Skye Perryman – 2026 Just Economy Conference

Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman sat down with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Gregory Dyson on April 14 at the 2026 Just Economy Conference.

Speakers:

Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward
Gregory Dyson, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, NCRC

Transcript:

NCRC video transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. They are lightly edited for style and clarity.

Dyson 0:07
All right, good morning.

Perryman 0:09
Hi. Can you hear me? Okay, good, we're good, we're good,

Dyson 0:12
We're good. Well, Skye and I are just gonna have a little conversation here, just you know this morning, about topics that we are both very passionate about as are you know, as are you. You know, to sort of frame the discussion this morning, Skye, you know, we're celebrating America 250, but at the same time, this moment when our systems rely on accountability, are being tested. And so this conversation means, what do we have to do to put that in practice? And as we begin, I know when many of you came down the stairs this morning, you saw that Registration Board, and there was the quote from Jesse Jackson at the bottom, which we've known. We heard him say many times, time and time again, keep hope alive. But he also said one of many times, he often talked about how when America catches a cold, Black people, Brown people, poor people, catch pneumonia. And so that's the context in which we're going to talk about this work this morning. And when people you hear the word democracy, which is where you lead in your work, we think about elections and institutions and conventions, but at the same time, right now that democratic pieces that accountability is being weakened. So what actual changes do you think communities are facing in this critical moment when it comes to accessing capital, opportunity and fair treatment under the law?

Perryman 1:42
Well, thank you for having me. It's so good that we've always been saying we're going to meet up for coffee, and like we're doing it now. Everybody's here, we're going to have a live coffee. And thank you to NCRC for having me here and for your partnership and so much of our work, which I know we'll talk about. I think we, when we think about democracy, people think too small. And you said it right. They think about voting. They think about elections, they think about institutions. But what democracy is is the promise that we are going to build a society where all people can thrive, and so anything that threatens that promise, that seeks to keep that promise from being a reality, in our view, at Democracy Forward, and I think probably I share this with all of you, is a threat to the democratic way of life, to democracy, to the idea that we as a people get to be in charge of what happens next. And so it's no mistake that, as we see these historic for modern history, attacks on our democracy, whether you think about voter suppression, whether you think about the president ignoring other branches of government, whether we think about the targeting of particular people groups across the country, all of those are threats to democracy, and It's no mistake that, as we see that we also see increasingly, it being so much harder for communities and for people to thrive, because it's all interconnected. And so right now we talk about a crisis in our democracy. That's not hyperbole. It's not a talking point. It is, in fact, a crisis moment. But we also have a crisis in our communities, and how that is showing up right now is with the federal administration that has sought to cut off the very lifeblood of communities, whether that is seeking to target civil servants that are providing services to people in our communities, whether that is cutting off community funding. I mean, at Democracy Forward, we have sued and sued and sued and won and won and won to keep community funding mechanisms open that are the lifeblood of so many communities and the ability of people to access capital, whether that's credit or whether that's capital, we're seeing all of that threatened at the same time that we're seeing these fundamental democratic institutions threaten. So I think that it's no mistake and you all in this room, and one of the reasons I was so excited to be here this morning, you all get it that democracy is not just about voting in an election. It's not just about a separation of powers issue. It's actually about the ability of people and communities to thrive, and what set of conditions we need to do that.

Dyson 4:23
I think you make some very important points there, Skye. Because when we talk about economic justice here at NCRC, we talk about it as a policy issue. But what you do at Democracy Forward, you approach these fights, you know, in the courts. So, when do you think the legal avenue is the most effective way to pursue these fights for advancing economic justice? And you know, where does it fall short? But I also think, where is that intersection? Because I know we've done some important work with you. We know what the CFPB, we've been successful there, and we have a case that's ongoing. But where do you see the mix there?

Perryman 5:02
So I think we have to reorient ourselves, that in our country, and certainly in this moment, it is all about the people, how we are going to get out of this moment, how we're going to build a better future, not rebuild something that wasn't working, but a reimagined future is going to be up to the people. And so then the question becomes, what tools do people have? And so at Democracy Forward, we look at our work in the courts. We look at the ability of people in this country to file and initiate litigation against wrongs and against injustices and against their government as a fundamental power that people have. And when you are, at the moment, up against a lot of forces that want to get people to think they have no power, that there's nothing that they can do, that they just have to sort of participate in this fear mongering and lit right, that there's nothing that they can do the ability to initiate litigation or to use the courts or to use the legal system. It is a powerful, powerful tool for people. It's a powerful tool for movement building, which I know that we'll talk about. So how we look at our work in the courts is, what levers of power do people have to demand a better future, to show a better way, and to hold people to account that want to step in the way of that future. We look at policy work the same way. And I heard you're going to be on the Hill, which will be, you know, very exciting. But that's another tool that people in this country have, is the ability to show up, to engage with your policy makers, to make demands, to make your phone calls, to write your letters. Lots of people get that. I mean, not everybody. We wish more people got it. But lots of Americans get that. They understand, I can vote, I can call. They ask, does the calls do any good? Yes, they do. You know, be loud. You know, you can. People get that. And what we're focused on at Democracy Forward is a lot of people, I think, view the courts as kind of this other thing, as this institution that's very expensive to access, that they don't really know how to go in and make their voices heard through the courts. And so our work has been to try to level that playing field. And we represent all of our clients pro bono and free of charge. We want to make sure that the American people are able to access their court system, not just to win, and we do win a lot more than you know, many would have you think we win a lot, but not just to win, but to also show and exercise a lever of power, to say, I'm a member of this community in this country, it has made promises to me. It has made promises to my community, absolutely, and we're going to step in to enforce those promises. So that's how we view it holistically.

Dyson 7:53
How do you how do you elevate the courts in the community, in the community?

Perryman 7:57
Well, right now, it's become a little easier than maybe it used to be just even a few years ago, because right now, as our communities are facing a manufactured crisis from this administration, the courts are one of the levers that you have to use. So I'll give you some examples. Last year, and you all were so supportive of this, and I appreciate it. Last year, for the first time in US history, a United States President sought to weaponize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the SNAP program, 42 million Americans. And as you know, 42 million Americans, the vast majority working Americans, rely on SNAP to help make ends meet for their families. And in that government shutdown, for the first time ever, the White House took a position that it could deprive people of SNAP which Congress does not in, by the way Congress doesn't allow them to do, but that it could deprive people of this benefit in order to try to win a political game. And so we had a few days, I mean, we had a few days to get into court to try to preserve what we could of the ability of people to be able to get those entitlements and benefits during the shutdown. And we were able to do that, but with community organizations, with the Rhode Island Council of Churches, with food pantries, with small businesses that that were being harmed, we were able to get into court, which did two things. One, we won a court order that did help millions of people access food. It did not help everybody, because the administration slow-rolled their compliance with the court order. And so the resilience of communities in stepping in to assist in mutual aid was hugely important. It wasn't just the courts, it was the courts and communities. So we were able to do that, but the litigation also showed people in a community. Look, we can do this together, and we can use our voice to force a better way, and we can expose what's happening here, which is that we have a United States president that fought all the way up to the Supreme Court to try to deprive people of a few $100 of food that would make the difference for their families that week. That litigation exposed that, in addition to winning for people, and we saw that straight in our communities, you all at NCRC, we're representing you, along with small businesses and a range of other organizations, to continue to force the CFPB to do the data collection that we need in order to make sure that credit can be provided and accessed equitably. Okay, this is what their playbook everytime, is to come in and to try to cut off the data collection so that, so that you don't have a reality from which to work, so that they can deny a reality, so that they can obstruct the good work that you're trying to do. So we won that in the first Trump administration. We're going to win it again. We filed, we filed with you all, but that's directly related to the ability of people in our communities to run their businesses, to access capital, to get lending, and so we see it as very interrelated. And the work that we've had the privilege of doing, and the work that you all have helped us do, is to tell those stories, to elevate the voices, and to make sure that this doesn't just look like a lawsuit that's being filed on a federal docket somewhere, but that it looks like the stories of people in this in people in communities in this country demanding better and going and using their power to achieve something better.

Dyson 11:26
Absolutely. I know the example you give with SNAP and the work with in Rhode Island there, it says how your organization, Democracy Forward, is in the middle of fast-moving. You know, you know, litigation in and, and, but from that, you know, what can you What have you learned, and what can you share with us that it's going to help us, you know, further enhance our movement, building our piece when we, when we bring that intersection together?

Perryman 11:54
Well, I mean, you all are, this is part. I mean, we have to have a we don't need a miracle. We need a movement. Because we're far beyond needing a miracle. We need a movement in this moment, and there is a movement forming. And what I think is so critical about it, and you all have done such a good job, I think, in representing this to your constituents and to the communities you serve, but what's been so important is that this is a moment to really reimagine what's possible. We don't have to be left with old institutions that had not been delivering for people. Their institutions are important, but if they're not delivering for people, they're not doing what they were meant to do. We don't have to defend status quos. We certainly don't have to defend this status quo, but we don't even have to defend what, what, what this status quo has disrupt disrupted, we can say that in this crisis, there is a time to catalyze major change and to be able to operationalize a reimagined democracy that is a democracy that's more than just about voting, but it's a democracy that can hold all of us, and that can help people in communities thrive. And so I think the litigation that we're able to work on hell is a building block to that. In some instances, it's the first time that people realize, you know, they go to sleep thinking, Gosh, this is about to happen to my community. They wake up there's a court order in place. You know, it's the first time people realize that we do as people, have power to push back, but it's also a way, I think, to continue to then catalyze people who come together in a crisis to then, how can we work together? How can we make new alliances? A lot of our cases at Democracy Forward, they're on behalf of very unusual bedfellows and friendships are being formed. I mean, you know, we represent a range of organizations right now, religious organizations, faith based organizations, organizations that don't really get along with each other all the time, all together to come in and say, You're not going to have ice conduct enforcement operations in our churches, in our schools, in our hospitals, I think we're going to win those cases. We've already won some preliminary orders. I think we'll win them. But let's assume a world where we don't. Let's assume a world where we win some we lose some. Assume a world where we don't. What you've won in that is you've brought all of these different communities together that realize that there is a commonality in not just what they can fight against, but in how and what they want for their future, and how we can catalyze that future. So that's how I see it, sort of relating. And of course, you all have been such a critical part of that

Dyson
We are a coalition and 4042 43 states, nearly 800 member organizations. What is the greatest opportunity for us as we take these national issues and make them a local win, a local reality.

Perryman
I think you have so much opportunity. And one is because, like I said, you guys, you get it. I mean, you know that this is about more. Than a talking point about the rule of law, or about voting or I mean, these are really important things. By the way, I spend a lot of time in court. We think the rule of law is very important, but you understand that this is about how people and communities can thrive, and you've always seen the interrelationship between what you do when you're advocating nationally what you do when you're advocating in your communities. And so I think that at this moment where so many more people are now paying attention, there were folks that weren't really paying attention. Now people are paying attention. I mean, that's one thing this administration did, is they got people's attention. There is this real moment to then start telling a story that is a different story, that's a story about what you all are advocating for and can achieve. And that's a hyper local story, and it's also deeply, deeply global. And you see that, and just if you reflect on the Hungarian elections over the weekend, we should get in a round of applause for the people of Hungary but what you saw there was an autocratic actor that sought to divide people among identity that was so laced in corruption, people's lives were getting harder. I mean, you see all of these challenges happening, and if you read about what happened there, it was the local communities and leaders working together in local communities to say we can do something better, and going from village to village and town to town and city to city. That is how we get out of this. It is a it is a local, local solution to a global problem. And what is special about you all and your members, and what you're going to do today is you, you occupy those two worlds and see that. So I think there's a great opportunity. And I'll just say, and you know, there's also a great opportunity in this moment to use the courts, and so don't count that out. And don't think if your community is experiencing something, don't just say, Well, I guess we're going to write our representative, and I guess we're going to go to a meeting, and then we're going to, you know, tweet about it. Do all those things are really important. But also think about reach out. You know how to get in touch with us at Democracy Forward. You know how to get in touch with NCRC. Reach out and say. You know, is there, is there a court? Is there a legal element to this? Because sometimes the way we have made the most change over the last year has been to go to court, and sometimes we win without even having to win. Sometimes we go to court, and the administration doesn't even show up with an argument. They don't even show up with a defense. They were just betting on the fact that no one would care about this hyper local issue, about this economic issue that no one would really care. And so once you show up and say, we're suing you, they back off. And that is happening more than the mainstream media is reporting it, and so we want you to make sure that you're not counting the courts out, even as you're using all your other critical tools that you're going to be using over the next few days.

Dyson 17:50
So litigation and legal work should be part of the community activist toolkit.

Perryman 17:55
I think that's right. And in some communities, it doesn't work. In some communities, either the laws are in a certain place, or the courts in a certain place, or just the community doesn't want to do it, that's fine. You don't have to use every tool, but we certainly don't want you to consider a tool off the table, so you should always consider it and and then we've seen we say that it's courts plus people, it's how people are mobilizing, and then it's what levers of power you can use right now that's the courts. Maybe after the midterms, there'll be some other levers of power that we can use through legislation, in a more urgent way. But right now, it's the courts plus people.

Dyson 18:32
When you look around this room right now, we have a lot of stakeholders in the room here. We have community development leaders, we have fair lending advocates, the bankers, financial end of financial innovators. I think we all need to work. How do we come to work together to make enforcement and accountability real in this space and in this time?

Perryman 18:57
Well, accountability takes a lot of forms, and that's one thing I've appreciated about some of the tools that you all have used. There is a public accountability that everybody in this room can help enforce what we know about people in this country on issues. People say the country is divided. If you actually look on the issues, the vast majority of people in this country are united on the vast majority of issues. There is a political polarization in this country that is, frankly, a symptom of and a result of people that want to polarize the country to keep us distracted from the issues that we all care about, affordability, the ability to thrive, education, health care, all of these things. And it's the reason why, by the way, on the campaign trail, the President would not admit that he was going to implement project 2025 because if you go back and look at what data and polling showed, not just one poll, every poll, including the poll. Polls that the President's own allies ran, what you found was just a few weeks before the election, the vast majority of people in this country, including those that trend conservative, rejected so much of the policies in Project 2025 so much so that nobody would act like they were going to implement it. President act like it. He hadn't heard about it because it was so deeply unpopular. And so when we think about accountability, there is a range of accountability we have to pursue. One is to not give up the power we have at the end of the day, when you talk about these issues, access to credit, the ability to start and run a small business, the ability to invest in things that you want to invest in that makes sense for you, and that your family, that makes sense for the world, and that are sustainable. I mean, by the way, we won a court order two weeks ago in Texas where they were blacklisting companies that had sustainable investment portfolios. Mean you're having, we're having to fight this on all fronts, but the vast majority of people are aligned on those issues. And so I think one thing we have to do in terms of accountability is to require a public accounting to talk about what it is we are here fighting for, to dare people that would step in the way, to deny that as a value or as a reality, because they're not really going to be able to and to force that issue. We can do that sometimes by filing lawsuits, but we can also do that by a range of the social mobilizing campaigns, the social media campaigns, the communication campaigns. And so I would encourage all of us, while we are going to fight for accountability, there will have to be accountability in a future administration. There will have to be accountability, hopefully after the midterms, when the house could potentially get people that are actually interested in conducting oversight, there will be accountability. The state AGs will engage with accountability. But what I would challenge all of us to do is to not just focus on those formal areas of accountability, but also on the power that we all have as a community that's dedicated to things that the vast majority of people in this country want to force those conversations and to force those issues and and we see that that is able to cut through, even with these power structures that right now seem so stacked against many of these issues, those things are able to cut through. And you're seeing that in a lot of different ways, a lot of inspiring activism.

Dyson 21:22
You've been busy. Your team has been busy for the last 16 months. Share with us, if you could this morning, some of the more interesting stories, of antidotes that you've run across and your travels. I know you're leaving here this morning and going out to California, but you know, what have you seen in all of the activity that brings us, you know, that really moves this work forward in the last 16 months.

Perryman 22:47
I think, I mean, it's it first of all, the people, people have been amazing, powerful institutions have disappointed many of us. For those of us that practice law, some of the best and most storied law firms in the country bending a knee right out of the gate instead of showing up and challenging what every single federal judge, every single federal judge, Republican appointed and democratic appointed, have looked at with those executive orders the President issued against lawyers and said, This is blatantly unconstitutional, and having powerful institutions that looked at that situation and didn't say we're going to go to court and fight for ourselves and fight for what the legal profession and what the Constitution means in this country, but instead bend the knee. That's been very disappointing, powerful financial institutions not getting on the train here that you don't actually get to have all the wealth and the riches and everything that these financial institutions want in the world if you don't have a free society and a democracy, and if you lose what is at stake now, you lose it all. Right? That don't understand that. That's been deeply disappointing, but what has been so inspiring, and we get a front row seat of it every single day at Democracy Forward, and I guarantee some of you get a front row seat too, is how, as powerful institutions have stepped back, people have stepped forward, and they have stepped forward in amazing ways. So first of all, I'm just going to talk about the obvious, okay, the mobilizations of people that we have seen in the streets across this country and in communities, by the way, including in red communities, like the one I grew up in in Texas, okay, red communities, the mobilizations that we have seen have been the largest single days of mobilization in United States history, millions of people. You're looking at historic threats. You were seeing historic responses. And sometimes we don't have the ability to just look up and see that we are living in this historic time. The amount of people that have been trained in nonviolent direct action is far greater now than it ever was in the civil rights movement. And everyone that was in the civil rights movement, some of you were. There, some of you march will say that the amount of people that have been trained in non violent direct action in this country right now is far greater than anything we were ever able to do in earlier movement moments because of the advent of social media, of communication, of national organizing, because of those building blocks. Okay, so that's the obvious. That's what we see in the streets, but what we've seen from day one, including when many people were calling into the news and saying, I don't think there's a resistance. Where's the resistance? What we saw from day one is that millions of people were mobilizing through our court actions, and I'll tell you some stories that hopefully will inspire you on Valentine's Day last year, you will remember that the administration gave the American people a Valentine in the form of a Dear Colleague letter, which threatened to defund K through 12 public education and virtually all of higher education, public higher education, but any higher education institution that receives any type of federal funding, which is the vast majority of institutions in the country, because of all the financial assistance, AIDS and grants, okay, so they threatened to defund all of them if your institution didn't agree with whatever the White House was purporting to say on the issue of civil rights. This was called the Dear Colleague letter. Not a single university sued to challenge that letter, but people did, and we represented a range of educators, academics, staff members, people that had the least amount of power in this situation. We went to court and represented we drew a Trump appointed judge, and we won a national court order block the Dear Colleague letter. But then you might say, Well, what that's great. Okay, good, okay, good. Then our friends at LDF followed up with another lawsuit, and our friends at the ACLU followed up the dollar. And so you now have something going here, okay, but you may say, but what about appeal? What happened on appeal? Well, you want to know what happened the administration backed off before the matter ever went to appeal, walked it back, backed off, final court judgment from our trump appointed judge in place. So the lessons from that is, when you fight, you win. And I can tell many of those stories, of court orders, how we've mobilized, how we've used the leverage to push back. But the other lesson is, and what has inspired me so much in the communities, is that this was something that every powerful institution in education and higher education had some type of self interest, it would seem to challenge. None of them had the guts to do it, and when the people stepped forward and use their power. They won something for the whole country. And they showed what I have been saying a lot these days, that courage is the new currency. It is courage. It is stepping forward. The law firms showed that too. The law firms that stepped forward and suit said, we're not going to bend a knee. We're going to go to court and be lawyers. They've all won, across the board, before diverse judges and in courts that might not have been as hospitable to every progressive view. This isn't a progressive issue. It is a constitutional issue. So we're seeing that, and that's something that we want everyone to take with us. The other thing that we're seeing is that people in this country are asking right now what they can do. When we got to day 100 last year of the administration, we were getting lots of calls at democracy for it. People had seen the early successes in court. They were afraid. But what every what the vast majority of people were calling about was saying, What can I do? I don't know that we've had that level of civic concern and engagement in American society in some time, and it's time to mobilize and harness that in new ways. So that's another thing that we're seeing, and we're seeing people of all different backgrounds show up, step up, and think about how to build a new way. So I think this is a really frightening moment, and there's nothing wrong with being afraid and scared. I think it is going to get worse. I think as the President continues to lose support, I think as people continue to mobilize, you're going to see a range of many more erratic activities. That's like part of the playbook. But I think that it's also this incredible moment where people are finding their power in new ways. They're building new relationships in new ways, and they're going to work. We're going to work to achieve a reality that we've needed for a long time, and a future that we've needed for a long time that's truly reimagined. Where we are here. The society is here to truly hold everyone.

Dyson 29:45
Well, I know the message you're giving us here this morning is one to organize, organize, organize, litigate, litigate, litigate, but most importantly, courage that we have, the you know, we the people, have the courage to step. Forwarding. Go forward. No, I know that earlier this year, you were honored as time 100 so congratulations on that. One the most influential people.

Perryman 30:10
Thank you. I think we all wish we had a little more influence. So we appreciate that. But it's like, you know, if we had a lot of influence, maybe this wouldn't be happening.

Dyson 30:25
I know you have a book coming out this summer, ordinary people, extraordinary times, looking forward to that, where you're going to probably tell many more of these stories in that, you know, in that book. But you know, as I close this morning in our conversation, and you and I go back a ways on some of these, these issues. And remember when Senator Kennedy, who we both know, would talk about, you know, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope shall live, and the dream shall never die. Said that 1980.

Perryman 30:53
Yes.

Dyson 30:55
And he said it again in 2008. You know, that was an inspiration for 2008, but I think for what you're doing, for what we're doing, it's a motivation for the work to continue. So thank you this morning for being with us, and to kick off our Just Economy Conference 2026.

Perryman 31:11
And thank you, guys, for being here and for choosing in this moment you could be anywhere to choosing in this moment to not give up and to be doing this work. And I'll just say we are so honored to get to work with NCRC at Democracy Forward, our lawsuit is going to win. We know it is, and we're mobilizing people while we're doing it.