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Vermont gathers leaders for important dialogues

In June, we included a note in an open thread about a meeting called “Vermont Leadership at the Crossroads,” which drew about 40 “historical leaders” from the city to discuss the future of leadership in the rapidly changing community of Burlington, Vt. Wanda Hines, the co-coordinator of the Burlington Legacy Project and head of the Social Equity Investment Project (SEIP), discussed how drastically Burlington has changed since her youth. When she was young, there were few black families in the community. Now, 25% of the students in the public schools comprise ethnicities other than white European and over 45 languages are spoken in the schools. Because of this, the community is expected to continue to become even more diverse, especially because they are a refugee resettlement community. Wanda organized a meeting in November between the “historic leaders,”  those who have traditionally held leadership positions in the community, and the “emerging leaders” within the community, those who may have traditionally been overlooked for historical leadership positions, but who are taking the lead within their communities to make them work for everyone. The reason she brought these two groups together was to look at how the leadership can adapt to the incoming members of the community, many racial and ethnic minorities, and ensure that everyone has a voice in the decisions that affect them. Wanda sent us an update about how this project is going, and we wanted to share it here.

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On Nov. 25, 2008 the Social Equity Investment Project (SEIP) hosted their second gathering to benefit the Vermont Leadership Institute’s  Social Equity Scholarship Fund (SESF). The event was organized by Wanda Hines and the SESF planning committee. SESF is committed to those constituencies that have traditionally been excluded, underserved, or marginalized in our communities.

The theme was: Vermont Leadership Promoting Inclusion. The event featured co-facilitators Hal Colston, director of NeighborKeepers and founder of Good News Garage, and Thomas R. Tremblay, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Safety and former Burlington police chief. The host sponsor was Main Street Landing along with co-sponsors Burlington Legacy Project, United Way of Chittenden County, Opportunities Credit Union, andSnelling Center for Government.

Approximatley 50 dedicated community leaders attended including individuals from the Burlington School District, law enforcement, the judicial system, Association of Africans Living in Vermont, University of Vermont, Vermont Community Foundation, Vermont House of Representatives, the City Councilor, and many more.

The event was extremely successful and reconfirmed the importance of providing new and emerging leadership with the tools to create communities that work for everyone.

Before leaving, community leaders were asked to share what they thought the groups next steps should be. They included:

• Organizing social gatherings
• Expanding the dialogue to communities that are still struggling to come together
• Investing in the infrastructure to strengthen the workforce in the community, especially through building bridges with employers to address issues of racism in issues of employment
• Organizing monthly breakfasts to keep the dialogue going
• Deciding on a strategic project that will engender/develop community leadership
• Developing relationships between historical and emerging leaders in order to build a solid foundation to address the many problems facing our communities
• Walking our talk by supporting the non-traditional leaders within the group

Two important questions were also posed: How do we get the pulse of different communities? Where will we get the resources to gain this information?

Vermont is not unlike many parts of the nation where demographic change is occuring rapidly. We are seeking to foster new leadership that will include those leaders who may not be identified as typical leaders. The group was encouraged by the conversations throughout the day and left feeling hopeful that they can continue to foster important conversations around the difficult issues facing Vt. communities. Leaders in Vt. are committed to working toward communities where everyone has a voice and the community works for everyone.

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Since their November meeting, Wanda has organized a casual gathering of the group in March so they can build relationships. She is also planning another meeting for June that will continue the conversation from Nov. The group is also planning a fall retreat, "Vermont Inclusive Transformational Leadership," where the group will look at how to practical implement power sharing, how to restructure their racial equity lens, how to include nontraditional leaders in decision-making, and how to continue to learn and grow rather than maintain the status quo. Overall, Wanda and the other leaders in this group are interested in fostering transformational leadership - leadership that will ensure that all concerns and views are considered in the dialogues that occur through the process of making their community work for everyone.

Mix It Up at Lunch Day 2008 a Success!

In November I wrote a blog post about the Mix It Up event that was to be held this year on November 13. I thought I’d share about this years event with you.

For a bit of an overall picture of the changes that occur because of these events, Tolerance.org conducted a survey in 2008 and found these results:

• 97% of respondents said students' interactions were positive during Mix It Up at Lunch Day.
• 95% of respondents said Mix It Up at Lunch Day prompted students to interact with people outside of their normal social circles.
• 92% of respondents said Mix It Up at Lunch Day increased awareness about social boundaries and divisions within school.
• 83% of respondents said the event helped students make new friends.
• 79% of respondents said as a result of the Day students have heightened sensitivity towards tolerance and social justice issues.
• 78% of the respondents said as a result of the Day students seem more comfortable interacting with different kinds of people.

The staff of Mix It Up at Lunch Day, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Tolerance.org, estimate that over 8,000 schools and 3 million students participated in this years Mix It Up at Lunch Day.

Schools had different activities associated with their program. Quarters were collected in one elementary school as students entered the lunch room to raise money for a local food pantry. All in all, they raised over $55 in quarters that day. And in Millington Central High School, the first Mix It Up day was such a success that students asked if they could have Mix It Up day on the 13th of every month.

Here's a video from another school:

Hackberry Elementary School in Arvada, Colorado, combines Mix It Up day with other efforts by the youth of the school to make their schools work for every student. Their Bully Proofing Committee, active for nine years, organizes Mix It Up day. The feedback they received included not only stories of how students made new friends, but also that they wanted to have questions that would probe for even deeper conversations.

One student at Longwood Central High School, Ariel, makes a statement that gets to the heart of the purpose of Mix It Up at lunch day:

“We just need to learn to socialize outside of a group of people that are all the same, and I hope that after I graduate, one day I'll be able to come back to this high school and see it has changed for the better.”

We hope that, through Mix It Up day, as well as other positive youth involvement in the schools, students like Ariel will come back and see this possibility through Mix It Up Day become a reality.

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If you’re interested in seeing how your school can participate in Mix It Up at Lunch Day, check out the website which has many resources and ideas to get you started!

Students embrace diversity through “Mix It Up”

 

Thousands of students across the country will be mixing it up in their cafeterias on Nov.13 as part of the national “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” campaign. On this day, students branch out sit with people outside of their normal social group. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Tolerance.org launched the campaign in response to hearing that young people can find it hard to fit in at school, and that nowhere is the divide between groups more clear than in the school cafeteria.

Mix It Up is not only about helping young people step out of their comfort zones, but it also aims to plant the seeds for change. “Mix It Up believes in the power of youth to create and sustain real change. We want to provide ideas and tools to help you break the walls of division in your school and community.”

In 2007, over 10,000 elementary, middle, and high schools participated, and over the six years of the program, over 43,000 schools and millions of students have participated.

What does Mix It Up at Lunch Day look like? Mix It Up’s website offers a number of ideas for hosting the event, including:

• Offering special food to create a festive environment that students will enjoy
• Inviting guests from the community to encourage and support students’ efforts to get to know each other
• Providing questions the students can ask each other in order to get to know each other
• Assigning students to tables, taking some of the fear out of finding a table
• Letting students pick new people to sit with (with assistance from teachers, if needed)
• Promoting the event with a fun theme, like wearing mismatched, or ‘mixed up’ clothing

Why did schools participate Mix It Up at Lunch Day in 2007?

Washington Irving School #14 in Indianapolis, IN – to combat bullying. One 4th grade student said: "I thought it was really cool and I was able to meet new people….We are not friends yet but I now know them. I can't wait until next year."

Central High School in Little Rock, AK – so students can “cross social boundaries, meet new friends, and learn that diversity is as accessible as a table in the cafeteria.” Despite the anxiety some students expressed as they looked for new places to sit, one girl told her friends, "Did you see who was sitting at our regular table? We should do this every day!"

