August 12, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode of The Shift: Voices of Prevention, Desmond Meade, Executive Director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, shares his extraordinary journey from homelessness and addiction to leading one of the most significant civil rights victories of our time—restoring voting rights to more than 1.4 million returning citizens.
With honesty and hope, Desmond challenges us to rethink how we approach justice, belonging, and human dignity. His message is clear: lasting change doesn’t come from fear or division, but from compassion and love.
“We didn’t have to tear each other down to be successful. We didn’t have to instill fear in each other to be successful. We could actually move major human rights issues through love.” — Desmond Meade
Tune in for a powerful conversation about resilience, redemption, and how shifting the narrative around returning citizens can help build a more inclusive society where everyone belongs and families thrive.
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SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
This is the Shift Voices of Prevention, a podcast
from Prevent Child AbuseAmerica, where we explore bold
ideas, cultural change, and whatit truly means to support
children and families.
Join us to change the narrativeone conversation at a time.
Hello and welcome to PCAAmerica's 2025 National
Conference.
(00:30):
I'm Nathan Fink, and I'm LukeWaldo.
And this is the Shift Voices ofPrevention.
We're recording live fromPortland, Oregon, where we're
thrilled to be joined by KeynoteDesmond Mead, a 2021 MacArthur
Fellow award-winning votingrights activist and executive
director of the Florida RightsRestoration Coalition.
Desmond's work to restore votingrights to over 1.4 million
(00:51):
Floridians has earned himrecognition in publications like
the New York Times, FastCompany, and Times magazine,
where he was named one of the100 most influential people in
the world.
And your work not only restoredrights, but it restored hope.
Desmond, welcome to the show.
Hey.
How are you guys doing?
SPEAKER_02 (01:09):
It's great to see you.
So I I want to start as I wasmentioning earlier, at the end
where you finished the keynotespeech and the conversation with
Dr.
Merrick.
You talked about your optimismand that that exudes from your
being, right?
It was clear on the stage todaythat hope and compassion is
(01:32):
Desmond Mead.
I want to understand, though,that that optimism where it
comes from and how it led to thesuccess of the movement that
Nathan has just shared inrestoring voting rights for 1.4
million formerly incarceratedFloridians, right?
Because we we live in a moment,certainly, um, where there are
(01:56):
these deeply held societalbeliefs, oftentimes very
negative belief systems aroundpeople who have been
incarcerated, right?
So how did you and your optimismbreak through some of those
mental models to bring in peoplethat maybe previously didn't see
(02:16):
people who had been incarceratedas being worthy of having their
voting rights restored?
SPEAKER_00 (02:21):
Well, and you know, I first of all I think that when
you talk about hope, I think,you know, some people just like
brush by that word.
But hope is actually one of themost powerful things that you
can actually talk about.
I mean, I I don't even know ifyou can actually contain hope,
right?
You can't you can't hold itdown.
It it's just that powerful.
(02:42):
And knowing that if you don'thave hope, then I mean, what's
the use of even like living?
And so I think one of the thingsis, you know, desperation.
Out of desperation, maybe we docling to hope um a little bit.
I know I do, you know.
Um, and then of course I alwaysget examples of that.
You know, you some sometimesyou're having a bad day and
(03:03):
maybe somebody just you passsomeone and they smile.
Just a smile or a nod, or theysay hello.
And it's it's even more powerfulwhen it's someone of a of a
different race, right?
Or someone that you're notnecessarily used to.
But they do some they do sometype of kind gesture and it kind
(03:26):
of reignite, you know, thisfeeling that man, that I think
at the depths of our nature is adesire to connect, you know, uh
uh a desire to be in community,you know.
It's some I mean, you see usliving in communities now, you
know, and and it's natural.
(03:46):
And I think the the the fight ishow do we keep the unnatural
from dominating the natural?
How we you know what I'm saying?
How do we keep the the thefiction from just totally like
annihilating or silencing realwhat reality is really all
about?
And I think um that's somethingthat we have to hold on to out
(04:08):
of desperation, and thenunderstanding that if we hold on
to it, that we are holding on tothe most powerful force out
there.
You know, I think Obama wrote abook talking about the audacity
of hope, right?
And uh and I I do believe thatwithout hope, we're we're we're
like we're gonna perish.
We might as well just lay downand die, and I'm not ready to
(04:30):
die.
I think life is beautiful.
SPEAKER_02 (04:33):
You you talk about, right, hope being kept alive,
right?
By really confronting, as Ithink you mentioned earlier,
this false narrative, right?
Or you you just talked aboutthis unnatural kind of sense of
who we are, right?
How how did that narrative shiftnot only help you, but help the
coalition that you built pushthrough?
SPEAKER_00 (04:53):
Aaron Powell So let me tell you, so it was just
really some simple things.
And I and actually, there aresome things that happened as a
child that actually have shapedwho I am today, right?
And I and I talk about it in mybook.
One being that uh I rememberAmy, right?
Uh little white girl that I grewup in the islands with, right?
And Amy and I were likeinseparable, right?
(05:16):
And I had no clue, like she waswhite and I'm black, and we're
not supposed to, I had no cluewhatsoever.
And I talk about how we we clingto each other out of pure
desperation when our parentswere going separate ways.
And she was going back to themainland.
I was still in the VirginIslands, and we didn't want to
be separated.
And the parents pried us apartand took us on our separate
(05:38):
ways, and then we would shakeloose from the parent and run
back to each other and cling toeach other, screaming at the top
of our lungs, right?
And this thing about that andand even experiences I've had
living in in the Midwest, right,that that helped me see that the
world is much more complex thanwhat people may try to make it,
(05:59):
right?
And that things that they sayare reality is not necessarily
reality, that that we we spendso much time trying to define
our enemies that we lose sightof who are friends, and we spend
so much time trying to highlightthe differences that we have
totally lost sight of the factthat we have more in common than
(06:20):
what separates us as humanbeings, right?
And so all of those things likeright come together.
And when I started this campaignuh to restore voting rights to
folks in Florida, uh I told mypartner very simple.
Neil Voges, he was a aconservative guy.
He's used to, he's a politicaloperative, you know, he's he's
(06:43):
done a lot of work in DC.
Um and he was like asking meabout, man, we got to get this
enemy.
We got to get like who are wefighting against?
We every campaign needs anenemy.
And I told him, no, we don't.
I said the key is now how do weget people to look at us as
human beings first?
And once they can do that, oncethat we can connect along the
(07:04):
lines of humanity, we're good.
We're going to win.
And I'm telling you, everyexpert was like, what the hell
is this guy smoking?
Like, like, for real, I had tobe on something, but it was just
something deep inside that toldme that blood was thicker than
water, and if we can bring uh ifwe can create a connectivity, a
human connectivity betweenpeople, then it doesn't not, it
(07:27):
we could elevate this campaignabove partisan politics, above
even implicit or explicit racialbiases, right?
And we were actually able to dothat.
You know, um, you know, Isometimes I I get a little upset
because I think we, we, we, wefound uh, I don't know if you
guys ever look at Mr.
Impossible.
SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (07:47):
So the last one, right, where they talk about the
poison pill, right?
That I think we have the poisonpill, but no one asks about the
poison pill.
But we have the poison pill todefeat this mechanism that's
trying to take over the world.
And and what what is it doing?
It's actually taking reality andand hiding it and creating a
false narrative and havingcontrolling the world through a
(08:09):
false narrative, right?
And I think we're experiencingthat right now, but I think we
do have that poison pill, andthat poison pill, I believe, is
this connectivity that we have.
And if we can just get in theproximity of folks and and push
people that way, I think we candefeat these evil forces.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:26):
I remember where I was when I read that part with
Amy.
Because it affected me that muchbecause there's something about
us as humans that that stilllives inside of us, right?
Because there's a lot ofunlearning, unschooling we have
to do to approach what you'resuggesting, right?
Yeah.
And part of that, though, isaround these mental models that
(08:46):
I think Luke was talking about,and even reframing things.
That you reframed in formallyincarcerated to returning
citizens, that is something,that's a brilliant shift because
what it does is it allows us tohold it differently, right?
SPEAKER_00 (09:04):
You see the humanity in the person now, and then
they're not some inanimateobject that you can despise and
have no connection to, noemotions uh can not emotionally
connected, or even have anyempathy, right?
And I talked about it in thetalk today about how the United
States, before they bombedHiroshima Nagasaki, they engaged
(09:24):
in this narrative campaign thatdesensitized people as to the
humanities of Japanese andactually dehumanized them,
right?
And and and and in doing so,when they did drop the bomb and
killed all these kids and women,they were celebrating in the
streets.
Think about it, celebrating inthe streets.
That's the power of thenarrative.
(09:44):
We see that happening with theuh with the conflict in in
Israel, in Gaza.
A narrative actually controlshow we react to atrocities,
right?
And that word, you know, likethere was uh experts, they they
studied that word, and they saywhen you call somebody a felon
or you call somebody uh aconvict, you actually increase
(10:07):
the likelihood of themrecidivating or committing more
offenses.
You've heard it.
You call a child grow stupidgrowing up, what's that child
going to grow up believing thatthey are?
Stupid.
The power of the words, right?
And so that's why we like, no,we can't call people the F-word
or whatever.
We need to give something that'sbrings more, uh humanize them
more, right?
(10:27):
And we came up with, no, you'rea citizen of a community of a
state that's returning back intothe community.
And that's how we came up withreturning citizen.
Uh folks use of people uh leddescribers, you know, people who
were formerly incarcerated,people who were convicted of
felon, but we led with people,right?
Uh and I think that is that isso vital, right?
(10:51):
Even uh when folks used to say,oh, Desmond, that was a great
bipartisan campaign you read.
I was like, no, we're well inthe bipartisan campaign.
And they were like, okay, I getit, Devon.
You was a nonpartisan campaign,right?
And I was like, no, we weren'tthat either.
What we were was a grassroots,organic grassroots movement that
welcomed and enjoyed bipartisansupport.
(11:14):
And the difference was we didn'tleave with the politics, we led
with people.
And when you lead with peoplefirst, in so many ways, it's a
totally, entirely differentapproach.
And how people are able toconnect and how many people
you're actually able to bringunder that umbrella.
You leave with the party, youlead with the the labels that
(11:34):
divide us, is this is aprogressive movement, this is a
conservative movement, this isuh this movement, or that
movement.
Then what you do is that youlimit who you can talk to or who
can come talk to you.
No, man, this is a people senatething.
This is this is about humanity,and it allows people from all
walks of life and all politicalpersuasions to actually be a
(11:56):
part of that.
Which means now I have to find away to deal with my biases that
I may have against white men,white women, or black men or
black women or conservatives orprogressives.
I have to overcome that.
And the best way for me toovercome that is to just grab on
or hold on to the fact that weall have a shared humanity.
(12:18):
And let that be like the throughline through everything.
SPEAKER_01 (12:22):
Yeah.
Now, if we when we talk aboutthis, it strikes me that in
hearing about a movement or yourjourney, for a listener, it can
feel linear.
This then this then this.
But it's nonlinear, right?
It's all over the place.
It's it is, right?
So I wanted to dig into thatbecause when you look back at
(12:44):
different moments or evendifferent leverage points where
there's this aha or this way toget around an obstacle, are
there any things that you wouldpoint out and say, no, this one
actually changed me this way?
SPEAKER_00 (13:00):
You know, one thing is is believe it or not, um the
politics is like so you know, Iput it like this.
I I do believe, right?
I do believe that there are waymore good people than there are
bad people.
(13:21):
Right.
But I think the reason that badwins is because sometimes folks
can't get out of their own way.
And you have one side trying topoint to the other side as the
reason for our ills, and you youactually have a vice versa, and
the whole time neither side isdoing what they're supposed to
(13:41):
do, right?
And that was like a real likemoment for me.
Um when I, you know, and I and Isee it, you know, even around
like, say, criminal justicereform, believe it or not, when
we we dug a little deeper andand we got into some research
and we went into some rooms thatwe weren't supposed to go in,
because that's another thing,too, is that people would tell
(14:03):
you, don't deal with that guyacross the street because he's a
bad person.
And sometimes it's not becausethat person is a bad person,
it's because that person knowsthat if you get to deal with
this guy across the street, hemight shed some light on how d
you're not doing everything thatyou're supposed to be doing,
right?
And so as long as I can keep youaw away from having a
(14:24):
conversation with your neighbor,you know, I'm thinking that
you're the best person in theworld and not knowing that
you've been actuallyshortchanged with me all this
time.
unknown (14:33):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (14:33):
Right?
Um, and and so that's a way toavoid responsibility.
That was very important for mebecause it and and it helped me
because I didn't I didn'trealize, like, you know, at the
end of the day, I I didn't haveany experience on running a
state campaign.
Listen, I ran a statewidecampaign in the most difficult
(14:54):
state to actually pass aconstitutional amendment during
a most difficult political time,divisive time, and in a state
that is tripolar.
Not bipolar, but tripolar.
It'll just give you, like, youhave segments in one year it
gives you Barack Obama, the nextyear it gives you Donald Trump.
Like there's it's really likeall over the place.
(15:15):
And I was still able to garnerover 60% a supermajority,
because most other places, youjust need a simple majority.
I had to get a supermajority.
And I was able to do that.
I'm giving you a good example.
In the very same state, Florida,you had two uh two initiatives
uh last cycle.
(15:36):
One was around abortion, and theother one was around
recreational marijuana, right?
And in the recreationalmarijuana, they spent over a
hundred, and I think fiftymillion dollars to get it
passed.
