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Podcast: Catherine Read, mayor of Fairfax City, Va., is outspoken, unfiltered

Damian Cristodero — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 15:10:13 +0000

Podcast: Catherine Read, mayor of Fairfax City, Va., is outspoken, unfiltered Damian Cristodero Mon, 03/25/2024 - 11:10

Fairfax Mayor is outspoken, unfiltered

Catherine Read is the first woman and first �鶹��Ƶ graduate (BA government and politics ’84) to be mayor of Fairfax City, Va., the university’s hometown, and she isn’t shy about touting a university she says helped teach her how to think critically. Want to know why it’s good to “disrupt the system,” why it’s important to get more women into policy-making decisions, and why our educational system doesn’t reward bold ideas? Read tells you in this Women's History Month conversation with �鶹��Ƶ President Gregory Washington. She also is adamant that “if we can’t maintain democracy, if we can’t preserve our country’s rule of law, then all of these other things make zero difference.” This podcast was recorded on March 21.

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As I started out doing nonprofit advocacy work, I became aware that we did not have enough women around the table for good public policy. A lot of the problems and the issues that exist are because women are not in a position to create policies around, such as, universal pre-K or affordable quality childcare or paid family leave. And you have to ask yourself, why? And it's because women have not been at the table.”

^{~ Catherine S. Read, Mayor, City of Fairfax, Virginia}

Read the Transcript | Fairfax Mayor is outspoken, unfiltered

Narrator (00:04):

Gregory Washington (00:26):

�鶹��Ƶ is a school for groundbreakers and trailblazers from globally impactful research to creating lasting change locally and beyond. �鶹��Ƶ students, faculty, staff, and alumni put their stamps on their communities every day. With me today is one of those extraordinary alums, Catherine Reed. Class of 1984 with a bachelor's degree in government and politics is the first �鶹��Ƶ graduate and the first woman to be mayor of the city of Fairfax, Virginia, the university's hometown. Katherine has dedicated herself to serving and supporting the city and its people. She's a small business owner with a social media consultancy firm. She is a long-time host of Fairfax Public Access shows Inside Scoop, Your Need to Know and Making Change Radio. She is also dedicated to bringing the city of Fairfax and George �鶹��Ƶ into a closer partnership and that I can, so well, thank you for. I am so pleased she could be here during Women's History Month of all months to talk about the history she herself is making Catherine Read, welcome to the show.

Catherine Read (01:46):

Thank you so much for having me. It wasn't far to travel, actually, from City Hall to this radio station. Probably not even a mile.

Gregory Washington (01:54):

<laugh>. Hey. And that's the whole point, right? You are right here. You're right here with us in this community in George �鶹��Ƶ.

Catherine Read (02:02):

Well, it's interesting because when I was here, when I arrived in 1981, I moved into the first dormitory ever built. It opened on October 25th, 1981. Prior to that, there were no dormitories. There were the old student apartments, but there was no dormitories. And so that was one of the reasons I chose to come to George �鶹��Ƶ. That and the fact that it was in a suburb of Washington DC. I grew up in rural southwest Virginia.

Gregory Washington (02:25):

Yeah, I know you took one of my questions. This is fantastic. Well, let me, let's talk a little bit about things. You have a really interesting background. You have said that you're not a politician, and I can tell by your background why you would say that, but talk a little bit more about what you mean by that.

Catherine Read (02:42):

Well, being mayor was not really in my life plan. I mean, I do have a degree in government and politics and, and people have asked why I changed from being a theater major at Emerson College to being a government and politics major at �鶹��Ƶ. I had an interest in both. I mean, I was very politically aware in fifth grade. During the Nixon McGovern race, I asked my fifth grade teacher if I could do a bulletin board about the presidential race. And he was like, as long as you cover both candidates equally in fifth grade, I was politically aware. I watched the Watergate hearings, the summer of the Watergate hearings I can remember most clearly as yesterday. So even though I had a love for theater and thought that's what I wanted to do as a career, I've always had an interest in politics. But not necessarily as I got older, seeing myself in a political role. As I started out doing nonprofit advocacy work, I became aware that we did not have enough women in the rooms where decisions were being made.

Catherine Read (03:39):

There were not enough women around the table for good public policy. A lot of the problems and the issues that exist and still exist are because women are not in a position to create policies around like universal pre-K or affordable quality childcare. Or paid family leave. There's not even paid parental leave, maternity leave that doesn't exist in this country. And you have to ask yourself, why? And it's because women have not been at the table to make policies that benefit women and families. And so I became an advocate working with nonprofits, but also electing more women to public office. So I know a lot of women in this region who sit in positions of power like Phyllis Randall out Loudoun County. I knew Phyllis before she was running for the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Katie Cristol. She and I sat on panels before she was ever on the Arlington County Board. All of these women that I've worked with for over 15 years trying to figure out how we get women in the room where it happens. So I always saw myself in that role, not in the elected role, but being the person who helps women who see themselves in the elected role get into those seats.

Gregory Washington (04:52):

Well, we are dealing with a time in the US House where, what is it? I think it's up to 29% women now. So 128 out of the 440 members. You know, it's a high watermark, but not where we need to be.

Catherine Read (05:11):

No. In 2013, I remember working for women candidates in 2013. We were 47th in the United States for the percentage of women in our legislature. Virginia was very low. And that year, 24 women ran for office. In the journal assembly. 12 were incumbents, including Charniele Herring, who's also a �鶹��Ƶ alumna. That is true. Charnel was an incumbent in 2013, and there were 12 challengers and all 12 incumbents won, and all 12 challengers lost. When you look back and you think, well, 2013, that's just 11 years ago. Look how far we've come in 11 years from that to where we are now. You look in the House, you look in the Senate, you see women, you see women with babies. You see women who have given birth in office. You see women with school aged children. And that didn't exist a decade ago. It just didn't.

Gregory Washington (06:06):

So when you were elected in 2022, you became the first alum, as I said, and first woman to be mayor of Fairfax. Did that dawn on you? Were you thinking, look, I wanna be a trailblazer here?

Catherine Read (06:17):

You know, it was funny because somebody from the Washington Post said, are you running on being the first woman mayor? And I'm like, are you kidding me? Did you see how that worked out for Hillary? No. <laugh>, no. I don't talk about it at all because it's a double-edged sword. Right? People don't wanna hear about gender, even if it's a factual statement. People don't wanna hear about gender. They want you to make a case for why I should be elected based on my vision, my commitment, my background, my skillset. And same with being a George �鶹��Ƶ alumna. I mean, I did not talk about that, but I talk about it all the time now that I'm in office.

Gregory Washington (06:51):

Yeah, look, I see here what the City of Fairfax Women's History Month proclamation stated that there have been only 15 women elected to Fairfax City Council since 1961 and only two women ever elected to Virginia statewide office in the Commonwealth's 500-year history. Right? Yeah. We have a history of government here longer than, literally longer than the country's age. By a wide margin. mean, it's not even close. And we still have not had

Catherine Read (07:23):

Well, so we don't, we haven't had a

Gregory Washington (07:24):

Woman governor. Two elected officers, one of them is sitting in her seat right now.

Catherine Read (07:29):

Right now. So, there was a long time between Mary Sue Terry, who was attorney general in the late 1980s, and Winsome Earle-Sears, who's the current 42nd lieutenant governor, those are the only two in the 405 year history. It's been five centuries. We have the longest, continuously operating legislative body in the Western Hemisphere. And the fact that we as the Commonwealth of Virginia have not been able to elect a woman governor in five centuries, people should be asking themselves, it's not about the candidates. There are plenty of qualified women. So if it's not about the candidates, then we have to ask ourselves, is it about the voters? So I had an interesting conversation At a political event

Gregory Washington (08:09):

Okay, this is getting really interesting. Let's go

Catherine Read (08:12):

At a political event hosted by Gerry Connolly, which he does every St Patrick's Day, the holiest day of the year, according to Congressman Connolly. And he has a big event where, and it's all Democrats. And you know, I was talking about a potential ticket in 2025 of candidate for governor, lieutenant governor, and Commonwealth attorney, and a longtime friend of mine, someone who I just love and respect. She goes, well, we can't do that. I'm like, why? She goes, well, it's three women. I'm like, Judy, you did not just say that. Did you just say the Commonwealth of Virginia could not, would not, will not elect three women to the top offices 'cause that's what I just heard you say. She goes, well, yeah, I don't think that they could get elected. I'm like, wow. Wow. And wow. This is 2024. And you're telling me, I said, do you remember what Ruth Bader Ginsburg said when somebody asked how many women Supreme Court justices will be enough? And she said, when there are nine, because no one ever questioned the fact that we've had nine male Supreme Court justices. Why should anyone question if there are nine women? But I just had a long-time feminist activist woman say to me, oh, three women on a ticket. Oh, that won't work.

Gregory Washington (09:25):

You know, that's interesting that you bring that up. Not only is it commonplace for there to be only men on the ticket, it is clear that even some, I assume you're talking about a Democratic ticket. Yes, yes. That even some of the Democratic party would be uncomfortable with a ticket of all women. We have a saying, I'm an engineer. We have an old saying. Every system is designed to get the results it gets. If the system's giving you a certain result, that's because that's the way it was designed. Those are those results it was designed to give you, well, this is a primary example of that. This is exactly an outcome, that's a part of a system of which all of us are included that we produce even when we're not thinking about it. Those kinds of things have to be disrupted. They have to be changed. It's people like you that change 'em. So this is fantastic. I did not think we were gonna go in this direction. These questions are not on my card.

Catherine Read (10:23):

Well, that's okay. Because I under, I understand that you kind of a are freethinking, freewheeling, and I love that about you. It's kind of like that is true. Go where the conversation takes you. And you're right about disrupting systems. And it's kind of like, how was I the first woman mayor in 2022? Because it was the first time municipal elections were held in November instead of May. Historically, and this is part of the Virginia Constitution, and it's part of the Byrd Machine.

Gregory Washington (10:47):

Preach. Teach on this one. Go ahead.

Catherine Read (10:48):

Right. So every other year in May, 20% of registered voters voted. 20% of a hundred percent chose the mayor and city council since 1961. And I call that voter suppression. That's when I call it. When you have a system, to your point about what the system produces, when you have a system that consistently produces 20% or less over 60 years, then the system is working the way it was designed to work. So we had 15 women who were elected to city council over that period of 60 years. And there were many, many years where it was an all male city council and a male mayor. And that's what May elections produced. It produced a consistent constituency who decided that that is what they wanted their government to look like. So in 2022, when we moved to November, 59% of registered voters came out to vote, which meant two thirds of those voters had never voted for mayor and city council before.

Gregory Washington (11:46):

And you got a different outcome,

Catherine Read (11:47):

Different electorate, different outcome.

Gregory Washington (11:49):

Exactly. A different system.

Catherine Read (11:52):

Different system. <laugh>.

Gregory Washington (11:55):

Amazing. Amazing. So when did you feel as if you were making history?

Catherine Read (11:59):

You know, I didn't really. I do now, because it matters to young women who want representation. Like you can't be what you can't see. I have a Girl Scout troop that's coming to City Hall. This is interesting too, because Deepak Madala, who I worked with at Virginia Poverty Law Center, and he just reached out to me and said, my daughter's Girl Scout troop would like to come to city council and meet with you and take a tour of the City Hall. And I said, well, that would be wonderful. And then it's occurred to me, I've never seen Girl Scouts in City Hall. Boy Scouts come to do the Pledge of Allegiance. We got lots of Boy Scout troops that come to the meetings and they have for years. But to my memory, I've never seen a Girl Scout troop in City Hall. So I'm like, yes, absolutely. Bring them. And I said, and I will ask the women on staff to come down. It's gonna be late in the afternoon to come down so that these girls can see the different kinds of people, the different women who have jobs in government besides the mayor. We have a deputy city manager, the city registrar, uh, Asian American woman. We have so many women. And these girls need to see.

Gregory Washington (13:03):

That's exactly right. That's how you change the vision of the future. This is Women's History Month. Who are the women you look up to?

Catherine Read (13:11):

Greta Thunberg.

Gregory Washington (13:12):

That's interesting.

Catherine Read (13:13):

It is because I tell you, young people at a certain point in their lives don't understand that things aren't possible. Kids come into this world curious and they learn all the time. And they ask questions and they have bold ideas. But a lot of times our educational system doesn't always reward that. And so as time goes on, you start to realize that what gets rewarded is hitting benchmarks and achievements and checking off boxes. That is what is rewarded. And all your big bold ideas somehow are not something you start to believe in. But Greta Thunberg does. Greta Thunberg is like, I can change the world. There are young women out there that I think will go forward boldly without considering the fact that they could fail or consider the fact that it could be wasted effort, because it, that's not what is driving them.

Catherine Read (14:07):

What is driving her and what is driving a lot of young women is the fact that they see a problem that needs to be solved, like climate change. They feel an urgency that it needs to be solved now. And they don't doubt their ability to move the needle forward. And a lot of times you take criticism, I look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or even Nancy Pelosi, right? Two different generations. And those two women are not on really on the same page. But each of them has taken their fair share of criticism over what they have committed themselves to do in moving the needle forward in a way that they think serves the greater good.

Gregory Washington (14:45):

That's exactly right. And when time came to support one another, they did. Do you get what I'm saying?

Catherine Read (14:51):

Yes I do. And I think, and you know, and I heard Liz Cheney speak at the, uh, Richmond Forum like, uh, last month. And listening to Liz Cheney speak too, she was on the Rachel Maddow Show. That's another example of how two women who will tell you they don't agree on most things. RAnd yet Liz Cheney was on Rachel Maddow's show because what they do agree on is our country and our democracy comes first above partisanship, above politics. Because if we can't maintain democracy, if we can't preserve our country's rule of law, then all of these other things make zero difference.

Gregory Washington (15:27):

Yeah, I really like Liz Cheney. I saw her maybe about a year ago when she came, right before she was ousted. She came to DC to give a speech. And I happened to be able to meet her then. She's phenomenal.

Catherine Read (15:41):

She is. And, again, this is a woman who took a stand and got kicked out of her own party. But you have to admire women like that, right?

Gregory Washington (15:49):

She got kicked out of Congress.

Catherine Read (15:51):

<laugh> True. She got kicked outta Congress.

Gregory Washington (15:54):

She got kicked outta Congress. I don't think she got kicked outta her party.

Catherine Read (15:58):

Well, it'll be interesting to see what she does. I don't know what a path forward is for her, but she hasn't given up and she's using her influence in her platform to speak her truth.

Gregory Washington (16:07):

That's right. I love principled people who stand on right. And fight for what they believe in.

Catherine Read (16:13):

Me too.

Gregory Washington (16:14):

Yeah, so you've been in this job now, how long?

Catherine Read (16:17):

15 months. And I'm already running for reelection.

Gregory Washington (16:19):

Okay, well look, that's the nature of the beast, right?

Catherine Read (16:22):

Uh, every, every other year. Yes.

Gregory Washington (16:23):

That’s right. So 15 months, is the job what you thought it would be?

Catherine Read (16:27):

Some of it, but no. First of all, people are like, well, it's a part-time job, right? I'm like, no, it's 365 days a year, 24/7. And a lot of that is because of email, social media and smartphones. Sometimes I think about former mayor John �鶹��Ƶ, who was the longest serving mayor from 1990 to 2002. He recently passed away. And I'm thinking John �鶹��Ƶ probably got up when he was mayor on a Sunday and read The Washington Post. I get up every single morning and look at my work email. I look at my smartphone and I see what text messages and what emails have come in. And

Gregory Washington (17:01):

From the night before,

Catherine Read (17:02):

From the night before and overnight.

Gregory Washington (17:04):

While you were sleeping.

Catherine Read (17:04):

Well, yeah. And I sit on regional committees too, so I really didn't understand that part of it. I sit on the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which meets once a month. The national, I mean the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, and the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. That is four monthly meetings a month. Right. But it's important because we are a region. And I'm committed to doing that work. But again, there is so much to this, it's not a part-time job. A podcast I really like a lot is Pod Virginia, Michael Pope and Lauren Burke do a twice a week podcast. And they, it is all Virginia politics. But one of the things on Tuesday's episode that they were talking about is what the House of Delegates gets paid.

Gregory Washington (17:48):

Oh, that's ridiculous.

Catherine Read (17:49):

Well, $18,000 a year. But they're a part-time legislature, right?

Gregory Washington (17:53):

Yeah. But it's not true.

Catherine Read (17:54):

It's not. And so they were talking about the fact that, again, we were talking about is it the candidate or is it the voters? But in this particular case, is it the fact that these people don't deserve to be paid a living wage or a fair wage? Or is it the fact that people just believe that this is some sort of volunteer job and we're just honored to do it, but it's an equity issue. I can do this job. I don't do, people are like, do you have a day job? I'm like, well, I used to do many things that I don't do anymore. I do the mayor job every day, every week. That's right. I'm on all the time. And I said, so this is not a part-time job, but it pays $13,000 a year. So if I had to pay my mortgage with what I make as mayor, it wouldn't work.

Gregory Washington (18:36):

That's exactly right. And that's why you have people of substantial means being the ones that run for office, because they are the ones who can afford to.

Catherine Read (18:45):

And it's not representative government. So we need to care about that.

Gregory Washington (18:49):

We are getting deep.

Catherine Read (18:49):

Well, we have to. You know, I got a great education. I got a great education at �鶹��Ƶ.

Gregory Washington (18:54):

You know what? I was about to say the same thing. Boy, those George �鶹��Ƶ professors have indoctrinated you well.

Catherine Read (19:01):

They taught me to question everything and to look deeply into government <laugh>. But I do think

Gregory Washington (19:05):

This is amazing. I gotta pinch myself a little bit. So let me back up and see if I could get us back on track here. I was asking you about role models is how we got on this one, right? Let me ask you one more question in, in, in this segment and then move on. If you could sit down with any woman in history, any woman, who would it be and what would you wanna know from her?

Catherine Read (19:25):

It would be Eleanor Roosevelt. It would be Eleanor Roosevelt. You know, the more I learn about history, the more I admire that woman. And just when you think you know everything about somebody, you find out something else.

Gregory Washington (19:38):

Nice.

Catherine Read (19:39):

Like the Golden 13, I asked an American Legion full of veterans if they knew who the Golden 13 had ever heard of the Golden 13. And no one had. It is the first 13 Black naval officers that were trained during World War II in 1943. And they were called the Golden 13. And they didn't even know why they were selected. They went through a three-month training program in 10 weeks. They did so well that they were accused of cheating and had to take some of those tests over again, which they passed. But this was because of Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt is the one who pushed for training Black naval officers. The USS �鶹��Ƶ, which is over there fighting off Somali pirates, when I heard something about the USS �鶹��Ƶ, I remembered from the book the Golden 13, that that ship was built in commissioned during World War II because it was going to have an all Black crew. And they called the USS �鶹��Ƶ Eleanor’s Folly. This is why, no matter how much we think we know about history, there is so much more to know. And I would love to know what Eleanor knew and all the things that she was behind that no one knows

Gregory Washington (20:47):

<laugh>. Catherine, can I ask you a question? Can I, can I <laugh> You are hitting me with zingers, man. Wow. This is fantastic. Okay, look, let's back up a little bit and talk about your time as a student at �鶹��Ƶ. You said earlier from Southwest Virginia came to �鶹��Ƶ from Emerson College where you were a theater major. So how do you make that flip? How do you go from being a theater major in Boston to a government and politics major at �鶹��Ƶ? That's a flip

Catherine Read (21:18):

It is. It is. But like I said, I'd always had a deep interest in both. And when I realized theater was probably not a good career choice. And I have to tell you, I'd never been off the farm when I went to Emerson. I went to Emerson College in 1980 on a Greyhound bus with a steamer trunk and electric typewriter and $20 in cash and a work study job and a Pell Grant and a lot of scholarship. I had the International Thespian Society Scholarship, the Elizabeth Taylor Warner Scholarship for the Dramatic Arts had all this one-time money and a grant from the school. But I'd never been to Boston. I'd never seen the school. So I get on this Greyhound bus leaving Roanoke. 15 hours changed buses at Port Authority in New York. I loved every single second of my time in Boston. Loved it.

Gregory Washington (22:02):

Boston is a great university town.

Catherine Read (22:06):

It is. Oh, it's oh, every, yes. Every so many schools we used go to them.

Gregory Washington (22:08):

Don't let, don't let anybody fool you.

Catherine Read (22:10):

Yeah. $1 movies at MIT and we prayed they didn't check student IDs. So we would go over there and watch first run movies at MIT. But I realized that the kids who were there, it was a small school because it had about 1500 undergraduates. And George �鶹��Ƶ was the same size.

Gregory Washington (22:26):

We're not the same size now.

Catherine Read (22:27):

Not anymore, right? <laugh>. And so in 1980, �鶹��Ƶ literally had the number one debate team in the nation. Their forensics team just knocked everyone out. And I had never heard of George �鶹��Ƶ, even though I lived in Virginia my entire life. I'd never heard of this school. And so when I decided I couldn't afford to stay at Emerson and that theater was not a good career choice by which to have an independent life, I started looking at George �鶹��Ƶ strictly because of my interaction with the �鶹��Ƶ forensics team. And so I ended up applying to �鶹��Ƶ.

Gregory Washington (22:57):

Did you tell them that? That is something that they should know, by the way. Fantastic. Fantastic.

Catherine Read (23:02):

Yeah. I mean, I was on the forensics team in high school, but the funny thing is, once I got here, I had a work study job. I had a series of work study jobs here on campus and I ended up not joining the forensics team. Like I didn't do forensics at �鶹��Ƶ, even though that's what brought me here. But I did get a great education working my on campus jobs. And I will tell you this, I learned as much working jobs at �鶹��Ƶ as I did in the classroom. Absolutely. I mean, you interact with staff and faculty in a different way. I was doing data entry for the chair of the American Studies Department, and we are still friends all this time later, Hans Bergman and I are still friends, still talk to each other over LinkedIn. And I worked in the copy center at Thompson Hall binding reports and hot gluing things.

Catherine Read (23:47):

And that was one of my work study jobs. I was a desk receptionist at the dorm. That was one of my work study jobs. And you know, I worked my way through school. And I will tell you �鶹��Ƶ at that time was attractive for a lot of reasons. But I could afford to go here. I could afford to work my way through school. I had student loans, but it didn't take me 20 years to pay off my student loans. It took me probably five years to pay off my student loans. And I think the cost of public education is so prohibitive now. Young people are discouraged from even considering a four-year college degree because they don't want to start out life with a degree and $20,000, $40,000 in student loans and no guarantee that that degree is gonna get them a job to even pay off their loans. You know, young people really have very tough choices to make. But �鶹��Ƶ is still a school and it's got many accolades. It's a research school, it's world renowned, but it's still a school where more students can afford to go and get a world class education, not for world class tuition. That is the legacy.

Gregory Washington (24:52):

That's my tagline right there. I'm gonna take it. I am going to use it. That is fantastic. That's exactly what we are and who we are. And not only that, we find you, no matter where you are. We're that place of opportunity. We are that place of access. We are that place where if you want to become a success, we'll provide a pathway for you. We will work with you to figure it out. And that is probably the most attractive thing about this place. So at some point in time, something had to flip in your mind to say, I wanna do politics, right?

Catherine Read (25:28):

Well, okay, I'll tell you what that was. I reinvent myself every seven years. So I had a career.

Gregory Washington (25:32):

Is this on purpose or it just happens every seven years? It's like it happens. It’s like the itch thing?

Catherine Read (25:37):

It just happens. It’s an itch thing. So my first job out of George �鶹��Ƶ was actually, I got a job as a software tester on a Navy payroll personnel project for the Navy through a government contractor. And it's 'cause I had computer experience. Computers were very new in the early eighties. And so if you had computer experience, you could get a job. It wasn't in my major, but it, it was a job that paid decent money. I worked in the data processing industry and then I decided to take a job in human resources. So I was in human resource for seven and a half years for Long and Foster local real estate company. And then I was a small business owner with my second husband. We opened a fax company back. Remember fax machines? There's some kids who couldn't even tell you what one does, but yeah, it was back with

Gregory Washington (26:20):

No you, you still see them around on desk desk and many offices around here. When they come on, people are like, well, well what is that?

Catherine Read (26:27):

But it, but back when, when fax was new in law firms and hospitals relied on fax machines. That was a going business. So Fax World was a business I co-owned. I did the bookkeeping, I ran the service techs, I did all the things in a small business. And then I ran a program called Home Service Connections for Long and Foster. And that was in the early 2000s. And then I had a business mentor who suggested to me in 2007 that these 18,000 real estate agents didn't know how to market themselves online. So think about 2005, 2006, there was no social media. It was called online marketing. Social media wasn't even a term. And so you've got 18,000 independent contractors who still use business cards and telephone to market themselves. And so he suggested to me, he goes, you should start your own business teaching professional people how to use these online tools. And so I did, in 2007, I started Creative Read and I started teaching people how to use Facebook and Twitter, which, you know, people are like. And this is political people too. This is one of the, how, one of the doorways I walked into politics and I know so many people in politics. I got Mark Keam on Twitter. He's like, Catherine,

Gregory Washington (27:39):

Mark Keam?

Catherine Read (27:39):

Mark Keam. I got him on Twitter. He's like, Catherine, it's so stupid. I'm like, mark, you have to be where the people are having a conversation. They're trying to talk to you and they're definitely talking about you. And so got Mark Keam on Twitter back when he first ran in 2009. So I started teaching people how to use social media, how to use online tools. I was doing that as my own business starting in 2007. But then that led me to nonprofits. Then all of a sudden, word of mouth, the Virginia Autism Project, how can we use social media to get autism insurance reform? Then I got Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. How can we social media to abolish the death penalty in Virginia?

Gregory Washington (28:19):

Oh, okay. I see what's happening.

Catherine Read (28:20):

So this is how I pivoted to that. So this every seven years thing is just, this is just where life led me, I guess. I see opportunity and I'm like, there's an opportunity there. And I take it.

Gregory Washington (28:31):

Ain't nothing wrong with that. So one of your goals, one of your major goals since taking office has been to expand the partnership between Fairfax and Georgia �鶹��Ƶ University. And one thing you've done to do that, to personify that, is hosting the first ever Fairfax Pride event, which was a collaboration, which is a collaboration between your office and �鶹��Ƶ's LGBTQ+ Resource Center. And so can you talk a little bit about what was your vision for that event? How it got started?

Catherine Read (29:03):

So Josh Kinchen invited me to the �鶹��Ƶ Pride event, which I came to last April. And I'm coming to on March the 30th this year is, is the pride event here. And they were very generous. I mean, they introduced me not only as the first woman mayor of Fairfax City and the fact that I was a �鶹��Ƶ alumni. Lots of applause, lots of applause. But the night of my election, we had our thank you party. I didn't call it a victory party 'cause I didn't know if I was gonna win, right? But we had it at what was then the Earp’s Ordinary Popup on the plaza in Fairfax City. It's now McKenzie's Tonics and Tunes. And I said to Josh, I'd like to have all of my volunteers and my campaign workers come for an event. And he goes, well, what time would that be?

Catherine Read (29:44):

Because we have a drag show that's gonna be Tuesday night. And I'm like, really? What time's the drag show starting? And he goes, it starts about nine. And I said, well, I'd still like to have my event. Is there any way that we can just stay for the drag show? And he goes, well, there's a cover charge. And I said, well, can I cover the cover charge? He goes, well, lemme talk to Alan. So long story short, not only am I the first woman mayor, first �鶹��Ƶ alumni, first mayor who's never served on city council. I'm the first mayor who had a drag show at my election night party. Okay. So I think that pretty much says it all. So all this is

Gregory Washington (30:15):

You Trailblazin’.

Catherine Read (30:16):

So this was relayed at the Pride event last year at �鶹��Ƶ. And so recognizing, and again, I I was on the, the Board of Equality Virginia for seven years too. Recognizing we have to celebrate, recognize, celebrate, uplift, support, protect every single person in our community. And that means the LGBTQ community too.

Gregory Washington (30:37):

Without question, without question. So you clearly know how to build partnerships. You've been doing it your whole career, you've done it with us. What are some ways in which students can get involved with the city, can help the city, can engage the city.

Catherine Read (30:52):

Your, your students are already there. A lot of them are already there. The women's basketball team and the men's baseball team are volunteers at our Providence Elementary School. And I think we have athletes who volunteer at Daniels Run Elementary School. There's a lot of students, �鶹��Ƶ students who live in the city. They live in the city and not just at the Flats at University. They rent houses that are in our neighborhoods. And so they're very much a, a part of the fabric of the city. But we have park cleanups that they come to. We have all kinds of events downtown, like the Fall Festival. And I just wanna mention this too, about partnerships Fall for the Book is a super important partnership that we have with �鶹��Ƶ. Ollie, the OSHA Lifelong Learning Institute, which is in the city. Very much a partnership and, um, Spotlight on the Arts, uh, a partnership between the city and the university.

Catherine Read (31:40):

These are longstanding partnerships that bring our residents together with students, faculty, and bring visitors in from outside of the city to take advantage of these things that we produce together as a collaboration. But, uh, as far as students, we have reached out to the Climate Center, which is, we are very excited that the Virginia Climate Center is located here. You know, we have environmental issues in the city. Kate Doyle Feingold, who sits on our city council, her dissertation advisor, Kate contacted her and she's working with our police department to help us to analyze data, public safety data. Um, I've just reached out to Dean Perry of your College of Public Health.

Gregory Washington (32:21):

She's fantastic.

Catherine Read (32:22):

Well, I, because we have a homelessness task force.

Gregory Washington (32:24):

She is fantastic.

Catherine Read (32:26):

And one of the things we have not included is part of our homelessness task force is public health issues and how we address public health issues as part of what we're trying to do for people who are unhoused in the city. So I just reached out to Dean Perry to see, you know, how can we work? So there are so many opportunities for students to get involved. Using our city is basically a way to get clinical experience. Again, I'll bring up �鶹��Ƶ's Community Mental Health Center, which is also in the city, Behavioral Health Center. You've got students getting their clinical hours right here in our city providing mental health services to our residents. And the school of business. I can't even, how could I forget? The Costello Business School is, we've got one of your faculty members that sits on the Economic Development Authority for the city of Fairfax, Patrick Soleymani. And we are glad to have him.

Gregory Washington (33:14):

He’s a good guy.

Catherine Read (33:15):

But we've got students who are working on a, a retail assessment for a parcel of land that's being redeveloped in the city. And we've got students who are working on what that could look like through the business school. We welcome partnerships like that where students get real experience and we benefit from the faculty members in the programs and the disciplines here at the university.

Gregory Washington (33:38):

So for 10 years before you became mayor, your focus was on legislative advocacy work. If you, you just highlighted mostly with nonprofits and you had some big victories, right? Uh, the Virginia Autism Project lobby for autism insurance reform that when it passed in 2011, required insurance companies to provide medically necessary behavioral therapy. They, they were not doing it before then. You also helped the Virginia Alliance for Breastfeeding successfully push for a new 2015 law that allows mothers to breastfeed their children anywhere the mother is lawfully present. So talk to us a little bit about focusing your efforts on Fairfax relative to focusing your efforts on the larger picture items.

Catherine Read (34:29):

Yeah, well, you know, there's a lot of crossover. I think one of the things we're waiting for right now is when you talk about advocacy and how state issues can impact local issues, we have to renovate our schools soon. It's been 20 years. And so we're gonna have a bond referendum on our ballot in November. But there's a 1% sales tax that both chambers passed that would allow locality, every locality to have a 1% sales tax specifically for education. Yeah. But will the governor sign it?

Gregory Washington (34:59):

Is it K-12?

Catherine Read (35:00):

It’s K-12. I know I would, I wish it was for you too. I wish it was for you too, but it's a 1% sales tax for K through 12. And, but we don't know if the governor's gonna sign it. But those are the kinds of things where it matters. And we advocate as a local government, as a municipal government. And a lot of that advocacy is done through the Virginia Municipal League too. Because getting that ability to have a 1% tax in addition to a bond referendum, to fund this major school innovation really makes a difference for us. And again, we're a Dillon Rule state, and people don't understand that too. There's a lot of things we can't do as a locality without asking permission from the General Assembly. We can't change our charter. Almost everything we do is a locality. It has to be approved by the General Assembly and then signed off on by the governor because we're a Dillon Rule state, and not every state operates that way. A lot of states have home rule, and we don't.

Gregory Washington (35:49):

I'm gonna have to look up this Dillon Rule.

Catherine Read (35:50):

Well, I tell you, I got a good education, �鶹��Ƶ. Did I mention that?

Gregory Washington (35:53):

You got a great education at �鶹��Ƶ.

Catherine Read (35:54):

I learned all the things.

Gregory Washington (35:55):

And we are seeing the evidence right now. Among the many roles that you've had, you've hosted this Fairfax Public Access, these shows Inside Scoop, Your Need to Know and Making Change Radio. What's the genesis for these shows?

Catherine Read (36:11):

So I fell into it as somebody else had been hosting Inside Scoop, and she had family issues. Her sister and mother were ill in upstate New York. And so I started filling in for her. And I didn't have any broadcast experience. I might've been a theater major, but no broadcast journalism experience whatsoever. And this is live television. This was a one-hour live television show. Yeah. I'm in the host seat and I'm just learning as I go. I will tell you this, I am good at learning as I go. Like I learn on the job and it's fine. So I started being in the host seat. And what I found is that people were trying to do important things, policy-wise, like decoding dyslexia, parents who were trying to get resources for their dyslexic children in the public school system. I mean, at that time, back in 2015, Fairfax County didn't even have a reading specialist in an administrative role to test kids for dyslexia.

Catherine Read (37:00):

A lot of parents felt like they were setting kids up to fail before they got help. So having a show where you could get these parents on air to talk about what the challenges were, what they were asking for, it presented it in a different way. And not only were the shows broadcast on television, but they go out on YouTube. Which means that all of these groups could send it out by email. They could embed it on their website and it would present what they were trying to do in a different way. So for me, the shows were just an extension of this nonprofit advocacy work. How do we help people understand the problems you're trying to solve with your nonprofit? And doing it in a interview format was just helpful. It's better than trying to read an assessment. It's like somebody hand you a brochure or a one pager about what they're doing. It's not the same thing as talking to somebody who has some basis of knowledge and who's really interested in what you're doing. So people would say to me, I've never been on television before. I'm so nervous. I'm like, all you have to do is look at me. We are having a conversation. And the reason these shows work is because I am interested and you are passionate.

Gregory Washington (38:05):

You talked a little bit about the new voter turnout, right? And how that new voter turnout changed the election in your case. I surmise for years of just 20% of the population showing up for these elections, there were probably some things that were undone or some opportunities missed. Really core kinds of things that we were not able to do as a community. Have you thought about what happens to a community when constituents really don't take part in elections, right? Because we had that over a period of time.

Catherine Read (38:40):

Well, this is sort of my assessment of the 20%, the 20% who tend to turn out were a demographic, older, educated White property owners.

Gregory Washington (38:51):

Okay. And I know what the outcome of that was.

Catherine Read (38:54):

Right? And so you have a government that reflects the electorate, but you also have a government then who recognizes that the constituency to whom you feel you are answerable are the 20% who come out reliably every other May. So when people look at Fairfax City, and we are a bit on the conservative side to be in such a progressive region, and our citizens tend to be progressive. I have a member on my city council right now, Jeff Greenfield, and I forget, but he served for 22 years. He took four years off, but he's been on there for 22 years on the city council. And so there was basically a lot of consistency. There was not a lot of turnover. Generally, you stayed in your seat and got reelected every time until you decided to step down or retire. And that might have led to some stability in the government, which is good.

Catherine Read (39:46):

But it also led to sort of this mindset about what the community valued. And so I was in a meeting with Fairfax County not too long ago, and somebody said, I'm a 2012 graduate of �鶹��Ƶ, and I lived on the campus. And he said, and I didn't feel like the city really welcomed us being there. And I said, well, that is not your imagination. I said, one of my good friends pointed out that until recently, there were not streetlights on the sidewalk from the downtown to the campus, right? So subtle things that make you feel not welcome.

Gregory Washington (40:25):

You know, every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. And so you don't want those folk in your establishments and in the downtown you develop systems to keep those kind of things from happening. You, you develop covenants so that you can only have a certain number of people in an apartment, right? That would discourage students from getting apartments together, right? You have all of these kinds of things.

Catherine Read (40:54):

I like your systems thinking. If you think about the, the fact the university is like 52 years old and the city gave land to the state for the university, but it was a commuter school. So people were like, we should have a university. A university is a good idea. Yeah. A university that would be a good idea. But then suddenly it's like, but we don't wanna be a college town. We don't wanna be Charlottesville. Like, that's not what we had in mind. So you go do your university over here, but we want Mayberry over here. And Mayberry did not have college students in it. We're at an inflection point. I'm a different kind of mayor, you know, I have a different vision. I do. And I think that the relationships between the university and the city benefit both. And it's not like we don't have a say in how that looks or how it feels. We can build parameters. I don't necessarily want a hundred tipsy college students in the middle of downtown on a Tuesday night. But honestly, we don't have that. And I don't even see that that will ever be a thing. When the Flats at University was proposed, people just, it's gonna be like a frat house. People really believed it was just gonna be noise and kids and cars, and you know something, none of that has happened.

Gregory Washington (42:07):

Right.

Catherine Read (42:08):

They brought energy feet on the street. It is great to be in the downtown with people.

Gregory Washington (42:13):

It's helping. And it's helping business

Catherine Read (42:14):

A hundred percent.

Gregory Washington (42:15):

And businesses are now coming back and that helps the tax base. Which helps the resource base, which provides more amenities. Right. It's a virtuous cycle.

Catherine Read (42:25):

It is. It is, and I love it.

Gregory Washington (42:25):

You hit the nail right on the head and we're seeing some pushback from some members about cricket. And I believe it's the same thing about our cricket baseball stadium, right? No one pushes back against the baseball side of that, but the cricket side of that, what is cricket, what does it mean? I know it's gonna bring a whole new community of people to this area and the ultimate beneficiary will be the city of Fairfax.

Catherine Read (42:54):

I agree. You know, and I think people don't understand cricket. And even though people are like, no, that's not it. That's not it. I'm like, but it is it. It's kind of like if there's nothing in it for you; you can see yourself going to a baseball game at �鶹��Ƶ. But it's like cricket, what is it? Who plays it? I don't know anything about it. So why would I go there? And so when there was a,

Gregory Washington (43:14):

Until you actually wind up going and saying, huh, this is actually pretty cool.

Catherine Read (43:18):

Pretty interesting, right? And it's family friendly. And I think that's the other thing that the owner of the Washington Freedom, he did a good job on the town hall meeting explaining the fact that it's a family friendly game. They've modified it so it doesn't take three days to play a match anymore. <laugh>, it's a T20 three-to-four-hour model. And it's early in the evening. Yeah, it's early in the evening, the afternoon. So it, it doesn't go till 11 or 12 o'clock at night like a Nationals baseball game.

Gregory Washington (43:42):

Exactly.

Catherine Read (43:43):

Again, people just don't like change and they don't like things that are unfamiliar. But to me, the Cricket Stadium is a reflection of the diversity of this university in this region. I know so many people who play cricket and when you travel the world, you run into people. When we were Warsaw, Poland, which is where our grandchildren are. There was an Uber driver who's married to a Polish national, he's from India, and he was showing us pictures on his phone of the cricket pitches in Warsaw, Poland. This is a beloved international sport and we have an opportunity and I think it's an amazing opportunity here.

Gregory Washington (44:16):

Well, you know what, I really appreciate it 'cause hearing this is energizing in terms of what we've been dealing with today with cricket. So it's really interesting. This is fantastic. You have <laugh>, you have put it down, and I really, really appreciate you for it. And so we're gonna have to leave it there. Mayor Catherine Read, thank you for your time and most importantly for your leadership. I will tell you right now today that your George �鶹��Ƶ degree, has never been worth more than it is today. I am �鶹��Ƶ President Gregory Washington saying, until next time, stay safe, �鶹��Ƶ Nation.

Narrator (45:04):

In This Story

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Podcast: A view from the pulpit

Damian Cristodero — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 19:06:45 +0000

Podcast: A view from the pulpit Damian Cristodero Fri, 02/16/2024 - 14:06

A view from the pulpit

Rev. Jeffery Johnson, pastor at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Fairfax, Virginia, and Dr. Vernon Walton, pastor at First Baptist Church in Vienna, Virginia, guide us through some of the history and aspirations of the Black community using the lens of Black and African American History Month. The pastors, both of whom have �鶹��Ƶ students and alumni in their congregations, also examine with �鶹��Ƶ President Gregory Washington the unique, but intertwined, roles the university and churches can play to confront issues such as affordable housing, food insecurity and equitable healthcare.

^{I believe wholeheartedly in scripture, where it says to whom much is given much is required. And our responsibility is not just to sit on our stools of do-nothingness and enjoy our own success, because, if that is the case, then we are guilty as well of just relishing in our own privilege. But our responsibility is to reach out to those who are marginalized, to reach out to those who have not had the benefit of the same level of access, for whatever the reasons are. And to help lift the tide.” ~ Dr. Vernon Walton, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Vienna, Virginia}

Listen to this episode

Read the Transcript | A View from the Pulpit

Narrator (00:04):

Gregory Washington (00:27):

Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Fairfax, Virginia was established on May 15th, 1870 by former slaves who settled around the area of the Fairfax Courthouse after the Civil War. It is the first and only Black-founded church in the city. It is located less than a half mile from the �鶹��Ƶ campus. The First Baptist Church of Vienna, Virginia was established in 1867 and was also organized by former slaves. It is the first and oldest church of any kind in Vienna. It's located six miles away from the campus. I am honored to have the leaders of those congregations here with me today. They serve our students, our faculty, our staff, and they serve them incredibly well. And so on this early stage of Black History Month, I just felt fantastic that they were able to engage with us and speak with us today. Reverend Jeffery Johnson has led Mount Calvary since 2004. Dr. Vernon Walton has led First Baptist of Vienna since 2014. Both have put their stamps on their communities and have relationships with �鶹��Ƶ that go beyond their church's proximity to our campus. Rev. Johnson. Dr. Walton, it is good to see both of you and welcome to the show.

Vernon Walton (02:01):

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for having us. (Jeffery Johnson) Yes, indeed.

Gregory Washington (02:05):

Well, Rev. Johnson, I know your son Jeffery has a degree from �鶹��Ƶ in graphic design, so I hope that it served him well. And Dr. Walton, you have had the �鶹��Ƶ Chorale sing at your church and have �鶹��Ƶ graduates on your staff. So both of you, how does the legacy of your churches, both of which are founded by former slaves, inform your work and the mission of your churches?

Jeffery Johnson (02:36):

Let me defer to Dr. Walton.

Vernon Walton (02:38):

Well, thank you. Thank you brother, brother Pastor again. Dr. Washington, thank you for having us. I'm honored to be here, talk about our work and our mission and our legacy, and certainly the celebration of Black and African American History Month. We really recognize that as a church, we stand on the shoulders of those who've gone before us. We celebrate really the strength and the capacity of those, those slaves who literally built out churches from the ground. And when I say built our churches from the ground, I'm not just specifically talking about the brick and mortar, but I'm talking about those who really worked and labored hard to build a community, to build a sense of belonging. And we recognize their intent. Years ago, 156 years ago, specifically for First Baptist, their intent in building a congregation was to inform people about their faith as well as to educate our children and community in a academic manner. And so we recognize those shoulders that we stand on and we continue that work and that mission today

Jeffery Johnson (03:42):

Yes. As well, the Mount Calvary Baptist Church, being that it was established May of 1870 by individuals, just like with First Baptist Vienna, we are known as the historical church with the biblical mandate. That biblical mandate comes from Ephesians chapter four, verse 12, that we are about the perfecting of the saints, the work of ministry, and the edifying, which is an old word that means to build up of the body of Christ. We're proud to be in this community with �鶹��Ƶ. Not only has Jeffery Junior graduated with honors from this school, he went on, uh, Dr. Washington to enroll in the Howard University Law School and is now a civil rights attorney, and he's currently working for the Veterans Administration.

Gregory Washington (04:35):

Okay. That's all right. How well do your congregations know each other? Like is there a rivalry? Is there any type of, you know, you're not that far apart and I know how churches go. What is the engagement like between the two congregations?

Vernon Walton (04:52):

Well, I wouldn't call it rivalry President Washington, but I, I would say that if you go into most of the black churches within Fairfax County, there is certainly an interconnectedness between the congregations. There are relatives throughout each of these congregations. The pastors enjoy great relationships and fellowship, and whenever possible, we attempt to collaborate together to work for the betterment of people.

Jeffery Johnson (05:18):

Yes. And many years ago, I was one of the youngest assistant pastors in Northern Virginia at the Peace Baptist Church and Peace Baptist, Mount Calvary and other congregations like Mount Olive for Centerville, had very close relationships. As a 22-year-old Baptist preacher, I used to cruise throughout Northern Virginia in a 1965 Dodge Dart convertible. And I used to worship at the old, uh, sanctuary, not only of Mount Calvary, but of First Baptist Vienna. And we are very proud of the work that Dr. Walton is doing in the city of Vienna. We are trying to do the same type of work in the city of Fairfax.

Vernon Walton (06:07):

I'll just also add President Washington, that one of the founding pastors of First Baptist is also listed as a founding pastor of at least three or four other congregations in Fairfax County. So the river runs deep.

Gregory Washington (06:23):

Outstanding. Outstanding. So, uh, Reverend Johnson, Mount Calvary, when it was founded, was known as the Colored Baptist Church. And prior to its founding, slaves attended churches of their masters. In addition, both of your communities, both Fairfax and Vienna, were segregated at one time. And I believe the last black enclave in Fairfax City on School Street really actually sat right next to �鶹��Ƶ. And so what effect did the, the dissolution and the, the breakup of the strictly black communities have on the churches themselves. Did that impact you all significantly?

Jeffery Johnson (07:04):

It definitely affected us at the Mount Calvary Baptist Church, still driving that classic automobile throughout Northern Virginia. I used to come to School Street and I actually saw visually young black children and sometimes with their parents walking to the Mount Calvary Baptist Church. You could actually drive up and down School Street, and there was a series of houses, not all, but there was a series of houses that you could just park in front of the house or in the, the residential yard of that homeowner. And the front door was never locked. You could just walk right in. And there was a very gentle, yet powerful Christian woman by the name of Mabel Colbert, and she had quite a few children and grandchildren, and it was her personal ministry to make sure that they were involved in the various ministries and activities of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church.

Gregory Washington (08:03):

So Dr. Walton, I don't know if you've heard this quote from the actor Morgan Freeman, who recently on, uh, no, not too recently, but not too long ago, on 60 Minutes in which he says Black History Month keeps racism alive. And in that interview he says, you're going to relegate my history to a month. Black history is American history. I definitely agree with the last part of that statement. How do you, how do you react to that?

Vernon Walton (08:28):

Before I react to that, can I just go back to your last question? Just for a minute, because First Baptist, like Mount Calvary has experienced some of the same thing, but I think it's also safe to say that wherever there is a African American church in Fairfax County, you could make the assumption that there was an African American community. Clearly, as you peruse through the county today, things have changed. My question is perhaps why the disruption of these communities and what led to the disruption of these communities? You know, in some places today, we call it gentrification. But very similarly, First Baptist was very much a community church, was very much a rural community church and enjoyed its membership living and occupying space in that community. Whereas at one time, there was 80% Vienna, 20% commuting.

Vernon Walton (09:23):

We are probably just the opposite today. 80% commuting and 20% in the community within miles from the local church. And I think that's significant for us to mention because where the church existed, there was a Black community, there was Black home ownership, and there was Black economics. And so there's been a real disruption in that system. (Gregory Washington) So were there Black businesses in those communities and the like? (Vernon Walton) Absolutely. Absolutely. There were, there were plenty of Black businesses. Many, um, as I said, were farmers, and they sold their goods and their products, and they, the communities itself enjoyed a plethora of African American entrepreneurship. And today we are very hard pressed to experience the same thing. So to your point, you make about Morgan Freeman and his quote, I would agree with the latter part as well. I have not seen the exact interview, but I have heard conversation about Brother Freeman's comments. But I would just add that African American history is American history, and you cannot talk about American history without talking about the contributions that Black people have made to our nation, to our country, to our world. I personally am not sure that Black History Month keeps racism alive as much as those who seek to eliminate the contributions of Blacks and those who attempt to rewrite our history. And of course, I'm sure there's spirited conversation on this campus about those who even attempt to ban books that share our story.

Jeffery Johnson (10:57):

And Dr. Washington as well look at the fact that when you speak of, like, I, I believe one preacher spoke of 11 o'clock on Sunday morning as being the most segregated hour in America. That is one sided. We, and I'm sure Dr. Walton would agree with this, we have never rejected Whites from our membership, nor have we rejected White people from attending our services. It's only been on the other side of that scenario. Even right now, I'm part of a group called the Racial Unity Group, and we have a wonderful time fellowshipping together. And this thing based upon Morgan Freeman, uh, let me bring to your attention, he was one of the key actors in the movie called Glory. (Gregory Washington) Sure was. (Jeffery Johnson) He portrayed a character that they referred to as Sergeant John Rawlins. If you do a Google search on Sergeant John Rawlins, it will speak of the fact that the main character of the movie was real. But this was a character that was invented for that movie. The truth of the matter is, if you do another Google and you put in the name of Lewis Henry Douglass, who was the oldest son of Frederick Douglass, that sergeant from the 54th Regiment of Boston was actually Louis Henry Douglass. If you read his bio on the computer, it runs parallel with the screenplay of who they called John Rawlins. Why would they leave out such a significant fact?

Gregory Washington (12:33):

Yeah, that's interesting.

Jeffery Johnson (12:34):

But I see as Black History Month as a time that brings much pride and inspiration to the African American community. You may also remember that there was a congressional representative, I cannot think of his first name right now, but it was Congressman King from Iowa, and he actually stated that all of the major contributions to the world from Western civilization came from the White race. And that other people groups were merely observers of their contributions. And he was actually, uh, punished for making that statement. But because of our lack of knowledge of the contributions, not only of African Americans, but Asians and Hispanics and other people groups, we are really very ignorant of the contributions made by other people other than those of European descent.

Gregory Washington (13:30):

I understand that. Well, I can tell you, Black Baptists in particular played an undeniable role in the Civil Rights movement. We don't have to talk about Martin Luther King and, but the church was the rallying point for the community. And in a large sense, still very much is, uh, it provided social communication networks. It provided facilities, leadership and money, all of that. So do these roots still shape the current mission of the Baptist Church, in your opinion?

Vernon Walton (14:03):

Absolutely. We are still very much continuing in that same tradition. We are still very much continuing in the tradition of Dr. King and Vernon Johns and a host of others, even before some of the more famed individuals, we continue to work toward the liberation of not just African American people, but especially African American people, but all people, we are on the front, at the forefront of issues of justice. Churches were a big part of the movement for George Floyd right here in Fairfax County. The church galvanized around the injustice against Timothy Johnson. One of the other issues here in Fairfax County, as we talk about the shifts that have taken place within our communities, Fairfax County has a policy that is entitled One Fairfax, which is an equity policy. An equity plan. The church is at the forefront of making sure that people of color, Black people in particular, are included in this One Fairfax plan, and that it becomes a reality. So the church, from its roots has been very engaged, and the church is still engaged today.

Jeffery Johnson (15:13):

Mount Calvary actually worked with Dr. Walton with the Timothy Johnson case, and we were very proud of his leadership there. We have been very involved with City Hall here in the city of Fairfax with the previous mayor, Mayor Meyer. And we are currently working with Mayor Reed, but Mount Calvary used to have a group that would meet once a month at the Mount Calvary Baptist Church called the Fairfax County Colored Citizens Association. And very briefly, they were trying to bring forth more equity and education, home ownership, voter rights, as well as with economic opportunities.

Gregory Washington (15:57):

Oh, that's fantastic. So if I were to shift gears and say, okay, at that point in time, back in the, the 1960s, right? In the height of the Civil Rights movement, the real emphasis there was getting rid of segregation, getting rid of separate but unequal and getting our folk on a level playing field, right? And �鶹��Ƶ was a part of that. There is a lot of that history that, from what I've read, is an integral part of this campus. What would you both say are the issues today? What are the things that are the galvanizing rallying points right now? Where are our efforts best focused?

Vernon Walton (16:36):

Can I just lift as a recent example of the work that the Black church specifically did on behalf of Black people and people of color? COVID-19 people were dying. People of color were dying at disproportionate numbers, and we literally felt as clergy persons that we needed to address this issue. And because we did not have access to shots, we did not have access to vaccines at the same rate as others. And so we really petitioned and worked hard to get equity clinics within the churches. Uh, and there were some who initially told us that this would not happen. That this was not a possibility, but we looked at the numbers, we looked at the data. We saw what a small population that we represented in this particular community, but that we were dying at a much larger and faster rate. And so we did not rest until these clinics were up and running in African American churches.

Vernon Walton (17:36):

And that's important because, and not only did it speak to the needs of African American people, but those in our Hispanic and Latina community took advantage of this because they were not trusting of some of the government sites that were up and running. And they took great delight and great comfort in coming to the churches to get the shot. So that's just one example of how we've used our voice recently and, and what some of the issues. Obviously in Fairfax County, affordable housing is a real issue. Many of our congregants, they have children who they put through college and school, and they do well, they get jobs, but they still cannot afford to purchase homes and raise their families here in Fairfax County. And so they are looking at other opportunities, and that's something that is a very pressing issue today, because we believe in the importance of education and that education should pay off, but they can't afford to live. And in some instances, they are remaining in their parents' home or they're moving away. And that impacts our churches directly when people move because of housing.

Jeffery Johnson (18:46):

Yes. We've had countless numbers of members that upon retirement, they have moved further south, either to North Carolina, Georgia, or Florida, to have much more affordable living. And we can understand that. The problem is, is that those, as Dr. Walton has spoken of, those who have matriculated through school and are making a pretty good salaries are still priced out and taxed out and placed out of the availability of housing. I myself was born in the city of Alexandria. I cannot afford to live in the city of Alexandria, which is the city of my birth. I also cannot afford to live in the city of Fairfax, which is the city where I work. And so I actually have to drive just about 20 or more miles to Mount Calvary. And even when I was at the Antioch Baptist Church, there was no housing of available near the Antioch Baptist Church, which is in Fairfax Station. So there definitely needs to be something. I'm not intimidated and I'm not jealous or envious of estate homes. And in our community, they have what they call luxury town homes. That's wonderful. That's great.

Gregory Washington (19:59):

Yeah, I saw those. They just built, they just built a new set of them right there.

Jeffery Johnson (20:03):

Yes. Yes.

Gregory Washington (20:04):

They went right on 123.

Jeffery Johnson (20:05):

We're talking about they start at around 600,000, and shot up to 900,000.

Vernon Walton (20:11):

They, they must use the same builders in Vienna <laugh>.

Jeffery Johnson (20:14):

But the problem is, there should be somewhere nearby where there's a housing community, which is for the middle class or lower middle class. And, uh, I do see other housing projects that are connected with George �鶹��Ƶ, and we look forward to servicing the spiritual needs of those who will be moving into those communities. But it would be nice, we may not be the heart of the city or downtown Fairfax, but there should be somewhere nearby that could accommodate our young professionals.

Gregory Washington (20:45):

Look, I hear you. You all are hit the nail right on the head with the housing piece.

Vernon Walton (20:49):

You know, President Washington, it broke my heart at least a year and a half ago, to learn that there are people just a few miles away from our churches here in Fairfax County, not in Washington DC but in Fairfax County that are living tent communities. And when I share that story with individuals, they automatically make the assumption that these individuals are living in tents by choice. But I've had the privilege to walk the tent community to share with many of these individuals. And if you go to, to these tent communities during the day, they're empty. And not because people are just hanging out on the street, but these individuals are at work, they're working individuals, many of them, but for a number of consequences and decisions and unfortunate realities, they just cannot afford to have a roof over their head without some specific assistance with affordable housing here in Fairfax County.

Jeffery Johnson (21:50):

And to add onto that, the first Tuesday of each month, I actually speak at the chapel service at the Central Union Mission in Washington DC, and there are people who work in Virginia who have to bed down at night at the Central Union Mission. They have transportation, they have a job, but there is nowhere for them currently to live.

Gregory Washington (22:15):

You know, the cost of housing is a significant issue, one which we are trying to address here ourselves. You know, the reality is, is that if you look at where George �鶹��Ƶ sits, many of the people we hire, and we pay decent salaries, right? For our faculty and our staff, many of the people we hire can't afford to buy a home in this community. They have to go 15, 20, 30, 45 miles out in order to find something. And that issue is a real issue.

Vernon Walton (22:44):

And that same reality is true for brand new elementary school teachers in the Fairfax County public school systems. You know, if you're just graduating, trying to get into the system, and we've been particularly trying to recruit African American students from our local colleges and HBCUs. But again, the cost of living is cost prohibitive as well as in some instances for those going into our police departments. The first year or two is difficult on the starting salaries.

Gregory Washington (23:13):

Man, I didn't know I was gonna get this today. This is fantastic. Reverend Johnson, I know that you can recite Martin Luther King Jr's speech, I have a dream, by heart. Is that right?

Jeffery Johnson (23:25):

Yes, sir, uh.

Gregory Washington (23:26):

And I heard you do part of that. He outlined some basic tenets in that speech. But how far would both of you say we've come since that speech?

Jeffery Johnson (23:36):

I actually believe we've come a long way. The only thing is, there are some people who see the realities of some of the things that we've spoken about this afternoon, and they would actually be, uh, somewhat pessimistic. And when I run across those people, whether it's in the street or the barbershop or so forth, I say, wow, I gotta tell you the truth. I was born in 1962, and I would prefer that to 1862. There's a lot to be done, but we have also accomplished so much more than is being spoken about today. And there again, it goes back to one of our earlier topics, because there is not an adequate inclusion of African American contributions in our history, uh, in our public schools and even some of our private schools, that that's the reason why there is such a hopelessness today. But when you look at the King speech, I have to admit Dr. Washington, there are relevant issues that as much as I love that speech, I wish that it was irrelevant today.

Gregory Washington (24:43):

Oh, that's deep.

Vernon Walton (24:45):

Yeah, that's a great way to put it, rev, great way to put it. I would agree, President Washington, that we've made some tremendous strides. And let me just stop and say we should not overlook, and we should celebrate the fact that we are sitting here at George �鶹��Ƶ with you, a trailblazer. And I think you are an example of some of the strides that we've made as a people, the fact that you are leading this institution as an African American male. We celebrate the ascension of President Barack Obama into the White House, and more recently, the ascension of our Vice President Kamala Harris, and we celebrate the ascension of our first African American female justice. I think those are signs, those are signals that we are heading and moving in the right direction. But we should continue to keep moving. And sometimes we pause to celebrate. And in our pausing to celebrate, we forget that there's still more ground to cover. And so, yes, there are some strides, but unfortunately there are some realities from that speech and likewise from Dr. King's letter, from the Birmingham jail, uh, that are still unrealized parts of his dream, particularly when we talk about the economics of African American people, as we just alluded to talking about the housing crisis. And I believe that it was Dr. King's real focus on economics that ultimately led to his assassination.

Gregory Washington (26:11):

I heard a couple of lines from that final speech that he was putting together. That was an economic empowerment speech If you, if you've ever heard one.

Jeffery Johnson (26:21):

Yes, sir.

Gregory Washington (26:22):

So how do we balance what has happened in the past and our hopes for the future? So, Dr. Walton, you gave a talk in which you spoke of a sermon you heard from Reverend William Augustus Jones of the Brooklyn Bethany Baptist Church, who said, and, and I'm paraphrasing here, our past isn't allowed to become the past because we keep it alive in our minds instead of letting it be bygone. We become stuck in that moment. You can't have the present because you have no clear vision for the future. Is that a personal statement or can you make a connection to what we're basically talking about in some of the struggles for equality and equity that are happening today?

