Good evening, thank you for coming.
My name is Ellington Graves. I am the director
of the Africanas Studies program here at Virginia Tech.
Uh and I'd like to welcome you to our first
installment of the Black Lives in the New South speaker
series. Um just a little bit about the series
and then I'll introduce our speaker for tonight. Um
the idea behind the this series really is to um
, acquaint folks, first and foremost with Africana Studies
and the kinds of topics that the field deals with
. Um and then secondly, to begin to address
the dynamics of the lives of people of African descent
in the American South. Um there's lots of conversations
about black life in the south, but frequently it's
historical uh and we wanted to really bring more attention
and create more conversation around what it's like to be
black in the contemporary american south. Um and uh
at the end of reverend Bradford talk, I'll tell
you a little bit more about the other speakers who
will be coming in for the series this year.
Uh But uh turn it over in a few minutes
to reverend Spencer Bradford. He is the executive director
of Durham Congregations in Action uh in Durham, North Carolina
. D. C. I. A.
. Was founded in 1969. I can't remember the
original name but became Durham Congregations in Action in 1976
. Um and been executive director for for seven years
, seven years. Okay. Uh And he is
also the pastor of Durham Mennonite Church, uh has
been very active in the Moral Mondays movement in North
Carolina, as well as engaging through the DCIA and
his congregation in efforts at dealing with economic justice,
racial justice, uh and the general vitality of the
Durham community. And so without further ado I'll turn
it over to reverend Bradford. Thank you. Mhm
. All right, so, um I'm going to
give a little introduction to the work of Durham congregations
and action, and then uh talk some about the
the work that we have participated in in social justice
, advocacy, and organizing in the Durham area over
the last several years. Um and then come back
and do a little reflection on on spirituality and religion
and social justice organizing. In light of that.
Um If you don't know much about Durham north Carolina
, let me just uh say in a very,
very briefly, what makes it distinctive? It was
it really was organized as a community just following the
end of the Civil War and took off economically at
the end of the 19th century, in the 1890s
, with 1890s on into the 19 Teens. Um
as a manufacturing center with textile and tobacco, uh
manufacturing. That's where rolled cigarettes, pre rolled cigarettes
were invented. That's how the Duke family made its
fortune. And it became an industrial center in central
north Carolina during those decades. Because of the industrial
economic activity, it drew people black and white from
the surrounding counties and countryside for employment and for and
because of the industrial activity that was there. And
the business activity around the industries that grew up around
that, both black owned and white owned, it
became a biracial economic powerhouse in north Carolina, giving
rise to the first uh to the first black college
institution of higher education in north Carolina, which became
north Carolina. Central University, giving rise to the
north Carolina Mutual Life Insurance, uh Business Corporation,
the uh one of the first black owned Insurance companies
in the country and in the 1920s, then to
what became known as Black Wall Street, a a
very thriving african american economic center um that and nurtured
the development of a strong uh well educated professional black
middle class in Durham. Um That that continues to
this day. And because of that one of the
things that makes, because of that history, there
, One of the things that distinguishes Durham in North
Carolina is the uh is the racial constituency where we
have about 42 of the Durham Population White, about
42 of the population black and with the balance being
predominantly latino. So it is a which makes for
which is made for a very interesting politics in Durham
. And uh it makes uh community where the uh
where issues of racial injustice, racial inequity don't get
swept under the rug but are brought out uh in
public to be addressed often with profoundly committed and skilled
leadership, with some innovative strategies sometimes not but always
brought out. And uh so that's a little background
on on on Durham very, very briefly. Uh
just to say a little bit about my personal history
there, I uh as you might be able to
tell from my accent, I didn't grow up in
north Carolina, I grew up in Florida, I
came to Durham in the late 80s to go to
seminary at Duke Divinity School and uh my wife and
I loved the love north Carolina and decided to stay
, spent the nineties in other communities in north Carolina
, uh directing social ministry organizations, poverty relief organizations
such as homeless shelters, soup kitchens, education programs
in low income communities, And then moved back to
Durham in 2000 to direct the programs that urban ministries
of Durham, the homeless shelter and soup kitchen downtown
. And then uh then left urban ministries to direct
Durham congregations in action when the CIA's when my predecessor
, they're retired. Um so that's the, so
I've lived in Durham continuously for the last 14 years
and been working there in primarily direct service organizations,
beginning to do some more advocacy. Uh The last
several years with D. C. I. A
. Now the CIA, as uh Professor Graves said
was started in 1969 as the inner city church council
and changed its name to Durham congregations in action when
it became no longer exclusively christian an association of christian
churches, but expanded to include jewish synagogues and to
approach Muslims in the community about membership as well.
Um It was organized to uh as a place where
diverse faith communities could collaborate on meeting needs in the
community that no one congregation was prepared or equipped to
do individually. So is really organized to do direct
service specifically initially to provide services to youth and senior
citizens in central Durham who were living in low income
housing. And it expanded from there. It has
always remained part of our mission to be a place
to collaborate on programs like that predominantly with a direct
service focus, looking at how faith communities could directly
engage and concretely meet directly needs that were being experienced
in the community. It took on more particularly the
form of being a nonprofit incubator. Shortly after that
, in 1976, we launched the local meals on
wheels program. Got and for the last for the
last four decades, then we've continued to work as
a nonprofit incubator, Being a place where we that
where startup programs could get the infrastructure, the nonprofit
sponsorship, they needed to get going and then launch
forward out of that. The vast majority of the
programs that we've started have had a focus on addressing
poverty and violence in the community and dressing racial disparities
. So we have after meals on wheels, we
helped start up a couple of uh, the Interfaith
AIDS Alliance, uh, the which which grew and
merged into a handful of other HIV AIDS intervention programs
in the Triangle uh over the years. Uh we
helped start up the Urban Ministry Center downtown, which
came to house a homeless shelter and a soup kitchen
of clothing closet of food pantry. We have we
collaborated with the Department of Social Services to start up
an emergency Energy fund in the eighties, which took
off from there. Um We started other shelter programs
for families, um a community violence project, a
Restorative justice Project, a supportive employment program for the
hard to employee called Durham Economic Resource Center folks who
had uh who did not have a strong employment history
because of addictions or incarceration that they had experienced.
I'm going to say some more about that later.
But those are, so starting those up and then
and then turning spinning those off as separate independent programs
has been the work of D. C. I
. A. Now. Um Along the way,
in addition to the direct service work, we would
occasionally engage in some advocacy. We all there was
always some advocacy going on. Uh It was always
focused on the municipal level government. We never really
took on national issues in terms of trying to bring
congregations to speak on those together to speak on those
. But in terms of addressing municipal issues, uh
petitioning the petitioning the city to invest in affordable housing
. For instance, a particular affordable housing program at
a given point would be the sort of thing that
D. C. I. A. Had done
In the early 90s, uh when the Durham went
through a significant transition in terms of racial politics uh
when the city and county school systems were merged um
during the desegregation uh experience in the seventies. What
had happened effectively was that was white flight out of
the city school system into the separate county school system
, and it was recognized in the late eighties that
this was a problem uh that was simply perpetuating segregation
. And so there was a the controversial, politically
delicate process of merging those two systems. There was
good community leadership, both from the black community and
the white community to make that happen. D.
C. I. A. S little part of
that was getting the faith communities behind that process to
uh equipped them and encourage them to speak out in
support of that merger process. So from time to
time, D. C. I. A would
do some advocacy like that, but our primary mission
has always been on direct service. So, um
, and even when we did focus on advocacy,
it was more, it was primarily in terms of
lobbying or encouraging the extension and development of direct services
by the local government, direct services such as housing
, uh such as education, such as types of
welfare service like the Emergency Energy Fund. So,
these kinds of direct government services decia really had not
been looking at uh, at advocacy regarding things along
regulatory policy, more policy issues more focused on programs
than policies. Now, this is this is important
because it's going to be a that Distinction or that
is framing is going to be important for looking at
what's happened in the last 15 years in Durham and
in North Carolina. So think when you think of
uh public public advocacy for government change in action,
it's significant to distinguish between government services and regulatory policies
. When you're when you're talking about government services,
we're talking about government actually providing things for eligible citizens
. When you're talking about regulatory policy, you're talking
about things that the government doesn't provide, but the
boundaries and floors and ceilings that government provides for citizen
, the private sector to work within. So those
are things like uh minimum wages, uh employment regulations
, say employment safety and health regulations. Tax policy
, Financial regulations. Regulatory policies are a role for
government, distinctive from their direct services. So just
keep that in mind. Um So I came on
board with D. C. I. A.
In 2000 and seven. That was the I was
the previous director had just retired after starting up a
new project at D. C. A. A
that I inherited and and very much enjoyed working with
. It was called Yo Durham. It was which
stood for youth opportunity or year of opportunity for Durham
youth. Um And it was a uh it was
based on boston 10 point coalition model plan for intervening
with Youth of promise who were under resourced who had
came. Most of them came from families in in
poverty or near poverty with uh or with a parent
who was incarcerated um or with other social economic challenges
. Um And we would, Yo Durham would match
them with, a mentor would provide would provide an
intensive career readiness training program during the summer and organize
a paid school year, part time internship for them
. So it's really oriented. Not prime mentoring was
a part of it. Academic support was a part
of it, but the real center of it was
the career readiness part because we were looking at in
at improving and expanding economic opportunity for youth who apart
from that program, we're facing a lack of opportunity
. So again, going back to that framing I
set up, this was decia setting up a direct
service model to try to address economic inequities, an
important piece of important piece of the work to be
done. Um But in the context of that D
. C. I. A. Was also beginning
to look at systemic advocacy differently as well. One
of the things that happened in the early two thousands
from 1999 of on was the organizing of a peer
organization to D. C. I. A.
