Meeting Notes

Steering committe Meeting, March 3, 2002

The steering committe met Saturday, March 2, in Jackson, Mississippi. Much thanks to Rev. Willie Varnado of Christ United Methodist Church who allowed us to meet in their Urban Ministry Center.

There was much discussion around prioritizing issues for potential projects. The consensus on chief areas of concern are:
job creation and education.

We decided our next steps should be:

WE WILL MEET NEXT ON FRIDAY, MAY 24 FROM 10:30 TO 3:00 P.M. TO PLAN THE CONFERENCE. WE WILL MEET AT JACKSON STATE UNIVERSITY IN JACKSON, MS. I'LL SEND A REMINDER WITH SPECIFIC DIRECTIONS CLOSER TO THAT MEETING.

Steering Committee Meeting, January 25th

On Jan. 25th, the steering committee for our statewide alliance for reconciliation met at Lanier High School in Jackson. Thanks so much to Ouida Atkins, Principal Hughes, and Anne Johnson for arranging a great meeting.

Here's what we came up with:

On Structure:
We want to create an inclusive statewide organization with better total state representation. Everyone on the steering committee has tasked themselves with bringing others from around the state. We assigned different regions to different individuals.

We hope to have 5 individuals each from each of the 5 congressional districts. Those individuals will be tasked with organizing within their region. We will convene again on March 2, a Saturday for better attendance, from 1-3 p.m. That meeting will be at Christ United Urban Ministry Center. Here are directions: exit off I-44 at Fortification Street. go west. Cross State and turn right onto Lamar. Go 1 1/2 blocks and turn left into an old apt. complex. The address is 1319 N. Lamar and there will be a sign for the center. Please let me know if you're coming and who you're able to bring with you.

We will identify common projects of interest at that meeting and mobilize for particular events as they arise. We will form subcommittees for various projects at that time.

We expressed some concern about inviting elected officials to join. We decided they should be resources for funding and for identifying other participants. We want to build a grassroots, nonpartisan organization. We will own the group and have institutional allies.

December 14, 2001

On December 14, 2001, we met for the fifth time, and were graciously hosted, for the second time, by Jackson State University. We were not only provided with a meeting place, but with a delicious luncheon. President Mason welcomed us to JSU and addressed us in lieu of Deputy Chief of Staff Monique Guillory (our hosting member) who had been sent to the hospital earlier in the day (congratulations to her on the arrival, the following Monday, of a baby boy, Julian).

Susan Glisson opened the meeting with remarks about the group's beginnings in April, at which time we began to talk about a network of groups and individuals, faith-based, university and others. She read us the mission statement we voted in at the last meeting and then called for substantive discussion about structure and the identification of goals.

We were honored to be joined by Rev. John M. Perkins and Rev. Dolphus Weary, both of whom who spoke to us on organization and goals.

Rev. Weary spoke of his organization, Mission Mississippi, and a vision of unity in Christ across racial and denominational lines. He posed this question, "What would happen to the state if the church got it together - across racial lines first and denomination lines next?" He stated that if we can work together, we can accomplish more than we can separately and challenged us to find the next step to take, not a fly-by-night, feel-good step, but one that would lead to a lasting change. He introduced Rev. Perkins (of the John M. Perkins Foundation) to us as his mentor and father figure.

Rev. Perkins led his remarks with a story of Lou Gehrig (whom he said did for Jews what Jackie Robinson did for blacks in sports). Lou Gehrig, as he lay dying, said that he was the luckiest man on earth, for the years he had gotten to play baseball. Rev. Perkins said that he felt like that - like the luckiest guy on earth, privileged that God let him be here today. He quoted the King of Jordan, speaking at a conference on International Peace attend by Rev. Perkins and Tommy Tarrants (a former Klan member and synagogue bomber); the Jordanian King said that if Rev. Perkins and Tommy Tarrants could be reconciled, there was hope for Arabs and Jews.

He said that reconciliation assumes equality and that we can't find solutions without seeing what the problem is. One of the problems is that when people got educations and become successes, they leave Mississippi. He said that we must raise up indigenous leaders in the community. He discussed the lagging behind of our Churches, giving as an example the white churches in previous days which had signs saying "Revival - Everyone Welcome" but noted that it would have caused a riot if he had tried to attend. He called our attention to the biblically stated mission of Christ - reconciliation.

Rev. Perkins stated that if we came to this meeting thinking we could help poor people - we were thinking wrong. He stated the saying so many quote, "If you give a man a fish, he'll eat today, if you teach him to fish, he'll eat forever" is a lie - whoever owns the pond is going to eat fish.

He reminded us that Mississippi has the richest soil, the best water and timber. He called Mississippi the richest state with the poorest people. A comparison was made with California, and how the rich natural resources were used to establish Stanton and the excellent University system there, and said that the education given their people had raised California to its position as the richest state. He also stated that we had let racial prejudice make this state into the poorest. He asserted that justice is what's on God's mind all the time, and that we must deal with the issue of economic problems, the issue of who owns the earth. He stated that justice is the management of God's creations and earth and that injustice is unequal management of the earth.

We then went around the room, and each person introduced themselves and stated what they were wiling and able to bring to the table to get something accomplished with this task force in Mississippi.

Some of the expertise and skills offered were:

• Being a dot connector for children (particularly those who don't go to church)
• Financial development for minorities
• Writing proposals
• Education and disseminating information via the web
• Community development
• Faith-based outreach
• Grassroots organization
• Development of educational aides
• Working with high school students in various ways (helping them graduate, get into college, etc.)
• Early childhood development
• Help for entrepreneurs and development of jobs
• Education and enrichment through the arts

Some of the ideas and observations offered were:

• The need of young people for expression
• That success is not just to do well but to make the community does well also
• The idea that justice can be measured and that when all of us equally share the disadvantages, we will have justice
• That the main thing done in universities is to articulate what racism is and why we don't need to do anything about it
• If we could go behind a veil of ignorance (where we can't see color or ethnicity, etc.) we could come together for discussion, but how can it be done?
• If we had a day to work on a perfect society and every time someone identified themselves as one or another thing, the mediator or facilitator says - no good, don't give yourself any value better than your neighbors
• Working on our own campuses, in our communities and churches, then coming back and sharing
• How Mississippi is a state of garish opulence and mean poverty
• The need to get back home and make reconciliation come alive on our campuses
• The healing power of the arts
• How to serve art through social change, and use artists to educate

Some of the things discussed which are related to our goals were:

• Remarks on the need for economic equality, respect
• Getting students involved
• The Institute for Racial Reconciliation and its support of this group
• Getting funding
• Finding people with concern
• The Algebra Project (Bob Moses' program)
• Gibbs-Green Week (and the involvement of this group in this upcoming remembrance week in conjunction with the Student Unity Summit))
• Methodist Community Outreach
• Inclusiveness in entire churches
• Education aides
• Sharing with high school students
• The need to understand what we are talking about when we say ‘racial reconciliation'
• The Barksdale Reading Institute
• Early childhood education
• The Sunflower Freedom Project
• Teaching architectural students the skills they have can be used to help towns develop
• DIAL (a multidisciplinary project to help entrepreneurs and develop jobs)
• Literacy as Civil Rights

The end of this round of remarks from each person present was followed with discussion of a steering committee to come up with tangible goals for the group to translate the ideas and energy into actions. It was agreed that we would send out an e-mail offering the opportunity to be on the steering committee to all on our database. We decided to do it this way because of the people who were not able to attend this particular meeting who would gladly and ably serve in this capacity, not wishing to limit ourselves or bypass anyone by taking volunteers just from the group present (although there were many volunteers from the group present).

Our meeting was closed on an inspirational note by Carolyn Morris of the Mississippi Arts Council, who sang, acappello, a moving rendition of an original composition, "Let's Make A Change." She told us the song was inspired by Martin Luther King and Ghandi.

November 2, 2001

Our fourth meeting was hosted by the University of Mississippi, Center for Southern Studies, on November 2, 2001. We were honored to welcome Gov. William Winter and Derrill Pierce, the new director of the Institute for Racial Reconciliation to our meeting. There were approximately 25 attendees, representing several different areas of the state.

Susan Glisson opened the meeting with a brief summary of the beginning of this group and what was covered in the previous meetings, to inform new attendees of the background of our group. She stated that some systemic issues were recognized during the flag program and that many entities had networked and come into contact with each other because we were all working toward the same goal; further, that recognizing the possibilities inherent in keeping the network alive and active, some of us decided to work toward keeping up the network and utilizing it for the good of the people of our state on more substantive issues.

We had decided at the last meeting that this was to be a working meeting, with the main goal being the drafting of a mission statement and a delineation of our primary goals to this point. The following mission statement was adopted, and reads as follows:

Mission Statement:

We believe in the future well-being of Mississippi and we will work to ensure its success. Although our personal and political perspectives may differ, we all love our state and want her to succeed. In this spirit, we extend our hand to everyone in the state to build areas of mutual respect and common vision. We identify the following four principles as part of a shared mission: racial reconciliation, economic development, educational excellence, and community empowerment. We believe that together we can set an example for these United States.

Our affiliation is structured around several specialized work areas of emphasis. They include, but are not limited to, media relations, issues of government and public policy, education, community, youths and students, social justice and faith-based partnerships. As our membership grows, so too, will our future working areas.

We are emphasizing areas of common vision and shared commitment that will be beneficial and unifying to Mississippi as a whole, to provide a network of people and organizations as a way to achieve these goals.

We then began to discuss ideas and delineate areas of concern that we might address, and, in some cases, some ways in which we might be able to address these concerns. These were the main ideas and areas of discussion:

EDUCATION

- Equity and access to resources
- "Real Education"

 

- inclusive, revised curriculum
- role of IHL's (Institutes of Higher Learning)
- mistrust toward IHL's
- work with K-12
- build better relationships between IHL's
- improve K-12, address the inequities
- address the inequities of minority and economically-challenged schools
- promote significance of diversity
- address tracking, separation of children into college prep and non-college tracks
- qualifications and funding of educators

 

COMMUNITY ISSUES

- discussed possibility of focusing on the Delta area
- field trips to the delta

 

- broaden knowledge of delta
- the state of schools in the 50's and 60's there - separate and totally unequal
- 35 years is not enough to catch up
- develop reading list for the group

-rural v. urban areas
-sub-regional approach

 

- outreach to community residents
- involvement of community residents
- leadership training
- identify indigenous leaders, listen to community
- equal partnerships
- address miseducation
- address practices that impact communities
- use a positive approach
- develop measurements for charting disadvantageous practices

 

STRATEGIES

- public policy positions
- letter writing campaigns
- fund-raising alternatives for education

 

- percentage of casino money
- evaluate and disseminate status reports in order to prioritize

 

NEXT STEPS

- accountability
- outreach
- new local groups
- established groups - send representatives and draw them in
- established groups - tapping different organizations for representatives to our group
- some groups are working on the same issues but are not as effective because they are not    working together - try to bring them together
-sponsor some "big" event (i.e. Student Unity Summit)
-identify a core group or team to meet on a more regular basis

In more general discussion:
It was stated that children come to college unable to think (read, write clearly) because of the way they have been educated (or miseducated)

One attendee stated that we would not be able to do anything because the power structure was not interested in changing (because money is the bottom line), and that black people need to have their own nation and government. He stated that organizations such as ours are ineffective because they are comprised mainly of white people (it was pointed out to him that the people present were actually evenly divided between black and white). His concerns were listened to and discussed, and it was noted that his position was understood, but that continuing along this line was not productive for our group, since one of our main concerns is racial reconciliation.

It was stated by another attendee that we were able to meet there, at UM, because some visionary at the University of Mississippi came forward to change things for the better. He stated that we may not have changed people's beliefs, but that we had changed their practices. Further that nothing is going to happen tomorrow - that racial problems are like a nail that has to be hit day after day in order to drive it home.

He also stated that we need to be concerned about a tangible way to address racial and social justice, because we need to see results to keep us motivated. A possible point of discussion for the next meeting is institutionalized racism, solutions for it, and working toward putting them out there as a position paper.

We discussed how our group can become more inclusive of others who may have a more difficult time joining in, and who is at the table now. It was stated that we must get the meat in the stew and that the vegetables can come later.

We were urged to go back to our communities and represent this group, talk about problems (for example, redistricting), and gather people along the way.

We discussed the Student Unity Summit to be held at Jackson State next April in conjunction with Gibbs/Green Week (the two students killed in spring of 1970 for whom Gibbs/Green Plaza was named) and our group's sponsorship and support for this event.

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