King Day Observance and Policy Forum at Mount Zion Baptist Church

The Unfinished Work; Ending Segregation, Expanding Democracy

Monday, January 17, 2022 (we will gather remotely via Zoom)

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. 

"Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children."
 
Martin Luther King, Jr. : I Have a Dream Speech (1963)
 

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 for Inclusive Communities

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:

  • 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, 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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Event Date: 
Thursday, January 27, 2022 - 10:00am to Sunday, January 30, 2022 - 4:00pm
Event location: 
Atlantic City, NJ
Event Fee: 
Tuition is $625 per participant (including lodging and meals)

July 13 Clergy, Faith & Community Leaders Gathering

School Segregation, Education & Opportunity in New Jersey.

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.

Please pre-register here for this virtual gathering of faith and community leaders.

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.

Tuesday, July 13 at 1:00 to 2:00 pm. Please pre-register here for this virtual gathering of faith and community leaders

 

 

June 15 Follow-Up Clergy, Faith & Community Leaders Gathering

School Segregation, Education & Opportunity in New Jersey.

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.

On Tuesday, June 15 we will reconvene for an update on our progress to stop this new and expanding form of school Jim Crow and to advance strategies and policies to maximize access to opportunity for all children and communities across the state.

Tuesday, June 15 at 1:00 to 2:00 pm. Please pre-register here for this virtual gathering of faith leaders

 

Voice to the Voiceless in 2020

How to Mail in Your Ballot

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.

NOW WE MUST ALL VOTE AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO VOTE 

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.

If you are not Registered to Vote go here to register to Vote Today

https://buildingoneamerica.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=18

 

https://buildingoneamerica.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=18

2020 Summit Sponsors

 


The Summit for Civil Rights 2019 Sponsors

 

 

The Summit for Civil Rights 2017 Sponsors

  

 
 
 
 
 

Clone of Building Leaders Together - Leadership Training Institute for Inclusive Communities

building one new jersey logo

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.

Purpose of the training

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.

Where and When

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:

  • Friday, January 23 - 7pm to 9pm with an overnight stay (including welcome reception from 9pm to 10pm)
  • Saturday, January 24 - 9am to 9pm (breakfast, lunch and dinner provided)
  • Saturday, January 31 - 9am to 5pm (breakfast and lunch provided)
  • Saturday, February 7 - 9am to 9pm (breakfast, lunch and dinner provided)
  • Saturday, February 28 - 9am to 5pm (breakfast and lunch provided)

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

Event Fee

Tuition for the Leadership Institute is $300 per participant.  The fee includes lodging on Friday, January 23rd and the meals listed above.

Partial scholarships may be available to BONJ affiliates and other qualified applicants.
Event Date: 
Friday, January 23, 2015 - 7:00pm
Event location: 
Rutgers University - Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, 33 Livingston Ave, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Event Fee: 
Tuition is $300 per participant (including lodging and meals) or $200 for affiliates and qualified applicants.

Labor Civil Rights Forum

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: 

  • Congregation leaders and clergy
  • Municipal leaders and school board members
  • Civic and local business leaders
  • Local labor and civil rights leaders 
  • Academics and advocates 

Register here for the confernce and reception

Guest speakers will include:

  • Rev. Terrence Melvin, president of the International Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) and secretary-treasurer of the powerful New York State AFL-CIO
  • Clayola Brown, national president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), AFL-CIO
  • Paul Jargowsky, director of the Center for Urban Research and Urban Education at Rutgers University and  author of the Architecture of Segregation - Civil Unrest, the Concentration of Poverty, and Public Policy
Event Date: 
Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 1:00am to 4:00am
Event location: 
The Conference Center at Mercer 1200 Old Trenton Road West Windsor NJ 08550
Event Fee: 
$150 for Non Members and $75 for Members

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