Called Durham. Can Durham can uh can stands for
congregations, associations and neighborhoods for those of you who
are familiar with it, even if you aren't looking
up on the web. It was the local Industrial
Areas Foundation affiliate I. A. A. F
. Is a network of community organizing programs started by
Saul Alinsky, uh, mid 20th century. Uh
, you can find out a lot more about that
on the web. Durham Can was organized as an
I. F. Affiliate. Now, their mission
compared to D. C. A. S,
was to focus on systemic change advocacy. Uh,
looking they were organizing action by grassroots citizens in congregations
, associations, neighborhoods in Durham to bring pressure to
bear on decision makers, primarily in the public sector
and the local government, but also in the private
sector to institute change changes that would benefit the grassroots
population at large endure. Um, and they so
starting from their organizing, they went at that work
with a great deal of success, and I was
able to participate in some of their work as a
, as a as an individual, as a member
of their uh, the congregations that were involved with
them um, during those years, campaigning for living
wage ordinance and for living wages for uh, for
employees at Duke University, um, organizing for uh
, supportive services for uh, for latino students in
the public school system. That kind of policy change
. That change would change the practice and activities of
institutions in the community was the focus of Durham Can
a a year. So what happened shortly after I
started work at about a year after I started work
at the CIA was the economic crash of 2008 and
the great recession. And in the fall of 2008
, uh, ministers who were involved in Durham Can
began to do reflection together about what would be a
systemic response to the financial crisis being experienced by average
people on Main Street in our communities. We looked
at what was the impact of the financial recession that
was going on? Well, lots of foreclosures,
Everyone remembers that. Lots of foreclosures, lots of
people being pushed into bankruptcy. So we looked at
the regulatory boundaries set by our state government on indebtedness
. And we identified this as a problem. We've
got people not only being foreclosed on, we've got
people whose financial crises are exacerbated because they are being
charged exorbitant rates on personal loans and that they have
had, we've got people losing their homes because they
are because of indebtedness by financial institutions that are being
subsidized and bailed out by our government. And so
that establishes even a greater degree of accountability that needs
to be addressed. What came out. That was
a north Carolina. United Power is the network of
I. A. F. Organizations in north Carolina
a hand. There's a handful across the state and
we had clergy from across the state gathering issuing a
statement against usury. And the policy call that was
being issued Out of our spiritual traditions and teachings about
economic justice was that the state should set a limit
on personal and interest rate limit on personal loans of
nine And five for veterans. And actually, there
is already legislation in the books regarding veterans setting a
ceiling of 5%. It's just the state wasn't enforcing
that with the financial institutions. And so we were
calling for expanding that to nine for everybody. Um
, now this was, I'm going to, uh
, I'm going to play a video of that was
made by a colleague in the, uh, in
this network about, uh, about how that was
, um, was presented. So we read these
old testament prophets, we find them frequently saying,
don't exploit those who are on the lower, don't
take advantage of somebody just because you can't, don't
overlay people with depression that we find again and again
. God calling his people back to justice back to
write relations back to Grace and back to mercy.
We read the old testament, particularly God, never
imagined a class of people who are perpetually for there
was always an opportunity. And so all of a
sudden people started talking about, we live in a
system that has debt share from where there are people
who are literally going to be perpetually in debt their
whole lives. And for a lot of us that's
theologically obscenely as a local pastor. I believe that
churches are to be involved in social justice. We
are not a bath cast of banks making money because
they are in business. But there ought to be
something fair about it. Don't you think jesus was
the greatest radical? Yes, you always can.
one side is important. So just to say a
bit about the way this organizing gets done, you
see, it started with conversations, programs in the
congregation. It moved to petitions to the attorney general
and to the banks directly organizing and trying to organize
meetings with bank executives to address this. And then
it moved to the street demonstration. Um, and
I participated in this In 2009. And this part
of this involved not only demonstrating outside of the bank
, but taking another form of direct action to draw
attention to the, to the problem was we basically
shut down uh, Wells Fargo branch for the day
because everybody who had a Wells Fargo account went inside
with pennies, bags of pennies to deposit. And
they which blocked the lines of business in the,
in the branch and basically shut it down for the
afternoon. So way of calling attention to that,
they had customers who cared about this and who were
going to hold them accountable for the way that they
were practicing their business as it relates to use a
read as it relates to people who were in power
, who look past look beyond step down, step
by walkover. And the church has the problem cool
with his, the venice numbers to address it.
Today is the day that we stop dancing at the
end of strings that somebody else pulled. We will
stand up for ourselves. We will deal with those
who do not treat us fairly and we will victoria
. But at the end of the day when you're
going to do what's right, somebody is going to
be a second. And I think it's a center
machine for the church embrace that part of this responsibility
. Yeah. Regardless of his. And that is
a reality of doing community organizing uh, in faith
based communities as well. Is that, uh,
not is that in, in doing community organizing,
if you're in a congregation where a Bank of America
or Wells Fargo executive as a member or an officer
of the congregation, that is going to have an
impact on your congregations participation in this. So part
of, part of what is important in doing faith
based community organizing is to have lay and ministerial leadership
in congregations who are willing to get into trouble,
who are willing to take social risks in order to
take social risks for the prospect of making change for
marginalized people. Um, and that's also one of
the important aspects of faith based community organizing. Because
when you're doing grassroots organizing in the context of congregations
of faith communities, you are able to engage relationships
that you may not be able to anywhere else.
Having someone who can engage a bank executive, a
city manager, a school superintendent in the context of
both of being members of their congregation, uh is
an avenue of communication and initiation of change that uh
, that should not be neglected, should not be
neglected. And, and community organizing strategies that don't
recognize that are short changing themselves. And the rest
of this video is just give an example of some
of the scripture passages that related to this. So
in doing faith based community organizing, you are able
to help connect people both with, with power to
make change and those who are outside of the decision
making system with shared values, with shared values that
are affirmed, which can be a source of making
social change. So that was in 2009 and we
had, there was some measure of success with that
. We did get some concessions from Bank of America
. Not as many as we had as we had
campaigned for. We got, but we got some
concessions, we got uh we were able to exercise
some influence with the state attorney general. Um not
as much as we would have liked. He didn't
, he did some of the things that we proposed
, but uh but so it was a mixed success
. Um Now I mentioned earlier the Derm Economic Resource
Center or dirk with something that we had helped organize
and launch as a supportive employment program to provide employment
and training. Uh And and an initial work history
for folks who had experienced difficulty finding employment because of
their criminal record or history of addiction. They had
to be in recovery to enter our program. But
we but then they had six months of training uh
and uh and support paid employment with dirk to get
to get launched. Now one of the things that
and it was, and it is still an operation
we successfully launched. It spun it off. But
one of the things that became apparent out of that
experience of providing some direct service to intervene in the
the the immediate problem being experienced by these individuals in
our community was the obstacles created by a criminal record
. The fact that even with the even with a
recommendation and referral from our program, simply because of
that criminal conviction box checked on their application for employment
with area businesses, we couldn't get them in the
door for an interview. So we signed on D
. C. I. A. Signed on with
some uh with some civil rights organizations and community organizers
in the community to support a what's called Ban the
Box campaign. Have you all had that here in
Blacksburg? Great. So that's um, so with
ban the box, we were campaigning for the city
and the county to remove the, have you ever
been convicted of a felony question from their employment applications
? Um, the strategy was to begin with with
public with municipal government employees and then expand that to
uh and then the next step of advocacy would be
to campaign to have them require that of their contractors
as well. We haven't gotten expanded to the contractors
yet, but but we did succeed in getting it
dropped from the from the city and county applications.
And uh it was that was a very successful campaign
. There was good work done with public officials.
We got religious leaders in the faith community to endorse
it and support it um which helped with accomplishing the
adoption of that Now. And Durham stands as a
significant success story with that. So in 2011,
the last year before they adopted this policy, Durham
uh, only had two of its hires with criminal
records when they dropped the that question off the application
form didn't mean that criminal records were not brought into
consideration. It simply meant that you went through all
the other interview and qualification processes. And the question
, have you ever been convicted of a felony?
Did not come up until the final consideration. So
it did not exercise a disproportionate influence on your qualification
for that job. And even at that last stage
, it was only to be factored in for evaluation
of your eligibility for employment. If the crime had
a direct relevance to the job that you would be
working at. So if you if you were convicted
of embezzling, that would not, that would not
prohibit you from working for the parks and Recreation department
. You wouldn't work in the finance department, but
you could work in parks and recreation. So simply
from making that the, the figure rose to 4.5%
more than doubled the number of people with criminal records
who were able to get employment with our city government
in 2012, up to 9.4% in 2013 and 15.5%
In the first three months of 2014, 15.5% of
the new hires by the city of Durham Government in
2014 were people who had criminal records. And this
has had no impact. There's been no on,
on uh, Criminal Act. Area has been no
increased, zero increase in workplace crime in the city
or the county government. Uh no employee has been
fired because of illegal activity. What this is demonstrated
is the change the economic impact that can occur when
people are given a second opportunity after incarceration. So
that's the um that is an example of system change
in comparison to the direct service work. Now,
one of, so, one of the things that
I want to emphasize messages is that both are needed
. Both are important. You and this is uh
, one of the differences that we have with I
. F. Sometimes I. F advocates will say
, well, pooh pooh the direct service work and
say that the systems change is the only thing that
really will make a difference, but you really need
both. You need, just as an analogy,
you need, you need fire departments that have fire
engines and equipment to come address emergencies. But you
also need safety inspectors going out to hold uh,
hold builders and businesses accountable for meeting their building codes
. So you don't have as many fires in the
first place. You gotta have code inspectors and you
have to have fire emergency departments both for communities,
health. So, um, so we were we
were extending more into doing the uh, into doing
the um the, the advocacy and and partnering with
Durham can to do the systemic change issues. Following
up on the band of box. We realized also
that there was uh that many of the folks who
were impacted most by that were african american, that
this particular economic problem was disproportionately affecting african americans.
And you can find the plenty of the uh sociological
documentation about the disproportionate incarceration rate of african americans in
in the United States and in north north Carolina is
no exception to that at all. Um, but
the question was raised to us. So we start
, so basically we, we started having a series
of presentations at the monthly meetings that we have four
representatives of congregations on re entry of, of people
who had been incarcerated into the community. What are
the different components that have to come together for successful
re entry into the community? Um, and one
of those was a presentation by an attorney who raised
the question no matter how much direct service you organize
for people coming out the back door of the prisons
. At some point, we're going to have to
figure out how to stop people going in the front
door. And we have to ask the question,
why are there so many more african americans, especially
african american men going in that front door, We
are not going to be able to continue catching all
the water flooding out the pipe at the back end
of the prison. We've got to find how we
can turn down that faucet at the front end.
Where is that? So we started two with a
lot of very skilled, well educated community partners to
examine that. And one of our and the Southern
Coalition for Social Justice, a civil rights organization in
Durham, produced an eye opening study about marijuana arrests
in Durham that found that uh, if you're african
american, you were three times as likely to be
arrested for simple possession of marijuana as if you were
white three times as many african americans as whites were
being arrested for marijuana possession in Durham. While the
, the epidemiological studies indicated that usage marijuana usage by
african americans and whites would be roughly the same.
So the question comes, well, what does that
say about our policing and how is that happening?
And it, and it, they produced a map
, geographic study that indicated, unsurprisingly that most of
the marijuana arrests were being conducted in predominantly African american
neighborhoods. So that began, uh, that was
the genesis of what became known as the Durham Fade
campaign. And Durham fade raised questions about policing and
racial disparities in Durham uh, made policy proposals to
reduce racial disparities in the police, in policing.