You with me?
Recreation marijuana was evenendorsed by President Donald
Trump, right?
And even with spending$150million, it failed horribly.
(16:01):
Recreation marijuana.
I had an issue that was politica political powder cake that
threatened to shift thepolitical balance of one of the
most important states becauseprior to 2020, um you had to go
way back to find a time whensomebody got into the White
(16:21):
House without winning the stateof Florida.
State of Florida was crucial.
And so when you talk aboutadding 1.4 million people to the
voting roster in Florida, thatis a political powder keg,
right?
For marijuana, about 100 millionwas spent against Recreation
Marijuana.
100 million was spent, 150million was spent to to pass it
(16:42):
with the endorsement of DonaldTrump, and 100 million was spent
against it, right?
You know how much was spentagainst my campaign to add 1.4
million new voters to the rosterin a swing state like Florida.
I mean, it's historically high.
I can't hundreds of millions?
(17:03):
Not one penny.
You know how much money I spenton a campaign?
$23 million.
$23 million, no oppositiondollars, compared to$150 million
and$100 million, and they failedI passed.
Why?
Because it's actuallyunderstanding the the the
fallacies of a lot of thesesystems and and really go being
(17:28):
willing or bold enough to gobeyond where these systems tell
you you should only go.
Right?
No, I had over a millionRepublicans vote for this
amendment.
Listen, I had, and and one ofthe telling things about this
amendment was right before, amonth before election, we did
one final focus group, and webrought in super Trump
(17:51):
supporters and we gave them twostories.
We said if you vote yes onAmendment 4, it will be a death
blow to Donald Trump and thesegod, these dastardly
conservative folks is gonna takeover our great state, and we
don't want that.
The other one was if you vote,and I think this is 2018, if you
(18:11):
vote for Amendment 4, MS 13 isgonna invade Florida and kill
our women and children.
Right?
That's what we told them.
And then when we polled themagain, we still had a super
majority support for Amendment4.
Yes, we have the poison pill.
We have the poison pill.
(18:32):
And part of that process isgoing beyond where they tell you
to go.
And understanding that thepeople who they're telling you
are your enemies are not yourenemy.
Just because someone thinksdifferent than you don't make
them your enemy.
If that's the case, you'd befighting your wife or your
significant other every singleday.
But we show in our own homesthat we don't have to agree with
(18:53):
everything with each other inorder to love each other and
care about each other in a veryloving way and in a humane way,
right?
We see that.
We see the homes.
Half the home is uh CrimsonTide, Alabama, the other half is
Auburn.
One is uh Michigan, the otherone is Ohio State.
We see that all the time, right?
(19:14):
We've we've seen uh powercouples with one with a
Republican, the other with aDemocrat.
We've seen that.
We've seen, I mean, one of themost beautiful moments in
politics was when McCain and anduh uh President Obama were
debating, and and this oneperson asked this question about
Obama, and McCain stepped in andsaid, wait a minute, we may not
agree with everything, but Irespect this man, and you know,
(19:38):
that was like beautiful.
And so, but nowadays they'resaying that if you're a Democrat
or Republican, we have to hateeach other, and we have to,
you're automatically racist, oryou're automatically this, and
that anything, if you agree withsomething, then that means that
something's not right and you asellout.
We're in this type ofenvironment that is not
conducive to us being able tothrive as a nation or as a
(20:01):
community.
I was able to crack throughthat, and because of that, I was
able to talk to people who theytold me I wasn't supposed to
talk to.
Right?
And that's you know, uh thebigger fault lies on the
progressive side because theyactually really bought into that
big time about not talking tocertain people.
And, you know, I used to tellfolks that, you know, I know I'm
(20:24):
right, but this is for me is soimportant.
Like I tell folks that one ofthe scariest things for me to
do, right, was to talk to mykids about sex.
Right?
Like, I have four boys and Ihave one girl, right?
And I don't care if it's a boyor girl.
I'm like, I was terrified.
Like my wife was like, honey,when are we gonna have the talk?
I'm like, what talk?
(20:44):
You know, the birds and the I'mlike, no, not me or whatever.
You know, I was like resistingit, but then one night when I
was laying down, I thought aboutit.
I was like, if I don't talk tomy kids about sex, they're gonna
learn it from the internet.
A stranger would teach them.
And I had to ask myself, whowould I want to teach my son or
(21:04):
daughter about sex, me or astranger.
And so as a society, there'ssome folks that we, instead of
us talking to them, we actuallyjust bury our head in the sand
and turn the other way.
Well, guess what?
Donald Trump came and talked tothe very same people, and now
we're mad that what?
No.
(21:25):
Because we didn't talk to them,somebody else came and talked to
them about society and the illsor whatever.
We can't get mad at Trump.
We get we gotta get mad atourselves because we didn't be
we weren't bold enough to gobeyond people we were
comfortable with and have realconversations.
SPEAKER_02 (21:45):
So I want to w work from that.
And I and I actually think thethe example you used about your
your kids is is a powerful oneas well, right, within the home.
It's like what what what youwhat you've done in your
community really translates tohow do you have those
conversations to prevent harmcoming to your children, right?
Um in the first place.
And so a lot of the work thatyou've done to this point is
(22:06):
really about undoing harm,right?
That harm has already beencaused, whether it's because of
exclusionary policies, right, orthese reactive systems, as you
easily pointed out in the thekeynote.
Um how do how do you take thatthat poison pill, right, the
connectivity, the therelationship building that you
have have done in this work andmove it further upstream so that
(22:30):
we can prevent harm fromhappening in the first place?
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
Prior planning prevents fiscal performance.
How do we prevent harm fromhappening in the first place?
You know, so one of the things Italked about was first
understanding that thatnarrative is a blocker to
preventive action, right?
That because it it it it reducesthe level of empathy, right?
(23:00):
Or the desire to want to changesome things, right?
Because of this narrative thing.
How I I push it up, I I think isis is slowly just moving people
along and having people see, youknow, uh a reason to to love
(23:22):
someone, I s for lack of abetter word.
I think that, you know, I and Isaid it before that, you know, I
think the key is if we can getpeople to love who they what
they despise the most or or whothey hate the most, then they're
capable of loving everyone,right?
And so how are we slowly gettingpeople to love what they're
scared of, right?
Um you know, the guy thatcommits a crime, right?
(23:44):
Everybody's scared of Joe, bigJoe criminal, right?
But how do we get folks to seethe humanity in that little kid
that broke their car window inSan Francisco or whatever, you
know?
Uh, and see what that person wasgoing through, what led that
young man to actually pick upsomething and throw it and break
the window to steal whatever hehad to steal.
And then how do we now see oursons or ourselves in that
(24:08):
person, right?
And then from there now, howwould we want to be treated if
that was us or our sons?
Right?
Once we get there, we're good.