Archie R. Cole Junior High School in East Greenwich, RI – to encourage kids to make a positive difference with their lives. Conversations that began at lunch extended into classroom discussions. In one 7th grad English class, students decided that they wanted to work “towards change through initiatives such as an anti-bullying campaign.”

How can I get my school involved next year? Go to the Mix It Up web page and check out the How to Mix It Up at Lunch information. You’ll learn how to organize, plan, publicize, educate, and act to get students, teachers, counselors, staff, administrators, and school clubs on board with this exciting event.

Our youth: a NOBLE cause

“It’s important as a black person.  My voice will be heard and I will not be left out. Also, this is a way to get more people involved in the community and an opportunity to voice our opinions.”
- Maria Twitty (at right), Parent and Community Leader, Burlington, Vermont, speaking about this week's community engagement program on youth quality of life. Read on to learn more ...

When people think of Vermont, diversity isn’t usually what comes to mind. But Burlington, the state’s largest city, is in the midst of big changes. Already impacted by increasing ethnic and cultural populations, the city is a major refugee resettlement area, and Burlington High School
students speak nearly 50 native languages. About 20 percent of the district’s children are from communities of color, and half of the district’s pupils receive free or reduced school meals.

In the context of this rapid demographic change, the Boys and Girls Club of Burlington has received from the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) a grant to conduct a community engagement process. The process is designed to help diverse community leaders identify an issue that is affecting the quality of life of youth. NOBLE’s mission is to promote a holistic community-wide approach to the reduction of crime and delinquency.

The much anticipated gathering – set this Thursday, September 11 - will include NOBLE’s introduction to community engagement planning, tools for building partnerships and solving problems, and strategic planning presented by nationally renowned moderator Dr. William Hyman.

As director of the City of Burlington’s Social Equity Investment Project, I was called in to be sure that this process would be responsive to and reflective of the current population. At SEIP, our goal is to identify and support leadership in the community to facilitate sustainable and effective social change. In all we do, we aim to showcase the value of building effective bridges across cultural barriers and challenges, and we believe the NOBLE event will be a big step toward making and strengthening those connections.

The 25 committed community members planning to attend the event include leadership from responsive and representative demographic changing populations, parents, youth, law enforcement, government representatives, business leaders, and local advocates who will work with an engagement specialist and identify the challenges facing impacted youth in our community and form a plan to effect positive change.  Here’s what a few of them – in addition to Maria, above - have to say about this opportunity:

“The engagement process will identify and support activities for youth who are at risk. Vermont is changing and people need to see that and so are our needs.” 
- Trista Miller: Parent and Imani Youth and Family Center, Director of Services

"I believe that this engagement process represents an opportunity to further community dialog about reducing crime and disorder and bringing specific focus to the ideas and experiences of one of our most important populations, our youth."
- Michael  Schirling, Chief of Police, Burlington

"The Community Engagement Process funded by the NOBLE grant is so important to our neighborhood, because we need to develop the tools to pull together to make our neighborhood safer and more welcoming for our youth and their families. We live and work in one of the most diverse areas of this city and yet we often don’t know how to talk to each other. We need to learn."
- Mary Alice McKenzie: Director, Burlington Boys and Girls Club

“The city of Burlington is at an increased ethnic and cultural population crossroad which all too often social transformation challenges accompany that change. The process will provide new and existing leadership the necessary tools to develop sound solutions to more effectively address the challenges and issues that impact all youth.”
- Wanda Hines: Director, Social Equity Investment Project 

“So the kids can get what they need. I’m hoping the process will help the police take crimes against black youth more seriously.”
- Pam Stewart, Parent and Community Leader

Friday digest-open thread 9/5/08

Registration opens today and ends September 19 for the fall round of Common Ground, Memphis' new community-wide initiative aimed at bettering race relations - and already, 400 people have expressed interest in the 600 slots available. As co-coordinator Wendi Thomas reported here at DemocracySpace, more than 270 participants and facilitators took part in the first discussions this spring. (See a video and read the lessons that organizers learned.)

