes said. “[Expletive] Islam, [expletive] ISIS, Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you. You can ask Germany, Belgium and France about these kind of people. You will see what happens.”

There are now so many instances of hateful acts carried out in Trump’s name or policy that saying hateful people are “emboldened” by this administration borders on cliché.

At least 150 civil rights groups agree. Last week, Amnesty International, the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Muslim Advocates and the National Bar Association were among a long list of groups to sign an open letter condemning the Trump administration’s lack of action ― or even acknowledgement ― after so many acts of violence and intimidation.

Jewish leaders and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are enraged over the lack of response to bomb threats made to Jewish community centers over the country. Though the Department of Homeland Security has pledged its full involvement into the investigation of more than 125 threats made to 85 centers across the country since January, the federal reaction has been widely criticized as hollow and sluggish.

The past few weeks have been no different across America.

We watched as two Indian men in Kansas were shot after being told to “Get out of my country.” We watched as four mosques were burned down in less than two months. We watched as a Sikh man was shot in Washington; as gravestones were overturned; as Latinos in California and New York were assaulted; as transgender women of color were murdered; as Jews were under siege in their homes, places of worship and community centers.

We will continue to watch as lawmakers, civil rights groups and the American people wait for the Trump administration to draw a line in the sand and condemn the rise in American hatred.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

PEORIA, Ill. ― Nikita Richards has thought about running for public office for as long as she can remember. She just figured she didn’t fit the mold.

Richards, a 34-year-old public relations consultant who lives in Bloomington, doesn’t mingle with the Democratic elite. She’s not rich. She’s an African-American single mom in a predominantly white Republican area. Her closest brush with politics has been working with clients who are local elected officials.

But something changed after Donald Trump won the presidency in November. Richards’ initial feelings of shock and devastation gave way to a sense of urgency. She started getting involved with local progressive groups, meeting up with others to write letters to their congressman, Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), about preserving free preventative care services amid health care reform. She met a woman running for town supervisor ― a Democrat, roughly her age, running for a seat Republicans have held for years. The woman told Richards that Democrats needed her, too, and that they would have her back if she decided to run for office. 

“I’d never had anyone say that to me,” said Richards. “She was just like, ‘I see something in you.’”

This is how Richards came to be one of a few dozen people who gathered in Peoria in late February for Build the Bench, an all-day boot camp designed to train Democrats on how to run for local office. Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) organized the event, which offered attendees an extraordinary level of nuts-and-bolts details on how to run a successful campaign, with presentations from organizers of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and representatives of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

By the end of the day, Richards was brimming with determination and armed with a binder full of notes. She even had a local office in mind that she planned to run for, though she didn’t want to give it away. “I was scared,” she said. “Now I’m ready.”

The Democratic Party is seeing an explosion of interest around the country from people like Richards ― progressives who have realized, in the wake of Trump’s win, that the future of the party is up to them.

These newly galvanized people are organizing protests locally and nationally. They’re flooding the phone lines in Congress. And they’re ready to run for office. One grassroots mobilization group, Run for Something, has already had 7,500 millennials commit to running for state and local office, according to co-founder Amanda Litman ― and they just launched on Jan. 20.

Build the Bench is also looking to channel that energy. Bustos says one of the most effective things Democrats in Congress can do is recruit and train people to run for local seats in their districts ― town council, school board, maybe even the county coroner (yes, this is an elected position in some places). The point is, it’s getting more Democrats started in politics.

“People are energized. We’ve got to do something about that,” she said. “I can’t think of a better thing to do than to get people ready to run for office. That’s what this is all about.”

Bustos came up with the idea for Build the Bench last year, when, as vice chair of recruitment for the DCCC, she noticed the party was struggling to find good candidates. “I was like, how in the heck can we not find someone great to run when there’s 700,000 people who live here? But we couldn’t, in several areas.”

She realized there may be lots of people interested in public service but they just don’t know how to get started, or they feel intimidated. She began personally recruiting people in her district ― sometimes just random people she met who impressed her ― for Build the Bench. She’s the only Democrat in Congress spearheading a program like this.

The boot camp is an intensive but casual affair. Bustos rented out a union hall in Peoria from 9 to 5 on a Saturday and provided granola bars, doughnuts and coffee. Turkey sandwiches arrived later for lunch. Campaign veterans rotated in throughout the day, giving crash courses on digital marketing and how to construct an effective stump speech. They gave insider tips on how to ask someone for $1,000 without making it totally awkward: Take a long sip of water immediately after asking, which seems bizarre (remember Marco Rubio’s swigs of water?) but apparently it keeps you from rambling. There were exercises, too, like writing a 30-second campaign pitch and practicing it in front of the room.

Prospective candidates cheered each other on throughout these exercises and offered advice on what worked and what didn’t. In between sessions, they mingled and traded stories about their political plans.

It’s not as easy for a woman to pick up and go into a field like this as it may be for a man.
Nikita Richards of Bloomington, Illinois

Bustos developed the program with political advisers like Emily Parcell, an Obama campaign alum who’s worked on local, state and national campaigns. It costs only a few thousand dollars to put it on, said Bustos, who paid for it out of her campaign money. She held her first boot camp in May 2016 and capped it at 25 people to keep it more personal. She had to increase the cap to 34 people for the February session due to interest ― and still had a few dozen people on a waiting list.

Bustos is thinking beyond local politics. Grooming stronger Democratic candidates at the local level means a stronger set of candidates for statewide and national runs down the road. Sometimes all it takes to get someone interested in public office is asking if they’ve considered running, Bustos said, and pointing out the potential they have. That’s how it happened for her when she was first asked to run for East Moline City Council in 2007.

“It wasn’t something that I thought of,” said the three-term congresswoman. “I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been asked.”

She told the group she was initially put off by the idea of running for office and declined. She worried about being able to financially support her family while running, and her husband was opposed to it. But she found a way to make it work and got her husband on board.

Richards could relate to Bustos’ concerns about work-life balance. “That’s real life,” she said. “It’s not as easy for a woman to pick up and go into a field like this as it may be for a man.”

Every boot camp attendee HuffPost talked to said Trump was a factor in their decision to look at running for office. But they had other reasons, too. Jodie Slothower, 57, is already running for clerk of Normal Township. Democrats haven’t had a seat on the board since 1971, and the current slate of board members is almost entirely white Republican men. There are six Democrats vying for eight seats this year, and five of them are women. Slothower thinks the surge of progressive momentum in her town can push them to victory in the April 4 race. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) even gave their small township election a shout-out recently.

“We’re engaging people,” said Slothower. “People are upset, and a lot of them are women that, even before the Women’s March, got involved. We’re just so frustrated on a very personal level.”

Slothower, a former college teacher, made her foray into politics in November, when she and a friend launched Voices of Reason, a group aimed at mobilizing Democrats in central Illinois to fight Trump’s agenda. It’s a traditionally GOP region, so she expected maybe a couple of hundred people to join. But they’re at 1,600 members and growing. Amid some of her activism ― which has included protesting Rep. Davis for not holding a town hall on health care ― Slothower heard about the upcoming Normal elections and decided to run.

“This is something where I want to put my money where my mouth is,” said Lee, who lives in Sterling with his wife and 4-year-old child. “I do civil rights and employment law. We don’t make as much money as other attorneys. But I get to wear my pink tie and go fight for people.”

Lee’s father is the mayor of Sterling, and while he had thought about running for statewide office, it seemed daunting. He didn’t want to choose between politics and his legal career or parenting. But running for a county seat seems doable.

“I used to think I was chickenshit for not making any change. But now I have a Democratic county board appointing a Republican to state’s attorney. This is an important seat,” Lee said. “I couldn’t get him fired, but I can say, ‘I’m going to cut his budget. I can tie his hands.’ That is real.”

Others, like Shanna Shipman of Peoria, left Build the Bench clearly energized but more reluctant about the timing of a run for office. Shipman, 37, is a single mom of four who works full time at the American Institutes for Research. She wants to make sure her kids remain her priority for now, so she’s giving herself four years before considering a campaign.

“I do not take lightly the profound shift that will happen once pursuing a public servant life,” said Shipman. “And it’s something, when I do it, I’m going to do it full-out.”

She followed up with The Huffington Post after the boot camp to with updates on the surge of activity in her community. “Momentum going strong in my town,” she texted weeks later, in early March. “You could attend a different meeting every day of the week if you wanted ― women’s rights, religious tolerance, environmental issues… Energy seems to be sustaining, and I really do feel this new urgency and participation is a silver lining that may impact outcomes next cycle.”

In the end, Shipman may decide to run for office for the same reason she’s not ready to right now: her kids. “I look at my 14-year-old, who knows that I’ve been upset about how certain things are happening, and I would like, rather than her impression be that mom is complaining … that mom’s acting. You know?”

Bustos is already planning her next Build the Bench boot camp in a different town in her district, and she’s hoping to franchise it for other Democrats. She’s been working with the DCCC to present a template to colleagues to roll out the program in their districts. She has also talked to newly elected Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez about it.

“This is not a major time commitment for anyone,” she said. “You just ask somebody to commit a full day, where they will walk away from that event and be prepared to run for office and to know what it takes to win.”

Looking around at the group of enthusiastic Democrats she assembled, Bustos added, “I hope there’s a future congressman or woman here.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices