WEBVTT

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My mom is a strong black woman

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who raised her kids to have
the same sense of strength and pride.

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This spirit was epitomized
by a single wall

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in our small, two-bedroom apartment
on the South Side of Chicago.

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Two pictures hung proudly:

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one larger-than-life photo
of my siblings and I

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and the other a picture of my mom

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at 12 years old

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staring into the eyes
of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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When I was younger,
I used to stand on my tippy-toes,

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stare at that picture,

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close my eyes tightly,
and just pretend that it was me

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gazing up at the man who revolutionized
the Civil Rights Movement,

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who marched on Washington
and who transformed a generation

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by his words, "I have a dream."

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But I did get to meet him.

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Now, obviously, I didn't meet Dr. King,

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but I met a man named Dr. Vincent Harding.

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He worked with Dr. King from day one

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and even wrote some of his
most iconic speeches.

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You see, this was a really
important moment for me as a kid,

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because it was the first time
that I realized

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that it wasn't just Dr. King
who led this revolution,

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but he was surrounded by a movement
made up of anonymous extraordinaries.

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Anonymous extraordinaries are people
who work selflessly and vigorously

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for what they believe in,

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people who are motivated by conviction
and not recognition.

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It took me a long time to realize
the significance of this moment,

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until I was much older.

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And like I said, I grew up in Chicago.

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I grew up in a rough, poor neighborhood,

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but it didn't really matter to me as kid,

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because I literally have
the most incredible family in the world.

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Two things that I did
struggle with a lot --

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growing up was one --

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that my dad has been sick my whole life.

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He suffers from Parkinson's
and pancreatitis,

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and as a kid, it was so hard
for me to watch my hero

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in so much pain.

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And my other issue was with me.

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I guess you could say
I had an identity crisis.

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I had to move four times
during high school,

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and my freshman year I went
to an extremely racist high school.

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Kids were so cruel.

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They gave us hate letters,

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wrote terrible things on our lockers

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and because I'm biracial,
they would tell me,

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"You can't be both.
You have to choose, black or white."

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And in the end
I just resented being either.

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And then all of a sudden,
my senior year rolls around, 2008,

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and being mixed, being racially
ambiguous is this new cool fad,

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like, "Natalie, now it's OK
for you to like you. You're pretty now."

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I was over it. I was tired of caring
about what other people thought

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and I just wanted to hurry up,

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go through my classes,
whatever school I was going to be at next,

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and graduate.

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It wasn't until I was 17

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and I saw a film
called "Invisible Children"

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that something happened.

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Child soldiers,

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children as young as my nephews

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being abducted,
given AK-47s and forced to kill,

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not just anyone, but oftentimes
forced to kill their own parents,

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their own siblings --

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a rebel army committing mass murder
for no political or religious reason,

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just because.

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25 years.

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25 years this conflict has been going on.

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I'm 20 years old,

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so that makes this conflict
five years older than me.

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One man,

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one man with one charismatic voice,

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started this whole thing.

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His name is Joseph Kony.

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When I saw this film, something happened.

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Something started
kind of stirring inside of me

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and I couldn't identify what it was.

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I didn't know if it was rage,
if it was pity,

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if I felt guilty
because this was the first time

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I'd heard about a 25-year-long war.

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I couldn't even give it a name.

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All I knew is that it kicked me off my ass
and I started asking questions.

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What do I do? What can one 17-year-old do?

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You've got to give me something.

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And they gave me something.

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The founders and filmmakers
at Invisible Children told me

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that there was this bill,

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that if we could
just get this bill passed,

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it would do two things:
one, it would apprehend Joseph Kony

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and the top commanders in his rebel army,

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and two, it would provide funding
for the recovery of these regions

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that had been devastated
by 25 years of war.

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And I was like, done. Let me at it.

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I swear I will do whatever I can
to make this happen.

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So myself and 99 other
idealistic 18- to 20-year-olds

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hopped on a plane to intern
in San Diego with Invisible Children.

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I was postponing college.
We weren't getting paid for this

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and you could call it irresponsible
or crazy -- my parents did --

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but for us, it would have been
insane not to go.

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We all felt this urgency
and we would do whatever it took

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to pass this bill.

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So we were given our first task.

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We were going to plan an event called
the Rescue of Joseph Kony's Child Soldiers

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where participants would come
in a hundred cities worldwide

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and rally in their city center

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until a celebrity or a political figure

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came and used their voice
on behalf of these child soldiers,

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and at that point each city was "rescued."

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But the catch was, we weren't
leaving the cities until we were rescued.

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I was given Chicago and nine other cities

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and I told my bosses, I was like,

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"If we're going for big-name people,
why not go for the queen bee? Right?

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Why not go for Oprah Winfrey?"

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They thought I was a little idealistic,
but I mean, we were trying to think big.

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We were doing an impossible thing,

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so why not try to reach
more impossible things?

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And so we had from January
to April to get this done.

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This is the number of hours
that I spent on logistics,

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from getting permits
to rallying participants

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and finding venues.

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This is the number of times
that I was rejected

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by celebrities' agents
or politicians' secretaries.

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That is amount of money
that I spent personally

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on Red Bull and Diet Coke
to stay awake during this movement.

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(Laughter)

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You can judge me if you want to.

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That is my hospital bill
from the kidney infection I got

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from an overconsumption of caffeine
due to this event.

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(Laughter)

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These were just some
of the ridiculous things that we did

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to try and pull this event off.

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And so April 21 rolls around
and the event begins.

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A hundred cities around the world.
They were beautiful.

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Six days later, all the cities
were rescued but one:

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Chicago.

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So we were waiting in the city.

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People started coming
from all over the world,

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all over the country to be reinforcements

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and join their voice with ours,

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and finally, on May 1,

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we wrapped ourselves around Oprah's studio

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and we got her attention.

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This is a clip from a film
called "Together We Are Free"

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documenting the rescue event
and my attempt to get Oprah.

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(Video) Oprah Winfrey:
When I drove into the office,

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there was a giant -- when you came in,
was there a group outside?

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Crowd: Yes.

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OW: Holding up signs
asking if I would talk to them

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for just five minutes,

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so I was happy to do so,

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and they are with a group
called "Invisible Children,"

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and I told this group outside

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that I'd give them a minute
to state their case.

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Man: Oprah, thank you
so much for having us.

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Basically, these folks out here
have seen the story of 30,000 children

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abducted by a rebel leader
named Joseph Kony

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and they're out here in solidarity,

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and they have been out here for six days.

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This started 100,000 people worldwide.

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Now it's down to 500 standing strong

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so that you can raise
the profile of this issue

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and we can end the longest-running
war in Africa and rescue those kids

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that are child soldiers
still in East Africa.

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Oprah, I have to say
this girl Natalie here,

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she's 18 years old.

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She was an intern for us this year,

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and she said, "My one goal
is to get Oprah."

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She had 2,000 people come out on Saturday,

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but it rained.

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She stood here in the rain with 50 people.

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When they heard she was here,
hundreds started coming.

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People are here from Mexico, Australia.

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Natalie's 18.

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Don't think you're too young.

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You can change the world any day.

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Start now.

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Start today.

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(Cheers)

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Man: Was it worth it?

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Crowd: Yeah!

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Crowd: Natalie! Natalie! Natalie!

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(Music)

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Together we are free!
Together we are free!

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(Applause)

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So you would think
that this is the moment in my life,

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the pinnacle that
made me an extraordinary.

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And it was an awesome moment.

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I mean, I was on top of the world.

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Ten million people
watched the "Oprah Winfrey Show".

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But looking back, that wasn't it.

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Don't get me wrong.

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Like I said, it was great moment.

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It made for a heck of a profile picture
on Facebook for a week.

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(Laughter)

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But I had been extraordinary all along,

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and I wasn't alone.

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You see, even though
my story was featured in this film,

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I was just one of a hundred interns

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who worked their tails off
to make this happen.

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I'm up in the air,

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but the guy that I'm sitting
on his shoulders,

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he's my best friend.

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His name is Johannes Oberman

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and Johannes worked with me
from day one in Chicago,

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just as long hours,
just as many sleepless nights as I did.

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The girl on the right,
her name's Bethany Bylsma.

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Bethany planned New York City and Boston

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and they were seriously
the most beautiful events that we held.

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The girl on the left, her name's Colleen.

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Colleen moved to Mexico,

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moved, for three months,

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to plan five events there,

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only to be kicked out
the day before the events

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because of the swine flu.

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And then there was this family.

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This family, they didn't
get to come to the rescue.

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They couldn't make it out,

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but they ordered
a hundred boxes of pizza for us,

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delivered them to the corner
of Michigan and Randolph

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where we were all silently protesting.

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You see, it was people like this
doing whatever they could,

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simultaneously, single-mindedly,

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without a care to who was watching,

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that made this happen.

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It wasn't about us getting on Oprah,

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because when I got down
from their shoulders,

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the war hadn't ended.

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It was about that bill.

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Oprah was just a checkpoint
on the way to that bill.

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That bill was the point.

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That bill is what we had
our eyes set on from day one.

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That was going to help us
end Africa's longest-running war.

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And that is what brought
a hundred thousand people

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out to the rescue event
from around the world.

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And it paid off:

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10 days after we were on Oprah,

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the bill was introduced into Congress.

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A year after that, it got, unanimously,

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267 cosponsors in Congress,

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and then one week after that,

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President Obama signed our bill into law.

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(Applause)

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And none of us interns got to be there.

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We didn't get to be there in this moment.

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Our founders were there.

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They're the guys
cheesing in the background.

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But that moment right there
is what made all of it worth it.

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It's what a hundred thousand
anonymous extraordinaries

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worked for so hard to make that happen.

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You know, the Oprah moments,

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they prove that the supposedly
impossible can be done.

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They inspire us.
They boost our confidence.

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But the moment isn't a movement.

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Even a lot of those moments
strung together don't fuel a moment.

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What fuels a movement are
the anonymous extraordinaries behind it.

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You know, for me, what kept me
pushing on through the rescue

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was the thought of those child soldiers.

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It became personal.
I was able to go to Africa at one point.

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I met these incredible people.

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I have friends that have been
living in this conflict their entire life

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and it was personal to me.

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But that doesn't have to be
what drives you.

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You know, you may want
to be the next Shepard Fairey

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or the next JK Rowling

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or the next whoever.

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It doesn't matter, but whatever you want,

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chase after it
with everything that you have,

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not because of the fame or the fortune,

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but solely because
that's what you believe in,

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because that's what makes your heart sing.

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That's what your dance is.

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That's what is going
to define our generation,

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when we start chasing and fighting
after the things that we love

00:11:41.880 --> 00:11:43.336
and that we want to fight for.

00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:46.536
I cared too much in high school
about what people thought about me.

00:11:46.560 --> 00:11:48.696
That's what so awesome
about this conference,

00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:50.256
is so many of you are so young.

00:11:50.280 --> 00:11:53.696
Find that thing that inspires you
that you love and just chase after it.

00:11:53.720 --> 00:11:54.936
You know, fight for that,

00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:57.336
because that is what
is going to change this world

00:11:57.360 --> 00:11:58.936
and that is what defines us.

00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:00.296
Despite what people think,

00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:03.976
my Oprah moments,
my being on TED, doesn't define me,

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.096
because if you were
to follow me home to LA,

00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:09.016
you would see me waiting tables
and nannying to pay the bills

00:12:09.040 --> 00:12:11.440
as I chase after my dream
of becoming a filmmaker.

00:12:12.200 --> 00:12:15.496
In the small, anonymous, monotonous

00:12:15.520 --> 00:12:17.256
every-single-day acts,

00:12:17.280 --> 00:12:20.000
I have to remind myself
to be extraordinary.

00:12:21.160 --> 00:12:24.456
And believe me, when the door
is closed and the cameras are off,

00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:26.136
it's tough.

00:12:26.160 --> 00:12:28.896
But if there's one thing
that I want to drive home to you,

00:12:28.920 --> 00:12:31.576
one thing that I can say,
not just to you but to myself,

00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:34.096
is that it is the acts
that make us extraordinary,

00:12:34.120 --> 00:12:36.400
not the Oprah moments. Thank you.