In a story today on the fall sign-ups, coordinator Lisa Willis told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that spring Common Ground participants have begun work to put their ideas into action. This round will offer more location choices, and Thomas said organizers will be reaching beyond the "low-hanging fruit - "people who were already sensitive to the issues of race relations in Memphis" - to fill the 600 slots. Common Ground Memphis has a goal of having 60,000 people go through the program over the next three years. Click here to see the new Common Ground website and get more information.

A few million eyebrows went up among people watching the Republican National Convention on Wednesday when not one, not two, but three evening speakers slammed Democratic nominee Barack Obama's work as a community organizer. Organizers - being organizers, after all - swung into action Thursday to create a website to tell America that, yes, "community organizer" is an actual job title involving real responsibilities. (See Community Organizers Fight Back.) At the Daily Kos blog, essayist "billmon" questioned whether the anti-community organizer comments represented a coordinated effort to use racist code language against the first African-American presidential nominee from a major party, while Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Center for Community Change, released this statement:

When Sarah Palin demeaned community organizing, she didn't attack another candidate.  She attacked an American tradition --- one that has helped everyday Americans engage with the political process and make a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors. 

All across the country, in every state and every community, there are community organizers helping people find shared solutions to the shared problems they face.  The candidates for President and Vice President should be working to solve our shared problems, too, rather than attack others who are trying to do the same.

From winning living wages to expanding affordable housing to improving the quality of public schools to getting health coverage for the poor and elderly, community organizers have made and will continue to make our communities and our country better for all of us.

The values that community organizers and grassroots leaders represent are not Washington values or Wall Street values but American values, that we care for each other and look out for each other and know we're all interconnected and have a valuable role to play in making our country work for all of us.  Candidates should be courting these community values, not condemning them.

Finally, hip-hop video blogger Jay Smooth questions the GOP's decision to dis organizers in this clip. (Hat tip to Nick and RaceWire.) After all, plenty of community organizers are conservatives, as he notes starting about a minute-and-a-half in.

Friday digest-open thread 8/29/08

What a week this has been, with its historic anniversaries and future history unfurling all around us. A day ahead of Barack Obama's acceptance of the Democratic nomination for the presidency, the public radio program On Point spoke with African American writers Maya Angelou, Ishmael Reed, and Alice Walker about the nomination's historical impact. You can listen to the show here. Also, check out what some bloggers of color have written about Obama's nomination at Jack & Jill Politics (Jill Tubman) and Field Negro, as well as what a swing-voting African American has to say about the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket at Booker Rising. And the first two black mayors of Hartford, Connecticut, tell Jesse A. Hamilton of the Courant about the long road from D.C. (August 28, 1963) to Denver (August 28, 2008).

Just as the Gulf Coast is marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, Tropical Storm Gustav is gaining strength after killing at least 68 people in the Caribbean. Is Louisiana ready? Nearby St. Tammany Parish has already declared a state of emergency, key floodgates are being tested, and evacuation plans are in place. Yet the anniversary commemorations went on this morning, albeit in abbreviated form as a tense city waited and watched for news of the next storm threat.

One speaker after another at the Democratic National Convention this week spoke of clean energy and green jobs, and in his speech Thursday night, Obama pledged a $150 billion investment "over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced." Republican nominee-in-waiting McCain has also spoken of government investments in some alternative energy sources. September 27 - the day after the first presidential debate - will be a Green Jobs Now National Day of Action, with the message, as the event website says, that Americans are ready "to tackle the climate crisis by building a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." Learn more here.

Enjoy your holiday weekend, and we'll see you back here next Tuesday.