Uh, This came home with particular force for decia
, when one of our yo Durham participants, a
young man named Louis Little was arrested. He was
, he had been enrolled as a student at,
at, at north Carolina Central University. His first
year, he had graduated from high school, successfully
graduated from Mario Durham employment readiness program. And he
had been, uh, he had been with some
friends when they found a man who had been shot
in the street. They were, they were walking
through the neighborhood and came across a man who had
been injured. They called the police. When the
police arrived, they did a very brief assessment and
interview of folks in this situation in the neighborhood and
wound up arresting Lewis. Um he was taken to
jail the, the preliminary grounds for suspicion. They
had were quickly dispelled. There was no weapon,
he had no, there was no gunshot residue,
there was no witness who had seen him do anything
. His friends said corroborated his story about why they
were in the neighborhood. He wound up staying in
jail for weeks though, because of because of basically
the suspicion that he had done it without any without
any evidence. And um, and this was indicative
of the reason why so many in the black community
were not cooperating with the police. We're not reporting
crimes. They were afraid that they would, this
illuminated the way the reason they were afraid that they
would become the target of an investigation and because of
, because of their race, because of the way
that they looked, well, he did get out
free, but that certainly energized the CIA's involvement with
fade and support for the fade agenda, which included
things like requiring police to obtain a written consent form
when for voluntary search of vehicles. Uh, the
, the, you were, if you were pulled
over by a police officer in Durham, you were
more than seven times, like more likely to be
asked to have your vehicle searched by that police officer
if you were black than if you're white. Uh
, and that's, that's actually true around north Carolina
, but it was even more so in Durham.
And so, um, we made a campaign to
get written consent from drivers. They would have to
inform drivers that they have the right to decline the
request to search their vehicle and that they would have
to sign that authorization. Uh It was there was
a campaign to um uh for racial equity training for
police officers. There was a it was uh we
had a demand to um also have simple possession of
marijuana uh identified as the lowest law enforcement priority to
be. So that possession of marijuana would be treated
as on par with a traffic ticket with driving without
a seatbelt, basically not something that you would be
arrested for individually as as unless it were combined with
a more serious offense, you wouldn't be charged with
it. Um So, and we successfully got the
Human Relations Commission of Durham to recommend most of these
measures, and additional ones such as uh such as
revitalizing uh and um and giving more enforcement authority to
the civilian police review board of Durham. Um And
these were enlarged adopted by the City Council. They
did not adopt the lowest law enforcement priority change for
marijuana, but we've got their advocates still working on
that. But that is an example of how a
system change would make an economic difference to folks that
we have been providing direct services to. The difference
is, you know, would be an adolescent arrested
under policing practices prior to the policy change being entered
into the criminal justice system. Um having that that
record become an obstacle to college enrollment to future employment
, having access only to low wage jobs, having
to future home ownership, having that record be an
obstacle to accessing credit, to being able to get
loans even to in times of crisis, being able
to access government assistance uh in poverty. Whereas with
those policy changes, where you where you turn the
faucet and turn the faucet down, the likelihood of
being caught up in the criminal justice system. You
open up opportunities for education, for credit for employment
, that have a tremendous impact on whole communities.
I mean, you think, um, it's tremendous
to what that would leverage. So I'm gonna play
a little video about the Durham fade campaign, uh
issued before the mayor and the City council. We
talked about the fact that we're speaking about racial bias
and racial profiling and police brutality, um, in
the african american community that is definitely a race based
problem. Uh, we're talking about structural and institutional
racism and that work has to be done not only
with the Police department, but by the city and
we need our mayor and we need our city officials
to be courageous enough to speak about the problem uh
is really concerned about being held hostage by control.
This is the situation of control, every citizen's constitutional
rights. What a there are no one will be
discussing the challenges a piece of paper with a I
have a way and really supposed to be free radical
pay my way as a as a time they work
because that's where I come from. So if you
don't, you know how you're using, because I
want to stop until you guys, people of colour
, LGBTQ people and young people face harassment and discrimination
by the Police department on a daily basis. And
for this reason, we wholeheartedly supported the five recommendations
put forward by the same coalition. We'll be right
. So that's an example of making of organizing for
systems change in a way that has a significant economic
impact on a marginalized community. Um, We also
became involved in 2012, began to explore relationships with
worker justice uh, programs. There's a, there's
a national organization called Jobs with Justice that seeks to
partner faith communities with unions with labour organizations, faith
communities and other grassroots community organized organizations with with labour
rights organizations to develop partnerships of support. So that
which was, it was very timely because about a
year after we began meeting with jobs for Justice in
2012, Then in 2013, we we were contacted
by the raise up$15 an hour campaign of fast
food workers and the our Walmart campaign of Walmart employees
seeking uh, to raise their wage to uh,
$12$13 an hour. Um, and we were
able to start doing education with our congregations are constituency
about worker rights. Now this is particularly significant for
north Carolina because north Carolina has been one of the
most anti union states in the country. Uh They
literally killed off most of the unions back in the
19 twenties with anti union violence. Um and since
then, uh it's been very difficult for workers to
organize uh union representation, but the uh, but
it has been revived in north Carolina, there has
been successful organizing done, but people do not connect
with worker rights organizing culturally. It's just not part
of our history for most households in north Carolina.
So, again, bringing to bear the language of
spirituality and faith. The testimony to the values behind
labor organizing, behind workers rights is a significant element
to opening up the possibility for that to happen.
Um and that's something that we've invested a good bit
of time in, particularly with churches with, with
christian churches, because they're the dominant christian churches are
the dominant religious community in Durham, in north Carolina
. And so that's one reason why in the last
year we've produced a bible study curriculum on workers rights
, so that study groups, discussion groups in churches
, could have a resource that would connect the scriptures
text that they had that they were familiar with in
the framework of workers rights issues and helped to connect
those dots for them particularly well, we wound up
drawing especially to focus was the sabbath commandment, uh
, that you shall observe the sabbath and keep it
holy and and uh introducing the perspective that that was
one of the earliest worker rights legislation, Everybody gets
a day off everybody. And the old testament is
very clear about that, no matter if he,
if it's the lowest slave or your highest paid Forman
, everybody stops working for a day, no matter
what it costs you. And so even more broadly
economically. And we explore this throughout the curriculum,
that the way that that's developed in the biblical tradition
, in the old testament by the profits and on
into the new testament in the early church was that
that that commandment demonstrated that profitability was not the final
arbiter of how economic activity was to be conducted.
