The bus’ wheels were a-turnin’ to the rhythm of our freedom songs.  They turned round, round, and round.  The bus’ wheels were a-rollin’ down the highway, spreading their story, our story.  They spun, spun, and spun around.  Those wheels were constantly turning, turning, and turning – a-takin’ us down South, our destination.

Image credit to pbs.org

I remember thinking about the notion of a destination as we pulled out of Anniston, Alabama.  50 years ago, Anniston was the site of the infamous bus burning.  A group of Klan members swarmed the Freedom Riders’ bus, setting fire to the Greyhound in an attempt to murder those in it. Luckily, no one was killed.

The bus incident in Anniston and the mob violence that ensued in Birmingham stunted the original riders’ mission.  They were forced to turn back and go home. In the end, the original 13 Freedom Riders never made it to New Orleans, their intended destination. (Little did they know that hundreds would follow them to complete their journey throughout the rest of the summer of 1961.) But when we pulled out of Anniston, I realized that I was going to be a part of something special. The original Freedom Riders on the bus would finally make it to New Orleans. They would finally reach their original destination. And who would be standing right next to them? Me.

The belief in a destination is seen throughout the African American Civil Rights Movement, most commonly conceptualized in the ideas of freedom and justice. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. often spoke of the “Beloved Community” as one of his ultimate destinations.  In the “Beloved Community,” the formerly oppressed seek to reconcile with their former oppressors. This community would become characterized by the ideals of justice, freedom, and unity. Dr. King’s “Beloved Community” and these principles have yet to be realized, but many of you readers are working on projects to ensure that these ideals come to light.

As we traveled through the South, the Student Freedom Riders realized that we should be working towards some sort of destination, yet we had trouble coming up with our own objective. We sought to find our own purpose. We searched for the current state of civic engagement. While we didn’t necessarily find the ultimate answer, I think we realized the necessity of putting the past into the context of today. Connections between the histories of our past, our actions in the present, and the events of the future literally became apparent as we revisited sites with our heroes. In this, we idealized our own destination, and we realized that our destination was much bigger than just making it to New Orleans anymore. We had to keep the wheels of change a-turnin’, a-rollin’, and a-takin’ us towards our own vision of the Beloved Community.

Written by Will Dale – 2011 Freedom Rider

She was the last person you’d expect to be the victim of domestic violence, but with her death, we learned that it could happen to anyone.  Her death was unexpected, startling, and shocking, yet she inspired a new movement to spread awareness about women’s rights and social justice issues. Her name was Jana Mackey, and her story is a narrative that starts with grief but ends with hope.

Jana was known for her work as an activist. Before she turned twenty-five, she had lobbied in front of the Kansas state legislature, served on the Kansas Commission on the Status of Women, served on the staff of state and national campaigns for female political candidates, and organized students to march for women’s rights in Washington D.C. She advocated for a pro-women’s agenda, and while at the University of Kansas, Jana volunteered at the GaDuGi Safe Center, a center for victims of sexual violence.

I had the chance to sit down with Jana’s parents, Curt and Christie Brungardt. They described the morning after they learned that Jana was found dead in her ex-boyfriend’s apartment in 2008. They described the range of emotions they felt the morning after.  In those moments, they were plagued with disbelief.  Six hours after they learned of their daughter’s death, however, they decided that her death would be the start of a movement.

They started the Eleven Hundred Torches Campaign, which encourages ordinary citizens to become extraordinary by serving others. They also began the Jana Mackey Distinguished Lecture Series to honor Jana’s story. I had the pleasure to attend the lecture this past October. The event featured Tony Porter, an educator and activist for over twenty years. Now, I can look to Jana’s story for inspiration and encouragement as we all fight for equality on multiple levels.

The bottom line is that as we work to better our communities, we are forced to deal with hardships. Community builders face adversity, yet we have to keep the end goal in mind. Curt Brungardt is an avid fan of John Lewis, one of my own civil rights movement heroes. One of John Lewis’ most famous quotes is this: “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” Jana’s story makes me realize that we all have a mission. We all feel that we have been charged with a duty to our communities. Just remember that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

This is Jana’s story.

View it. Share it. Live it.

Written by Will Dale

A dirt poor rickshaw puller in a slum in India once told me that he was the luckiest person alive. His hut was made out of bamboo sticks and plastic tarps, with raw sewage trickling out front, but still, Manoj Singh said he was happy - very happy, in fact. Though sometimes he only had only a few bowls of rice to feed his family, he said “I feel that I am not poor, but I am the richest person in the world.”

When I asked Manoj Singh, the rickshaw puller, what enabled him to be so happy, despite the grinding poverty that surrounds him, he pointed straight to his family. “When I return home and see my son waiting for me, and when he calls out to me ‘Baba!’ I am full of joy.” (source)

Roko Belic documents his search for happiness in Happy, a movie and movement. I initially discovered the story of this search for happiness through an article on the Huffington Post and wanted to share a glimpse of the story and wisdom. After watching the excerpts from the movie, I was challenged to select the details to share – the story, the movie, the assortment of press releases and write ups that brought happiness and light into my afternoon.

He spent six years researching happiness around the world, interviewing people in the bayous of Louisiana, the deserts of Namibia, the beaches of Brazil and the villages of Okinawa.  Roko’s most insightful experience of this documentary was while meeting with Ed Diener, Ph.D in Personality Psychology from the University of Illinois, who shares that “a person’s values are among the best predictors of their happiness. People who value money, power, fame, and good looks are less likely to be happy than people who value compassion, cooperation, and a willingness to make the world a better place. That astounded me — but it somehow made sense. People who express their love — who rejoice in the health and happiness of others — are more likely to feel loved and happy themselves.”

So, what is it that makes people happy?

As a crew worked documenting happiness around the world, they found that the following things made people happy: having a sense of friendship and community, caring and doing for others, a personal involvement with nature, a balanced life with leisure, and engaging in activities that one finds enjoyable.

Join Roko as he explores the search for happiness at www.thehappymovie.com/

“The greatest lesson I learned while making this film is that my pursuit of happiness is not about me. It’s about our relationships and how we help each other. It’s about us.” – Roko Belic

What makes you happy?

A spark. That’s all it takes. It takes a spark to start a bus, ignite a movement, to produce change. In the blazing summer of 1961, the Freedom Riders started that ignition, becoming a vehicle that drove the U.S. Civil Rights Movement to audiences across the world. Their mission: to fight segregation in inter-state travel in the deepest, darkest parts of the Deep South.

2011 PBS Student Freedom Riders

This past May,  I was one of 40 students across the nation picked by PBS to retrace the Rides on the “Student Freedom Ride of 2011. We traveled from Washington D.C. to New Orleans in the hopes of defining the state of civic engagement today in the context of Civil Rights history.  With this trip, I literally “got on the bus” to explore this story of a tumultuous time where segregation was law and racism was the rule of the land.

The Freedom Riders were extraordinary, ordinary people that faced extreme adversity and hardship. Over the course of my trip, I met so many of these brave and heroic people. One rider that I met, in particular, has been my hero ever since I learned of the Freedom Riders’ struggle. Her name is Diane Nash.

In our conversation with Nash, she explained Gandhi’s principles of non-violence.  “Truth, love, and self-suffering…” she explained. “These principles were the basis of the Freedom Rides.” The journey towards truth is essential in the fight for freedom and justice, Nash said, and her search for truth influenced every decision she made during the summer of 1961. Nash’s second principle of love lays out the core of the non-violent movement. She loved her fellow riders, and she cared for their white, southern attackers.  Nash cared for them so much that she wanted them to right their wrongs and carry out peace.

But it is the final principle of self-suffering that stuck out to me the most. The Freedom Riders were attacked by mobs, and their buses were firebombed. They risked their lives and signed their last will and testaments before “getting on the bus.” They were willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause, and news of the treacherous rides traveled across the world, shining a spotlight onto the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Fifty years after the original Rides, the state of social activism and civic engagement has evolved, primarily through the social media boom. Engagement and social media are two streams that constantly intersect. You can connect to millions of people on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, and the traditional activist is now fighting for change and justice on the web. Many questions, however, still bother me: “How will this change in activism affect the basic principles of truth, love, and self-suffering? How can we use these tactics in our current movements?  Will our generation be able to ‘get on the bus?’ And in the end, how will we find our new ‘spark?’”

For more information about the Student Freedom Ride of 2011, please visit: American Experience: Student Freedom Rides.

Will Dale is a sophomore at the University of Kansas, majoring in English and American Studies with a concentration in Race and Ethnicity.

Photo courtesy of changeagents.com

Most readers by now have probably heard talk about the 1% and the 99%, those at the top of the economic pyramid and those lower down. But we think an important point has been missed by both groups.  First the background, then our own perspective:   

There’s a national budget deficit.  There’s political will to reduce it. To do so, sooner or later there will be more federal budget cuts.  We don’t now how much or how soon; but right now cutbacks seem a pretty sure bet.

Once cuts are made, they will work their way down to our communities, and they will impact both the 99% and the 1% on a local level – for even the 1% need roads to drive on, police to respond, trash to be collected, and health services nearby.

What will that mean for community quality of life?  It is likely to decline, for 100% of community members, unless those members themselves step in and take more responsibility for community well-being.  They may not want to. But they will need to, by necessity if not by choice – not to run services directly, rather to preserve the basic social and emotional supports that are the infrastructure of any community’s life. 

We’d like to see greater economic equity. Yet over and above that, the future of our society, as we view it, will depend upon the strength and resilience and supportiveness of small community units that can identify, mobilize, organize, and utilize the assets of their residents to provide for community needs. To help facilitate that, both governments and residents alike will need to know how to act more effectively in community settings for common benefit.

That’s why we are here at the Community Tool Box – to teach those community-building skills, and to encourage their use. The use itself is up to 100% of us, and to blog readers like you. 

What do you think?

Occupy Wall Street Protesters in Lower Manhattan

 

 

 

The protests that started just weeks ago with Occupy Wall Street have captured public attention, and as we write, are expanding nationally.

What’s behind them?

Will they succeed?

What can we add to what’s already been written?

 

 

 

We can’t say for sure how successful these protests will ultimately be; but as community developers we do know some of the factors that make for successful protests in general and most likely apply here. In simplified form, these include:

1. Attention, here in the form of media coverage – and that the Occupy protesters have certainly gotten, originally through social rather than mainstream media. Attention feeds on itself; and at some point, when critical mass is reached, a local protest (e.g., Wall Street) can rapidly extend to a larger scale.

2. Specific issues or demands; because without specific (and winnable) issues, it’s hard for any protest to get converted into successful action. And – a key principle – success is reinforcing, which keeps protest energy alive.

3. A group or organizational structure, through which issues get shaped and decisions made. That structure can be democratic and consensual, and it should be accountable, but years of experience have taught us that without clear structure, protests tend to fade.

4. Leadership. Skilled leadership should exist within that structure, striking a delicate balance between accountability to the group and the need to make sometimes-swift and firm decisions to keep the protest moving forward.

5. The personal qualities of the leaders, most notably passion, determination, and persistence – because protest by its nature almost inevitably faces opposition, sometimes strong and powerful opposition, and results may not be immediate.

6. Timing. Because even the most well-conceived protests can fall flat if the timing is not right – if the larger public is not informed enough or motivated enough to respond to the protest issue. In this case, the timing certainly does seem to be in the protesters’ favor.

Google this week gives 278,000,000 links to the Occupy Wall Street protests. For one (partisan) point of view, with multiple photos and videos, see http://occupywallst.org/. In addition, the Community Tool Box has plentiful material on protest in particular and advocacy more generally; Chapter 33, Section 20, on Advocacy Over and For The Long Term, and the many how-to-do-it sections on effective advocacy in Chapters 30-35.

Social networking is a collaborative experience focused on engagement, relationships, and relevance.  While many focus on the personal endeavor of sharing stories, photographs and commentary with friends, we are just beginning to explore and tap into the power of sharing and social activism.

We now have the opportunity to create connections with people by sharing photos, videos, even what book you’re reading, what song moves you and what events you’re attending. Does this shared connection, even with someone you’ve never met, allow for a new type of engagement?

How can we transition this personal engagement to civil engagement?

We’ve already seen some examples of how deeply social media can affect events that are occurring throughout the world, and bring them into the public consciousness. As protests erupted in the Middle East earlier this year, Twitter users featured a hashtag of their location to document each event.  YouTube videos documented the revolt and footage was raw, and real-time.  Even five years ago, the likelihood of these events gaining international attention as they were occurring would have been almost non-existent. But now social media gives individuals the unprecedented opportunity to hear and be heard by a global community in real-time. Even though news cameras weren’t always there to capture the protests, as long as there was a camera phone and an internet connection, the events could be shared with the world.

In fact, it is becoming more common for breaking news events to be reported first through the use of social media outlets – the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death was spreading across Facebook and Twitter long before it was officially announced on any of the major news networks.

People are using social media to connect with others in a geographic area, fighting a similar battle, or supporting a unified cause and broadcast it to the world at large.  Anyone with a mobile phone or computer can share a story and gain support for their cause.

How are you using social media to build momentum, mobilize and take action?

Facebook introduced the world to Timeline yesterday, a customizable and expanded profile, highlighting photographs, videos, and enabling users to detail their life online, capturing moments in their past, and  sharing what they are reading, cooking, watching or doing.  “We think it’s an important next step to help tell the story of your life,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, who introduced the new features at the company’s annual conference for developers.

While many of us were trying to figure out our news feed (oh, that changed too. – It’s now based on an algorithm that knows what you read based on your past behaviors, connections and “likes”), larger concerns surfaced; how much information about my life and habits do I want documented online?  Who is this information being shared with?  How can I disconnect without being disconnected?

All great questions; in fact, all great questions we are asking ourselves.

We’re supporters of networking and connecting, we talk about this in the Community Tool Box.  Social technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn have allowed us to reach out to a new audience, to learn more about work done globally in community health and to share our stories in a new and innovating way.  For us, these relationships are invaluable.

As we evaluate shifting technology and online relationships, we’re listening to you. What’s your experience online?  Are you comfortable with what you share?  Who are you sharing it with?

Jobs are front and center in American consciousness. There’s surely no lack of ideas for creating them. Here’s one way of thinking:   

On the bikeway in my town, near a crosswalk, I passed a guy standing by a bicycle with a large wagon attached, parked on the side of the trail.  What’s he doing there?  I’m always looking for signs of community life, so I stop and talk.

He’s a newly-created portable one-person company called Rolling Wrenches, which simply set up shop on the bikeway to make brake and gear adjustments, grease what needs greasing, and do general minor repair. How is business? Business is good.  There’s a lot of bike traffic, especially in nice weather.

Similar creative enterprises are spreading across the country.  Bicycles with soup trucks on the back, rather than tools. Retro fashions sold from a recycled double-decker bus. Street performers of all descriptions:  I know someone who sings a cappella on the streets, in coat and tie, for a little extra cash, which wouldn’t be all that unusual except he’s in his mid-80s by now. These examples only scratch the surface.

What we applaud here is their creative spirit, in finding ways to provide a useful community service, or needed uplift, in difficult times. These community entrepreneurs are small in scale, local in focus, typically seeking sustainability rather than growth. They won’t be launching an IPO anytime soon.

To put this in context: self-starting does not exclude government actions. Most people feel some such actions are necessary, even if disagreeing on just what they should be. But in the fall of 2011, we’ll also need plenty of local initiatives to maintain our community quality of life.  And there are multiple options here: in our next post, we’ll focus on more ways to enhance the local economy.  In the meantime, let us know in the comments if you know of any creative enterprises in your community.

Cleveland, Ohio: Today and every day is washday at the Evergreen Laundry.

That laundry sits in an inner-city neighborhood with an unemployment rate above 25% and a median household income below $20,000.  How can you create good jobs there? One answer is to start cooperatives – locally-based, worker-owned, and green in color.

One example is the Evergreen Laundry; its clients include two nursing homes, which otherwise would have sent their business outside the neighborhood.  Another is Green City Growers, builders of a four-acre energy-efficient hydroponic greenhouse that will be producing 5,000,000 heads of lettuce annually to be sold to neighborhood buyers.  

Next step: form a network of these cooperatives – a cooperative of  cooperatives – to coordinate efforts and to help ensure that local capital stays local.  For why should businesses – especially large businesses like schools, hospitals, and nursing homes – spend their money outside the community when there’s a competitive local alternative down the street? 

Worker–owners in the cooperatives typically not only have a voice in how the co-ops operate, but an actual vote. “They just don’t make decisions without us,” says one worker-owner. More than that: workers share in the profits, in one case over $7000 per year per worker, over and above base pay. 

Worker co-ops are simple in concept.  Of course, they involve challenging day-to-day work to communicate and implement the cooperative vision, plus healthy doses of tenacity and staying power. But this bootstrap Cleveland example suggests they can happen elsewhere.

Our country faces major job problems. Co-ops are not the only solution, but they are a promising direction that’s open to most any community.  How about your own?

For more on this locally-based job creation model, plus a video on how Evergreen Cooperatives work, see “Best Job in the Neighborhood ” and other articles in the most recent issue of Yes! Magazine.