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Recognizing Philadelphia as the host city for the TED Democracy Fireside Chats, a pioneering event series from TED and Visit Philadelphia that engages national thought leaders in critical discussions on the evolving role of democracy in our society leading up to America's 250th anniversary.
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WHEREAS, Visit Philadelphia, the region's official tourism marketing agency, hosted the second TED Democracy Fireside Chat, The Power of Participation on September 19th in partnership with TED, a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, aims to bring together thinkers, doers, and change-makers to address the challenges and possibilities facing democracy today; and
WHEREAS, Political commentator and community organizer Sally Kohn moderated a thought-provoking conversation between two of the nation's most influential voices for voting opportunity - Katie Fahey and Desmond Meade; and
WHEREAS, Katie Fahey, founder of Voters Not Politicians and current executive director of The People, began a grassroots, nonpartisan campaign that ran a successful effort to end gerrymandering in Michigan by amending the state constitution in 2018 with 61% of the vote; and
WHEREAS, Desmond Meade is a formerly homeless returning citizen who overcame many obstacles to eventually become president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition; chair of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, and a published author of "Let My People Vote"; and
WHEREAS, Meade led the successful passage for Amendment 4 that restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians and represented the single largest expansion of voting rights in the United States in half a century, bringing an end to 150 years of a Jim Crow-era law in Florida; and
WHEREAS, The event was hosted at Eastern State Penitentiary, with community members also encouraged to join remotely or in person via watch parties at satellite locations, including Crane Community Center hosted by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation and Tierra Co...
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