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Dr. King’s Non-violence: tactic AND truth

During a recent Baltimore Racial Justice Action (BRJA) panel discussion commemorating Dr. King, we honored Dr. King for many things: his compassionate action and prophetic leadership in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement; his fortitude; his command of the spoken and written word; his generous love; and his belief that non-violent action could move America toward a collective truth of its humaneness.

During the discussion, it soon became apparent that we did not have a shared understanding of what non-violence is. Is it just a tactic? How deep does it reach into our everyday existence? Does it mean not defending oneself when under attack? Does it mean being passive? Indifferent?  And is it an act of violence to take up arms in order to defend oneself? In that case, what do we make of the fact that Dr. King himself used armed guards? Most importantly, how was this tactic of non-violent resistance also a path toward revealing truth about our humanity?

In August 1959, after several years of employing non-violent tactics, Dr. King traveled to India to learn more about Mahatma Ghandi’s teachings on non-violence, which had greatly influenced him. India was newly independent from British colonial rule, thanks to the non-violent tactics employed by Ghandi and millions of his countrypeople for 30 year, tactics which included non-cooperation with the state and its racial, economic, social, political, and spiritual exploitation of India. Dr. King wanted to know if he could learn more from Ghandi’s success to benefit the civil rights struggle.

“I was delighted that the Gandhians accepted us with open arms,” he wrote. “They praised our expeDr. Kingriment with the non-violent resistance technique at Montgomery. They seem to look upon it as an outstanding example of the possibilities of its use in western civilization. To them as to me it also suggests that non-violent resistance when planned and positive in action can work effectively even under totalitarian regimes. We argued this point at some length with the groups of African students who are today studying in India. They felt that non-violent resistance could only work in a situation where the resisters had a potential ally in the conscience of the opponent. We soon discovered that they, like many others, tended to confuse passive resistance with non-resistance. This is completely wrong. True non-violent resistance is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflictor of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart. Non-violent resistance does call for love, but it is not a sentimental love. It is a very stern love that would organize itself into collective action to right a wrong by taking on itself suffering”.a

Like Dr. King, Ghandi had experienced many encounters with violence, and both believed in the power of love to transform the beliefs and behaviors of those who might cause harm. In attempting to take a carriage after arriving in South Africa in 1893, Ghandi was forced to sit outside, though there was room inside. He refused and was beaten and pulled while he clung on. He did not yield but he did not defend himself. Seeing this violence, the white passengers were moved to beg for him to ride inside with them. For Ghandi, the response of the white passengers represented the power of non-violent protest to awaken humans to a deep truth—their shared humanity. He called non-violent resistance—fighting without violence or retaliation—a “matchless weapon,” describing it in Sanskrit as “Satyagraha”  or “holding onto truth.” –the truth of our shared humanity.

Such acts of love were based on the premise that those watching would take pity on the resistors while raising the energy of love in those perpetuating such violence. This was considered in the 1963 Birmingham Campaign which sent children to the frontlines to protest. The image of black children being hosed by white police officers and attacked by dogs was a turning point in the campaign for desegregation and freedom for black people in the south and beyond. The hearts of those watching from afar were moved, just like the hearts of the white riders in the carriage.

Black Civil Rights demonstrators attacked by police water hoses. Birmingham, Alabama. May 1963 Photo Credit: Bill Hudson/ The Birmingham News

Black Civil Rights demonstrators attacked by police water hoses. Birmingham, Alabama. May 1963 Photo Credit: Bill Hudson/ The Birmingham News

The consistent use of non-violence was a vehicle for many to become involved in this civil rights struggle, to confront the entrenched system of racism with their body, spirit, heart, and mind.

Ref. Alycee J Lane, ‘Non-violence now: Living the 1963 Birmingham Campaign's promise of peace’

Ref. Alycee J Lane, ‘Non-violence now: Living the 1963 Birmingham Campaign’s promise of peace’

But the embodiment of non-violent resistance as a tactic and as a way of being was a training. Even when fear was present in demonstrators, after praying and singing together, the powerful spirit of collective resistance would again and again guide them into battle for freedom. This required training, this ‘non-violent army’, conducted by Dr. King and others. They taught about non-retaliation, enacted the brutality that would occur during non-armed protest, and invited those ready to commit to this teaching into this ‘non-violent army’.  Alycee J Lane’s book, ‘Non-violence now: Living the 1963 Birmingham Campaign’s promise of peace’ offers details of the rigorous training that each participant in the ‘non-violent army’ would participate in before signing the ‘commitment card’ to engage in demonstrations.

Acting into truth required training, again and again, especially in the midst of state and personal violence day in and day out. In the midst of this violence, these committed demonstrators were able to touch the heart of humanity that issued a power so courageous they could enter the fray armored only with this truth.

Protesting against evil action instead of hating people acting in evil ways was the teaching and practice of both Dr. King and Ghandi. This non-hatred acknowledged the right to resist harm without violence as often as possible. But the act of armed self-defense was also very present during the 1960s Civil Rights movement. This alternative way of defending oneself with arms was not only present but necessary to assure that people survived to have the opportunity to live into love in action as they struggled collectively for their freedom during public protest: a middle way was forged. For example Dr. King’s home was sometimes referred to as ‘the arsenal’ because of the presence of guns to defend himself and his family against the many attacks they survived. Before demonstrations a basket would be passed around, to collect guns demonstrators carried for self-defense. These acts of armed-resistance must be appreciated in light of the times of the 1960s Civil Rights movement when black people were continuously targeted for violence and submission through brutality not limited to lynching, shooting, and beating. Charles Cobb’s book ‘This nonviolent stuff′ll get you killed: How guns made the Civil Rights Movement possible’ describes the history of the need for armed-resistance to white supremacy as a necessary means to assure survival of black people, since enslavement through the 21st century. Cobb writes: “Even King, his commitment to nonviolence as a way of life notwithstanding, acknowledged the legitimacy of self-defense and sometimes blurred the line between non-violence and self-defense.” Perhaps this line was not so blurred for Dr. King because he maintained his clarity of the human connection even when violence was targeted toward himself or his family.

Some may argue that the white southerners who hunted out black people to kill and brutalize felt they were acting in self-defense also; defending their reign of supremacy. Similarly they could argue that brutality against non-violent protesters was in defense of a legal system which condoned and maintained their supremacy in place. This sort of thinking might ‘justify’ any perceived act of violating this culture of white supremacy as illegal, requiring to be put down. Because white supremacy is built on a foundation of oppression, internalized white superiority, and fear of the black body, -a fear that the black body is violent and necessarily revengeful of the history of brutal oppression since enslavement and therefore ready to harm its historic and current oppressors- seeking out and destroying blackness would also be socially acceptable whether through physical, economic, social, spiritual, or educational systems.

But equating armed-resistance by black southerners during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement with the armed offense by white supremacist is like comparing apples and oranges.

This logic rests on the truth that a white supremacist system is an unwise, unjust, and inhumane system. It is a system whose ethic requires separation by skin color and white-skin superiority. It affirms that eurocentricity is superior over all other racial/ethnic identities and cultures. This is a violent, untruthful, and disconnected way to think and be in the world. It was this wrong view that Dr. King’s non-violent action resisted. It resisted this inhumanity and believed that to act into love would bring a different norm, a different truth to bear where the ethic of white supremacy reigned in terror and violence. This ethic of love, attempted to normalize love and the truth of human connection in the midst of hatred, to be the seed of change in a field sowed with separation, discrimination and superiority. When we celebrate Dr. King we must remember to include not only his visionary leadership in moving us closer to ending racial segregation. We must celebrate his aspiration and action for love and interconnectedness through non-violence, to live into a more truthful existence of our shared humanity. At the same time we must act into this collective power to end the war against our humanity: the war of poverty, racism, and militarism.

Thich Nhat HanhThis is the first part of a two-part series. The next part will look at our current day struggles for justice and whether we practice non-violence; if we do, is tactic and truth? Your comments are invited.

Staying woke: The courage to make change manifest in Baltimore

Originally posted on Huff Post 09/23/2017 10:22 pm ET

“Anytime we do the work of love, we are doing the work of ending domination” bell hooks

We had the Uprising in Baltimore two years ago. We said a lot, all of us. We were going to do things differently, make change manifest. We said we were tired of business as usual. We were woke (we understood the necessity for racial and social justice) but did we fall back asleep?

I have been listening to residents in East Baltimore talk about the fact that there has been so little change since the Uprising. Here’s why they feel this way: Children are walking to school past drug houses where people are getting needled in their necks right on the stoop, at 8am in the morning. Police are called but not responding. Baltimore has logged 246 homicides in 2017 through September 13, almost one per day. Twenty-one of those dead were under 20 years old.

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Are we segregating and privatizing our publicly-funded public spaces?

Runners4Justice will run through Middle East Baltimore on September 12 to bring awareness to the 88-acre uneven development of the Johns Hopkins Bioscience Park by Forest City, East Baltimore Development Inc, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the city, state, federal policies. While Eager Park, the new 5.5 acre park in this development was funded by state dollars and previously categorized as a public park, a spokesperson for Forest City recently stated in a public meeting that the park is a private park. When residents in the meeting asked for clarification the spokesperson confirmed that the park is private. The committee which raises funds and controls the finances for security, management, and development of the park consists of no historic Middle East Baltimore resident. The schedule of events occurring in the park has not been available to the public but is announced to the Johns Hopkins Medical community. This lack of accountability and segregation through privatizing function and control of the park continues to exist and only surfaces to the public through listening to residents living in the Middle East Baltimore community.

eager park

Eager Park is a park that sits in the middle of neighborhoods where drug dealing and shooting occurs frequently. The recently hired security services, Broadway Services, a unit of the Johns Hopkins University and Medical System won the bid for the park. This is an interesting development because security for the remainder of the 88-acre  development is provided by a locally-owned security firm, Frontline Management whose offices are located in the 88-acre development. Some local residents are asking why they were not involved in selecting the security services for the park. They are also asking what other decisions are occurring, in which they are not involved.

eagerpark5.5 acre Eager Park sitting in the middle of the 88-acre Johns Hopkins Bioscience Park

The quarterly public community meetings held by EBDI and Forest City are the only easily accessible opportunity for local residents to learn about the plans for development in their community. There is little opportunity to meet directly with representatives from these two organizations who control what happens in the 88-acre development for the Johns Hopkins Bioscience park.

This lack of accountability and transparency of how public dollars benefit the public good  is nothing new to Baltimore. Baltimore is a city with more than 65% African American and approximately 20% of family households living below the poverty line- more than half in some neighborhoods like those surrounding the new 5.5 acre Eager Park. Baltimore’s economic elite, like the Johns Hopkins University and Medical System, control the government and therefore what happens in the city. Promises are made by government that its policies and actions will benefit the public but after election or passage of bills that provide tax credits to wealthy developers there’s little accountability of the benefits back to the public. But in spite of this history, there is a growing movement to hold government and ts private partners accountable in the neoliberal1 political machine that exists in Baltimore today.

It’s imperative to hold our policy makers and their private supporters and partners accountable for our public dollars. Specifically we must continue to look  at how the different promised public spaces, financed by public dollars, will actually serve the public. The use of eminent domain to remove more than 750 households to develop the 88-acre Johns Hopkins Bioscience Park requires that a greater benefit to the public occurs. Who will measure this equity of benefit? It may be time for our city council representative for the area to invite Johns Hopkins Bioscience partners to show how benefit is being accrued to the local residents and businesses in affordable housing and amenities, jobs, transportation, and local business ventures.

On a recent walk through the public waterfront park of Harbor Point, also funded by public tax subsidies, I was asked by the restaurant staff adjacent to the park where I was going. This made me wonder how the residents of nearby Perkins Homes are treated as they walk through the park. Accountability as to whether publicly-funded spaces are freely accessible to the public is a critical part of assuring that public subsidies benefit public good. In the past physical walls around spaces was the way to deny access to the public, in effect privatizing spaces and maintaining segregation. Today security guards and attendants are replacing these physical walls. But in effect, the outcome is the same, segregation of public spaces. The accountability to assure that the health and wealth gap in Baltimore does not continue to widen will only occur if we monitor these spaces, listen to the local businesses and residents there, and request that our political leaders hold private interests accountable for public subsidies they receive.

harbor point

Harbor Point is a 27-acre water front property developing a mixed-use site with a projected cost of $1 billion and at least $107 in public subsidies. Included in this development are five distinct public urban parks including areas for both passive and active recreation, culminating in a 4.5-acre public waterfront park space.

 

  1. Neoliberalization is the action of the government to assure that private interests have as much opportunity as possible to grow their interests, regardless of whether this results in decreased benefit for the public good

Politicizing our memories: Have we forgotten the history of Middle East Baltimore?

 

Our memory is also a struggle for memory against forgetting…The struggle for memory against forgetting requires the politicization of memory, distinguishing nostalgia from remembering that serve to illuminate and transform the present” bell hooks

This morning was overcast, clouds suggesting it may rain at any moment. There was a lot of activity on the 900 block of N. Wolfe street, extending down the 1100 block to Chase Street. The activities being planned were part of the newest addition to the re-branding of the neighborhood. The 7-acre park opening today is part of the 88-acre redevelopment of the Johns Hopkins Biotech Park that started in 2001. This is Middle East Baltimore, slowly being rebranded by the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and its sister non-profits of the ‘non-profit industrial complex’, the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland, and the new inhabitants who are slowly moving into the neighborhood. ‘Eager Park’ is the new brand. This re-branding is nothing atypical in a developing area. And it’s not atypical either that the name is chosen, or ‘suggested’ by the developers and their proxies-in this case Forest City and East Baltimore Development Inc. (EBDI). But the rebranding this morning is something that we must remember. The remembering that bell hooks talks about. Because if we forget again, we will re-live this process of displacement of another neighborhood again. This remembering is a politicization because it recognizes the power of a continuous exploitation of one group to benefit another and resultant  inequity that exists today.

The new 7-acre, $14 million park in Middle East Baltimore, ‘Eager Park’

The flyers touting the parks’ opening celebrations from 8:30am until 5:00pm included a parade, ribbon cutting, and a festival; a DJ and dancing, several marching bands, and the children from the new school-also part of the 88-acre redevelopment. There would be dance and musical performances and fitness demonstrations in the brand new amphitheater in the park. The name of the park was decided by the developers and their design contractors, ‘Eager Park’.  The hope was that the $14 million park would usher in the re-branding of the area. There was no mention of the history of the naming of the area that the new parks’ name was attempting to erase, forget.

Why forget? It is important for the powerful developers of this 88-acre development assure that we forget that more than 750 Black families were displaced to make room for this 7-acre park and everything else being developed. The initial master plan made no mention that residents were being forced off their land to make room for a park. The rhetoric in 2001 was that displacement had to occur to demolish the almost 2000 homes in this ‘blighted’ and abandoned area. In order to use eminent domain to take private land and pass on to a private developer, the city government partnered with the university, like it did in the 1950s. That time the government policy that subsidized this private developer’s wealth gain was urban renewal. The first master plan in 2001 justified the development using eminent domain to acquire resident’s homes through the rhetoric of public benefit via 8000 new jobs in the 5 biotech parks and the various amenities.  Sixteen years later the project has provided less than 1500 new jobs. The plan made no mention of how the displaced residents would be able to return: it was a one-way ticket out of the area to make room for the new race and class that the powerbrokers felt could ‘renew’ the area. For the prestigious medical institutions and its partners it’s important for those moving in to forget this history or never know it.

The ribbon cutting ceremony in the amphitheater of the new park, with different stakeholders in attendance, including the president of Johns Hopkins University, Ron Daniels, the mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, City Council president Bernard Jack Young, Senator Nathaniel McFadden

The ribbon cutting ceremony with different stakeholders in attendance, including the president of Johns Hopkins University, Ron Daniels, the mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, City Council president Bernard Jack Young, Senator Nathaniel McFadden

Why is it important to remember this history? This development happening today is the same type of development that happened in the 1950s. We have mostly forgotten about the 1950s urban renewal project -Broadway Redevelopment Project- where 59 acres was acquired by Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and its partners for expansion. It was remarkably similar to this current redevelopment-displacement of more than 1000 majority Black families. There was housing for students and staff, professional buildings (now we call these biotech buildings), a hotel, retail and amenities to support the needs of the new inhabitants. This memory is political and is required if we are to ‘illuminate and transform the present’. If we (SMEAC, Save Middle East Action Committee, Inc, the community organization that changed the way the development occurred) had remembered during our struggle for equity during the early years of this current development, we would have leveraged this history. But we didn’t know and those who knew at some point, those who were actually involved in the struggle in the 1950s and 1960s either forgot or felt overwhelmed by the challenge before us. Our collective memory of this history would have confirmed that the political powers of majority White institutions, in Baltimore the Johns Hopkins University and Medical systems, continue to take what they want without regard for their neighbors. We would have confirmed how this continuous exploitation of land on the backs of poor and Black communities is another part of the history of serial forced displacement. We would have affirmed that yet again, the white powerful elite and the government had partnered to segregate those different from themselves by displacing them. Like this current development, the 1950s developers had no intention of assuring that existing residents could return-none did because the new housing was unaffordable for them. Had we known of this history, we would have used this information in our organizing campaign. We would have proposed policy and legislation that would delineate how development must occur: in partnership and with control from the historic residents currently occupying the space. We would have assured that the legislation to build affordable housing was built had more teeth. Because 16 years later, of the 1200 new housing units planned, there remains no affordable housing for ownership.

Today there is a petition by two different community members to rename the park, in line with the history of the area. One of the names suggested is ‘The Lucille Gorham Park’. Recently deceased, Ms. Gorham (who named the community ‘Middle East Baltimore’) was a long-time community activist who lived her adult life attempting to increase public support for renewing her neighborhood, without displacement of her neighbors. Much of her work focused on engaging with different members of the institution to stop the continuous encroachment and gentrification by the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. In the 1980s she received a commitment from the then president of the university that the institution would not expand beyond Madison street. She had participated in a development project in the 1960s –Gay Street 1 Project- where this continuous encroachment was not the only way to change a neighborhood. The Gay Street 1 developed an area of less than 50 acres with a grassroots emphasis, residents made the decisions and participated directly in the master plan and the development. After her years of struggle to stop the university from swallowing up her neighborhood she was eventually displaced for this 88-acre Biotech Park. ‘Eager Park’; the park rolled over the previous commitment by the university not to expand northward beyond Madison. The outcome of forgetting.

Groundbreaking for a new hotel in the 1950s Broadway Redevelopment Project

Groundbreaking for a new hotel in the 1950s-1960s Broadway Redevelopment Project

This morning I chatted with several residents, new and historic. Two of them were residents displaced for this new park; both actually lived on the ground that is now being used for a park. Their comments: “why did we have to move for a park, a park?’; ‘this is a sore spot for me, can’t talk about it”. The new residents felt differently, they saw hope: “ I think the kids will benefit from seeing something different than all those abandoned houses that were here before”. Everyone is speaking from their experiences, what they lived and are living. There is no doubt that the development and its amenities will bring benefit. The questions of ‘who must be sacrificed for the benefit of others’ and ‘why must the  same group of people be sacrificed’ remains unanswered. The question of process and outcome remains unanswered. These are not impossible questions to answer but they are questions that beg us to look into the root of the way we have built our society. Our history can benefit us in looking into these roots. Why were these neighborhoods segregated and disinvested in the first place? Why do we continue to feel justified in segregating those who are most affected by this history of segregation and disinvestment. Memory is political because it reminds us of a history that requires attending to, so we don’t keep doing the same things today and in the future.

Reference: Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore: Rebuilding Abandoned Communities in America . Lexington Books, 2012.  Text is available free here. Click on book content.

Why does Baltimore need a Black Worker Center?

The thriving of low-income Black workers in Baltimore and beyond is critical for equitable access to housing, food, education, health, recreation, transportation. When someone who works for a living, is still unable to afford adequate food, shelter, clothing and medicine, we remain an inequitable society. When those workers congregate into the same racial/ethnic group, we have systematic racism: racism which is not only individualized but embedded deep within the policies and infrastructures of our society. A Black Worker Center can be a base of organizing to address this inequity for black people in Baltimore*.

The ability to work is the first step toward equity. This means that a person has the physical and mental wellness, health, to support them finding employment. The second step is being qualified to work: has the person had the necessary training to compete in the marketplace for a position? The third step is the availability of work. The fourth step is that the place of employment supports the worker so they can stay in the position and thrive. This fourth step brings us back full circle to the first: a thriving person has the ability to work. It’s a cycle that continues and that either allows a healthy and holistic body and mind to thrive, or not: on a cellular, organ, individual, community level.

Cycle of workAbility to work

Our environment supports our ability to work by supporting or physical and mental well being. This includes having healthy food, adequate shelter, regular and affordable access to preventive health care, a safe community, and a life not burdened by the stress of systematic discrimination. For a Black body, none of these conditions for a healthy life is assured. In fact, being Black increases the likelihood that these conditions are diminished and that an ongoing struggle is necessary to assure one or all of these conditions are in place. The historical trauma of slavery and current racism for Black people in America is a risk factor for diminished physical and mental health. This history includes government policies and public:private partnerships resulting in redlining, segregation and abandonment, urban renewal, and serial forced displacement. This historical and current racial oppression have increased the likelihood of low-income Black communities living with increased crime, drug trade, food deserts, diminished infrastructure, inadequate education, housing, transportation, and health services, and abandoned/boarded housing. These environments increase the risk of diminished health and shorter life spans. Low-income jobs which do not allow a family to leave such neighborhoods and laws and policies which continue community rebuilding that segregate and displace residents continue the risk of diminished health, and ability to work.

black.povertyBlack.mortality

Qualified to work

Being qualified to work requires that a person has had the opportunity to receive training that makes them competitive with others seeking similar employment. But if a low-income Black person, growing up in an abandoned and under-invested community has not received adequate education and training, they cannot compete with a person growing up in a neighborhood which allowed access to adequate education and training. If a low-income Black person has been in a community without role models who have succeeded in the market/workplace, they have not benefited from this type of informal-training. If a low-income Black person has received education that is not truthful about the courage, resilience, and accomplishments of Black people, they can/will internalize these wrong perceptions and believe that they cannot strive or achieve great things. And if the communities in which a low-income Black worker lives is not connected to a functional transportation system, they will be challenged to make it to work on time. Access to the workplace qualifies one to work.

Race.unemployment

black.education

Availability of Work

There must be jobs available for low-income workers. Jobs which provide on-the-job training, apprenticeships, and access to education are important to assure that a low-income person can make their way out of a low-income lifestyle. The people hiring for these jobs must be trained in anti-oppression/anti-racism so they will not discriminate against hiring Black workers. Low-income jobs should not be equated to inadequate-income jobs. This means low-income jobs should pay enough to afford a family to: live in healthy neighborhoods, access adequate health care, access nutritious food. If employers in Baltimore will not/cannot pay adequate income to afford a family to live in a healthy neighborhood, a guaranteed basic income may be necessary to assure low-income families can break this cycle of poverty.

Livingwagebaltimore

Supportive Work Environment

Whether a person remains in a position once hired is determined by many factors. Are they promoted the same as other workers? For a Black worker, are they promoted, paid, and treated the same as White workers? Do co-workers or supervisors aggress Black workers with language and behaviors? Are low-income workers treated fairly, provided health insurance, a living wage, regular raises? If the wages paid do not allow a worker to live in healthy neighborhoods then the work environment continues to contribute to diminished health, decreasing the ability to work and live in healthy communities: the inequitable and unhealthy work cycle for low-wage Black workers continue into another generation. If the work environment does not respect the worker, workers will look elsewhere for an income to support themselves and their family. This type of work can be perceived as not a viable option for work. If there is no work, as occurred during the industrial revolution when factory work left cities and large unemployment occurred in communities, hustling begins (Dr. Mindy Fullilove, Black Mental Health Alliance series, 2016). This results in decreased social cohesion and dysfunctional communities.

The generational impact of unfair low-wage work is detrimental to healthy community rebuilding for all workers; specifically detrimental for recovery from historical trauma for Black workers. Black Worker Centers are increasing across the US with Baltimore launching its center (Black workers share about challenges faced working in sub-contracting positions for big corporations) on Martin Luther King Day, January 2017. Baltimore Black Worker Center  (BBWC) is committed to building a Black worker base to address the conditions of workers and to organize to change unfair policies and introduce new policies which support equitable treatment and healthy living, working, and learning conditions for Black workers. If our most vulnerable populations thrive, all of Baltimore will thrive. The reverse is also true. Stay tuned for BBWC’s first report on the history and current status of Black workers in Baltimore.

*Low income work is defined as less than $35,000/year, gross.

# Maps: http://bniajfi.org/

$ Living Wage Table: http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/24510

 

What else has been happening besides the presidential race? The consistency of uneven development across the US

While the presidential race has taken up the airways nationally, locally many cities continue to struggle for equitable and sustainable development. In Boston, Iowa, Baltimore, Seattle, Berkley, residents and activists have been organizing and demanding housing and land rights. Read about tenants struggles for rent control in Berkley and Mississippi’s struggle to prevent rolling back civil rights laws at Verso blog. What else has been happening besides the presidential race?

The PRACTICE of change

TEDxWashingtonSquare: The Cutting Edge of Change, 10.15.16

JOIN US for a day of #PracticingChange as we bring greater awareness to the creative practices, models and essential elements on the cutting edge of change. From gentrification, to transformative residential communities, to meditation and policing, to changing our neural imprinting for justice…change is happening!

WHEN
SAT, OCTOBER 15
9:30 am–5:30 pm

WHERE
New York University, 40 Washington Square South

Livestream at TEDxWashingtonSquare.com

SOME OF OUR NOTABLE SPEAKERS & SPECIAL GUESTS

SHARON SALZBERG – meditation teacher; author; Co-Founder, Insight Meditation Society

ANGEL KYODO WILLIAMS – author; activist; Zen priest; Founder, Center for Transformative Change

DAN HARRIS – Co-anchor, ABC News’ Nightline and Good Morning America (weekend edition)

MARISELA GOMEZ – community activist; author; public health professional; physician

SHAUNA SHAPIRO – clinical psychologist; Professor, Santa Clara University, CA

SAM DROEGE – author; Biologist, U.S. Geological Survey

COME EXPLORE with us the innovative ways change is taking place on both the personal and societal levels.

We are looking at cutting edge change from the micro-level within the tiniest neurotransmitters, among the behavior of bees, and in the inner lives of prison inmates, to systemic shifts taking place within the legal profession, health care, technology, politics and the fashion industry. We are drawing from a broad range of thinkers, doers and researchers across multiple disciplines, coming from New York and beyond.

JOIN US!
#PracticingChange

Baltimore government must be accountable to the people of Baltimore, not the rich!

The time is now to act for change. The wealthy persist in owning government and most of us citizens are unaware of how this results in continued hyper-segregation and race and class inequities. Locally we have a billionaire (Kevin Plank of Sagamore LLC) asking the city, state, and federal government to subsidize and guarantee his wealth-building campaign that would continue to segregate our city- a development aimed at constructing 14,000 housing units and amenities for those making more than $100,000 per year, Port Covington. Nationally we see this trend in private ownership of government (neoliberalism) in the form of Republican’s nomination of Donald Trump for presidency of the United States of America. The behavior of both these career capitalists relies on government to support their asset-accumulating trajectory in development. And “we the people” vote for who will be the “government” choosing to subsidize the wealthy. So when government fails to be accountable to the people of the city we have no recourse but to challenge it. It’s important that we recognize that in ignoring our responsibility in monitoring government spending we are nodding our heads in the way they currently spend our tax dollars. I suppose if we are okay with such corporate-welfare activities, then we can vote for Trump and let our city government pay for the infrastructure that would allow Sagamore LLC to gain more wealth. We have a say in all this if we decide we want to change business as usual.
Table. GovtsubsidyBaltimoreTable.footer

Sagamore’s request for government funding toward the development of Port Covington will be before the sub-committee this week. Councilman Carl Stokes will Chair a hearing on City Council Ordinance #16-0669 – the Port Covington Development District on Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 5 p.m. The televised hearing will be held in the War Memorial Assembly Hall 1 st floor, 101 N. Gay Street (Lexington Street Entrance). Come ask our city government to explain why continuing to fund segregated developments is a more equitable and sustainable path? How is this type of government subsidy for higher income, professional class, and majority white people in 2016 in a geographic region (redlining) any different from the FHA and VA loans to white people in the 1950s (redlining)? Show them the data and then ask how doing the same thing again and again will result in a different outcome. Ask them how these subsidies might be used to assure affordable housing is built and assure integration and not continued segregation, Ask them to do a racial, social, health, and environmental impact assessment/analysis before they vote on any amount of subsidies for this and any other development in our city.

On Tuesday July 26 join advocates at Red Emma’s to discuss strategies for the July 27 hearing and actions leading up to the city council vote, and after.

Contact your city council representative and president (Bernard Jack Young) to request that the date for the full council vote be delayed until the public is sufficiently knowledgeable about how government subsidies are being used for a hyper-segregated development. There should be a clear agreement on local hiring, living-wage compensation, small business entrepreneurship and micro-loans for small businesses, affordable housing (rental and ownership) and a range of amenities affordable to all. If our public dollars are subsidizing a private project then the public must advise and monitor the private project. Past development projects heavily subsidized by the government, such as the current Johns Hopkins/EBDI/Casey/Forest City in East Baltimore, promised affordable housing and local hiring. Fifteen years later neither city or state representatives of the area will respond to questions about the outcomes of these promises. Neither EBDI or the Annie E. Casey Foundation will respond to such questions. None of these parties who negotiated the development terms will assess the benefit to Hopkins and its powerful partners and the benefit to local residents. After development agreements are voted on by the government, in Baltimore city, there is no recourse to assure accountability and transparency of promised outcomes. Previously set for August 28 the city council meeting to vote on TIFs for Port Covington was moved up to August 8. Question: “why the rush”?