We're like at a good spotbecause now we're moving into
the policy piece.
We're moving into the the uhshifting the narrative and
dynamics piece.
And I think what's crucial isgetting them to understand what
(24:32):
the the issue is going on withthe individual, and then getting
them to see themselves in that,right?
Or someone who they love.
I'm gonna go back to mycampaign.
Let me tell you, remember I toldyou Florida is like tripolar.
You have like three differentsections of Florida.
They're in their own littleworld, right?
And one of the things that youlearn is that if you're running
(24:53):
a statewide campaign, you haveto tailor your messaging towards
the read in the region thatyou're gonna be messaging in,
right?
Whether you're gonna bemessaging in the conservative
northern part of Florida or themore progressive southern part
of Florida or that bipolar partin central Florida, you know,
maybe a mixture of some messagesthere, right?
None of that.
(25:14):
And a lot of communicationexperts were like, they could
not believe it.
I'm like, no way.
I'm like, listen, we polledsupermajority in every media,
major media market in the stateof Florida.
And none of our messagingvaried.
It was the same thing.
Right?
No matter where I went.
You ready for this?
This is part, this is just oneof the ingredients of the poison
(25:36):
pill, right?
I can't give you all theingredients.
You gotta buy the book, first ofall.
And then most of the ingredientsis in the book, but then the
other part is probably you mighthave to set up for what they
have, these new masterclasses orwhatever.
But let me tell you the poisonpill.
You ready?
Part of one of the ingredients.
Whenever I approach somebody,right?
(25:56):
First question I ask Do you knowanyone who you love who's ever
made a mistake?
I don't care what part of thestate I'm in.
And I used to have this shirtcalled Let My People Vote,
right?
It says Let My People Vote onit, right?
It's the title of my book.
And people like, you know, Ihave this guy coming, well,
(26:17):
who's your people?
You know, whatever, you know.
You got a cowboy comes up, like,well, what's your people, you
know?
And you think I say people withfelony convictions?
No.
You know what I say?
I say anybody who you love orcare about who's ever had a
felony conviction.
See the difference?
You see what I just did, right?
Do you know anyone who you lovewho's ever made a mistake?
(26:40):
Right?
So what I did there, right?
Well, number one, love, right?
Number two, it's somebody whoyou love that you're connected
to.
And it's not those people,right?
It's not about politics, it'snot even about the race.
It's about somebody who youlove.
And I that was the initial seedthat I planted.
(27:01):
That's that seed that's able toweather the attack ads or the
negative messaging that wetalked about, right?
And keep you focused in supportof this because at the base of
your decision-making process isthe image of someone who you
love or care about that needsthis.
SPEAKER_02 (27:20):
I know I know we're almost at time.
So I want to get some thoseingredients were were really
powerful.
And I and I think it would bepowerful again to offer all of
the people at this conferencethis week and anyone else who
might be listening who areadvocating for families, who are
in families' homes each andevery day, seeing the struggle
(27:43):
and trying to help themovercome.
I can imagine that there weresetbacks time and time again in
building this movement and doingthe work that you've done.
What advice would you give tothese folks who are listening
today when it comes toovercoming those setbacks?
What what what did you rely onto see the light at the end of
(28:05):
the tunnel when things werereally, really dark?
SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
So that's a trick question, right?
I'm gonna tell you why.
It's a standard question.
You know, how do you overcomethe setbacks and everything?
I'm here to tell you that therewasn't any.
The biggest challenges was notsetbacks.
The biggest challenges weregetting people to see what you
saw, what we saw.
(28:29):
The biggest challenges were toget people to stay the hell out
of the way, right?
And let the universe reallyguide the camp.
That was the biggest challengethat we faced, to be totally
honest with you.
Like I said, the whole time wewere bracing, preparing for the
onslaught.
This is gonna be a bloodbath,the attack acts are gonna come,
(28:52):
and we were like worried as hellbecause when you, for every
dollar that of uh that is spentto oppose whatever you're doing,
you've got to spend two to tryto negate the impact of that,
right?
And we're like, no way we'regonna, you know, and so we're
thinking that we're gonna get uhpushback from the courts because
the process is you collectpetitions, when you get to a
(29:12):
certain amount, the courts haveto approve it for it to even
say, okay, you now you could goin and collect the rest of them,
and then you when you collectthe rest of them, you gotta get
on the ballot, and then it'sjust so many different areas uh
uh opportunities for people toambush you and I mean all the
way up to election night.
And so, yeah, we were preparedfor all of that stuff, but we
(29:34):
never faced that.
We never did.
The thing the the hardestchannel was to get people to
believe that we can actually winsomething by actually letting
love be our driving force andnot we don't have to fight,
fight, fight, push back, yo,push back, fight, fight.
And no, it's not about it wasn'tabout the fight.
(29:54):
It was about really allowing theuniverse to actually work its
course.
And so the big challenge couldbe.
Is that when you don't seethings moving the way you think
it should move, how do you keepdisciplined enough to stay the
course?
That, you know what I'm saying?
How do we, you know, we may nothave like huge testimonials or
(30:17):
little bright spots every singleday, but man, let me tell you,
sometimes when it gets like, uhI talked about there were times
I wanted to quit.
What the hell?
Right?
It wasn't because of a setback,it just bec it was because it
was such an overwhelming task toaccomplish, right?
I I let my finite mind, right,just take control and didn't
(30:42):
think about the infinitepossibilities and the power of
the universe, right?
And sometimes I'm like, man,what am I doing it for?
And it doesn't seem like there'senough people.
I would go travel across thestate of Florida to a meeting
and there's only 10 peoplethere, right?
Or sometimes five people, man,uh I didn't have gas to get back
home.
You know, they would like, forreal.
(31:04):
How do you hold through when itseems like the rest of the world
is putting its importanceeverywhere else?
That's the thing, right?
How do you, like, even whenwe're talking about preventing
child abuse, and oh, it's not ait's not a hot button issue,
right?
And and money's not coming in,and people of foundations or
(31:25):
endowments are not supportingthis because they're doing
something else.
How do you hold true to thecourse?
How do you continue to lead withlove when you see your family
you've been working with justtake 10 steps back, right?
You don't give up.
You love your way through thisthing, right?
Understanding that the moment wegive up hope, the moment we stop
(31:47):
loving, that's the moment we'veaccepted defeat.
And we might as well just laydown and die, right?
But no, you just have to clingon to love and hope.
And uh like they said, um uh thespiritual folks earlier today,
that you have to also turn thatintention on yourself and make
(32:07):
sure that you're not, you know,um overwhelming yourself.
Right?
The advice I give is that, man,man, you live and enjoy life and
know that, man, if you'releading with love, you can never
go wrong.
SPEAKER_01 (32:20):
Desmond, thank you for sharing your story with us
and your wisdom with everyone atthe 2025 PCA America National
Conference.
We deeply appreciate it.
