Getting Around To Historically Disadvantaged America
By Stephanie A. Walker Stradford and Eric Stradford, USMC Retired
AMWS March 9, 2014, Selma, Al – Remnant factions of the American Civil Rights movement returned to Selma, today. Their sojourn demonstrates collective resolve to remember what happened here on that day in 1965 marked by history as Bloody Sunday.
A frustrated Obama Administration has been seeking ways and means to reverse negative outcomes for historically disadvantaged Americans. Meanwhile, black folk are pretty much sick and tired of waiting for America to heal itself. “There are a lot of kids out there who need help, who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement,” said President Obama. “And, is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?”
Southern Christian Leadership has been “slow-walkin’” the very same issue since the evolution of American Negroes to minorities. The Reverend Leodis Strong, pastor of Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, AL tracks a trail of blood and tears as far back as Colonial America.
In 1783, Free Africans engaged a nation in healing itself from a great plague of Yellow Fever. Throughout history, the A.M.E. Church has been engaged in human rights, civil rights and economic parity. In 1955, one humble church member stood for right by taking a seat on a bus. In 1965, trouble met American Negroes on a bridge in Selma. Their struggle for the right to vote has encountered injustice from under white sheets of local justice and, in 2013, from under black robes at the highest court in the land.
That year, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) took a bite out of justice when it ruled portions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional. The court ruled in favor of chaos caused by racism, discrimination and outright denial of human rights. In the unprecedented reversal of landmark logic, SCOTUS acknowledged: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted to address entrenched racial discrimination in voting, “an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution.” The court then decided that healing might come from restoring chaos instead of upholding community.
Southern Christian Leaders are marking this year of Jubilee for the Voting Rights Act with a renewed hope that trouble don’t last always. They’ve joined a national partner, Youth Achievers USA Institute, to help leaders and philanthropic investors accurately scope a National Security problem that threatens the lives of Americans. On the road from Selma to Montgomery, sons and daughters of voting rights advocates are reliving a cause that shook the conscience of the nation. However, it appears that America’s memory is short-lived.
At the same time, civil rights leaders are pressing for added value to President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative. “The newest twist on an historically disadvantaged reality promotes a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to build ladders of opportunity and unlock the full potential of boys and young men of color,” said H. Benjamin Williams, Ed.D.
The SCLC chapter president has been forming circles of diverse neighbors within and adjacent to Cobb County, GA, sharing a common interest in governmental transparency. Williams’ thrust, “Information to Operation,” identifies seven key areas of need from which “effective, inclusive” engagement might connect institutions of means with citizens in need.
Broderick Johnson heads the My Brother’s Keeper initiative. Civil rights advocates like Dr. Williams hope that public and private action can compliment efforts already in motion and in need of funding. Both Williams and Broderick believe the Federal Government’s own policies and programs can better support these efforts and better involve state and local officials, the private sector, and the philanthropic community.
Georgia Representative John Lewis serves as a daily reminder of a need to be my brother’s keeper. As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Lewis’ personal recollection of Bloody Sunday offers evidence that institutional behavior, as well as individual attitudes, needs to change. Lewis’ story of student nonviolent intervention offers one best-practice in a portfolio of stuff that can work on Our Street, USA.
The Stephanie Tubbs Jones Assets for Independence Reauthorization Act of 2013, sponsored by Lewis, is just one example of a bill stuck on Capitol Hill, trying to become law of the land. As an economic opportunity program, Assets For Independence is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – an agency focused heavily on a March 31 Affordable Healthcare sign-up deadline.
The President’s new initiative presents a timely opportunity for total recall. Those who choose to remember Bloody Sunday on Pettus Bridge are likely to value voting rights, civil rights and an ongoing struggle for economic security.
Those who choose to forget or devalue Bloody Sunday are less likely to learn from America’s past mistakes. In the 1971 film, New Jack City, actors Wesley Snipes and Allen Payne faced off with the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Payne’s final act was to die at Snipe’s hand.
In fact, the question has been asked and answered in just about every generation since the first family of humanity. Positive Youth Development practitioners here point to a first family issue where the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” Cain replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
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Talking Points: Bridge Crossing Re-Enactment and March
Sunday - March 9, 2014
10:00 a.m. - Sunday Morning Prayer, Praise and Worship
1:30 p.m. – Pre-March Rally, Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church
2:30 p.m. – Edmund Pettus Bridge Crossing
Monday - March 10, 2014
Selma to D.C. Freedom Rides for Voting Rights
8:00 a.m. – Leave Edmund Pettus Bridge – Selma, AL
9:00 a.m. – Montgomery, AL State Capitol
11:00 a.m. – Tuskegee, AL Municipal Complex
3:30 p.m. – Atlanta, GA State Capitol
Tuesday - March 11, 2014
9:30 a.m. – Columbia, SC State Capitol
4:00 p.m. – Raleigh, NC State Capitol
Wednesday - March 12, 2014
9:00 a.m. – Richmond, VA State Capitol
2:00 p.m. – U.S. Supreme Court, Washington, DC
4:00 p.m. – U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC
Wednesday - March 28-29, 2014
Talking Points: My Brother’s Keeper
Morehouse – U.S. Department of Education on African Americans
The President’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force will work across executive departments and agencies to:
Assess the impact of Federal policies, regulations, and programs of general applicability on boys and young men of color, so as to develop proposals that will enhance positive outcomes and eliminate or reduce negative ones.
Recommend, where appropriate, incentives for the broad adoption by national, State, and local public and private decision makers of effective and innovative strategies and practices for providing opportunities to and improving outcomes for boys and young men of color.
Create an Administration-wide “What Works” online portal to disseminate successful programs and practices that improve outcomes for boys and young men of color.
Develop a comprehensive public website, to be maintained by the Department of Education, that will assess, on an ongoing basis, critical indicators of life outcomes for boys and young men of color in absolute and relative terms.
Work with external stakeholders to highlight the opportunities, challenges, and efforts affecting boys and young men of color.
Recommend to the President means of ensuring sustained efforts within the Federal Government and continued partnership with the private sector and philanthropic community as set forth in the Presidential Memorandum.
Talking Points: National Learn-2-Earn (Future Corps)
The National Learn-2-Earn Partnership envisions an American future in which citizens of color are valued as equals (vs minorities) and economic means are applied to economic needs.
The partnership invites any family, local or national nonprofit, church, ministry, foundation or agency to engage in boots-on-the-ground intervention for HEALING, FEEDING, HOUSING, LEARNING, EARNING, LIVING and GIVING. An interdisciplinary approach seeks support from Interior, Commerce, Treasury, Transportation, and Homeland Security to augment existing Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs (IWGYP) strategic planning. The L2E demonstration specifically applies to the IWGYP’s definition of POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
· The L2E demonstration invests in a Future Corps of Americans, youth ages 7-24, each of whom will qualify as a Community Asset by writing seven (7) personal goals for interdisciplinary lifelong learning and earning.
· The L2E demonstration engages a whole village of 20 caring adults as economic stakeholders in each Community Asset’s future.
· The L2E demonstration qualifies one of 20 caring adults as a Community Asset Manager through whom resources are managed for each Community Asset and 20 economic stakeholders.
· The L2E demonstration begins an investment of $5 per caring adult stakeholder for an initial deposit of $100 for each Community Asset.
· The L2E demonstration qualifies Community Asset Managers and youth beneficiaries for program task force participation and election as officers of participating nonprofit corporations.
· The demonstration identifies a national 501c3 public charity applicant for federal and philanthropic investment. Philanthropic investment of $5 million USD funds annual operating budgets of $500K USD for 10 years.
· A Microsoft grant provides immediate technical support and sustainable engagement of 24 Community Asset Managers.
· A Merck Foundation grant supports initial partnership development and match funding for quantifying each Community Asset.
· A CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL SERVICE grant (May 2014 pending) outlines an overall Boots-on-the-Ground strategy featuring lessons learned from the American Civil Rights movement, FDIC Financial Literacy and circular capacity building.
· A Kellogg Foundation grant (applied for) identifies matching funds for the CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL SERVICE demonstration. Requested funding supports 6 of 24 Community Asset Manager positions. Support from My brother’s Keeper partners would expedite development efforts.
· An ASSETS FOR INDEPENDENCE grant (requires federal policy action) identifies a federal source for an eight to one (8:1) match towards a Community Asset.
· A CDFI New Market Tax Credit allocation of $150 million identifies a source of philanthropic capital for funding replicable 10 year nonprofit budgets.
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