LIVE from Atlanta: Stacey Abrams, Barbara Lee anchor opening night of Netroots Nation

Good after­noon, and wel­come back to NPI’s live cov­er­age of Net­roots Nation 2017, tak­ing place in Atlanta, Geor­gia today through this com­ing Saturday.

Net­roots Nation is Amer­i­ca’s largest annu­al gath­er­ing of pro­gres­sive activists, advo­ca­cy jour­nal­ists, and grass­roots orga­niz­ers. NPI has had a pres­ence at every Net­roots Nation con­fer­ence, going back to 2006, when the con­ven­tion was known as Year­lyKos. (The name was changed in 2008.)

Each year, Net­roots Nation tra­di­tion­al­ly brings con­ven­tion­go­ers togeth­er for the first time for an open­ing night ple­nary ses­sion, where atten­dees hear from dis­tin­guished elect­ed lead­ers, entre­pre­neurs, and activists. Tonight’s ple­nary ses­sion fea­tures a diverse array of speak­ers with pow­er­ful sto­ries to tell.

As the ses­sion unfolds, we will be offer­ing peri­od­ic live updates. You can also fol­low along from home your­self by going to Net­roots Nation’s Face­book page.

Rev. Angel Kyoto Wil­iams kicked off the ple­nary ses­sion by ask­ing atten­dees to think about what moti­vates them per­son­al­ly. She empha­sized the impor­tance of sus­tain­able prac­tices for pro­longed activism, ask­ing each par­tic­i­pant to reflect upon their moti­va­tion for activism and what mat­ters to them. Williams chal­lenged audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion to find spe­cif­ic and per­son­al caus­es of motivation.

Next to take the stage was Arshad Hasan, the Chair of the Board of Direc­tors of Net­roots Nation. Hasan explained to new atten­dees that Net­roots Nation is actu­al­ly two orga­ni­za­tions: the 501(c)(4) orga­ni­za­tion that orga­nizes the con­ven­tion, and the Net­roots Foun­da­tion, a 501(c)(3) char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion which sup­ports the work of the pro­gres­sive com­mu­ni­ty through ini­tia­tives like Win the Internet.

Hasan then relayed the sad news that Net­roots Foun­da­tion Chair Joel Sil­ber­man is unable to attend Net­roots Nation this year due to hav­ing recent­ly been diag­nosed with pan­cre­at­ic can­cer (which he is under­go­ing chemother­a­py for). Sil­ber­man did, how­ev­er, record a mes­sage of wel­come, in which he talked about his can­cer diag­no­sis, his treat­ment, and his hopes for this year’s Net­roots Nation.

Sil­ber­man cred­it­ed the qual­i­ty health­care he’s receiv­ing to the work of pro­gres­sive activists, explain­ing he believes he would not be alive today otherwise.

Pro­gres­sives have accom­plished much togeth­er (the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, mar­riage equal­i­ty, net neu­tral­i­ty), but our val­ues, prin­ci­ples, and pol­i­cy direc­tions are now grave­ly threat­ened by a right wing regime that Sil­ber­man says is try­ing to “divide, dis­tract, and dis­cour­age” us. Net­roots Nation must respond by com­mit­ting to “uni­fy, focus, and orga­nize,” Sil­ber­man declared.

Let Amer­i­ca Vote Pres­i­dent Jason Kan­der was next to address the convention.

He began his speech by talk­ing about the cir­cum­stances that led to the cre­ation of this mem­o­rable ad. Kan­der explained that dur­ing his cam­paign for the U.S. Sen­ate in Mis­souri, he wore the NRA’s “F” rat­ing of him as a badge of honor.

Kan­der not­ed that although he lost his Sen­ate bid, his can­di­da­cy is nev­er­the­less evi­dence that vot­ers respond enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly when the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty fields unaplo­get­i­cal­ly pro­gres­sive can­di­dates. Kan­der sig­nif­i­cant­ly out­per­formed Hillary Clin­ton in the Show Me State, earn­ing sup­port from many Mis­souri­ans not as pro­gres­sive as he, but appre­cia­tive of his his hon­esty and integrity.

Kan­der fur­ther not­ed that in his 2012 cam­paign for Sec­re­tary of State (which he won), he was able to attract sup­port from vot­ers despite being vocal­ly opposed to vot­er ID schemes. Even vot­ers who dis­agreed with him about that were will­ing to vote for him because they were drawn to him as a Demo­c­rat with integrity.

Kan­der fin­ished his speech by talk­ing about his friend­ship with Salam, a Mus­lim Amer­i­can from his home­town of Kansas City.

Kan­der rec­ol­lect­ed that he had been told not to adver­tise or tell fel­low ser­vice­mem­bers about his Jew­ish faith, and that he ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to ignore that admo­ni­tion and tell his bud­dy Salam that he was Jew­ish — only to find out that Salam had known all along, as his fam­i­ly had a con­nec­tion to Kan­der’s family.

We can’t be afraid to be our­selves, Kan­der concluded.