ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
May 19, 2005
Organizers of color bridge race divide
Yawu Miller
After a year of exchanging information, methodologies
and community-based wisdom, a group of organizers of color say
they have learned much from each other.
Now as the program that brought them together — the Organizers
of Color Initiative — prepares to go into its second year,
the organizers say they’re ready for more.
“We know that collectively we have a lot of power,”
said Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority
Neighborhoods, which co-sponsored the initiative with the Center
for the Support of Immigrant Organizers. “We can work together
to unite our communities.”
The program was aimed at building the skills of organizers and
fostering greater collaboration between organizers in different
communities. More than 70 organizers took part in the monthly
meetings, according to Small.
Funded by the Hyams Foundation, the initiative relied on the organizers
themselves to share knowledge and skills, rather than bringing
in outside trainers. Organizers who came to a meeting of the initiative
last week said they gained much from their monthly meetings.
“The big thing that came out of this was a lot of intercultural
conversation,” said Darryl Morrison, a volunteer with Technology
for Social Change, a Roxbury-based organization providing assistance
to nonprofits.
“We found out that as organizations, we are pretty territorial.
Except for people who work on broader issues, people don’t
get out of their neighborhoods.”
The conversations between organizers from different parts of the
city touched on issues of race and culture. Black organizers were
able to discuss issues with immigrant organizers. The conversations
were not always easy, according to Gabriel Camacho, an organizer
with the American Friends Service Committee.
“There were a lot of interesting conversations between people
who would ordinarily not sit in the same room,” Camacho
said. “There were a lot of interesting comments like, ‘I
wish we were like the black community because they get everything
they want.’ I think that was very telling.”
Camacho said activists in different communities have historically
been pitted against each other while fighting for limited resources.
“People of color and immigrants are relegated to the bottom
rungs of society,” he said. “There’s an artificial
sense of competition between them that doesn’t serve the
interests of either community.”
The frank discussions were necessary to foster closer working
relationships between organizers from different communities, according
to Marcia Shannon, an organizer with the Fair Housing Center of
Greater Boston.
“We had to put it on the table to break the barriers down,”
she said.
Progress on relations between the black community and immigrant
communities was visible last month when the Massachusetts Immigrant
and Refugee Advocacy Coalition held a meeting at the Freedom House
to rally support for immigrants. That meeting was well attended
by young, African American activists, according to Small.
A more concrete outgrowth of the initiative is the Organizers
of Color Collective — a series of informal meetings held
by participants in the Organizers of Color Initiative. The collective,
which has no funding or organizational structure, exists simply
as a forum for organizers from across the city to exchange ideas.
“After a series of discussions last year, we decided that
the Organizers of Color Initiative wouldn’t make sense unless
we work together, unless we build on the relationships we’ve
started,” Camacho said. “There’s not real structure
or bylaws — just the political will to work together. But
that’s what’s important. That’s the foundation.”
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