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Please join us for a virtual Martin Luther King Day observance and policy forum on racial segregation on Monday, January 17, 2022, from 12:00 to 2:00 PM, ET at Mount Zion Baptist Church, Pleasantville, NJ.
Our coalition that has been battling the deeply entrenched and well-funded forces of racial segregation here in Atlantic County and across the state for some time. We intend to expand and escalate our campaign as we build multi-racial support to win over policymakers through mobilization and direct action.
We can think of no better use of the King Day observance than to launch this important work in the new year and we would be honored if you would join us.
Martin Luther King Day observance and policy forum on racial segregation, Monday, January 17, 2022, from 12:00 to 2:00 PM, Mount Zion Baptist Church, Pleasantville, NJ (Via Zoom)
Please pre-register here for this remote gathering of faith, community, political and policy leaders.
LEADERSHIP TRAINING BY BUILDING ONE AMERICA and the SUMMIT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
January 27 through January 30, 2022, Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center Hotel, Atlantic City, NJ
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 better equip emerging leaders from diverse and working-class backgrounds to better understand and navigate the dynamics of power and politics and to 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:
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, January 27 through Sunday January 30, 2022.
Where: Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center Hotel, Atlantic City, NJ
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.
TESTIMONIALS
The training institute helped me become a more powerful leader, acting more strategically, efficiently, and decisively, creating greater accountability for myself and others - Eloise Henry, President, Richmond Heights (OH) City Council
...a very powerful training. It equipped me with the tools to reinvent myself - Rev. Rohan Hepkins, Mayor, Yeadon, PA
This is the most relevant, intense and productive conference I have ever attended - Heather Sorge, Campaign Organizer, Healthy Schools Now
Despite 40 plus years in politics, I found the 4-day training to be new, useful, and refreshing. It was helpful in expanding my own political power and in understanding and dealing with others who are exercising theirs. Ant it led to new and significant relationships for me - Dale Miller, Member, Cuyahoga (OH) County Council
Completely caught me by surprise. I thought I knew what being a leader meant, but the training showed me parts of leadership that I knew nothing about. It really helped me with my networking skills and in my new position as President of CWRUs Black Student Union. I’m excited to see what it can do for more people in our community - Aliah Lawson Executive Chair, Black Student Union, Case Western Reserve University
Learned how our stories of powerlessness informs our own path to power. I had great moments of clarity - Ashley Bennett, Freeholder, Atlantic County
It was helpful. Extraordinarily. Thank you! - Tomea Sippio-Smith - Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PA) Education Policy Director
Training was awesome. Confirmation for me as well as new found skills – Alexis Rean-Walker, HPAE, Secretary-Treasurer
Learned new skills for active listening and relationship development; clearer understanding of power dynamics that drive organizations and elected leaders; deeper understanding of structural causes of inequity and a path to racial integration; and practical steps to develop an inclusive and powerful network that can drive change - Tom Bullock, Member at Large, Lakewood (OH) City Council
Key learning moments were understanding my power, self interest and anger. Thank you! – Martha Camacho-Rodriguez - Cerritos College, Trustee, Norwalk, CA
I’ve become more confident and feel that I have fully stepped into my leadership role - Safronia Perry, Executive Director, Hope Station (PA) Area Neighborhood Council
I used to stay in the back of the room, rarely speak, and try to be invisible. The training helped me to find my voice - Darnelle Crenshaw, Student, Case Western Reserve University
The training did a terrific job encouraging us to reflect on times when we feel powerless, and to consider how those times can help shape how we react to the world and drive us in our work. - Tim Nelson, Vice President, Braham (Minnesota) Evangelical Lutheran Church Council, Chair, Braham (Minnesota) Area Education Foundation
Thank you. The training was awesome – Taylor Picket Stokes, Rescue Mission of Trenton
The training rocked my world and gave me a new roadmap for action. Amazingly intense and perspective-shifting. Great content, compelling examples, helpful exercises and an energized group of participants. - Gary Forman, Trustee and Executive Committee Member, SOMA Action
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Please join us for the next gathering of community and faith leaders on Tuesday, July 13th for an update and next steps on the fight against school segregation and secession in our state.
This week marks the 116th anniversary of the founding of the Niagara Movement, the forerunner to the NAACP, where W. E. B. Dubois, William M. Trotter and other powerful Black leaders signed a Declaration of Principles condemning the “Color-Line” in American society in our courts, schools, jobs, neighborhoods, and politics. These systems of heavily enforced discrimination, it said, are “relics of that unreasoning human savagery of which the world is and ought to be thoroughly ashamed.”
On Tuesday we will honor those powerful women and men who waged war against the “Color-Line” throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as we seek to smite it down every time it rears its hideously ugly segregationist head in the 21st century.