That that profitability, productivity did not have absolute say
on how economic activity was to be conducted. There
were humanitarian values that had to be brought to bear
and to even given top priority at times, even
at least once a week. So that was bringing
that faith language to bear makes a difference now.
Uh, so that connects some of the economic issues
. The, a lot of our clergy, I'm
gonna show you a couple of videos, a lot
of our clergy got involved then with the moral Monday
campaign last year in 2013, um William Barber when
he became president of the north Carolina, uh double
A C. P. Uh I think it's 2000
and six. Uh he began to what was called
Historic Thousands on jones street Movement or the Forward Together
Movement that would have a large rally once a year
in february each year bringing diverse interest groups, labor
peace, women's rights voting rights groups together on one
day to lobby the Legislature for for better representation and
policies on behalf of marginalized groups. This included workers
rights groups. Um And they were, so he
had this movement organizing then in 2000 12, uh
the uh the leadership of the House and the Senate
uh changed over to uh republican leadership that undertook some
significant policy changes. Um They declined in 2013 after
they came into office. They declined to extend Medicaid
to 500,000 north Carolinians as part of the health care
reform plan. They declined to uh to extend unemployment
benefits to 900,000 North Carolinians, basically, the the
federal government was going to pay the Vor majority of
those benefits, but they declined to pay the small
states portion. And so 900,000 North Carolinians lost federal
and state unemployment benefits because of that. So,
uh and they started making changes and voting rights laws
. Um, there was a whole range of changes
that they were making on uh policy regarding poor and
voting access that had to be addressed. So Doctor
Reverend Barber organized the campaign of civil disobedience in response
to this. Led by clergy in the communities.
Because part of the important frame of the Forward Together
movement had always been, this is not simply interest
group organizing. We are explicitly doing this on the
basis of values that are spiritual communities are bringing to
bear on this. And so, um, that
was the moral monday campaign from the beginning, was
about, uh, what was about bringing our spiritual
values to bear on public policies that affected the poor
and the marginalized. And so, um, you
will, I'm just going to play a bit of
this one and then say closing. So this is
the third week demonstrators, comedies documents some of this
obedience power legislature trying to empower organizations working poor people
that led us across gender, sexuality and abilities to
act and speak collectively against the justices experience on our
jobs in society at this time. Not only do
we not have a rising tide raising up for robots
and fishing boats along with the yachts, we've got
the folks on the yacht actively shooting cannonballs and the
rest of the everything for the power of the employers
to exploit this device. To increase the power,
systematic effort by the legislatures in this escape to undermine
that fact, you removed the rights of the people
of north Carolina, things that you do not deployed
abroad. At least you can save yourself. Things
are okay at home. I didn't never think of
my military career. I have to come to defend
the constitution of the United States to get the missiles
in. And right now, I want to send
up to the mark. I'm all the nights when
you raise sales taxes, raising taxes on the veterans
. When you cut benefits, you used to say
to each other semper fi. Always faithful faithful brothers
and sisters from Army, Air Force to defend democracy
. We are risking losing the week that we have
but we are also risking the rights and dignity of
future generations. Education of our talking. Being sacrificed
before governor McCrory and married men are engaging in no
matter what seems to be coming out. And if
you can stand there with yourself for life because you
think a woman should have a choice, well then
you have no right to call yourself for a life
when you deny healthcare,€2 million to show the
rising of the sun right now is the time for
us because these are issues that they call back so
we can exercise our right now. I just want
to sit there and dictate Constitution together jail. There's
a real small to be arrested. Those who operate
the Constitution said secret political society, secret love,
secret and dangerous to the liberties of the people.
And in our Constitution says it shall not be tolerated
. So you should not be arresting us for exposing
what's happening. You should not be arresting us shining
and unaffordable moral life on the tragic policies that are
being passed in the back room. We go in
hopes that somebody's conscience will be and they will change
and they will realize that once they got elected,
they're not republicans, not democrats. They're supposed to
operate for the good of the whole and the common
good a job to be down. And as we
walk to our house that we built and paid for
, remember God worship Love is on the side of
the window and the neighbor. So let us go
, the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord
basis face to shine upon you and be gracious.
Is the Lord that his countenance upon you and give
you peace now and forever more. So, bringing
that language of spiritual values to bear on public policy
is an important work in organizing in the south for
economic justice. Because as much in the south,
there's definitely a culture history of separating not only government
but economic activity from religious life. That church is
what you do for your personal life, Salvation and
doesn't have much to do, or it's not to
be discussed in connection with the way you do business
, that's business or that government, This is religion
and faith and the two shall not meet. Now
, there's good. Uh, now this is not
an assault on church state separation. It's not about
getting the government to institute religious practices, but it
is about bringing our religious values to bear in the
public square for shaping public policy for common good for
issues of common good. What we see in in
mass society is often that when political actions becomes become
disconnected from one's core identity values, that is when
the, the, the public, the common public
, the grassroots, becomes disengaged from political action.
And so helping connect people's core identity, spiritual values
with what is happening in the public square in public
policy is essential for the future of community organizing for
economic change. I believe I'm going to say one
last word about the, from a theological perspective,
part so part of the importance of the work of
having religious communities involved in social change movements and helping
to shape those movements is, as I said,
overcoming that dichotomy of of and that results in the
innovation of, of public mindedness on the part of
individuals because it seems distant from their core values and
identities. Uh, we need to bridge that gap
and that our religious communities are essential for doing that
. The second is more particularly theological and that and
the reason some spiritual communities do not or cannot do
, that has a lot to do with the type
of theology. And now there's different theological framing is
of particular moral issues and political issues that come to
that come to bear in that. But I'm not
speaking about so much those particular moral instructions uh,
within particular communities that that bound or shape the way
that they get involved in public issues, but more
how God is identified, that there are religious communities
, christian and non christian, that primarily identify God
as operating through the existing systems of the world,
that God's, uh, that, that, that
the divine sovereignty, that the exercise of God's work
in the world is being carried out primarily through the
, uh, the systems established as they are.
