UNION OF MINORITY NEIGHBORHOODS INC
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Mission Statement
UMN was founded by and is run by people of African descent committed to fully engaging communities of color in our democracy. Our mission is to ensure that trained, committed grassroots leaders of color effectively organize on issues of concern in their communities, their regions, and the nation. Our vision is to create a unifying force to address the threats to our civil liberties and to end discriminatory policies and practices that limit our access to political, economic and social power. Our communities continue to be on the receiving end of legislation, public policies, and discriminatory practices that directly and repeatedly limited our access to economic opportunity and social justice. Without knowledge of the systems in play, we are, as a people, unprepared to confront these policies. We work to increase involvement of Black and Brown people in making change; bring together people to work for change across the racial and ethnic divides; train new organizers and leaders; develop strategies and tactics to involve and educate our constituency to make change through expanded civic awareness, engagement and understanding our rights and the systems that hold us back.
About This Cause
Since 2002, UMN has proved a successful and effective agent of civic engagement, resulting in real power for communities of color, including: • Ran a successful municipal/ state-wide campaign to reform the states draconian criminal records laws, allowing individuals with criminal records to secure jobs, education, housing and health care without penalty. According to The New York Times - the first significant criminal justice reform in more than a generation. • Brought out more than 5000 people of color to the Statehouse to stop cuts in the state budget on education, health and social programs that led to a billion dollar increase in support. • Coordinated a campaign that saved affirmative action in Massachusetts after then Governor Romney had eliminated it through executive order. • Received international and national recognition for the truth process we conducted on the Boston school desegregation crisis of the 1970’s, using powerful reconciliation models from around the world. This resulted in Boston’s history of school desegregation being included in Boston Public School curricula, with full access to our materials. • Received national recognition for our work supporting Black men including articles in Jet and Ebony and a call from President Obama’s White House. • Boston Globe Spotlight series on racism in Boston was largely due to our efforts to tackle this question; we were one of 7 advisors to the Globe for this series. • As a member of the state Cannabis Board, we are a leader in trying to press the Cannabis Commission to provide technical assistance and a loan fund to provide new cannabis business and economic opportunities to community people most adversely affected by drug incarceration. UMN’s programs are designed to strengthen democracy and re-build communities of color, in which the pernicious effects of discrimination continue to exist as barriers to equal opportunity. Full democratic participation must take place in order to create a more equitable and just city, state and country. This requires skilled, resourceful and educated civic leaders and activists of color. We need engagement of communities in changing their futures. We need more democracy, not less. And this is what UMN does and does well. Our organizing and training are integrated and designed to foster the development of organizers of color. Through our leadership trainings, we give emerging leaders the tools to address issues of community concern. We then put them to work on organizing campaigns. Through these “real-time” trainings they witness their ability to affect change and develop the skills to replicate their success. Our campaigns have resulted in the training of dynamic new leaders, and the gaining of real power for our communities. Activists come to us through our trainings, our coalition work and our campaigns. It is a slow process. But as a result of UMN’s efforts, hundreds of citizens who had never participated in civic life have advocated for change in public policy, testified at hearings, and met with local and state officials, labor groups, community and religious leaders to facilitate change. We understand that in order to increase the civic engagement and leadership of people of African descent we must work to increase the number and the skill of activists and leaders in our community. We must increase the depth of understanding issues and how the political system works. Our work insures this happens. Formal training is done through our Howard Rye Institute (HRI) and Institute for Neighborhood Leadership (INL). HRI is an in-depth 9-month training initiative building tomorrow’s leaders of African descent. We are working to develop the next civic and political leaders using experts and prominent leaders from universities, unions, government, business and nonprofit organizations. Our young people are learning the importance of history and how it is relevant to issues communities face today; understanding how institutions and government work and the politics behind them; understanding the political thinking that goes into issues impacting our community. We just completed our sixth year of HRI. Our fellows work for government, foundations, social service agencies. One is the president of Boston City Council. Another