And for everyone listening,remember Shifting Systems starts
with shifting stories and thecourage to keep telling it until
it takes root.
It's been an incredible honor,and thank you again for sharing.
(32:43):
And you can invite upstreamsolutions into your feed by
subscribing to the shift voicesof prevention today.
Join us to create an ecosystemwhere children and families live
purposeful and happy lives withhope for the future.
This is the Shift Voices of Prevention, a podcast
from Prevent Child AbuseAmerica, where we explore bold
ideas, cultural change, and whatit truly means to support
children and families.
Join us to change the narrativeone conversation at a time.
Hello and welcome to PCAAmerica's 2025 National
Conference.
(00:30):
I'm Nathan Fink, and I'm LukeWaldo.
And this is the Shift Voices ofPrevention.
We're recording live fromPortland, Oregon, where we're
thrilled to be joined by KeynoteDesmond Mead, a 2021 MacArthur
Fellow award-winning votingrights activist and executive
director of the Florida RightsRestoration Coalition.
Desmond's work to restore votingrights to over 1.4 million
(00:51):
Floridians has earned himrecognition in publications like
the New York Times, FastCompany, and Times magazine,
where he was named one of the100 most influential people in
the world.
And your work not only restoredrights, but it restored hope.
Desmond, welcome to the show.
Hey.
How are you guys doing?
SPEAKER_02 (01:09):
It's great to see you.
So I I want to start as I wasmentioning earlier, at the end
where you finished the keynotespeech and the conversation with
Dr.
Merrick.
You talked about your optimismand that that exudes from your
being, right?
It was clear on the stage todaythat hope and compassion is
(01:32):
Desmond Mead.
I want to understand, though,that that optimism where it
comes from and how it led to thesuccess of the movement that
Nathan has just shared inrestoring voting rights for 1.4
million formerly incarceratedFloridians, right?
Because we we live in a moment,certainly, um, where there are
(01:56):
these deeply held societalbeliefs, oftentimes very
negative belief systems aroundpeople who have been
incarcerated, right?
So how did you and your optimismbreak through some of those
mental models to bring in peoplethat maybe previously didn't see
(02:16):
people who had been incarceratedas being worthy of having their
voting rights restored?
SPEAKER_00 (02:21):
Well, and you know, I first of all I think that when
you talk about hope, I think,you know, some people just like
brush by that word.
But hope is actually one of themost powerful things that you
can actually talk about.
I mean, I I don't even know ifyou can actually contain hope,
right?
You can't you can't hold itdown.
It it's just that powerful.
(02:42):
And knowing that if you don'thave hope, then I mean, what's
the use of even like living?
And so I think one of the thingsis, you know, desperation.
Out of desperation, maybe we docling to hope um a little bit.
I know I do, you know.
Um, and then of course I alwaysget examples of that.
You know, you some sometimesyou're having a bad day and
(03:03):
maybe somebody just you passsomeone and they smile.
Just a smile or a nod, or theysay hello.
And it's it's even more powerfulwhen it's someone of a of a
different race, right?
Or someone that you're notnecessarily used to.
But they do some they do sometype of kind gesture and it kind
(03:26):
of reignite, you know, thisfeeling that man, that I think
at the depths of our nature is adesire to connect, you know, uh
uh a desire to be in community,you know.
It's some I mean, you see usliving in communities now, you
know, and and it's natural.
(03:46):
And I think the the the fight ishow do we keep the unnatural
from dominating the natural?
How we you know what I'm saying?
How do we keep the the thefiction from just totally like
annihilating or silencing realwhat reality is really all
about?
And I think um that's somethingthat we have to hold on to out
(04:08):
of desperation, and thenunderstanding that if we hold on
to it, that we are holding on tothe most powerful force out
there.
You know, I think Obama wrote abook talking about the audacity
of hope, right?
And uh and I I do believe thatwithout hope, we're we're we're
like we're gonna perish.
We might as well just lay downand die, and I'm not ready to
(04:30):
die.
I think life is beautiful.
SPEAKER_02 (04:33):
You you talk about, right, hope being kept alive,
right?
By really confronting, as Ithink you mentioned earlier,
this false narrative, right?
Or you you just talked aboutthis unnatural kind of sense of
who we are, right?
How how did that narrative shiftnot only help you, but help the
coalition that you built pushthrough?
SPEAKER_00 (04:53):
Aaron Powell So let me tell you, so it was just
really some simple things.
And I and actually, there aresome things that happened as a
child that actually have shapedwho I am today, right?
And I and I talk about it in mybook.
One being that uh I rememberAmy, right?
Uh little white girl that I grewup in the islands with, right?
And Amy and I were likeinseparable, right?
(05:16):
And I had no clue, like she waswhite and I'm black, and we're
not supposed to, I had no cluewhatsoever.
And I talk about how we we clingto each other out of pure
desperation when our parentswere going separate ways.
And she was going back to themainland.
I was still in the VirginIslands, and we didn't want to
be separated.
And the parents pried us apartand took us on our separate
(05:38):
ways, and then we would shakeloose from the parent and run
back to each other and cling toeach other, screaming at the top
of our lungs, right?
And this thing about that andand even experiences I've had
living in in the Midwest, right,that that helped me see that the
world is much more complex thanwhat people may try to make it,
(05:59):
right?
And that things that they sayare reality is not necessarily
reality, that that we we spendso much time trying to define
our enemies that we lose sightof who are friends, and we spend
so much time trying to highlightthe differences that we have
totally lost sight of the factthat we have more in common than
(06:20):
what separates us as humanbeings, right?
And so all of those things likeright come together.
And when I started this campaignuh to restore voting rights to
folks in Florida, uh I told mypartner very simple.
Neil Voges, he was a aconservative guy.
He's used to, he's a politicaloperative, you know, he's he's
(06:43):
done a lot of work in DC.
Um and he was like asking meabout, man, we got to get this
enemy.
We got to get like who are wefighting against?
We every campaign needs anenemy.
And I told him, no, we don't.
I said the key is now how do weget people to look at us as
human beings first?
And once they can do that, oncethat we can connect along the
(07:04):
lines of humanity, we're good.
We're going to win.
And I'm telling you, everyexpert was like, what the hell
is this guy smoking?
Like, like, for real, I had tobe on something, but it was just
something deep inside that toldme that blood was thicker than
water, and if we can bring uh ifwe can create a connectivity, a
human connectivity betweenpeople, then it doesn't not, it
(07:27):
we could elevate this campaignabove partisan politics, above
even implicit or explicit racialbiases, right?
And we were actually able to dothat.
You know, um, you know, Isometimes I I get a little upset
because I think we, we, we, wefound uh, I don't know if you
guys ever look at Mr.
Impossible.
SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (07:47):
So the last one, right, where they talk about the
poison pill, right?
That I think we have the poisonpill, but no one asks about the
poison pill.
But we have the poison pill todefeat this mechanism that's
trying to take over the world.
And and what what is it doing?
It's actually taking reality andand hiding it and creating a
false narrative and havingcontrolling the world through a
(08:09):
false narrative, right?
And I think we're experiencingthat right now, but I think we
do have that poison pill, andthat poison pill, I believe, is
this connectivity that we have.
And if we can just get in theproximity of folks and and push
people that way, I think we candefeat these evil forces.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:26):
I remember where I was when I read that part with
Amy.
Because it affected me that muchbecause there's something about
us as humans that that stilllives inside of us, right?
Because there's a lot ofunlearning, unschooling we have
to do to approach what you'resuggesting, right?
Yeah.
And part of that, though, isaround these mental models that
(08:46):
I think Luke was talking about,and even reframing things.
That you reframed in formallyincarcerated to returning
citizens, that is something,that's a brilliant shift because
what it does is it allows us tohold it differently, right?
SPEAKER_00 (09:04):
You see the humanity in the person now, and then
they're not some inanimateobject that you can despise and
have no connection to, noemotions uh can not emotionally
connected, or even have anyempathy, right?
And I talked about it in thetalk today about how the United
States, before they bombedHiroshima Nagasaki, they engaged
(09:24):
in this narrative campaign thatdesensitized people as to the
humanities of Japanese andactually dehumanized them,
right?
And and and and in doing so,when they did drop the bomb and
killed all these kids and women,they were celebrating in the
streets.
Think about it, celebrating inthe streets.
That's the power of thenarrative.
(09:44):
We see that happening with theuh with the conflict in in
Israel, in Gaza.
A narrative actually controlshow we react to atrocities,
right?
And that word, you know, likethere was uh experts, they they
studied that word, and they saywhen you call somebody a felon
or you call somebody uh aconvict, you actually increase
(10:07):
the likelihood of themrecidivating or committing more
offenses.
You've heard it.
You call a child grow stupidgrowing up, what's that child
going to grow up believing thatthey are?
Stupid.
The power of the words, right?
And so that's why we like, no,we can't call people the F-word
or whatever.
We need to give something that'sbrings more, uh humanize them
more, right?
(10:27):
And we came up with, no, you'rea citizen of a community of a
state that's returning back intothe community.
And that's how we came up withreturning citizen.
Uh folks use of people uh leddescribers, you know, people who
were formerly incarcerated,people who were convicted of
felon, but we led with people,right?
Uh and I think that is that isso vital, right?
(10:51):
Even uh when folks used to say,oh, Desmond, that was a great
bipartisan campaign you read.
I was like, no, we're well inthe bipartisan campaign.
And they were like, okay, I getit, Devon.
You was a nonpartisan campaign,right?
And I was like, no, we weren'tthat either.
What we were was a grassroots,organic grassroots movement that
welcomed and enjoyed bipartisansupport.
(11:14):
And the difference was we didn'tleave with the politics, we led
with people.
And when you lead with peoplefirst, in so many ways, it's a
totally, entirely differentapproach.
And how people are able toconnect and how many people
you're actually able to bringunder that umbrella.
You leave with the party, youlead with the the labels that
(11:34):
divide us, is this is aprogressive movement, this is a
conservative movement, this isuh this movement, or that
movement.
Then what you do is that youlimit who you can talk to or who
can come talk to you.
No, man, this is a people senatething.
This is this is about humanity,and it allows people from all
walks of life and all politicalpersuasions to actually be a
(11:56):
part of that.
Which means now I have to find away to deal with my biases that
I may have against white men,white women, or black men or
black women or conservatives orprogressives.
I have to overcome that.
And the best way for me toovercome that is to just grab on
or hold on to the fact that weall have a shared humanity.
(12:18):
And let that be like the throughline through everything.
SPEAKER_01 (12:22):
Yeah.
Now, if we when we talk aboutthis, it strikes me that in
hearing about a movement or yourjourney, for a listener, it can
feel linear.
This then this then this.
But it's nonlinear, right?
It's all over the place.
It's it is, right?
So I wanted to dig into thatbecause when you look back at
(12:44):
different moments or evendifferent leverage points where
there's this aha or this way toget around an obstacle, are
there any things that you wouldpoint out and say, no, this one
actually changed me this way?
SPEAKER_00 (13:00):
You know, one thing is is believe it or not, um the
politics is like so you know, Iput it like this.
I I do believe, right?
I do believe that there are waymore good people than there are
bad people.
(13:21):
Right.
But I think the reason that badwins is because sometimes folks
can't get out of their own way.
And you have one side trying topoint to the other side as the
reason for our ills, and you youactually have a vice versa, and
the whole time neither side isdoing what they're supposed to
(13:41):
do, right?
And that was like a real likemoment for me.
Um when I, you know, and I and Isee it, you know, even around
like, say, criminal justicereform, believe it or not, when
we we dug a little deeper andand we got into some research
and we went into some rooms thatwe weren't supposed to go in,
because that's another thing,too, is that people would tell
(14:03):
you, don't deal with that guyacross the street because he's a
bad person.
And sometimes it's not becausethat person is a bad person,
it's because that person knowsthat if you get to deal with
this guy across the street, hemight shed some light on how d
you're not doing everything thatyou're supposed to be doing,
right?
And so as long as I can keep youaw away from having a
(14:24):
conversation with your neighbor,you know, I'm thinking that
you're the best person in theworld and not knowing that
you've been actuallyshortchanged with me all this
time.
unknown (14:33):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (14:33):
Right?
Um, and and so that's a way toavoid responsibility.
That was very important for mebecause it and and it helped me
because I didn't I didn'trealize, like, you know, at the
end of the day, I I didn't haveany experience on running a
state campaign.
Listen, I ran a statewidecampaign in the most difficult
(14:54):
state to actually pass aconstitutional amendment during
a most difficult political time,divisive time, and in a state
that is tripolar.
Not bipolar, but tripolar.
It'll just give you, like, youhave segments in one year it
gives you Barack Obama, the nextyear it gives you Donald Trump.
Like there's it's really likeall over the place.
(15:15):
And I was still able to garnerover 60% a supermajority,
because most other places, youjust need a simple majority.
I had to get a supermajority.
And I was able to do that.
I'm giving you a good example.
In the very same state, Florida,you had two uh two initiatives
uh last cycle.
(15:36):
One was around abortion, and theother one was around
recreational marijuana, right?
And in the recreationalmarijuana, they spent over a
hundred, and I think fiftymillion dollars to get it
passed.
You with me?
Recreation marijuana was evenendorsed by President Donald
Trump, right?
And even with spending$150million, it failed horribly.
(16:01):
Recreation marijuana.
I had an issue that was politica political powder cake that
threatened to shift thepolitical balance of one of the
most important states becauseprior to 2020, um you had to go
way back to find a time whensomebody got into the White
(16:21):
House without winning the stateof Florida.
