The Gamaliel Foundation’s 2002 National Leadership Assembly

Merrillville (Gary), Indiana

December 2002

When I was thinking about our gathering here this week and what I wanted to say to all of you, one word kept cropping up.  And that word is crossroad.

It isn¹t a new word or a new situation to any of you.

We¹ve all been there before.

But a definite theme emerged as I contemplated this particular group, at this particular time, in this particular place. 

Let¹s start with the place first.   Gary, Indiana.

(Well, I have to say it and get it over with.   Don¹t you all just want to burst into song every time you here that?   The Music Man has scarred us all for life!) 

Gary, Indiana.  Often called the crossroads of America.  Why so?  Well,  our magnificent Lake Michigan, for all its beauty, is a barrier to road and rail traffic across the Northern United States.  So, to get around it, traffic is funneled down to Gary, Indiana, making it a literal, geographic crossroad for any body who wants to get anywhere going west to east, and vice versa. 

But Gary is also an economic crossroad.   Not too long ago, Gary produced as much steel as Pittsburgh making it one of our country¹s industrial jewels.

And it was the center of one the country¹s most powerful union movements.

Now, however, most of the steel mills have ceased operation and union strength has diminished dramatically.

Currently, Gary is trying to recreate itself as a high tech corridor  . . . or crossroad, if you will.

Interfaith Federation ­ our gracious host organization ­ is vitally involved in still another kind of crossroad ­ the one Northwest Indiana is facing.   Will the area further divide itself between black and white, between haves and have nots, between towns against towns, cities against suburbs? 

Interfaith is a key voice for cooperation,  for the deconcentration of poverty, for economic justice ­ for a cohesive region.  

Crossroads.   So many.

And the Gamaliel Foundation is not exempt.   We too are at a crossroad.   So it is perhaps providential that we are meeting for our seventh annual Leadership Assembly here -- at this particular place, at this particular time, with this  particular group of people.  

Gamaliel¹s crossroad is one of mission or focus  -- to maintain the status quo or broaden our reach. 

It must decide whether to remain a training institute of loosely affiliated groups or become a power organization.

That is our crossroad and it is the critical, the imperative, question for this NLA to decide.

We must decide whether the Gamaliel Foundation will have a new birth and a new beginning.

Let me take you through a brief history of the our organization.  It began in its present form in l986.  There were just three groups then; two in Chicago and one in Iowa.  One was primarily Latino, one black and one primarily white.  We marketed ourselves as an organizing institute, a consulting agency, a provider of training.  Groups signed a contract, paid fees, and expected services.

We provided services, excellent services.  Groups that affiliated with the Gamaliel Foundation quickly emerged as the most powerful organizations in their communities. And we have grown.  I do not have to tell you this, you already know. You are African-Americans, Whites, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans here representing 55 local organizations in 18 states and 3 provinces in South Africa.

Because we brought groups together, because we encouraged interaction, because we facilitated cooperation, we moved from an organizing institute to a network.  Groups began to work together on issues, raised money together, began to draw upon each other for training and issue strategies.  You began to learn from each other.  Groups did not look only to the central office for advice, ideas, training, and inspiration.  You began to look to each other.  We moved from a service provider to a network with a free exchange of ideas and talents.  We created an environment of transparency, agitation and mutual learning. 

Groups worked together to secure HUD funding, to retain key provisions of the community reinvestment legislation, to support the Center for Community Change on national transportation policy and to conduct the conference on combating concentrated poverty.  All of these things were done but the Gamaliel Foundation itself did not act as a power organization.  Gamaliel never claimed the center of an issue, never put its reputation on the line, never pushed aggressively to have all its affiliated organizations act in concert.  At this NLA we will decide if we have become confident enough in our local organizations, trusting enough of each other, and resourceful enough to set aside significant resources of talent and money to take on a national issue.   We have to decide whether we will move from being a network to being a power organization.

Are we ready?  Let us take stock of where we are.

Let us first look at our programs.  We provided four national trainings in the United States this year and one in South Africa.  New trainers, more diverse trainers, conducted much of these events with our customary standard of excellence.  The last training attracted a maximum attendance of 160 people.  One of the goals we had set was to conduct a significant action during each training.  We did so in our last three trainings.  NOAH, MICAH and MAC each held actions in conjunction with the trainings.   John Norton has put together a team that is making our National Leadership Training better than ever. 

This year’s Advanced Leadership Training program broke new ground in moving leaders to being leader/organizers and leader/agitators.  Advanced training this year was considered the best ever conducted.

Clergy Training and Ntosake training also broke new ground, utilized new trainers, and moved leaders to assume major roles in their organizations.

The National Clergy Caucus, under the guidance of Reverend Dennis Jacobsen, for the first time brought together sixty judicatory leaders in an event we called “What the Lord Requires?”  Rev. Hanson, the new presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Bishop Shaw, President of the National Baptist Convention, assisted in pulling this key event together.  The outcome of this gathering is that a large group of bishops and church executives are prepared to be allies with the Gamaliel Foundation on national issues.

Let us look at our ability to strengthen and maintain our affiliates.

MCU of St. Louis with experienced leadership and gifted organizers won four major statewide campaigns.  We confronted concentrated poverty with concentrated power.

GRIP, in Minnesota, created a regional housing policy to insure mixed income housing in St. Cloud and five neighboring cities.  GRIP confronted concentrated poverty with concentrated power.

Jubilee in one year went from an idea to a regional power organization of unions and congregations.  They put 1800 people in a room in its first ever public meeting.  Jubilee confronted concentrated poverty with concentrated power.

MOSES of Michigan organized a public meeting of 5,000 people.  They brought together national, statewide, and local public officials, unions, and corporations to address issues of regional equity.  MOSES confronted concentrated poverty with concentrated power.

MAC of Chicago began August with a meeting of 1200 people, It was followed by a meeting in N.W. Indiana with 1500 people, and a meeting in Hopeful City with 1600 people, Youngstown with 1600 people, Albany with 1,000, MCU with 2000, MICAH with 1400  and AMOS with 1200 people and powerful meetings in Oakland, Rockford and Quad Cities.  The affiliates of the Gamaliel Foundation are confronting concentrated poverty with concentrated power.

We are presently working with groups in Maryland, Virginia, and Connecticut in the first year organizing phase.

We are creating a sponsoring committee in Kansas City and one on Long Island.

We have been invited to explore creating organizations in Tanzania, Toronto, and the Bahamas.  We are prepared to work with leaders in any community that want to create concentrated power to attack concentrated poverty.  And we have the resources to do so.

Last year I challenged  Greg Galluzzo, the executive director and the senior staff to create a structure that would enable us to maintain our present operation and grow.  They have designed just such a structure.  The network has been divided into four regions.  Directors have been appointed to give leadership to each region.

We now have a department of regionalism, a department for programs, a department of communications and will soon have a department for the Civil Rights of Immigrants.

Last year I challenged the board and senior staff to generate financial resources that will enable us to maintain our present resources and to grow. We received major grants from Interfaith Funders, the Kauffman Foundation and the Technology Project. We are presently seeking funds from other new sources.  We hope for and expect significant additional revenues.

As chairperson of the board of directors of the Gamaliel Foundation, I can, with confidence declare that we are ready to move from a service provider/network to a power organization.  I declare that the time has come to confront concentrated poverty with concentrated power at a national scale.

And why is this the time.  It is partly because we are ready and partly because the times demand it.

We live in a time when our government can give a measly 45 billion to improve education and a 1.5 Trillion dollar tax break to the rich.  We live in a time when there is an unlimited amount of money for military build up and no money for health care for the poor.

We live in a time when corporate greed of unprecedented venality, has robbed hundreds of thousands of people of their jobs and retirement funds and has gouged billions of dollars from unsuspecting utility payers and yet these acts have become a mere footnote on the pages of the national press.

We live in a time when a war against a third world country filled with poor people has eliminated any chance of a war against poverty in our own country.

We live in a time where being an immigrant in a land of immigrants is becoming increasingly perilous.    We live in a time when merely being an immigrant can be grounds for detention. 

Talk about crossroads!

Yes the time is right and ripe for us to concentrate our power against the forces that are robbing us of our basic rights.  It is time to concentrate our power against the forces that are attempting to divide us by race, class, geography, political persuasions and national origins.

But for us to become a national power organization . . . to coalesce our affiliated organizations to act in concert as one voice . . .  we must choose just one issue.   An issue that is not only timely, but will resonate beyond the perimeters of our organization to the national arena.   And an issue that embodies the precepts of equity and justice. 

I submit that the issue we should choose to concentrate our power, is the issue of civil rights for immigrants. Yes - let me repeat that – civil rights for immigrants.

Now, I am an African American.  As an African American I understand the “Civil Rights” part of this issue.  I understand it oh too well.  My people have been struggling for civil rights for over 400 years.  And we are still struggling.

The “immigrant” part does not come to me so naturally.  My people did not “immigrate” to this country.  We did not come freely, by choice.  We were dragged here in chains, we were denied our language, our religion, our culture and our heritage.  We were enslaved, we were beaten, we were lynched when we tried to claim our civil rights.

And we saw each new wave of immigrants – the Germans, the Irish, the Polish, the Greeks, the Italians, and yes the Latinos immediately pass us up on the “more preferable” list.  We witnessed Irish immigrants in New York riot during the Civil War in protest against black equality.  We saw the children of immigrants on the South and West sides of Chicago flee the city rather than live side by side with us.

Now we see Cubans, Polish, Russians, Lithuanians given political asylum, while Haitians – black people – are sent back to Haiti without due process.           

Then why should I, a black American, support the civil rights of immigrants?

It is because I am a black American that I must support this isssue.  I know what it means to be declared a second class citizen.  I know what it means to be guilty even after being proven innocent.  I know what it means to be judged by the color of my skin and not by the content of my character.  I know what it means to pay taxes and not be given services.  I know what it means to be denied my rightful place in the history books.  I know what it means to provide prosperity for others and reap only poverty for my people.

But like Martin Luther King said, “I have been fighting desegregation too long to be segregating my morals.”  I cannot fight for civil rights for my people and see it denied to others.

Equity, justice, due process under the law.  Basic civil rights. When these basic rights are denied to immigrants who come to this country it diminishes all of us.   It negates the work and sacrifice that have gone on before.  And it holds the threat of the loss of those basic rights to all of us.

That threat represents a major crossroad for our nation, for us as a people.

I ask you, how can we turn aside?  

Now is not the time for the Gamaliel Foundation to remain in our comfortable position as a service provider network . . . . because these are not comfortable times.

Now is the time to test our power because all the signs are pointing toward even greater challenges in the future.   None of us knows exactly what those challenges will be, but I can tell you we will not be ready if we don’t start moving in the right direction now.

You know that.   In your heart, you know that. 

This meeting, right here, right now, as we stand in the crossroad of America, is where it begins.  

This is indeed a fortuitous gathering, and as we spend the next two days discussing, digesting, sharing, and solidifying the future of the Gamaliel Foundation together, let us remember Gamaliel is at a crossroad, too and as we decide which direction to take, let us heed the words of Robert Frost:

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Some where ages and ages hence.

Two roads diverged in a (yellow) wood, and I - -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”