coordinates economic development for the city of Boston. Several are fully engaged in our on-going campaigns. INL is our popular education program. We switched the model last year to intensive series on single topics, i.e. 7-week series on raising funds; 5-week series on budgets, finance, funds; 3-week series on capitalism and another on the legal rights of people of color; how to run a nonprofit. Topics are brought to us by constituents. or need identified by staff. Last year we are held a special series for state legislators and community people to understand issues that impact them. Our first teach-in was on the color of money and presented by the Boston Federal Reserve Bank. Components of other projects include formal and informal trainings, as well as mentors. For instance our project, Black Ballot Power (BBP) www.blackballotpower.com is a national project that incorporates training on an interactive website. In 2019 we will have face to face trainings and gatherings in swing states where there was poor Black voter turnout. We are now building, Massachusetts Citizens' Congress of Poverty (MCCP), a citizen’s campaign to reduce poverty, where activists will learn in real time as well as attend trainings. MCCP is a state-wide campaign organizing campaign to bring together poor and working class to advocate for themselves. Working across the city, UMN will be developing new skilled leaders and activists to understand the systems and historic culture that prevents poor, working class and communities of color from moving forward. Our mantra is building power through: 1. Knowledge: understanding how systems work and the negative impact they have on our lives and neighborhoods. 2. Skill: developing a cadre of new leaders who understand how to effectively change systems. 3. Activities: engaging needs residents, at all levels, to step up and take responsibility for their neighborhood. In 2018 UMN held a teach-in on poverty with Harvard’s Phillips Brooks House which brought out hundreds to better understand the roots, history and systems that keep people poor. This kicked off MCCP. And it resulted in our successfully advocating for an anti-poverty caucus in the State House. Our staff running the campaign come from poverty. One is disabled, the other is an ex-offender who worked on our successful criminal justice campaign. MCCP work in 2019 includes: 1. Teach-in on education to bring activists together 2. Focus group with all sectors of housing world from realtors to activists to see if we can find common ground 3. Push for a version of the Sullivan Principles for the emerging cannabis business to encourage equal opportunity at all levels of employment and ownership 4. Build MCCP membership 5. Advocate for lifting the gap on child poverty and dental access which are presently being presented in the legislature 6. Bring legislative anti-poverty caucus together with MCCP members 7. Bring MCCP members together to advocate at state house around particular issues and budget. BBP is a national campaign to organize Black Americans so that they understand the importance of voting. Black Americans must vote as though they were going to church. For us not voting is not an option. We must help people understand that disenfranchising themselves will only increase their poverty, isolation and misery. Our project includes a website and boots on the ground. The website will run contests and has a wide variety of training tools. We have targeted cities in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where the decrease in Black voting in 2016 changed the outcome of the election. Our dedicated website for this project is www.blackballotpower.com In 2019 we are planning: 1. Promote Black Ballot Power site – kick off in February. (Black History month) 2. Line up organizers in key cities. 3. Build endorsers list (so far Harry Belafonte , Keegan-Michael Key, Tony Shalhoub, Senator Markey are best known) 4. Hold a regional training for activists in targeted cities. Our greatest strengths: 1. As a staff we are hardworking, savvy and flexible. We have decades of experience. Our expertise as a staff is complementary and we work well as a team. We are passionate about our work. 2. Since our inception we have counted on volunteers to help us accomplish our goals. Our board and steering committees are WORKING committees. 3. We win. 4. We listen - we are steered by our constituents’ interest and needs. We listen to the community - in fact we are the community we serve. Many staff, board, volunteers, trained by UMN, hail from communities of color - our main constituents. 5. We always collaborate, and this has greatly increased our ability to work across issue area, class, race, ethnicity and religion. Collaborations enable us to quickly increase our ability to disseminate information to diverse communities, build a broad base of constituents, and increase our effectiveness in getting our concerns heard by elected officials. 6. We use research from the many think tanks in the Commonwealth that provide us with the information to deepen our learning and make thoughtful decisions. 8. We are the people we represent, therefore the benefits of our work go directly to the people most affected by the concerns our campaigns address. 9. We emphasize leadership development as central to creating lasting civic engagement, we take our training and mentoring seriously. 10. We understand that without advocating for changes in systems, laws and policies, there will be no real change. Tactics should be part of a strategy not the only strategy.