Yesterday, I presented to 500 students at our local high school to recruit for our youth leadership program, Soulforce Leadership. I had a presentation planned, but I scrapped the slides and instead spoke from my heart. This was a "soulforce" moment for sure because I completely changed what I was going to say just 15 minutes before going on stage after looking within. Here is what I said:

Three months ago, my sister died. I have never talked about this publicly with anyone except for my family and close friends. And I wasn't planning on talking about it today, but I felt called to do so just 5 minutes before coming on stage. It is hard for me to talk about this, but somehow I feel it is no coincidence that I thought of her as I came to talk to you today...

She had a hard life and it was a tragic accident.

The American dream did not work for her...

The American dream also did not work others in my extended family either.

There is pain and shame and confusion.

My parents sacrificed so much to come into this country and to give us an opportunity and a better life and maybe things were ok for us... but it doesn't always work... it failed for some of my extended family members... And it has failed for many, many other people, as well.

But I have not given up and I still believe in the American Dream.... Because the American Dream did not fail for me. I'm here talking to you all today and I feel so lucky that I'm here today being able to do work I love and being able to speak to you all. I have an education. I own property. I work as a woman...I have 3 beautiful children who will have all the opportunities in the world. For many people, the dream has proved to provide so many tremendous opportunities, and the hope that regardless of your skin, religion, background you can succeed here. America is the land for everyone. I don't forget for a day that I'm a girl here in the US and I have rights that many others in the world as girls simply don't have.

I love the values this country is supposed to represent and I have not given up on the dream.

Because as Gandhi once said, the universe will always side on the side of justice.... the universe will always side on the side of love... You just have to stand far back enough to realize we are a little blip in this larger story.... We have been called right now in this point in our history to rise above it all... Despite what we see on the news or on facebook, peaceful protest is on the rise and peaceful protest is winning... According to empirical research done by Erica Chenowyth, in the last 100 year there have been 4x more peaceful protests than violent ones, and nonviolent movements have been successful not only to change policies but to overthrow governments two times to one... Since the 80's there have been many examples... Estonia, Poland, Belarus, Hungary, Arab Spring....the list goes on and they are on the rise.... All you need is 3.5% of the population to make your voice known and for governments to shift. In the US, that's about 11 million people. We had 2-3 million people get up and attend the women's march. We are on our way.

I have also not given up because I know deep inside there is goodness in all of us....I don't just think this. I know this.

So we will fight for that goodness.... we will fight for that love...

Soulforce is a five-day leadership camp with weekly meetings throughout the summer and then monthly throughout the school year....

But it is so much more....

We become a family....

We become a family for life...

We talk a lot about our feelings....We face our truth...We share our stories of selves to the world....

If you want to be a leader in your community....come join us...

If you want to stand up to injustice and systems of oppression that hold us down...come join us...

If want to be a peacemaker who can bring people together, come join us...

If you just want to be, come join us.

We will provide you with the skills and the training that you need.... because working toward a movement of change is not just a protest.... or signing a petition... it is about working systematically toward a goal.... We will teach you how....

We are part of a much larger movement.... this is an important moment in our history and you have been called....it is a movement to save what matters most to us....Natural state parks are under attack. Principles of equality and justice for all are being attacked. In the names of jobs, we are allowing greed to overthrow everything, including basic human decency and respect to each other as people. We are in a movement now to save the love we have for each other....to save the love we have for the earth...and to save love we have for ourselves...

Because I can't make change in the world if I am still dealing with my pain of my sister...

I can't sustain myself it's from a place of anger.... or if it's fear that is driving me...

I can't listen to the other side to come to a solution if I'm lost in my pain...

It has to be love....

And as we say at Soul Force, the first revolution is inner. It has always been inner.

So we do things like meditation and mindfulness to connect with ourselves.

Sometimes we are just silent.

Sometimes we just listen.

If anything I've said to you today has hit you in your heart, I urge you to just apply.

Don't forget and don't let it get lost in the shuffle. You can go online or you can fill out an application.

As I look at the hundreds of you out in the audience, I feel like saying sorry. I see that we have messed things up for you and we need to fix it. A native elder once told me that this is one of the first time in history we'll be learning from the younger generations because we need them to guide us. So we are ready to learn from you. You are in charge. We want to give you a platform to lead.

Thank you so much for your time. It was an honor to be here today.