Vernon Walton (27:08):

I think Dr. William Augustus Jones, who has gone on to be with the Lord now, was one of our premier voices in the pulpit, particularly the Black pulpit. But he was a world-renowned preacher and a voice and force to be reckoned with. Those words. Dr. Washington come from a sermon he preached, called The Problem of the Present Past. And in that sermon, he quoted the psalmist David, and he's, I believe it was Psalm 51. And he said, my sin is forever before me. And the point that he makes in this particular sermon is simply that there's some things that have occurred in our lives that we cannot go back and change. That sermon spoke volumes to me when I first heard it in person, when I've read it in print. And, uh, it's one that I will remember to share with you. One of the reasons why it speaks to me, because it's still relevant today in terms of my personal life, in terms of our collective witness.

Vernon Walton (28:03):

And certainly for us as people of color. What do we do? I think it's important for us to confront our past. I think it's important for us to move on from our past. But before moving on, we have to learn. Because if we don't learn anything, then we are bound to repeat the past, right? And we have to make amends for our past. We have to recognize, yes, there's some things that we cannot change. There's some things that we can apologize for, come to grips with, make restitution for, offer apologies for. So what do we do? How does it speak to us today? I think it speaks to us personally. It speaks to us as a county, as we talk about why all of these communities have shifted around these Black churches. And it also speaks to us as a country, how are we going to confront our past and make amends for our past, and then ultimately move on from our past? At the end of the day, we cannot hide. And whatever we don't confront, we are bound to repeat. And unfortunately, there are many people in our nation that don't want to have the real conversation about America and the real conversation about how African Americans were treated in America. And that, of course, goes back to this whole rewriting of history and the banning of books. But we will never be the real people that we can be until we confront some of those issues.

Jeffery Johnson (29:30):

Oh, yes. And Dr. William Augustus Jones, along with preachers like Dr. E.K. Bailey, A. Loui Patterson, and, uh, even, uh, Dr. Smith, I cannot think of his first name for some reason, it just left my mind, but he was from New York City. B.W. Smith. They used to speak in Washington DC where I pastored for 10 years. And Dr. Jones would empower his listeners with taking biblical facts and shaping them around African American experiences. He had one sermon entitled, he, he did a, he flipped the script somewhat, and he said the lion’s in Daniel’s den. So in other words,

Gregory Washington (30:15):

Instead of Daniel in the lion’s den.

Jeffery Johnson (30:17):

Right, right. And he was showing us, we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. And when you hear of the horrific things that have happened to our communities, it is a miracle that we are still alive and thriving with a $1.3 trillion budget in the African American community. I think this is another reason why our history is often overlooked, because there is a strong spiritual presence in our journey. And it's not politically correct to share things with spirituality when it comes to something like history. But it is the only reason I think we are still doing well and thriving. You look at Moses and the children of Israel, they had an exodus. We had an emancipation. The exodus means that they left, they came out of, we are still living in the footprint of the Civil War. We are still living near plantations. We are still living near trees where folks were lynched. We are still in Egypt even though we've been emancipated.

Gregory Washington (31:38):

Can we stay there for a second? I wanna unpack that a little bit and ask you all some questions about it. You know, the reality is that the way I see it, the shackles that hold us down today are mental, as much as they are economic, social, and physical. We have a large percentage of our community who are striving and doing extraordinary things, and they are setting the bar. Everybody knew that we would do great things in entertainment and athletics. We've done that throughout our history. But now you're seeing it in business. You're seeing it in science and engineering, you're seeing it in areas in which historically we just haven't had a modern, strong legacy, but we still have a cohort of our people who haven't gotten that memo, so to speak, and thereby are not reaching their potential. How do you speak to that?

Vernon Walton (32:42):

Dr. Washington, I think that's where the hard work is. That is the work of our church. And quite frankly, honestly, that is also the work of institutions like George �鶹��Ƶ.

Gregory Washington (32:53):

Oh, I agree with that a hundred percent.

Vernon Walton (32:54):

If we are honest, there are many in Fairfax County that enjoy a great deal of privilege. And those who live here, those who work here, as it has already been suggested, you have to have reached and or, or obtained a certain level of success, and I place success in quotations that you can afford to do this. But to your point, there are others who have not received that memo. And I believe wholeheartedly in scripture where it says, to whom much is given, much is required. And our responsibility is not just to sit on our stools of do nothingness and enjoy our own success. Because if that is the case, then we are guilty as well of just relishing in our own privilege. But our responsibility is to reach out to those who are marginalized, to reach out to those who have not had the benefit of the same level of access for whatever the reasons are, and to help lift the tide. And that's the work of our church that remains, and that's the work of our institution that remains.

Jeffery Johnson (34:03):

I wholeheartedly agree. Sometimes Dr. Washington, other people groups look at the African-American community, and this happened during the time of Dr. King and they’re still doing it today. They're saying, why don't you just get over it? And the thing is, we would've been over it if it wasn't for the malfeasance of government that ended reconstruction, we would've been over it. If it wasn't for Plessy v. Ferguson or the Dred Scott decision, we would have been over it. If it wasn't for Jim Crow and the physical, or the, I guess you could say the character assassinations of Marcus Garvey and Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. We could have been over it if it wasn't for the fact of what happened in not only Tulsa, Oklahoma, but Colfax, Louisiana. And I even read recently about a insurrection that was successful in, uh, Wilmington, North Carolina back in 1898.

Jeffery Johnson (35:05):

We would've been over it if we didn't have people like Congressman King trying to tell the American society that Blacks have not contributed anything of note worthiness to the world or to the country. Because the thing about it, when you look at the reality, a civilization began in Kemet, in Egypt, in Africa. And then the Greeks came and borrowed, very politely, borrowed from what they had gained from Egypt. And then naturally, the Romans borrowed from the Greeks. We don't want to be seen as a Afrocentric superiority. We want to cooperate. There were Black explorers leaving the African continent, which actually at one time, the entire continent was called Ethiopia. And the Atlantic Ocean was referred to as the Ethiopian Sea. And you had African explorers actually coming down to the Americas. And you can see their contributions in architecture and technology.

Jeffery Johnson (36:09):

and even the exchange of the culture and so forth. So we don't want to dominate, we want to participate. And that is something that is missing today. That is something that we still would like to do. There were two elderly white ladies who looked like charming characters on the Andy Griffith Show. And when Barack Obama's second term was coming to an end, they were embarrassed because they were against his election in the first place because they thought that if there was a Black president, he would come and reap retribution against the White community. That has not been the case. Over the many years that we have been in this country, the centuries of our suffering, there are very few opportunities that our race took to have any type of retribution. And I like to tell people during Black History Month and the Martin Luther King services that I speak on, is that the African American community has had an August the 28th, but not a January the 6th.

Gregory Washington (37:19):

Hmm. Yeah. That's deep. That is really, really deep. Man, I don't even know what to say about that. You got me at a loss for words.

Vernon Walton (37:29):

Yeah. You're walking heavy.

Gregory Washington (37:32):

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Dr. Walton, on the wall in the lobby outside of your office, you have a photo with a quote from Booker T. Washington who was born into slavery, but became the most influential African American speaker of his time and the principal developer of what is now known as Tuskegee University. And that quote says, success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination to seize it. Why that quote?

Vernon Walton (38:01):

Well, Dr. Washington, that particular quote speaks to me, but I think it's also important to note that Booker T. Washington, yes, hangs outside in the lobby of my office, but he doesn't hang there by himself. He hangs there along with a picture of Dr. King from the Birmingham Jail. He hangs there with a picture of the Little Rock Nine. He hangs there with some individuals who are participants of the 1969 March of Selma to Montgomery, and he hangs there with a picture of Rosa Parks. And so, while I love and appreciate the work of Booker T. Washington and support that quote wholeheartedly, and it speaks to me, the real intent of that quote and the others that hang in that lobby is to demonstrate to those who walk in our office and those who leave our office, is to demonstrate that we are not monolithic as a people, and that all voices matter. All voices are impactful, and that we can learn from everyone's experiences.

Gregory Washington (39:12):

Oh, that's fantastic.

Jeffery Johnson (39:13):

And Dr. Walton lives that every week. I was saddened that I was in Tampa, Florida, and could not attend his MLK service where he actually had Dr. Robert E. Lee as one of the speakers for that service. And, uh, we don't have time to talk about all of the great things that this descendant of General Lee has done to speak of a united America rather than a separated America. As well as the fact I was able to meet at First Baptist Vienna, I was able to meet the actual secretary of Dr. King, who actually composed the notes that King wrote in the Birmingham jail. So these are some very rich experiences, and we have an opportunity, as Dr. King would say, that we can either learn to live together as brothers or perish as fools. We are the greatest demonstration of the equity of democracy for a nation throughout the world, and some of the petty differences that are currently in our Congress, which I will not go into, but, uh

Vernon Walton (40:28):

Do we have enough time for that?

Jeffery Johnson (40:30):

Dr. Walton, they say, if you keep electing clowns, you are bound to have a circus. And that is what has been happening. These men are not realizing that not only are they giving a black eye to democracy, they're giving a black eye to Christianity throughout the world, because Jesus told us to love our enemies. Bless them that curse you. Pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you. These citizens that this particular party is fighting, they're taxpayers, and whether you agree with their lifestyle or not, they work hard. They contribute to their communities and they pay their taxes. Allow the churches and the synagogues and the mosques to deal with the other issues. But you cannot relegate in legality how people should live. They have to make that decision because even God himself gave everyone a free will. And if we do our job and they do their job, we could have something close to a utopia.

Gregory Washington (41:31):

That's fantastic. So let me back up one second and let's break down where we go from here. You know, one of �鶹��Ƶ's pillars is that education is a great equalizer. You know, and that's why we partnered with community college to create smoother pathways to four-year degree. We put in place the �鶹��Ƶ Virginia Promise to help you either get a degree or start your own business. All of the small business development centers throughout all of Virginia are led by George �鶹��Ƶ, so we can help folks start a business. So we put these foundational bricks in place. But what I want to ask you is, what else can we do? How can we help you deal with some of the problems that are still afflicting our communities?

Vernon Walton (42:21):

Well, Dr. Washington, you are creating here at �鶹��Ƶ thought leaders. You are developing practitioners. You are creating the new economist and sociologist. And the work that you do here helps to better inform the work that we do in our local churches. The work that you do here helps us to translate the social norms and the customs. It helps us to make sense out of what is actually happening in our society. So I would dare say that these kinds of partnerships, to continue these kinds of conversations that we're having today. Many of our churches are creating feeding programs. We are creating tutoring programs. We have senior programs that are running on a regular consistent basis, but it's the thought leaders and the practitioners that you are developing here at �鶹��Ƶ that help us to challenge the structures that create the need for these feeding programs and tutoring programs.

Vernon Walton (43:22):

And so I want to encourage you and faculty and staff here at �鶹��Ƶ to keep developing the thought leaders, but to use our spaces and places as platforms so that the leaders that you are building have actual stages to put their work into practice. Whether they are helping us to translate the dynamics of our society, whether they are helping us to tutor the kids that are in our possession, whatever the case may be. I believe, yes, education helps greatly to equalize, but let's not forget the roadblocks that exist and that are challenging the opportunity to education, that we have, the rollbacks as it relates to affirmative actions, set asides, and, and the need for DEI. So continue to create those thought leaders, those practitioners. We are gonna continue to do our work on the ground, but your work informs what we do, and we have space for your practitioners.

Jeffery Johnson (44:22):

Oh, yes. I, I, I greatly agreed. I saw the humble beginnings of George �鶹��Ƶ, and there were some people who said, well, I would go to school, but I have to support my family and work here in Northern Virginia. But then they thought of �鶹��Ƶ, and those educational dreams and aspirations became real. It is amazing. I would ask anyone to just take a slow casual drive through this campus. It is a small city of intelligentsia. It is a oasis of academics, and you have produced so many people. Not only did my son Jeffery Jr. attend here, we have other members of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church who either took classes or actually graduated from George �鶹��Ƶ. And what I like about George �鶹��Ƶ is that out of all the things that Reverend Dr., uh Walton has mentioned, you also have maintained a stream of conversation that is relevant to this community. Sometimes colleges become so academically involved that they no longer have connection with the community. Your connection, Dr. Washington, with the community, is making a great impact. And when this is done, not only will you affect the graduates of George �鶹��Ƶ, you will also make a great impact on the city of Fairfax, not only its citizens, but its government and its visitors.

Gregory Washington (45:59):

We got a ways to go, and we want to continue to be the institution that the community needs to be here. Not the one that it tolerates, or the one that it wants to be here, but the, that the community needs. And that means that we're gonna have to continue to provide really great outcomes for the students in and around this community, quite frankly, for the companies and the institutions, churches included, around this community. We're actually here for you also, and there's a whole host of things that we can provide you in addition to, in addition to, parishioners.

Vernon Walton (46:41):

Let, let me, let me just give you a, a shout out, Dr. Washington. I know you may not be intimately aware, but your staff was incredible. Just recently for us, a few months ago, we hosted a African American male summit for high school young men. And we had nearly a hundred young men from as far south as Richmond, from DC and all over Fairfax County. I'm a firm believer that experience and exposure goes a long way, and there's no substitute for both. As a part of that particular day, the young men had a presentation about college acceptance and preparation for college from your staff here at �鶹��Ƶ. It for many, opened up the eyes of young men, some of which for the first time was having a conversation with someone about their future potential. And so I want to acknowledge that in this moment.

Gregory Washington (47:38):

No, I love that. I love that. And it's great that we could be a part of that. And it's fantastic that our faculty and staff can be helpful. We don't want to just stop there. We want to do more. It's part of my reason for engaging you brothers, because I wanna make sure the institution is pretty much part of the family here in Northern Virginia. So I want to thank you all for giving me, for giving us, that chance to be that, and for being a, a willing partner going forward in our futures together.

Vernon Walton (48:09):

Thank you for the offer, and we are here to receive it. And we're, and we're together. We're together.

Gregory Washington (48:14):

Outstanding, outstanding. I love it. Well, we're gonna have to leave it there, Reverend Jeffery Johnson, pastor at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Fairfax, Virginia, and Dr. Vernon Walton, pastor at First Baptist Church in Vienna. Thank you both for your time and for a really fantastic conversation.

Vernon Walton (48:39):

Thank you, Dr. Washington.

Gregory Washington (48:41):

I'm �鶹��Ƶ, president Gregory Washington saying, until next time, stay safe, �鶹��Ƶ Nation.

Narrator (48:49):

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Forensic research on human donors is not for the faint of heart, Mary Ellen O’Toole, director of the Forensic Science Program in �鶹��Ƶ’s College of Science, admitted to �鶹��Ƶ President Gregory Washington. But the university’s new outdoor research and training laboratory—or “body farm,” as O’Toole, a former FBI profiler, calls it—is a valuable addition to the study of human decomposition in various environmental conditions for the purpose of solving crimes. It also positions O’Toole’s program as a national leader in forensic science and forensic anthropology.

^{And I love the term audacity because being audacious is to stand up and say, ‘We've got thousands of unidentified remains in medical examiner's offices throughout the United States. What can we do to reunite those individuals with their family members?’ We know that we've got unsolved cases out there of marginalized victims throughout the United States. Audacious means what can we do to solve those crimes? And so if my students can be as audacious as is humanly possible, they're gonna be magnificent forensic scientists.”}

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Damian Cristodero — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 15:46:13 +0000

Podcast: Missy Cummings: Artificial intelligence is artificial and not intelligent Damian Cristodero Wed, 01/25/2023 - 10:46

Missy Cummings, one of the country’s first female fighter pilots and director of �鶹��Ƶ’s Center for Robotics, Autonomous Systems, and Translational AI, calls herself a tech futurist, charged with making tech work better and safer. In a conversation with �鶹��Ƶ President Gregory Washington, Cummings is unflinching in her critique of AI’s strengths, weaknesses, and shortcomings, as well as that of humans. There is a lot to like about AI, Cummings says, but she calls out bad tech where she sees it, including in the vision systems of self-driving cars and Tesla’s Autopilot.

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Intro (00:04):
Trailblazers in research, innovators in technology, and those who simply have a good story: all make up the fabric that is �鶹��Ƶ, where taking on the grand challenges that face our students, graduates, and higher education is our mission and our passion. Hosted by �鶹��Ƶ President Gregory Washington, this is the Access to Excellence podcast.

President Gregory Washington (00:26):
Missy Cummings is from a small town in Tennessee, where as she said few people finish college or even leave home. Her biggest challenge, she said, was finding the courage to go out into the unknown. All I can say is mission accomplished. Cummings, a professor in �鶹��Ƶ's Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computer Science helped blaze a trail for women's equality in America's armed forces as a naval officer and as one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots. That's right: First female fighter pilots. That distinction came despite her facing discrimination and resentment from her male colleagues. She chronicled those events in her book "Hornet's Nest." Now the director of �鶹��Ƶ Center for Robotics Autonomous Systems and Translational AI, Cummings research interests include the application of artificial intelligence and safety critical systems, human systems engineering, and the social impact of technology. One of her first challenges at �鶹��Ƶ is to create a new educational program in the design and development of artificial intelligence. Cummings has asked the hard questions about the fundamentals of autonomous transportation while taking some jabs at bad technology, including Elon Musk, Tesla Autopilot, which we will discuss-- I'm an owner and so we can have a lot to discuss on this issue. She has been a guest of 60 Minutes, the Colbert Report, and the Daily Show with John Stewart. She also has a goal of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. Dr. Cummings, welcome to the show and welcome to �鶹��Ƶ with the start of the spring 2023 semester.

Missy Cummings (02:21):
It is so good to be at both places. Thank you.

President Gregory Washington (02:24):
For those of you who may not know, Dr. Cummings and I have a long and storied history. I've actually tried to hire her on multiple occasions and I was ecstatic when we were able to get here, here with the help of Dean Ken Ball and others when we were able to get her here at George �鶹��Ƶ. So how far have you gotten on that Appalachian Trail?

Missy Cummings (02:45):
Oh my goodness. Well, I've only been doing it 20 years and you know, I have an attention span problem, so I can only go out for a few days at a time. So, you know, I'm about halfway. I still have a lot in Maine, New Hampshire up north. I'm pretty much done with the south though.

President Gregory Washington (03:01):
Nice. Well, you know, I am a hiker kind of guy in Virginia. There are some significant parts of that trail. I hear that there is the rollercoaster section. Have you done that section of the trail?

Missy Cummings (03:13):
Yeah, I'd knocked out the rollercoaster section a long time ago, but I will tell you, it was just, um, over COVID when, uh, down near Lynchburg, I went up in the wintertime and I took my Jeep and because I feel like I'm a fighter pilot, I could do anything and there's nothing I can't do. And I almost drove off the side of the mountain in my Jeep 'cause I hit a spot of ice that that was under the road surface and you couldn't see it. And I almost died. And, uh, whew. So Virginia is probably not the rollercoaster section that killed me, but over down by Lynchburg, that was dangerous.

President Gregory Washington (03:46):
There's just so much we could talk about and I want to jump in to a whole lot of it. So I wanna start with your time in the military because that was so defining for you in terms of your path now.

Missy Cummings (03:58):
Absolutely.

President Gregory Washington (03:58):
So you were in the military from 1988 through 99.

Missy Cummings (04:02):
That's correct.

President Gregory Washington (04:02):
So when did you start flying fighter jets?

Missy Cummings (04:05):
Well, I went through flight school--the first couple of years when you're a baby pilot, you, you fly propellers and then you fly a couple of different kind of jets. So I didn't become a full-fledged jet pilot until 1990, and it's at that time that I forwarded deployed to the Philippines.

President Gregory Washington (04:21):
Nice.

Missy Cummings (04:21):
And, and I was flying a four echoes back then.

President Gregory Washington (04:23):
Oh, you're flying a fours?

Missy Cummings (04:25):
Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I'm a real man.

President Gregory Washington (04:27):
<laugh>. So are you qualified to fly any other aircraft?

Missy Cummings (04:30):
Well, I flew F-18s as well. I then, when I became an official fighter pilot when I was in the Philippines, I was an aggressor pilot. So if you ever saw Top Gun 1, that's sort of what we did in the Philippines. We were pretending to be bad guys. And because I was a woman and at that time, women couldn't fly in combat, we just trained the men who were coming over to deploy in Iraq. And so we got to train the men to try to defend themselves. And it wasn't until a few years later that then the combat exclusion law was repealed. And that's when I, because I had already been doing the mission, I was one of the most qualified women to become a fighter pilot because I'd been doing those missions. That's when I rolled over to the F-18.

President Gregory Washington (05:09):
You know, <laugh>, I bring this up, I literally two weeks ago, just saw Top Gun 2 for the first time. I plan on seeing it again. Anything realistic about those Top Gun movies?

Missy Cummings (05:20):
The flying scenes are amazing, but it's not at all realistic. Right. I mean, the, the bottom line is these planes are so expensive that if you're getting that close to them, it's just too dangerous. You can't afford to lose the a hundred million dollar copy of the aircraft. And that's not even including weapons. And so there's a lot that goes on with the movies about the flying scenes that I think are not that realistic.

President Gregory Washington (05:41):
Oh so this, that whole one where he flies through the middle of the formation of the two aircraft, that probably wouldn't happen. That what you're saying?

Missy Cummings (05:47):
I mean, a lot of what happens at Top Gun you'd get kicked out for if you actually did that in real life. I, I. But they do a good job of capturing the spirit of what it means to be a fighter pilot.

President Gregory Washington (05:57):
No, I understand. I understand. You did a presentation a while back where you spoke about how, despite being an ultra trained and sophisticated pilot on takeoffs and landings in the F 18, you and all pilots are pretty much taken out of the equation as the plane flies itself at that point. You also wrote an extensive paper on the use of autonomous and automated weapons. Can you talk a little bit about that from an autonomy perspective? How much the person actually does and how much is involved in the actual technology of the plane itself?

Missy Cummings (06:28):
Yeah, I think these are really great questions, especially as autonomy and artificial intelligence continues to advance. So when I was flying, when I was transitioning from the A-4 to the F-18, one of the things that I found amazing was that when you were launched off the front of the aircraft carrier in an F-18, you had to show everyone on the carrier that you were not touching anything. You were not allowed to fly the plane. It was a computer program, it could fly itself off the front of the carrier just fine. The problem was that if you touched anything, you were likely gonna set up some pilot--induced oscillations that were not gonna be recoverable. And in fact, lots of people died this way. So this is why, you know, I felt that was really unnerving and that was really the beginning of me starting to wonder whether or not I should be doing something else, like going into academia. When I looked around the aircraft carrier and we weren't allowed to touch anything on takeoff because we would only screw it up. The planes always, always, always landed better than we did. Humans, we loved it--

President Gregory Washington (07:25):
Always?

Missy Cummings (07:26):
By, by that time, I mean the early days of automated landings, it was a bit sketchy. But by the late nineties and 2000, I mean, the planes are, computers can respond so much faster than we can as humans. We just can't process information as quickly on those kinds of jobs that the computer on the plane can.

President Gregory Washington (07:45):
Okay, hold on now. You are sitting in hundred millions of dollars worth of aircraft and you're on the aircraft carrier and they tell you don't touch nothing on takeoff.

Missy Cummings (07:58):
Yep.

President Gregory Washington (07:59):
The computer will handle everything.

Missy Cummings (08:00):
Yep.

President Gregory Washington (08:00):
And you're okay with that?

Missy Cummings (08:01):
Well, I didn't say it was okay with it, but it's what you do to stay alive. Right? I mean, it's very unnerving. It it is unnerving. And it's unnerving to watch the plane land itself always better than you can. You know, most of the really bad accidents on an aircraft carrier happen at 3:00 AM after a pilot's been out doing a mission, you're exhausted. You know, it's night, it's hard to see. And so that's a--

President Gregory Washington (08:24):
But if the plane is landing, why would you worry?

Missy Cummings (08:26):
Well, that's why you want it. Right? Because we have a lot fewer accidents now that the automation is at least assisting, if not doing it outright. I do think one of the things that people don't really get is don't be aghast at what I'm telling you about what's happening on a air, on a, on a military jet. It's happening to you every day when you fly commercial. Pilots only touch the stick for about three to seven minutes out of any flight, and it's on takeoff. Most of the time you're landing, you are being landed by a computer. And one of the reasons why the airlines locked it--

President Gregory Washington (08:57):
So, and even during the actual trajectory of the flight.

Missy Cummings (09:01):
Oh yeah. It's all automated.

President Gregory Washington (09:02):
They're not, they're not touching the stick.

Missy Cummings (09:03):
They're babysitting.

President Gregory Washington (09:04):
Well, let me ask you this. So you're flying, you hit turbulence, you bounce around for a few minutes and then you hear the ominous voice of the captain comes on and he says, or she says, we hit a little rough spot here and we're gonna glide down to smoother air. Is that the pilot taking over then?

Missy Cummings (09:19):
You know, it's kind of a hybrid. So the pilot's talking to air traffic control, getting a better spot. And then what they're doing is, like you're programming in your GPS, they're saying, okay, descend and maintain flight level 3 1 0 at an air speed of blahdi blah. Right. So they're just programming it in.

President Gregory Washington (09:34):
Okay. And then the airplane just,

Missy Cummings (09:36):
And the airplane, the airplane does it so much smoother. And indeed, one of the things that we've realized on landings and just flight in general is, first of all, if you let the computer fly, we save an amazing amount of fuel because pilots are just rougher on the controls. And so it's much more smooth when you let the automation do it. And it even saves on the tires. If You let the automation land the plane, they don't have to change out the tires as often.

President Gregory Washington (10:03):
That is so amazing. <laugh>. Wow.

Missy Cummings (10:06):
But, but let me tell you this, I would never get into a self-driving car that any of my students programmed. I'd fly in an aircraft a program, but I wouldn't get into a car.

President Gregory Washington (10:14):
We're gonna talk about that. I have never done any programming for aircraft relative to autonomy, but I have done a fair bit for automobiles, including a, just a couple of years ago on a project that we just completed on an autonomous dragster. And it, even going straight at high speeds is non-trivial. So I I I got a whole bunch of questions for you in that regard, but you mentioned that it was stressful, this whole idea of letting the plane land itself. I guess the human part of you wants to just take the stick and guide it down. And I assume at some point you have to take into account the fact that, you know, maybe you have a malfunction in a chip or the computer is not working properly and you have to land the aircraft. So I assume that at some point in time in training, you physically have to land on a carrier just so that you got the confidence that you can do it. Right?

Missy Cummings (11:07):
Well, and indeed airline pilots have to do the same thing. They have to land so many, so often to stay qualified, basically to stay up-to-date with your skillset. But indeed, you've hit on probably one of the biggest problems that we're facing in aviation right now. How much skill do you lose for the length of time that you let automation do it? And then how do we make sure that people keep their skillsets up even in the face of increasing automation. And the Asiana air crash, several years ago in San Francisco, there was a crash where there was a whole cockpit full of pilots and off-time pilots. And all of them missed the fact that, because the automation wasn't working that day they, you know, I think there were like five or more pilots in this cockpit and it still crashed and killed a lot of people in San Francisco. And that's because their skillset had eroded to the point that they didn't really even know how to fly the aircraft in the good old fashioned way. So I think there is a push and pull about either, and there's a lot of parallels to driving, like either the airplane can do it all the time with very high reliabilities, or you need to make sure that the human stays in the loop every so often. And now the FAA has to mandate the people get in and land every so often to keep that skillset up.

President Gregory Washington (12:23):
So talk to me about warfare. What is that like in an age of semi-autonomous systems? Is it closer to a video game?

Missy Cummings (12:31):
Oh, yeah.

President Gregory Washington (12:31):
Or, or is it closer to what we saw in Top Gun?

Missy Cummings (12:35):
I think it's kind of a mix. The reality is, is that there's a lot of automation that's finding its way into the cockpit. And one of the favorite stories I like to tell, and I told this in my book, is about a guy's call sign Spider. That's not really call sign. I changed it to protect the not-so-innocent. But when you're practicing missiles and you get the radar going, you actually would maneuver the airplane into an envelope. And if you got everything right, the envelope was right, the distance was right, the speed was right. And you would get these gigantic letters in your HUD shoot, shoot. You know, you'd pull the trigger and if you're on the test range, a missile would come off the rails and it would be at a static target. No problem. But there was a case where there was a squadron and they were deployed live over, you know, somewhere in the Middle East and Spider was coming back with his commanding officer.

Missy Cummings (13:22):
So that's be like me and you flying. And then they decided they had a little extra gas. And so they were gonna do a, a little one v. One top gun thing. They were gonna practice, pretend fight each other. But because they were coming back from a live area, they both had weapons on their plane.

President Gregory Washington (13:37):
So they had real weapons.

Missy Cummings (13:38):
Real weapons. But you can put the plane in simulate mode. So even if you have weapons and you pull the trigger, nothing happens, or you can leave it in live mode. And so when they went feet wet, which is when you go from the land to the water, they were supposed to go into simulated mode, but Spider got distracted and he forgot to push that button.

President Gregory Washington (13:56):
Oh.

Missy Cummings (13:57):
And so then they.

President Gregory Washington (13:57):
I know where this is going.

Missy Cummings (13:58):
So then they take a split, they come at each other and Spider's young, I mean the young guys usually have better reaction time. So he was able to get a bite onto the, his commanding officer, which means that he got to the, a good shot position first, and he lines up and he gets that amazing compelling shoot, shoot, shoot. And he shoots and a missile comes off the rail and then the planes tattletale on you. That's how you can't even lie anymore because as soon as a weapon leaves the planes, the video camera turns on. So it's like the police body cam is gonna turn on and make sure that it records everything bad you did. And so that you can actually see in this video, the missile go after his commanding officer, the commanding officer, because it was a heat seeking missile, he didn't have any of his systems on. He didn't even know this thing was in the air. And so you can see the missile gets like literally like inches from his tailpipe and then it just falls out of the air. It just didn't have enough juice to blow his commanding officer up. So the next thing you know, they have to come back to the carrier.