So as God ordaining the way things are. In
other words, God, the way the world is
the way that systems operate, the way that the
economy operates is a reflection of the way God wants
it. It's a reflection of divine intention and purpose
. And that is, that is a theology that
distances people from engagement with change. And there are
certainly scriptures, christian and non christian hebrew bible chronic
, that can be brought to bear to uh,
to reinforce or underwrite that perspective. But there are
, there's another theology framing that a lot of the
communities and religious leaders who are involved in social change
movements subscribed to as an alternative. Also attested to
in the scriptures of the hebrew bible, of the
new testament of the Koran, which is that uh
, that God is at work to overcome injustice,
inequity in the, in the system, the established
world as it is in other words that the world
is that has experienced right now is fraught with rebellion
and resistance to God's purposes and intentions. And there
are different, there's different language about how that plays
out and what that means. But it but it
is, I often address that just simply in terms
of something that's very familiar to lots of people christian
or non christian the Lord's prayer, which people don't
think about in these terms very often, but in
the Lord's prayer, our father who art in heaven
, hallowed, be your name, your kingdom,
come, your will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. What is implicit in that is
a theology of change? What is implicit in that
is that in fact God's will is not being done
on earth right now as it is as God would
have it be that there is that that what we
are to seek after from God is a change in
the world. So looking at those fundamentally different spirituality
ease of seeking to ally with a God who whose
purpose is to change the way the world operates versus
ally with a God whose purpose is to conform us
to the way the world operates right now are two
very different spirituality to effect significant social change for economic
justice. We have got to get at these spiritual
values and framing in order to draw together the constituencies
we need in our communities to make these social changes
for racial and economic justice. And with that,
I will welcome your questions. Uh huh. Okay
. Yeah. Question. Um, so a lot
of, a lot of, well, first thank
you for a wonderful presentation for a great presentation.
A lot of what you had to say um,
talked about or talked about organizations working together and in
harmony around things. But I'm a little bit interested
in some of the sort of nuances and tensions that
might exist. So are there is so in deciding
what groups to partner with, which particular causes to
take up or which strategies to you? Are there
places where there where sometimes you're going in a direction
that everybody isn't completely with everyone values, values are
comfortable with and how do you work to move through
them? Yes, there are. There are absolutely
. I mean, I'll tell you, I mean
, with with the CIA's leadership for instance, um
I mean, 3-2 years ago to almost three years
ago there was a great deal of of apprehension of
caution about stepping into workers rights advocacy because of again
it was it's not something that was familiar. I
mean, these were ministers and congregation leaders who were
very committed to social justice work, but again,
it was framed social justice work in their experience,
had been campaigning for government, unemployment benefits for the
unemployed, not so much for worker empowerment to shape
the way that employment practices happened in the first place
. So that was taking those steps can be challenged
. What what helped make that possible though, was
again, another was was the personal experience of having
workers come forward with a plan who are willing to
self advocate. I didn't show video here, but
this the moral monday video show, there's one just
like it, of fast food workers in Durham demonstrating
, being arrested in Durham for taking public action.
And when presented with folks who are willing to self
advocate in that way, the leadership of sympathetic religious
communities will often step up, take another step,
will take another step. Now, there are things
that are divisive within the community. There's um I
mean, one of one turning point in the moral
Monday campaign last year was when the legislature decided to
uh amend the law regarding um access to abortions in
Durham, uh the uh laws regarding medical uh medical
requirements for performing abortions, and we're and defunded planned
parenthood and the um planned parenthood met with the moral
monday leadership Dr Barber and his associates and they decided
that they would incorporate the planned parenthood campaign elements into
the moral monday campaign movement. Um There were some
uh there were some supporters and participants in the moral
Monday movement who were not happy about that. Not
many withdrew active involvement with it, but they did
not show up at the rallies that's focused on those
issues. But you lost some a handful of of
progressive evangelicals, a number of radical Catholics who had
been participating uh were lost in that um to some
extent. So that was so yes, I mean
, you do get there there there's yeah, I
mean, there's always there are disagreements, but part
of the part of the work is to try to
negotiate those disagreements as they come up. And part
of the work of part of the work of coalition
building is to is to be willing to listen two
Allies whom you had, not, whom you had
not, who you were not allied with, to
at least give them a listening a hearing and so
that you're willing to explore the opportunity of extending your
your your advocacy, your advocacy. But part of
it is also um willing to enter alliances where that
acknowledge you don't have to agree on everything. I
mean, there are a whole lot of people from
the from the jewish community who were involved in the
moral monday movement who would have very different positions from
me on on Palestinian justice. Um and it's interesting
how that's just as an example also of how change
movements organized um the in Durham, the rally that
was organized uh after Ferguson, after the shooting of
Michael Brown in Ferguson uh for police justice. Um
the leaders of that explicitly connected what was happening with
the Israeli attack on Gaza, with the police attacks
on Michael Brown and civilians in Ferguson. And so
I think we've got to be willing to make connections
like that, but recognize that we're not going to
be able to bring all of our allies with us
in making some of those connections. Does that help
some? Sure, yeah, charlotte, Yeah,
yeah, charlotte has an I. F. Affiliate
uh that uh I don't recall what it's called,
but if you were to google charlotte community organizing,
you could find that also. They also have an
active chapter of an organization. I'm on the board
of called Action North Carolina, uh, that does
community organizing in charlotte and endure. Um, and
it's a different organizing model that's used than I.
A. F. But uh, works on a
lot of the same issues. Uh, the action
North Carolina work in charlotte is primarily around the immigrant
immigrant rights. So we just had, there was
just a big campaign around access to services, uh
, in the public school system in charlotte, that
action and see organized successfully. Um, so there's
, uh, yeah, if you look up action
north Carolina or, um, and I'm sure you
can find the name of the I. F.
Affiliate in charlotte also. Um, but that would
be, uh, and then there's a number of
good direct service organizations in charlotte as well that do
the firemen work of trying to relieve, do the
crisis, uh, relief work. But, uh
, for the systems change, I would look at
the I. F. Affiliate or action. What
? Yeah. Another question came to mind. I
walked in late, so I apologize for that.
So I'm just beginning. But do you do you
, so I turned on the news in north Carolina
is always in the news. It do you think
that's what's going on in north Carolina with your organization
and the interfaith organization stepping up? Is that something
that, that's unique to north Carolina because of how
much that's going on that's in the news? Or
is this you, are you aware of this being
worldwide widespread nationally? Well, I mean, I
think that's a good question. Uh, we've got
, we have got some really good skilled gifted leadership
in north Carolina that's willing to work on, on
issues of the marginalized to take risks. Uh,
William Barber, you've got the folks at Southern Coalition
for Social Justice, you've got and, and part
of it is the, I mean, even if
you can get groups starting to take smallest, we
don't, you don't want to start out asking people
to get arrested at the state assembly. That's not
where people are going to start out by and large
. I mean, the clergy who are lining up
there. I mean, so, I mean,
they, most of them hadn't been around in the
civil rights movement, although there was, there was
a picture to show you one of the 82 year
old methodist minister who had been involved in the civil
rights movement who was arrested more money, but that's
not where you can get most people started, uh
, it's baby steps, you get people to take
steps of risk to take different part of that.
So, so right now, an example of the
kind of the intersection of economic justice and and community
and the racial justice work. Our most recent start
up, it's called Real Durham and it is to
organize circles of allies who are who who are not
poor around households of people in material poverty, to
be allies to them in getting employment, uh,
building their income, building their assets and addressing obstacles
, overcoming obstacles to that. Um, now part
of part of what's happening that, okay, so
initially we had lots of people who wanted to volunteer
because they thought, okay, I'm going to be
helping this person work out the ropes to getting an
electrician certificate at the community college and getting bus passes
for the first few months of work so they can
get around their jobs. But we've expanded that some
to include racial equity training to be your relationship with
black people in poverty has got to come from a
place of partnership and not not charity. And you've
got when you enter their lives, you can't do
that with the assumptions that our society at large puts
in place about that. You can't uh, you
know, the um, hold the documentary series,
racism, illusion, race, a powerful illusion that
gets at a lot of the history, a lot
of the framing that has to be overcome for people
to enter in genuine partnership to understand how much how
central racial discrimination has been to economic oppression in the
african american community. That the fact of the matter
is, you get you get the um, you
know, it is the lack of access to Social
Security by farm workers and domestic workers, the lack
of access by black veterans to uh, to housing
loans after World War Two and educational loans. The
lack of the red lining of African American communities by
financial institutions on into the 70s, Which the savings
and loan, then loan institutions then stepped on directly
into the 80s and that continued that way. And
you know, I mean, I mean, uh
, what was it, the June July Atlantic monthly
Tanaka, easy Coates wrote the article uh, that
really lays this out well about, you know whom
Wells Fargo goes to sell subprime mortgages. They go
directly to those neighborhoods that have been redlined back in
the seventies and still find african american homeowners there to
take advantage of with this. So it, again
, the economic disadvantaging of building on the decades and
centuries of racial oppression is something that has to be
learned if you're going to go into that community to
be allies for economic change and yeah, you still
got fine. You still gotta have organizations that,
do you know what D. C. I.
A. Is aiming to do in terms of helping
connect people with employers. You've got to be able
to build those relationships because folks need the job.
But they as much as the job, there's gotta
be a commitment to changing the kinds of relationships that
they've got to being allies together. Um So that's
um so that's some of the transformation I think that
has to take place in the way that we do
the both the social justice work and the direct advocacy
. I mean it's hard, it makes the work
more difficult than it is in the framework of charity
in a lot of regards. I mean, I
think the I know it's a struggle for some of
the advocates who are on the who you saw interviewed
on the fade presentations on the Durham fade video about
policing. Um This was the short fight. This
change with the City Council was the short fight.
The long fight. The long fight is getting people
who have been incarcerated to come out and be their
own advocates in that setting, That's the long fight
because where you want that that's that's the brass ring
, where you've got community empowered to be able to
help themselves to be their own advocates, so that
people like me can show up to back them up
, but that they are the ones who set the
agenda for the change that's needed. I mean,
with those campaigns, they're still going to be,
I mean, meetings like the one that I am
the Director of Durham can organized where we had 10
, 9 or 10 ministers from the community meet with
the city manager and his staff to go over the
fade recommendations and say this is why these are important
to us, why they are essential. We endorse
them. We want to see these endorsed. But
and that those meetings are going to continue to be
important from representatives of faith communities to have an impact
on civic leaders. But uh, but to have
to have directly affected people in leadership on setting the
agenda is the is really the long game. Thank
you. Oh!