LBJ's civil rights legacy

In this week of landmark dates in civil rights history - Tuesday's 88th anniversary of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote and Thursday's 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech - another date stands out. One hundred years ago today, Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on a farm in central Texas. He is remembered for America's involvement in Vietnam, but also for the wealth of civil rights legislation that he and the Congress passed during the 1960s. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 - introduced by John F. Kennedy (before his death) to outlaw racial segregation -  and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 both became law during Johnson's presidency.

Without these acts, spurred by years of organizing by Dr. King and other civil rights leaders, it's unlikely that Barack Obama would be making history this week as the first African American nominee of a major U.S. political party. LBJ also introduced legislation that created Medicare, took aim on poverty, boosted education, attacked diseases, spurred urban renewal and highway beautification, advanced natural resources conservation, and addressed crime and delinquency.

Yet Johnson always maintained that, in a democracy, it wasn't enough to pass laws; that people had to be empowered to actually live by them. A quote on the LBJ100 website reads: "We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip people to walk through those doors." This is a paraphrase of a charge Johnson delivered during his 1965 commencement address at Howard University, when Johnson told the graduates:

Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society--to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others.

But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.

Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.

This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.

The LBJ Library and Museum on the University of Texas campus in Austin are celebrating today with free birthday cake, as well as the kickoff of an exhibit called "To the Moon: The American Space Program in the 1960s." (As Senate Majority Leader, LBJ co-sponsored the legislation creating NASA.) Other observances planned today include the Opening of the Texas White House at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Park and a birthday celebration at the Lyndon B. Johnson State Park & Historic Site. (Another fitting way to honor LBJ's legacy would be attending the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation's conference, which happens in Austin October 3-5.)

For further reading, you might also want to explore the website of a symposium on the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, held  in 2004 at the University of Texas at Austin. Of course, Everyday Democracy has resources for communities that recognize that our national journey toward racial equity continues today.

Friday digest-open thread 8/15/08

Classes will be back in session soon in most of the nation's schools. Earlier this month, The Oprah Winfrey Show focused on the unequal state of education in the United States, and how schools in both inner cities and rural areas often fail to provide the same sort of experiences enjoyed by students in wealthier districts. Explore the episode's website to get insight from author Jonathan Kozol, who says "We are now operating a school system in America that's more segregated than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King," and from Bill and Melinda Gates, who - together with former basketball star and education advocate Kevin Johnson - have launched a new campaign (Strong American Schools/ED IN '08, formerly StandUp) to address the crisis. Also, explore the tools available from Everyday Democracy to help launch action-oriented dialogues about education in your community - like the 500 folks in Dothan, Alabama, who recently did just that.

The Census Bureau reported this week that, by 2042, white people will no longer comprise a majority in the United States. Projections now estimate that the United States will have 439 million people in 2050 (up from about 305 million now). By mid-century, whites will make up 46 percent of the population, Hispanics will make up about 30 percent (double the current numbers), blacks will make up 15 percent (about the same as now), and people of Asian heritage - now 5 percent of the population - will be at about 9 percent. White non-Hispanic people today make up about two-thirds of the U.S. population, but only 55 percent among children younger than 5. "The white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, told the Associated Press. "The future of America is epitomized by the young people today. They are basically the melting pot we are going to see in the future." Again, Everyday Democracy offers resources - such as our discussion guides Facing Racism in a Diverse Nation and  Changing Faces, Changing Communities - to help us all navigate these shifting demographics.

The DemocracySpace water coolers are taking an August break, but we'd like to know what topics you want to see featured in our mostly monthly live blog sessions later this year. If you have ideas, put 'em in the comments below or email blog manager Julie Fanselow. Thanks for reading!

Three steps toward healing

Yesterday at the summer meeting of the Everyday Democracy Book Club, we had a good exchange with James W. Loewen, author of Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. Dr. Loewen offered this three-point plan for the thousands of U.S. communities that have a history of excluding people of color, writing:

Every (former) sundown town in the US needs to do at least these three things:
1. Admit it. ["We did this."]
2. Apologize. ["We did this and it was wrong, and we're sorry."]
3. State "We don't do it any more," and put teeth into that last statement -- if someone thinks we have discriminated, we have this racial ombudsperson to see, or this civil rights commission, or whatever. And we have indoctrinated our real estate agents. And we are hiring diversely for our school system and public works departments.

He also suggests:

• That cities consider becoming part of the National League of Cities' Inclusive Communities Partnership of cities that are committed to diversity in all its forms. Nearly 200 cities - including at least one former Sundown Town - have done so.
• "If you know a history teacher whose students might do this as a project, or if you can form a study group or action group at your church or civic organization, or if you need a project for a course you plan to take next fall in college ... consider something on sundown towns. It's virgin territory, and your work will likely lead to change." You can report anything that you learn about a town's history at Loewen's website. Click this map to learn more about what's already known.

You can read a transcript of yesterday's discussion here and order Sundown Towns here or from your local bookseller.

Welcome to the water cooler (7/08)

Update: Click here for an easier-to-read threaded version of this discussion, now archived at our wiki. You can read past discussions with Frances Moore Lappé and Matt Leighninger at our wiki, too.

Welcome to the summer installment of the Everyday Democracy Book Club. Our guest for today's live blog session (from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern) is Dr. James W. Loewen, author of Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. I am Julie Fanselow, online organizer for Everyday Democracy and manager of its DemocracySpace blog, and I'll be the moderator for today's online discussion. (We call these events "water coolers.")

Published in 2005, Sundown Towns was a groundbreaking book that helped document how thousands of U.S. communities, mostly in the North, had "whites-only" policies, often stated via signs at the city limits, forbidding people of color to stay after sunset. More critically, Professor Loewen shows in his book how the legacy of those policies lingers across our landscape today: in towns where black families are still rare, in feelings of prejudice and privilege among whites who grow up in homogeneous places, and in nearly every major issue we face as a nation today.

In an article written recently for the World magazine published by the Unitarian Universalist Association (read it here), historian Dan Carter summed up the challenge Loewen's book presents to us:

Everywhere we look, we see the long shadow of our racist past in the re-segregation of our public schools and the growing isolation of the poorest African Americans in impoverished inner cities, in the continuing wealth and income gap between black and white, and in the unconscionable explosion of a "prison-industrial complex" that incarcerates millions of black men, consigning them to a lifetime in the shadows of our society.

None of us should feel personal responsibility for what our parents or grandparents did or did not do. But there will be guilt enough for our own generation if we do not confront and address the bitter consequences of the story that James Loewen has revealed so powerfully in Sundown Towns.

Because Everyday Democracy works with communities to address issues of racial equity, that quote seems like an especially apropos way to frame today's discussion. What can those of us working for racial equity and justice do to overcome the lingering legacies of our history? What's already happening (and where), and what more needs to be done?

Here's how the water cooler will work: I'll ask Jim the first question at 1 p.m. Eastern, and he will answer in the comments as well. To follow this Q&A discussion, click on the word "comments" below this post. If you'd like to pose a question or add a comment, look for the phrase "POST A COMMENT" at the end of the existing comments. Below it, insert your name (real names, please); email address (it will not be visible online); and, if you like, the URL of your organization or program’s website. Write your question or comment in the box, then click “post.”

Please note: You will need to refresh your browser periodically to see the latest questions and comments that have been posted and answered. If traffic gets heavy, you may be asked to verify your comment with a "captcha check," or typing in a string of letters.

Also, if you see that several questions have already been asked, please be kind and give Jim a chance to catch up before posting your question. We'll post a rethreaded, easier-to-read version of this live blog at our wiki within 24 hours. (You can read past water cooler discussions there, too.)

Thank you for joining us for today's meeting of the Everyday Democracy Book Club! And now, let the discussion begin ...