President Gregory Washington (14:51):
Wait, wait. So why, why did that happen? Was it just luck?

Missy Cummings (14:54):
Just luck. Just luck.

President Gregory Washington (14:55):
Just dumb luck.

Missy Cummings (14:56):
He took the shot on the very edge of the envelope and the missile just did not have enough gas to get there. So.

President Gregory Washington (15:01):
Oh my goodness.

Missy Cummings (15:01):
It's burning like a, and then it just kind of like a Bugs Bunny cartoon falls outta the sky. But then they have to come back land on the carrier. And so when you see a fighter jet and one missile's on one side of the plane and there's a missing one on the other one, it's not like you could say, uh, I don't know what happened. So, so he had to fess up.

President Gregory Washington (15:18):
What happened to him?

Missy Cummings (15:19):
In the old days, he probably would've been kicked out. But I think that they realized, that was the big time of the military was like, wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't have these shoot cues that are so compelling because it's making people respond in a video game-like environment instead of taking the time to actually think about, is this something that I need to be doing? And so things have changed since then, but it's a good story to indicate humans under stress and battle even, that wasn't even a real battle. Right. He's just excited and he was gonna be able to quote unquote, you know, fake kill his commanding officer. And he almost did.

President Gregory Washington (15:50):
He almost real killed him.

Missy Cummings (15:51):
That's right.

President Gregory Washington (15:52):
So we hear about these patriot missile systems now in the public. They're hearing a lot about this autonomous aerial vehicles. But the reality is, in a non-military sense, the deployment of UAVs is probably a thousand, 10,000 to one relative to what we're seeing in the military. I mean, these things are being used all over the place. Are you doing any work or working on any applications, uh, that are non-military?

Missy Cummings (16:17):
Oh, I haven't done dedicated military drone work for a long time. There was a point in history where you could see the tide turn from anti-drone sentiments because of military to pro-drone sentiments. That year was 2013. And I had been working really hard to try to socialize the idea that drones would not be just a military platform, that they had a lot of good. And I was trying to socialize in America the idea that these would be cargo planes one day. And so I got invited to go on the Daily Show with John Stewart. I recommend everyone go look at this clip 'cause it's hilarious. 'cause he is going after me for basically being part of the war machine. And I'm trying to explain to him that these are going to be delivery aircraft in the future. You know? And he and I had a good repartee of going back and forth about were these things really killer robots or are there some good to this.

Missy Cummings (17:14):
And that that was 2013. And what's amazing is 10 years later it's a done deal. Right, right. And then many years--

President Gregory Washington (17:19):
They're everywhere.

Missy Cummings (17:20):
That's right. Everywhere. And I've been to Timbo, Africa using drones to follow elephants around. They have a really hard time of keeping track of their elephants and making sure the poachers aren't getting them. So we could use drones for those applications. And then recently I finished a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation, looking at how we defend against drones in prisons, right. Because now one of the problems that we have is that drones are putting contraband into prison yards. And so now we were trying to come up using some artificial intelligence with ways to defend against the drones. And I think what was interesting--

President Gregory Washington (17:57):
There's a way, it's called a shotgun

Missy Cummings (17:58):
<laugh>

President Gregory Washington (17:59):
<laugh>.

Missy Cummings (18:01):
Yes. It turns out, do you know you're not allowed to do that? The FAA says don't do it. Right.

President Gregory Washington (18:05):
So you can't shoot.

Missy Cummings (18:06):
You can't, even if there's one hovering over your house, technically it's illegal for you to shoot a drone hovering over your house.

President Gregory Washington (18:12):
Really? I guess that's right. Because the property above your home, is it?

Missy Cummings (18:17):
That's correct.

President Gregory Washington (18:18):
25 feet and higher,

Missy Cummings (18:20):
No, it's like one inch.

President Gregory Washington (18:21):
But that is not your property, actually. It's

Missy Cummings (18:23):
Not, it's not your property. And fa a doesn't want you shooting things because they don't know where the drone is gonna go.

President Gregory Washington (18:28):
Oh, well, not only that, you shoot and then if you miss the projectile lands somewhere, it does come back down.

Missy Cummings (18:35):
So, so my advice is, if you're worried about that, just get a big old light and put it on top of your house and direct they, they can't, that'll totally screw the system. So there's lots of passive ways that we can defend against these things.

President Gregory Washington (18:45):
So you, you would come up with the, the technical way to defend against them?

Missy Cummings (18:49):
Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah.

President Gregory Washington (18:49):
As opposed to the, you know, the good old American way. <laugh>, shoot it down. Shoot it down.

Missy Cummings (18:54):
Okay. Well there's part of me that really wants to do that. Like, I didn't say you couldn't use a slingshot.

President Gregory Washington (18:58):
<laugh> exactly. Okay, I hear you. So let's switch gears a little bit. There's a lot of talk these days about Elon Musk with the whole Twitter issue and him purchasing Twitter, but that has spilled over to Tesla. I'm a both a Tesla owner and a Tesla stock owner, have been for quite some time and have seen, uh, <laugh> the value of my Tesla shares decrease dramatically over the last year. So talk to me about your challenges with Elon Musk.

Missy Cummings (19:29):
So, I mean, it's hard for me to say that I have a war going with one of the richest men on the planet, right. Because it's only his perception that that's the case. I'm a big tech futurist.

President Gregory Washington (19:41):
Right.

Missy Cummings (19:42):
Uh, that's my job is to try to make tech work. It's not to stop tech. It's to help it get better. And I've been a big fan of SpaceX for a long time. As far as Teslas, I think they're great cars. I think that certainly they're very crash worthy. After you saw that Tesla go down that cliff and everybody survived, I'm like, you know, that thing has a good cage. That, that is a solid car.

President Gregory Washington (20:04):
Yeah. Because it's unibody construction.

Missy Cummings (20:06):
That's right. So I am not anti-Tesla, but like I will tell you, and there's many people in the drone world that know this, and in the driving world and in the AR/VR world--augmented reality, virtual reality world: I just really hate bad tech. And if you've got some bad tech that's really dangerous, I'm gonna call you out on it because that is my job to make safe good tech. And the problem, and I hope that you're listening to me, is,

President Gregory Washington (20:34):
Oh, actually I hope he's not listening, but keep going. <laugh>

Missy Cummings (20:36):
Do not drive your Teslas on autopilot or full self-driving without paying full and absolute attention, and keeping your hands on the wheel.

President Gregory Washington (20:45):
So two things I I I will highlight to you: I can't help it, I'm an engineer, right. I put mine in, uh, auto drive mode all the time. And I can tell you the pluses and minuses to it. Technology is not quite yet ready for primetime without question. You know, and sometimes small artifacts, some of which I don't even see, cause the autopilot to stop working. What happens in almost every single case is the vehicle just abruptly slows down. So, and it's a scary thing when you're driving 70, 75 miles an hour on the highway and the thing just hits the brakes and it slows down dramatically. Maybe it saw a shadow, you know, you don't know what it saw, but it saw something that triggered a response. And I tell you, it's probably happened to me a dozen times. That being said, it is a remarkable technology to use when we're doing the kinds of things we're doing in our cars.

President Gregory Washington (21:41):
You know, oh boy, I'm giving a whole, it's gonna be funny, you know, but you're in the car and you're driving and he's like, oh man, I gotta blow my nose. Okay. Engage autopilot, things driving on its own. I can reach down into my glove box or into the center console, pull out a tissue, blow my nose, and put it back and it's all cool. I do that, no problem, right. And feel very, very comfortable doing that. Or if I'm coming home long time at work, little tired and need that extra hand: it's not so I fall asleep, I'm still driving, got my hands on the steering wheel, 10 and 2, so I'm still there, but I turn it on just so that I won't drift. That actually works quite well for me. So I do think there are uses, right now, as an assistant--

Missy Cummings (22:27):
I, I agree.

President Gregory Washington (22:28):
to the actual driver, right? We're not at the point where we can totally turn it over to the computer. And this is the thing that's amazing to me. You won't turn the car over, but you put lead <laugh> a hundred million dollar bird out of the sky onto a strip of concrete <laugh>. But you, you feel me here.

Missy Cummings (22:50):
Oh yeah. That's because I know how the sausage is made and I helped make that sausage. And so I see the mistakes that are made and I see the problems in the system.

President Gregory Washington (23:00):
I actually had a number of conversations, not just with engineers from Tesla, but also Zoox, which is an, a company was built to build autonomous vehicles. Say, Hey, well what's the problem? You guys are working on this technology every day. What are you struggling with? Why don't we have it and have it now? What are your thoughts? What do you think?

Missy Cummings (23:19):
So, you know, you hit on one of the issues. I just finished about a year and a quarter with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as the senior safety advisor. And for the last year or so, I've been looking at all the accident reports of any car, including Teslas who had a crash while they were on automation. And so this phantom braking issue that you described, where the car sees something and then decides to dramatically decelerate. So that is not just a Tesla problem, we see it in many other kinds of autonomous vehicles, including ADAS Equip, that's the driving assist systems, and also just the self-driving systems. So we have not yet gotten to the point where computer vision systems, they're just not reliable enough to be able to "see the world in the way that we do."

Missy Cummings (24:09):
And we don't know, is it shadows? You know, we've done some testing with Teslas in my own lab where we have, we can see a statistical correlation with the sun going behind clouds for, even that is enough potentially to trigger a problem with the vision system. So these systems are still really brittle. And I'm not saying we'll never get there, but we're still working out some very, very basic problems. That's just one of many problems. And that, that's the tech problem. But I loved you describing your reaching over to the glove box because I am here to tell you, you guys heard it from me first, that if President Washington ends up at a Tesla accident, it's gonna be because of the accidental steering nudge bump. So one of the things that we've seen in accident mode that we see people do is in these cars, and it's not just Teslas, there's also Blue Cruise and Super Cruise. People are so confident in the systems that what they do is they drop something on the floor, they need to reach around the back of the seat and pick something in the back seat up. Or they need just to get something outta the glove box and they reach across and their shoulder

President Gregory Washington (25:09):
Bumps the steering wheel.

Missy Cummings (25:09):
Just bumps the steering wheel And that, and sometimes, depending on the car is, and depending on the speed that you're going but lemme tell you something else I found, but

President Gregory Washington (25:17):
But the Tesla will go, it'll give you an audible signal, boom boom. And then that'll let you know that it's disengaging autopilot. And you do have some time to adjust sometimes, you know.

Missy Cummings (25:27):
But sometimes you don't. Sometimes you do it at the exact wrong time.

President Gregory Washington (25:30):
No, I get it. I get it. And I, and I get that that could be a problem. Here's the deal. You mentioned something earlier that I thought was really, really interesting. You said that in fighter aircraft, as automation became more and more prevalent and the technology became better and better, you actually started to see accidents decline. I believe you're gonna see a similar thing now. You're seeing accidents go up now, but you gotta correlate that with the fact that there are more and more of these vehicles in the market. I think a comprehensive study may show that the whole host of technologies that are in vehicles now, right? The lane departure warning, the auto-steer that pulls you back, we're probably seeing an overall decrease in the number of minor accidents that would've occurred 'cause you sideswiped somebody or you're coming up to a traffic stop and they would be looking at a text message and run right into the back of the car. I got rear ended that way. Nowadays, vehicles do catch you from doing that. They will stop the vehicle before or at least let you know with blaring signals that an accident is imminent if you don't do something. And so we should start to see, as the vehicle becomes, as the computers become more and more prevalent in how we drive, we should start to see the number of accidents going down, which is gonna have a dramatic effect on insurance companies because they make their money when there are accidents. <laugh>.

Missy Cummings (26:55):
Yeah. Right. Well, I I tell you, they're not too worried right now. Automation, basically, there's two different kinds in cars. There's the safety automated: auto emergency braking, the frontal collision warning. Right? These kinds of safety devices.

President Gregory Washington (27:08):
But those gotta be working.

Missy Cummings (27:08):
They and they are working. And indeed we can see that decrease that you're describing that is happening. But the Teslas, Super Cruise, Blue Cruise, these are convenience features that do lateral and longitudinal control for you. Right. They're doing the acceleration for you and they're doing steering on, right? So the jury is very much out. And there are a lot of scientists, myself, there's some other people at George �鶹��Ƶ looking at this. That jury is out. And I will tell you that having come from NHTSA, I did the analysis myself on all this crash data we have. And I will tell you that if you are in an accident in a car with these convenience features, right, you are statistically more likely to be seriously injured or killed.

President Gregory Washington (27:53):
Really?

Missy Cummings (27:54):
And there's one reason, one really big reason, there's a lot of little reasons...

President Gregory Washington (27:57):
'cause, because you're overdependent?

Missy Cummings (27:59):
That is probably, but there's actually one clear measurable problem.

President Gregory Washington (28:03):
What's that?

Missy Cummings (28:04):
You're speeding. So this is,

President Gregory Washington (28:06):
And that's 'cause of overdependence.

Missy Cummings (28:07):
Well, right. So this is the kind of interaction that we're seeing is that people become so reliant and they love their vehicles and they...President Washington is loving and trusting his vehicle so much that, you know, I'm just gonna go nine miles over the speed limit.

President Gregory Washington (28:20):
Yeah, yeah. No, look, first of all, without incriminating myself too much <laugh>, you hit the nail exactly on the head. <laugh> my speed goes up because I got that technology with me, without question. So now you're making me rethink. Maybe I need to tone the speed down.

Missy Cummings (28:34):
You do need to tone the speed down.

President Gregory Washington (28:36):
And so I will, I will definitely do that. But that brings me to another question because there's a YouTube video out there, and I know you've seen it, with the title, "Missy Cummings wants to destroy Tesla." <Laugh> True statement, overstatement, or what?

Missy Cummings (28:50):
No, of course it's an overstatement. I want Tesla to survive. I mean, my favorite thing about Tesla is the fact that it doesn't have a dealer model. Like if you wanna be, you go with any woman to try to buy a car and you will realize how much women hate the dealer models. Right? So we would love...

President Gregory Washington (29:07):
It ain't just women. Hello. Hope they look like me. You, you, you know what's I'm saying? Hey, look, I, I, I've been there. And um, you're absolutely right. It was so easy. You can pull up your computer right now and within 15 minutes I can buy a Tesla.

Missy Cummings (29:22):
For a lot cheaper these days.

President Gregory Washington (29:23):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Because of the "Missy Cummings wants to destroy Tesla" video. But <laugh>.

Missy Cummings (29:29):
I wish I, I wish I had that kind of power, but I will, I will tell you, look, I love the car itself is great. The model behind the car in terms of the deal, no dealer model.

President Gregory Washington (29:39):
Oh, that's fantastic.

Missy Cummings (29:40):
The picture of like, I, there are so many good things to love about Tesla, but I think that Tesla, they were first out to try to do something brave and innovative. And I get that. But now one of the other things I call it, you know, your mom always said, if you see your friends jump off a cliff, are you gonna go jump up a cliff? So now Tesla had some questionable design decisions about letting people be hands free, but now all the other car companies are modeling after Tesla.

President Gregory Washington (30:06):
Right. I hear you.

Missy Cummings (30:06):
And I do not think we should allow that. I think no car, not Tesla, not Ford, not GM, no car should in any driver assist, should allow you to be hands-free. And that is a very unpopular opinion. But unfortunately the Teslarati wants to try to blow that up into something like Missy Cummings is coming for your autopilot.

President Gregory Washington (30:24):
Yeah, no, I get it. Now look, if there could be wholesale adoption on the manner in which you buy and sell Teslas, that I tell you would be a game changer. The reality is it was so easy for me to buy my car. It literally took me about 15 minutes.

Missy Cummings (30:43):
Yeah. I'll do free advertising for them for that. Like I love that feature of their car. But I think the whole Teslarati thinking that I'm out to get them, it kind of points to the bigger problem. There's two problems it points to: number one, women in tech, women who assert themselves in tech. You know, it's funny, we, we talked about the fighter pilot thing was I discriminated against as a fighter pilot? Yeah. But I'll tell you what's shocking to me is the fact that I was a fighter pilot, carry a PhD, have been a tenured MIT professor, have done all of these things that the Teslarati and other tech bros hate the fact that I'm asserting myself and that I'm a broad. I'm a pushy broad, trying to push my opinion that is not favorable to their stock price. Right. So that's one issue.

President Gregory Washington (31:27):
That's what you think it is.

Missy Cummings (31:28):
Yeah, but I think also it points to the devisive nature of this country. Like I have a very, I think, balanced view of Tesla. It's a great car except for this bad autopilot that when you have your hands free or it basically promotes you into complacency. So I can like the car, but not like a feature. But that ability to have a balanced view towards really any person, politically, to a technology. Like you're either with me or against me. You know, kind of That's how people,

President Gregory Washington (31:59):
It's all, you're either in it, you're all in, or you're, or you're all out. That's right. I get it. I get it. A hundred percent. This is interesting. In the last few minutes I have, I wanna steer us more closer to your research and what you're doing or what you will be doing here at �鶹��Ƶ. The real advance in all of this is intelligence, right? We are bringing more and more intelligence to the systems, right? Whether it is classic neural networks with back propagation or Kohonen networks and the like, or deep learning, or it's just the idea of bringing expert modeling and systems into code, right? Where you take into account hundreds and thousands of variables in terms of decision making. The reality is, is that systems are getting more intelligent and you stand at the forefront of this. And so talk to us a little bit about the degree program you're putting in place and how do you see that fitting in to everything that you've learned up to this point?

Missy Cummings (32:58):
Yeah, these are great questions. You say that intelligence is advancing. And I will tell you, an approximation of intelligence is advancing. Understood. So artificial intelligence is artificial and not intelligent. And if you've heard about GPT, the large language models.

President Gregory Washington (33:13):
Yeah, yeah. ChatGPT.

Missy Cummings (33:14):
These are things are dangerous because they're good enough to approximate language. But if you actually pay attention, you can see very quickly how wrong and dangerous disinformation coming from something like chat GPT could be. But I've spent a lot of time, obviously in the aviation world now in the surface transportation world. I've spent some time in the medical world and looking at these large language models. And the one common theme across all of these are intelligence technologies are advancing so rapidly. What we're not doing is keeping up with allowing people to get educated in how to think about the design frameworks behind when should you have these systems? Why should you have these systems? What requirements are they really meeting? And then how should I test these systems to make sure that they're sufficient?

Missy Cummings (34:01):
And this whole idea of the design life cycle around AI, it's new thinking. Like people think, oh yeah, we know how to design systems. We've got agile system development. Well it turns out for safety critical technologies, maybe your testing framework needs to be a little different. Maybe you need to do different kinds of component testing. And guess what? Digital twinning, like I'm so sick of hearing digital twins because you can digital twin AI all you want, but garbage in, garbage out. The only way, if you're ever gonna know if your Tesla is actually going to not hit children, and this is a big debate going on right now in the Tesla community, is you do have to put it on the road and you do have to put it in various tests, real tests, not fake tests. Not FSD full self-driving tests. Like really principle tests that are answering and research question. And, and I think companies are reluctant to do this because it's expensive. It takes time and effort that maybe they wanna spend other money on. But

President Gregory Washington (34:57):
But the other thing is that they could fail. And when you fail the,

Missy Cummings (35:02):
It's more development cost.

President Gregory Washington (35:03):
Well, not just that the results are catastrophic. Right? I remember looking at the Tesla stock price when the first Tesla fire hit the news and you just watched the share price drop. That's somebody's livelihood. And reality is these are complex systems. Complex systems will fail, right? You have 'em in automobiles, you have 'em in rockets, you 'em in airplanes. You have 'em in fighter aircraft, right? There's been failures. Failure is a part of the process. You hope that you can put it in the context where there's not loss of of life. The reality is that these things do happen.

Missy Cummings (35:40):
Yes. And, and I agree with Henry Petrosky, he's a famous Duke professor who says to, to fail is just a core component of engineering. I'm all about that, right? But I think with artificial intelligence, one of the problems that we're seeing is that there just really aren't testing paradigms to try to at least figure out how to mitigate risk.

President Gregory Washington (35:59):
No, no, I get it. I think it's a little more, and I don't want to use the word nefarious 'cause I don't think people are trying to do harm. I think the challenge is a little different in that nowadays we don't know when we're interacting with AI technology and when we're not. Right? It's not ubiquitous yet, but it is far more intrusive in our everyday lives than we actually realize. And so you can be interacting with your vehicle, not a Tesla, but we own a BMW as another vehicle. Right? You could be interacting with that vehicle and there could be aspects of artificial intelligence handling some systems and you actually have no idea, right? People are dealing with ChatGPT and there, they're being told that they're dealing with artificial intelligence, but they're dealing with a whole host of technologies on their computers as they go to websites and as they frequent the internet on a day-to-day basis where they're not told and they're interacting with something, thinking that they might be interacting with a human and they're actually interacting with a bot, right? You would handle things differently if you knew it was a bot relative to a human. And so we need guardrails.

Missy Cummings (37:07):
And that's exactly what we're gonna teach you at �鶹��Ƶ.

President Gregory Washington (37:10):
Outstanding.

Missy Cummings (37:11):
We're gonna teach you how to build them, how to set systems up to design them, how to interpret them, how to recognize when you need guardrails. So this is one of the things I think that �鶹��Ƶ is just has such a rich field to pull from. There's many, many government agencies here. There's lots of top talent faculty here. Lots of really motivated students who are gonna work in all aspects of industry. We've got healthcare, we've got DOD, DHS, transportation industry. So I'm really looking to build a strong cohort of people who can recognize, do I need guardrails? What kind of guardrails? And how do I maintain those guardrails over time?

President Gregory Washington (37:52):
�鶹��Ƶ is constructing the Fuse building on its �鶹��Ƶ Square campus in Arlington. As you know, the building will house research labs, corporate innovation centers, incubators and accelerators. How does that interdisciplinary model fit into your research?

Missy Cummings (38:08):
Well, I'm hoping personally to teach classes in that building and actually have an offshoot of my lab out there. Because with all this work that we're doing with government agencies on safe, secure, trustworthy AI, we anticipate offering research and lab-based classes out there. So it's critical to my research and critical to the overall interdisciplinary nature of AI in general.

President Gregory Washington (38:33):
Well look, I am looking forward to what you're gonna do in Fuse. I think it's going to be fantastic. Just talk a little bit about how academia can be the agent that educates industry and government employees to actually ask the right questions about AI's performance, its weaknesses, its strengths, and its shortcomings.

Missy Cummings (38:54):
Yeah. So these are great questions. I think first and foremost we have to recognize...to start looking at the assumptions in the design and construction of AI. So I think what a lot of people miss is they think that AI is this great computational tool, one plus one is two. And so how can you argue with the math that's coming out of AI, for example? Well, it turns out that there's a lot of subjective work. And I personally have done research and I'm continuing to do this research that looks at the assumptions that modelers make. So when you're engineering, your computer scientist develops an algorithm, for example. They actually make a lot of guesses about how to initialize certain parameters inside the algorithm. How do I set some hyper parameters? And they don't really understand that the way that they set up the problem can actually cause the model to have very different outcomes as opposed to maybe another engineer who sets up a problem.

Missy Cummings (39:50):
So one of the research projects that I'm working on now that's gonna continue probably out at the Arlington campus is looking at data labeling. So it turns out, after spending some time with Amazon, I learned just how much data labeling is happening in offshore places like India and around the world. And lots of companies are using them. And then the question is, if you have people labeling images for eight hours a day, is that labeling just as good in their eighth hour as it is in the first hour? And one of the things that we're looking at my research right now is how does sloppy labeling not wrong labeling? So it's not wrong, people weren't circling the wrong image, the component of the image, but they were very sloppy. And then when you run that through a convolutional neural net, how much of the sloppiness and the data labeling shows up in the quality of the outcomes? Turns out it's pretty significant. And so.

President Gregory Washington (40:46):
That's part of the data set that's gonna be part of the model.

Missy Cummings (40:49):
That's right. So I really want to help people focus on knowing when, where, why, and how to ask those questions about the underpinnings of AI. Is there an assumption that was made in the development of this AI that could have a downstream effect? And not that you then shouldn't use the AI with that downstream problem, but at least you know that then there is potentially on the, on the downstream side that you have to maybe not trust the outcomes as much as you would if you had better quality data going into it.

President Gregory Washington (41:21):
Outstanding. I'm so looking forward to what we're gonna be able to give to the community, especially as this field continues to grow and as it continues to have an impact on taxpayers supported dollars. Right. The investment that the country is making in these technologies, you need to have an understanding of when to use 'em, when not to use them, and when to be cautious about their use.

Missy Cummings (41:46):
Right, and when people make big claims, I would like to give people tool sets to be able to evaluate those claims for themselves.

President Gregory Washington (41:54):
Outstanding. So I get to ask you a controversial question.

Missy Cummings (41:58):
Oh, what? We haven't been <laugh>.

President Gregory Washington (41:59):
Really, a really controversial one.

Missy Cummings (42:01):
Okay.

President Gregory Washington (42:02):
How long, in your opinion, before we actually see full self-driving vehicles? Well,

Missy Cummings (42:06):
I'm just gonna need a definition from you first. Do you mean like

President Gregory Washington (42:10):
<laughs> I mean you get in the vehicle and there's a steering wheel you can take over. So the whole concept from Zoox where you, there's no steering wheel, you just get in and ride: I'm not talking about that. But vehicles that are full self-driving where you have the option to say you push a button and the car just takes over.

Missy Cummings (42:28):
And you get in the backseat and go to sleep if you want and it'll take you to Vegas.

President Gregory Washington (42:31):
Well I'm not talking about that <laugh>. But you actually have the ability to do that: The technology will be sophisticated enough that you could indeed go in the backseat and go to sleep. When do you think that'll happen? Now not, I'm not saying that we will ever get to a point where the community allows that to happen, but when the technology is mature enough to happen?

Missy Cummings (42:51):
We're not even close.

President Gregory Washington (42:52):
We're not even close even. So how many...

Missy Cummings (42:54):
You know, I'm gonna pull a typical academic response. Oh, 10 to 15 years. 'cause that's the secret academic speak for, we don't know <laugh>, we, we have no idea. Right.

President Gregory Washington (43:03):
It's far enough away that where you can't get called on it.

Missy Cummings (43:06):
But yeah. Right. So I think that that we will see in the short term, there's been a lot of success. I mean you see it on George �鶹��Ƶ's campus with Starship little grocery delivery. So companies like Neuro who have the bigger vehicles are on the road that the purpose-built. Yeah. I think that they--

President Gregory Washington (43:22):
Those are working!

Missy Cummings (43:23):
Those are working. And we, I think that there's a real legitimate profit building.

President Gregory Washington (43:28):
What is it? TU has the trucks out there.

Missy Cummings (43:31):
So I think that small last mile delivery is probably where we'll see that first happen. You know, it just like Waymo is struggling still. Cruise is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I mean, all signs are like they're making incremental progress. But if you're asking me, should I go ahead and start investing in self-driving cars because they're gonna start turning a profit next year, I don't know when that year is gonna be.

President Gregory Washington (43:58):
Here's the last controversial question. What do you say to people who worry that automation will be taking away even more jobs from people? 'Cause we know they have taken away some jobs, we know where this is going. Talk about that a little bit.

Missy Cummings (44:13):
Yeah, I don't think we know where it's going. I think we think we know where it's going because we hear, you know, the media's job is to kind of get you to click more. So the headlines are always bad on this front, but I've been predicting this correctly for a long time. Look, it's true. Elevator men and you know, there were always a man in the elevator, maybe occasionally a woman who pushed the buttons for the elevator. Are those people out of a job because of automation? Yes. Yes. But they probably needed to be out of a job. That job didn't, that was dull and tedious and it didn't need to be there. Now are we at a place where we might lose a few jobs here or there to automation? I would say yes. Particularly in factories and manufacturing. Again, these are jobs that destroy the dignity of humans.

Missy Cummings (44:57):
I would love to get the people who are having to pack my Amazon boxes. This is really, really boring work for them. It causes repetitive distress injury. I would love to get that job automated as quickly as possible. It turns out it's very hard to automate. The human hand is a thing of genius. Eventually we will start to see more and more jobs automated as we figure it out. But every time we automate one job, it opens the door to 10 more. And I think that that's what people don't realize is that we can't have enough manufacturing workers right now. We are in such a glut of labor workforce; pilots, like, you wanna be a pilot? Go sign up because we don't have enough pilots right now! So I think that people tend to hear the worst when they hear about robots are coming. I will tell you, taxi drivers, you do not have anything to worry about. Truck drivers. You do not have anything to worry about. Like

President Gregory Washington (45:51):
So you got a long time before the vehicles start driving themselves and take your jobs.

Missy Cummings (45:56):
Oh, we are so far away from that. And what's happening is we are seeing the creation of so many more jobs. And I'll tell you something else that the audience, if you're looking for a good stock tip, start your own robot maintenance company because we can't keep them all working. For the manufacturing robots that are out there, a lot of them have to sit into a closet because they don't have enough people to come and fix them when they inevitably break down.

President Gregory Washington (46:21):
Outstanding. Well this has been fantastic and I cannot wait to see the results of your research. And that will do it for this episode of Access to Excellence. I'd like to thank my guests, Professor Missy Cummings, who directs �鶹��Ƶ's Center for Robotics, Autonomous Systems, and Translational AI for taking the time to speak with me. I am �鶹��Ƶ President Gregory Washington saying, until next time, be safe �鶹��Ƶ Nation.

Missy Cummings (46:54):
And don't speed in your autopilot.

President Gregory Washington (46:56):
Alright. Of course.

Outro (46:58):
If you like what you heard on this podcast, go to podcast.gmu.edu for more of Gregory Washington's conversations with the thought leaders, experts, and educators who take on the grand challenges facing our students graduates in higher education. That's podcast.gmu.edu.

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Missy Cummings

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