State of Florida was crucial.
And so when you talk aboutadding 1.4 million people to the
voting roster in Florida, thatis a political powder keg,
right?
For marijuana, about 100 millionwas spent against Recreation
Marijuana.
100 million was spent, 150million was spent to to pass it
(16:42):
with the endorsement of DonaldTrump, and 100 million was spent
against it, right?
You know how much was spentagainst my campaign to add 1.4
million new voters to the rosterin a swing state like Florida.
I mean, it's historically high.
I can't hundreds of millions?
(17:03):
Not one penny.
You know how much money I spenton a campaign?
$23 million.
$23 million, no oppositiondollars, compared to$150 million
and$100 million, and they failedI passed.
Why?
Because it's actuallyunderstanding the the the
fallacies of a lot of thesesystems and and really go being
(17:28):
willing or bold enough to gobeyond where these systems tell
you you should only go.
Right?
No, I had over a millionRepublicans vote for this
amendment.
Listen, I had, and and one ofthe telling things about this
amendment was right before, amonth before election, we did
one final focus group, and webrought in super Trump
(17:51):
supporters and we gave them twostories.
We said if you vote yes onAmendment 4, it will be a death
blow to Donald Trump and thesegod, these dastardly
conservative folks is gonna takeover our great state, and we
don't want that.
The other one was if you vote,and I think this is 2018, if you
(18:11):
vote for Amendment 4, MS 13 isgonna invade Florida and kill
our women and children.
Right?
That's what we told them.
And then when we polled themagain, we still had a super
majority support for Amendment4.
Yes, we have the poison pill.
We have the poison pill.
(18:32):
And part of that process isgoing beyond where they tell you
to go.
And understanding that thepeople who they're telling you
are your enemies are not yourenemy.
Just because someone thinksdifferent than you don't make
them your enemy.
If that's the case, you'd befighting your wife or your
significant other every singleday.
But we show in our own homesthat we don't have to agree with
(18:53):
everything with each other inorder to love each other and
care about each other in a veryloving way and in a humane way,
right?
We see that.
We see the homes.
Half the home is uh CrimsonTide, Alabama, the other half is
Auburn.
One is uh Michigan, the otherone is Ohio State.
We see that all the time, right?
(19:14):
We've we've seen uh powercouples with one with a
Republican, the other with aDemocrat.
We've seen that.
We've seen, I mean, one of themost beautiful moments in
politics was when McCain and anduh uh President Obama were
debating, and and this oneperson asked this question about
Obama, and McCain stepped in andsaid, wait a minute, we may not
agree with everything, but Irespect this man, and you know,
(19:38):
that was like beautiful.
And so, but nowadays they'resaying that if you're a Democrat
or Republican, we have to hateeach other, and we have to,
you're automatically racist, oryou're automatically this, and
that anything, if you agree withsomething, then that means that
something's not right and you asellout.
We're in this type ofenvironment that is not
conducive to us being able tothrive as a nation or as a
(20:01):
community.
I was able to crack throughthat, and because of that, I was
able to talk to people who theytold me I wasn't supposed to
talk to.
Right?
And that's you know, uh thebigger fault lies on the
progressive side because theyactually really bought into that
big time about not talking tocertain people.
And, you know, I used to tellfolks that, you know, I know I'm
(20:24):
right, but this is for me is soimportant.
Like I tell folks that one ofthe scariest things for me to
do, right, was to talk to mykids about sex.
Right?
Like, I have four boys and Ihave one girl, right?
And I don't care if it's a boyor girl.
I'm like, I was terrified.
Like my wife was like, honey,when are we gonna have the talk?
I'm like, what talk?
(20:44):
You know, the birds and the I'mlike, no, not me or whatever.
You know, I was like resistingit, but then one night when I
was laying down, I thought aboutit.
I was like, if I don't talk tomy kids about sex, they're gonna
learn it from the internet.
A stranger would teach them.
And I had to ask myself, whowould I want to teach my son or
(21:04):
daughter about sex, me or astranger.
And so as a society, there'ssome folks that we, instead of
us talking to them, we actuallyjust bury our head in the sand
and turn the other way.
Well, guess what?
Donald Trump came and talked tothe very same people, and now
we're mad that what?
No.
(21:25):
Because we didn't talk to them,somebody else came and talked to
them about society and the illsor whatever.
We can't get mad at Trump.
We get we gotta get mad atourselves because we didn't be
we weren't bold enough to gobeyond people we were
comfortable with and have realconversations.
SPEAKER_02 (21:45):
So I want to w work from that.
And I and I actually think thethe example you used about your
your kids is is a powerful oneas well, right, within the home.
It's like what what what youwhat you've done in your
community really translates tohow do you have those
conversations to prevent harmcoming to your children, right?
Um in the first place.
And so a lot of the work thatyou've done to this point is
(22:06):
really about undoing harm,right?
That harm has already beencaused, whether it's because of
exclusionary policies, right, orthese reactive systems, as you
easily pointed out in the thekeynote.
Um how do how do you take thatthat poison pill, right, the
connectivity, the therelationship building that you
have have done in this work andmove it further upstream so that
(22:30):
we can prevent harm fromhappening in the first place?
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
Prior planning prevents fiscal performance.
How do we prevent harm fromhappening in the first place?
You know, so one of the things Italked about was first
understanding that thatnarrative is a blocker to
preventive action, right?
That because it it it it reducesthe level of empathy, right?
(23:00):
Or the desire to want to changesome things, right?
Because of this narrative thing.
How I I push it up, I I think isis is slowly just moving people
along and having people see, youknow, uh a reason to to love
(23:22):
someone, I s for lack of abetter word.
I think that, you know, I and Isaid it before that, you know, I
think the key is if we can getpeople to love who they what
they despise the most or or whothey hate the most, then they're
capable of loving everyone,right?
And so how are we slowly gettingpeople to love what they're
scared of, right?
Um you know, the guy thatcommits a crime, right?
(23:44):
Everybody's scared of Joe, bigJoe criminal, right?
But how do we get folks to seethe humanity in that little kid
that broke their car window inSan Francisco or whatever, you
know?
Uh, and see what that person wasgoing through, what led that
young man to actually pick upsomething and throw it and break
the window to steal whatever hehad to steal.
And then how do we now see oursons or ourselves in that
(24:08):
person, right?
And then from there now, howwould we want to be treated if
that was us or our sons?
Right?
Once we get there, we're good.
We're like at a good spotbecause now we're moving into
the policy piece.
We're moving into the the uhshifting the narrative and
dynamics piece.
And I think what's crucial isgetting them to understand what
(24:32):
the the issue is going on withthe individual, and then getting
them to see themselves in that,right?
Or someone who they love.
I'm gonna go back to mycampaign.
Let me tell you, remember I toldyou Florida is like tripolar.
