Recap of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s NAWBO speech – Ignite your audience with our social strategies

I obsessed with being the best public speaker I can be. You can catch me watching TedTalks about this topic, listening to podcasts, and sometimes being lucky to see the speaker in action in-person like I did this week at a NAWBO Gala in Philadelphia. Politics aside, it was a thrill to hear the Mayor of Philadelphia speak.

Cherelle Parker was inaugurated as the 100th mayor of Philadelphia, becoming the first woman to lead the city and hold the office in 341 years. Source: https://www.phila.gov/departments/mayor/

I didn’t know I needed preaching that day.

Below are words of wisdom from her speech:

“Now, it is very nice to hear when you’re sitting down and people are introducing you and they say, Yo, you should know she’s the first woman mayor in the history of the city of Philadelphia, first woman in 341 years. Isn’t that great? And wow, representation matters. But guess what? I want you to know, I didn’t run to be a footnote in somebody else’s history book.”

“Extremely important, and it’s important to me because I’m the mayor today, but I don’t want you to think that I’m the mayor and or either that I pulled myself up by my bootstraps on my own. I am not a bootstrap person. I’m here because I stand on the shoulders of a number of women who did this work and said that women had a right to have a seat at the table when it came to govern. Men and politics and budget. When some people said, No, you shouldn’t be sitting at this table. You should be in the kitchen, they said, No, we deserve to work in local, state and federal government to develop the policies that are going to dictate how we function. So just like I’m here on the shoulders of Marion Tesco, Augusta Clark, Roxanne Jones, Anna Verna Joan Krajewski, Ruth Harper, oh so many. Ellen, gosh. She was Ethel Allen, the first woman council member here in the city of Philadelphia.”

“Donna Brazile says that when you get at the get a seat at the table, you’re supposed to break open the door, she said, and once you get through the door, you’re supposed to turn around and take the door off the hinges so that the next generation can come straight through another person I love, named Secretary Madeleine Albright. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or met her before, but I’m telling powerful, smart, brilliant, but she was only about this tall y’all. And we were at a forum one day, and she said very simply, if you’ve ever heard a talk, she’s very, very soft spoken, and she says there’s a special place in hell for women who reach success or the C suite and they don’t send the elevator back down to pick up other women”

“Women don’t get a seat at the table because they’re women. They usually get a seat at the table in spite of the fact that they are women. So I want to encourage you to one. Keep pushing, thinking bigger,walking taller, imagining yourself and your business in a place in space that some folks would think is delusional for you. But if you don’t have what others will consider to be delusional thinking, you will be stuck in a box. People think that you this is what you can do. This is the only thing you know how to do. So this is where you are supposed to stay. Don’t you dare let those negative self doubt and demons consume your mind. An intro to sociology. It is a technical term for it. It’s called the negative self fulfilling prophecy. You cannot allow it to consume your mind.”

“A friend of mine told me on the campaign trail, when the polling came back and said that I was at the bottom of the pack, they said she is polling last. She has the least amount of money, and there is no way that she can win. It. This is the most expensive mayoral primary election in the history of the city of Philadelphia. Well, when you had those kind of odds, it gave me a little bit of freedom. And the freedom that it gave me was I didn’t have to wear a mask when I came to a majority white community here far greater northeast my message was the same, safe, clean and green, access to economic opportunity for all, and this is the plan how I’m going to get there. When I went to South Philly and Frank the Chico was here, I would say, oh, Irish, Italian, South Philadelphia, the message was the same when I went to North Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, my Northwest Philadelphia, I didn’t have to act like a chameleon or perform for anyone. I could be my genuine, authentic self with the intonation and inflection in my voice that makes some people shrill because they say she talks too loud, and then so I can whisper too No matter, no matter when, where and how, I had a right to be my authentic self. And so, because I was falling low, I could say to people, this is my message. This is my skill set. No one’s better prepared than me. No one’s coming to the table stronger than me. Philadelphia, give me the honor and the privilege to feel the pressure of being your mayor, and I promise you I’ll do the best I can with what I have to represent.”

“What can you be doing 20 years from now, you have a right to have the audacity to see yourself in a place that other people could never imagine, but if you don’t do it, no one else will. Final thing that I’m terrible at, and this is not just for you to submit today.”

“She said, Why do you let people so easily throw shade on your shine? You’re shining as mayor of this city. You’re doing everything that you can do in this city. Why are you letting people throw shade on your shine…. So promise me that you will not allow anyone to throw shade on your shine. Let me hear you say, don’t throw shade on my shine. Don’t throw shade on my shine.”

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

About me: Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez is an international speaker, award-winning social media strategist, and co-author of The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever. With 14+ years in business doing digital marketing, she teaches business owners and teams how to market with intention, build authentic relationships, and create community online through workshops and consultations. She’s also a wife, mom of two girls, and lifelong learner fueled by chai tea lattes and cookies.

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