Building One America

LEADERSHIP TRAINING BY BUILDING ONE AMERICA and the SUMMIT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS

Thursday, November 9 through Sunday, November 12, 2023, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio.

Because space is limited, interested individuals must apply to participate in this program.  The application is available online and can be accessed HERE.

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FROM DIVERSITY TO SHARED POWER

Demographic diversity has been increasing throughout American society.  While membership and even leadership in many organizations have reflected this change, power and decision-making often fail to keep up with the racial, ethnic, generational and gender make up of our communities and institutions, including labor unions, local government, and religious congregations. This failure has left us weaker and more easily undermined by those who do not share our values of inclusion and opportunity.

One reason for this persistent power gap is that we too often confuse the visual trappings of diversity with genuine equality and political and economic integration. When members of underrepresented groups secure leadership positions they frequently begin at a significant disadvantage. Generational layers of power, privilege, experience and networks of formal and informal relationships are at play in any public arena where power is wielded and important decisions get made. These dynamics are taken for granted or denied by the powerful, while often unseen or not easily understood by the powerless. We frequently find ourselves in organizations, committees, boards and leadership structures that are diverse in name and appearance, but in reality are decidedly lopsided when it comes to the exercise of power.

As Frederick Douglass famously reminded us, power never did and never will be given away by those who have it to those who don’t.

Building One America’s training does not claim to make people more powerful nor does it create diversity. But it does equip emerging leaders from diverse and working-class backgrounds to better understand and navigate the dynamics of power and politics and have the tools to compete effectively and further themselves and their values in the public arena. Moreover, it will help individual leaders to recognize more clearly their own potential and motivations to build a powerful and meaningful public life.

Because space is limited, interested individuals must apply to participate in this program.  The application is available online and can be accessed HERE. 

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Who: This training is for leaders from anywhere who want to become more effective in making a difference – including organizers, leaders and volunteers from the faith community, labor unions, electoral politics, public office holders and grassroots rank-and-file leaders. 

What: The training teaches ordinary people to unleash their capacity to impact the social, political, environmental, and economic decisions affecting their lives. The training has been designed and will be conducted by experienced organizers affiliated with Building One America and the Summit for Civil Rights. The training is unique in combining elements of leadership training developed over the past fifty years by national community organizing networks, with a contemporary analysis and strategy for developing multiracial institutional and social power to build more inclusive and equitable communities.

Topics covered include:

• An orientation and reflection on power
• Understanding self-interest as a way to build membership, engage allies and adversaries, and become a more focused and self-motivated leader
• The role, value, and techniques of one-on-one organizing
• Conducting and understanding a power analysis
• Distinguishing the “public” from the “private” in order to build an effective public life
• The key principles and elements of strategy and tactics and issues and action
• Identifying and developing leaders
• The importance of organized money
• Principles and techniques for effective meetings
• Personal reflection, strategic planning and developing a personal path to power

The training is not just an intellectual exercise. It challenges and helps experienced leaders and emerging leaders to identify, reflect on, and overcome internalized attitudes and beliefs that stand in the way of becoming more powerful and impactful. The goal is to produce more powerful leaders and to facilitate the expansion of more powerful and more unified multiracial coalitions and structures.

When:  The training will take place over four days starting Thursday, November 9 through Sunday November 12, 2023.

Where: Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio

Cost: Tuition plus room and board is $625 per participant for affliaites and sponsoring organizations. 

Because space is limited, interested individuals must apply to participate in this program.  The application is available online and can beaccessed HERE. 
 

GO HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

GO HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

 

 

Nearly 150 community leaders and clergy from congregations and civic organizations from across Essex, Union, Passaic, and surrounding counties gathered at St. Paul Baptist Church in Montclair Thursday, August 25 to celebrate the March on Washington and to demand action today on its yet unmet demands.

Keynote speaker, Rev. Dr. Willie D. Francois said ending school segregation was the 1st and 3rd demand of the 1963 march, “…and yet here we are”, said Pastor Francois, “these 6 decades later..., in this liberal state - one of the wealthiest in the country - and we’re having to have conversations about how children don’t have to be trapped in pockets of airtight poverty and racial exclusion?” Francois blamed “political inaction and cowardice”. “This is not just about diversity” he said “it’s about opportunity…, this is about power."  

 Hosted by St. Paul Senior Pastor Dr. Bernadette Glover and moderated by Dr. Terry Richardson,  of first Baptist Church in South Orange, the post Covid capacity crowd responded with shouts of “Amen!” and "that Ain't Right!” to the powerful message.  

 

The group did more than preach, agitate, and inspire. The clergy and community coalition (a part of Building One America and the NJ Coalition Against Racial Exclusion NJ-CARE) presented a detailed list of specific legislative actions and called on Governor Murphy and legislators to enact policies aimed at dismantling the “opportunity destroying and stigmatizing scourge of school segregation” without delay.

Senator Joseph P. Cryan and Assemblywoman Mila M. Jasey, the co-chairs of the Legislative Joint Committee on The Public Schools committed to work with the group and advance their initiatives in the New Jersey General Assembly this fall. Jasey was also representing the Legislative Black Caucus as its Education Chair.

Dozens of leaders handed in cards vowing to continue the fight and to participate in upcoming hearings and organizing activity. “We will reconvene” declared Pastor Dana Owens of Messiah Baptist Church in East Orange “we will gather momentum – we shall trouble the waters”.  Next steps for more leaders are clergy to joining this fight will be the Leadership Training for Congregations and Community - Building Power and Building Community - Saturday, October 29, 2022, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM at Messiah Baptist Church, 13 Oak St, East Orange, NJ 07018. Go here to register.

  

 

Click here for the program and powerpoint from August 25