You have like three differentsections of Florida.
They're in their own littleworld, right?
And one of the things that youlearn is that if you're running
(24:53):
a statewide campaign, you haveto tailor your messaging towards
the read in the region thatyou're gonna be messaging in,
right?
Whether you're gonna bemessaging in the conservative
northern part of Florida or themore progressive southern part
of Florida or that bipolar partin central Florida, you know,
maybe a mixture of some messagesthere, right?
None of that.
(25:14):
And a lot of communicationexperts were like, they could
not believe it.
I'm like, no way.
I'm like, listen, we polledsupermajority in every media,
major media market in the stateof Florida.
And none of our messagingvaried.
It was the same thing.
Right?
No matter where I went.
You ready for this?
This is part, this is just oneof the ingredients of the poison
(25:36):
pill, right?
I can't give you all theingredients.
You gotta buy the book, first ofall.
And then most of the ingredientsis in the book, but then the
other part is probably you mighthave to set up for what they
have, these new masterclasses orwhatever.
But let me tell you the poisonpill.
You ready?
Part of one of the ingredients.
Whenever I approach somebody,right?
(25:56):
First question I ask Do you knowanyone who you love who's ever
made a mistake?
I don't care what part of thestate I'm in.
And I used to have this shirtcalled Let My People Vote,
right?
It says Let My People Vote onit, right?
It's the title of my book.
And people like, you know, Ihave this guy coming, well,
(26:17):
who's your people?
You know, whatever, you know.
You got a cowboy comes up, like,well, what's your people, you
know?
And you think I say people withfelony convictions?
No.
You know what I say?
I say anybody who you love orcare about who's ever had a
felony conviction.
See the difference?
You see what I just did, right?
Do you know anyone who you lovewho's ever made a mistake?
(26:40):
Right?
So what I did there, right?
Well, number one, love, right?
Number two, it's somebody whoyou love that you're connected
to.
And it's not those people,right?
It's not about politics, it'snot even about the race.
It's about somebody who youlove.
And I that was the initial seedthat I planted.
(27:01):
That's that seed that's able toweather the attack ads or the
negative messaging that wetalked about, right?
And keep you focused in supportof this because at the base of
your decision-making process isthe image of someone who you
love or care about that needsthis.
SPEAKER_02 (27:20):
I know I know we're almost at time.
So I want to get some thoseingredients were were really
powerful.
And I and I think it would bepowerful again to offer all of
the people at this conferencethis week and anyone else who
might be listening who areadvocating for families, who are
in families' homes each andevery day, seeing the struggle
(27:43):
and trying to help themovercome.
I can imagine that there weresetbacks time and time again in
building this movement and doingthe work that you've done.
What advice would you give tothese folks who are listening
today when it comes toovercoming those setbacks?
What what what did you rely onto see the light at the end of
(28:05):
the tunnel when things werereally, really dark?
SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
So that's a trick question, right?
I'm gonna tell you why.
It's a standard question.
You know, how do you overcomethe setbacks and everything?
I'm here to tell you that therewasn't any.
The biggest challenges was notsetbacks.
The biggest challenges weregetting people to see what you
saw, what we saw.
(28:29):
The biggest challenges were toget people to stay the hell out
of the way, right?
And let the universe reallyguide the camp.
That was the biggest challengethat we faced, to be totally
honest with you.
Like I said, the whole time wewere bracing, preparing for the
onslaught.
This is gonna be a bloodbath,the attack acts are gonna come,
(28:52):
and we were like worried as hellbecause when you, for every
dollar that of uh that is spentto oppose whatever you're doing,
you've got to spend two to tryto negate the impact of that,
right?
And we're like, no way we'regonna, you know, and so we're
thinking that we're gonna get uhpushback from the courts because
the process is you collectpetitions, when you get to a
(29:12):
certain amount, the courts haveto approve it for it to even
say, okay, you now you could goin and collect the rest of them,
and then you when you collectthe rest of them, you gotta get
on the ballot, and then it'sjust so many different areas uh
uh opportunities for people toambush you and I mean all the
way up to election night.
And so, yeah, we were preparedfor all of that stuff, but we
(29:34):
never faced that.
We never did.
The thing the the hardestchannel was to get people to
believe that we can actually winsomething by actually letting
love be our driving force andnot we don't have to fight,
fight, fight, push back, yo,push back, fight, fight.
And no, it's not about it wasn'tabout the fight.
(29:54):
It was about really allowing theuniverse to actually work its
course.
And so the big challenge couldbe.
Is that when you don't seethings moving the way you think
it should move, how do you keepdisciplined enough to stay the
course?
That, you know what I'm saying?
How do we, you know, we may nothave like huge testimonials or
(30:17):
little bright spots every singleday, but man, let me tell you,
sometimes when it gets like, uhI talked about there were times
I wanted to quit.
What the hell?
Right?
It wasn't because of a setback,it just bec it was because it
was such an overwhelming task toaccomplish, right?
I I let my finite mind, right,just take control and didn't
(30:42):
think about the infinitepossibilities and the power of
the universe, right?
And sometimes I'm like, man,what am I doing it for?
And it doesn't seem like there'senough people.
I would go travel across thestate of Florida to a meeting
and there's only 10 peoplethere, right?
Or sometimes five people, man,uh I didn't have gas to get back
home.
You know, they would like, forreal.
(31:04):
How do you hold through when itseems like the rest of the world
is putting its importanceeverywhere else?
That's the thing, right?
How do you, like, even whenwe're talking about preventing
child abuse, and oh, it's not ait's not a hot button issue,
right?
And and money's not coming in,and people of foundations or
(31:25):
endowments are not supportingthis because they're doing
something else.
How do you hold true to thecourse?
How do you continue to lead withlove when you see your family
you've been working with justtake 10 steps back, right?
You don't give up.
You love your way through thisthing, right?
Understanding that the moment wegive up hope, the moment we stop
(31:47):
loving, that's the moment we'veaccepted defeat.
And we might as well just laydown and die, right?
But no, you just have to clingon to love and hope.
And uh like they said, um uh thespiritual folks earlier today,
that you have to also turn thatintention on yourself and make
(32:07):
sure that you're not, you know,um overwhelming yourself.
Right?
The advice I give is that, man,man, you live and enjoy life and
know that, man, if you'releading with love, you can never
go wrong.
SPEAKER_01 (32:20):
Desmond, thank you for sharing your story with us
and your wisdom with everyone atthe 2025 PCA America National
Conference.
We deeply appreciate it.
And for everyone listening,remember Shifting Systems starts
with shifting stories and thecourage to keep telling it until
it takes root.
It's been an incredible honor,and thank you again for sharing.
(32:43):
And you can invite upstreamsolutions into your feed by
subscribing to the shift voicesof prevention today.
Join us to create an ecosystemwhere children and families live
purposeful and happy lives withhope for the future.
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