We will provide an update on the progress we made in exposing, challenging and purging the segregationist and secessionist provisions embedded in the school consolidation bill sponsored by Senate President Sweeney and recently passed by the New Jersey Legislature. Likewise, we will provide an update on details and registration information for the New Jersey conference on School Segregation and Opportunity to be held this September 24th at Mercer County College on the Anniversary of the Little Rock 9.
Last month nearly 100 faith and community leaders gathered with key legislative allies, including the leadership of the powerful NJ Legislative Black Caucus, to address the worsening crisis caused by the enduring sin of racial segregation in our public schools.
In addition to Assemblyman Benjie E. Wimberly, Assemblywoman Mila Jasey and Legislative Black Caucus Chair Assemblywoman Shavonda E. Sumter, we were joined by renowned civil rights scholars and lawyers including John C. Brittain at UDC School of Law in Washington, DC, Leslie Wilson of Montclair State University and Myron Orfield, Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota.
Meeting organizers Rev. Willie Francois of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Pleasantville and Rev. Kenneth Clayton, Pastor of St. Luke Baptist Church in Paterson provided background on the recent wave of racialized school secessions across the state where majority white school districts seek to sever their send-receive relationships with majority black and brown school districts in clear violation of the New Jersey constitution outlawing racially segregated education. In the meantime, the same cabal of highly paid consultants and lawyers representing the seceding districts have bragged that a new bill they claimed to help write for school consolidation can be used to subsidize and accelerate segregation (“withdrawals”) in the name of efficiency and cost savings.
Legislative leaders were asked and agreed to hold hearings on this issue including the current legislation now before the General Assembly.
We've partnered with First Lady Michelle Obama and her non-partisan When We All Vote.
We've registered thousands of new voters in South Jersey and especially the highly competitive 2nd Congressional District.
Check out one of these videos from local leaders on how to fill out and mail in your ballot in New Jersey today.
This is an almost entirely Vote By Mail Election so everyone who revives a ballot needs to fill it out and send it in right away.
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
If you are registered, you will receive a ballot in the mail.
Or go here for instructions.
If you are registered and have not received a ballot contact your county clerk right away and ask to be send a ballot.
Join our campaign now and receive the Outvote texting App for your cell phone.
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Together North Jersey and Building One New Jersey are partnering to provide an in-depth training institute for emerging leaders in New Jersey that will take place over four weekends in January and February 2015. The training program is aimed at preparing leaders to become more effective and powerful in their communities and institutions.
Across America, communities and regions are reaching a high watermark of economic, ethnic, and racial diversity. These changes have brought many challenges that can turn these otherwise positive trends into forces of instability, fear, and insecurity.
The importance of recruiting leaders in diverse communities to serve on boards, councils or to play leadership roles in community institutions such as unions and churches has never been more important or relevant.
Too often, honest efforts to better reflect the changing demographics of a community or organization fail to recognize and address the power gap that tends to accompany historic disparities.
Many emerging leaders, whether because of age, race, gender, or class biases face a steep learning curve as they confront entrenched institutional power. Relationships developed and experiences learned over many years (sometimes generations) are not overcome easily or quickly.
For school boards, congregations, city councils, and labor unions it is not enough to talk about making our institutions more reflective of our constituencies. Leaders must learn to be leaders; they must learn to become powerful by understanding power and the principles, skills and tools for developing a public life and operating effectively in the public arena.
This training program is designed to help narrow this power gap and better prepare those individuals with strong leadership potential to be stronger advocates for their communities.
The program will focus on leaderhip skills development in the context of challenges and solutions for sustainable community development in the 13-county Together North Jersey planning region.
The training will take place at Rutgers University – Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy (33 Livingston Ave, New Brunswick, NJ 08901), with the exception of the first Friday and Saturday which will take place at the University Inn and Conference Center(178 Ryders Ln, New Brunswick, NJ 08901)
The program will include an overnight stay at the University Inn on Friday, January 23rd. The cost of the lodging is included in the tuition fee. All appropriate meals are also included.
Below are session dates:
Because space is limited, interested individuals must apply to participate in this program. The application is available online and can be accessed HERE.
Building One New Jersey is hosting a forum around the important and timely theme of Restoring the Historic and Powerful Alliance of Labor and Civil Rights for Racial Justice and Economic Opportunity.
With growing frustration over rising income inequality and mounting anger around racial injustice, the pivotal role of unions and civil rights needs to be reexamined for its historic significance and relevance to the critical challenges facing working people today. This non-partisan forum will educate members, allies, and the public about the mutually reinforcing power relationship that once existed between labor and civil rights and how this alliance produced some the most progressive policies and most inclusive expansion of middle class jobs that our nation had ever experienced.
It will show the importance of this coalition for today’s serious challenges and it will call upon our congregations, unions, civic and civil rights groups to work together to restore and revive this alliance to advance and promote both racial justice and economic opportunity for all American workers, their families and communities.
Attendees will include local leaders, members, and allies such as:
Register here for the confernce and reception
Guest speakers will include: