Strike a Rock - Defying American Apartheid A Time for Metropolitan Equities

From 1913 until the break up of the government of apartheid, the women of South Africa waged an organized campaign against the unjust pass laws that kept the races separate and prevented the majority of the population from accessing the opportunities afforded the minority. The women knew that they were vulnerable as individuals and so the organized resistance movement took as their slogan, "If you strike a woman, you have struck a rock" to symbolize their solidarity one with another.

In this country, the historical conditions that have led us to call for "metropolitan equities" can be best be described as American Apartheid. Since the conclusion of World War II, the American population has experienced dramatic shifts in migration patterns that have led to an ever-deepening division of the American people by race, income and class within the country's several hundred metropolitan regions.

The Board of the Gamaliel Foundation National Leadership Assembly invites you to assemble in Detroit December 6 through 8, to educate and organize ourselves into a "rock" of defiance to those laws, policies and practices that segregate ourselves one from another.

Schedule of 2001 National Leadership Assembly Activities

Thursday- December 6, 2001

12:30 - 2:00   Presidents' Luncheon hosted by the MOSES President
                       Rev. Joseph B. Barlow, Mt. Zion Baptist.

Friday - December 7, 2001

7:30 - 8:30 Clergy Caucus Breakfast 
7:30 - 8:30 Delegates Breakfast

9:00 -10:00 Plenary Session - Leadership Centered Community Organizing

10:15-12:00 CONCURRENT BASE BUILDING WORKSHOPS

1. Raising Money

If you are a leader who is ready to shift your organization's financial position from scarcity to prosperity and from dependence to independence, this workshop is for you.

2. Powerful Core Teams

A Core Team trains and develops core team leaders, launches actions and drives the base building components of the metropolitan organization. This workshop will prepare leaders to build a powerful Core Team.

3. Leadership Training

This workshop will help participants establish a culture and the structures within the organization to position existing leadership to be in the hunt for new leaders and to establish paths for their continued development.

4. Clergy Caucus/Judicatory Relationships

This workshop addresses the responsibility of clergy caucuses: recruitment, relationship building, theological analysis, judicatory relationships, membership dues and financial support of the organization.

5. Creating an Organization

The workshop is for those clergy and leaders engaged in starting new organizations. The roles and responsibilities of the Sponsoring Committee will be presented and the calendar for the beginning years of creating an organizing base.

6. Envisioning and Running a Power Organization

This workshop is for officers of an organization and members of the Executive Committee whose job it is to create a plan to utilize present resources to create more resources. They will be agitated to think and act like generals.

7. The Public Meeting

The Public Meeting is our major tool for acting powerfully in the public arena. Leaders will learn how to create a strategic plan leading up to the Public Meeting and how to structure the event for maximum results.

8. Building and Managing a Regional Organization

The resources in our society are being organized on regional patterns. To be effective, our organizations must grow to span the region and incorporate urban, suburban and rural areas. This workshop will lift up the best practices of regional organizations in the network.

12:30 - 2:00            Lunch

2:30 - 4:30 CONCURRENT METRO EQUITIES WORKSHOPS

 1. Transportation Equity

Experts: FTA Official
Rich Stoltz, Transportation Equity Network

This workshop will explore the monied interests we are confronting when we engage in campaigns to increase public transportation, to fight the expansion of highway systems, and to demand that land use plans drive transportation decisions.

2. Metro Equity/Welfare Reform

Experts: Mr. Depak Bhargarva, CCC

TANF Funds should be targeted to public transit, jobs and inclusionary housing for low-income families in middle income communities. The four principle of the Congress on Attacking Concentrated Poverty will be explored and participants will be agitated to create welfare reform campaigns.

3. Opportunity Based Housing

Experts: Dr. john powell, IRP

This workshop will explore clarity on how race and class are institutionalized in housing policies and systems and clarity on how policies and systems foster and perpetuate metropolitan inequities.

4. Fannie Mae/Gamaliel Leaders Caucus

Experts: Ms. Lora McCray, VP Fannie Mae Corp.

Two leaders from each Gamaliel Network Organization in conversation with Fannie Mae Corporate Executives to create strategies for minority home ownership in areas of greatest opportunities.

5. Land Use: Who Builds What Where and for Whom

Experts: Mr. David Rusk

This workshop will analyze how land use policies and decisions can be used to fight sprawl. Best practices and organizing strategies will be presented. Participants will be agitated to organize a power base that is capable of impacting these critical decisions

6. Justice for Immigrants – a Metro Equity Breakthrough

Experts: Mr. Royal Berg

This workshop will explore the ways in which present immigration laws contribute to concentrated poverty, the impact these laws have on our cities and communities and ways in which we can build our organization by addressing them.

7. Education Funding Reform

Experts:

This workshop will explore how the tying of education funding to property tax has contributed to the concentration of poverty in our metropolitan regions. Participants will explore funding options and organizing strategies.

8. Metro Equity and State Investments

Experts: Mr. Jerry Schlichter, St. Louis Reinvestment Attorney Description:

This workshop will explore how the state can play a role in directing state and federal dollars back int to the urban core and challenge leaders to build metropolitan organizations that achieve greater equity with these dollars.

9. Metro Equity - The Basics

Experts: (not confirmed)

This workshop is for those leaders who have not yet been exposed to the Metro Equity analysis or who are exploring the various issues related to the policies that concentrate poverty and waste the regional resources.

4:45 - 6:00 Regional Caucuses

7:15 -10:00          Banquet - Ms Sophia De Bruyn, Keynote Speaker

In 1956, the Government of South Africa outlawed all forms of mass protest. Hence the women leading the movement against the hated pass laws sent a general notice to all women of South Africa to come to Pretoria with their individual protest letter. The women were asked to come on exactly the same day and at exactly the same time. 20,000 women converged on Pretoria with letters of protest. At the age of eighteen, Sophia De Bruyn was one of four women selected to carry the protest letters into the government offices. Ms. De Bruyn was later forced into exile where among other things she served as a broadcaster for Radio Freedom, the exiled ANC "mouthpiece" broadcasting messages of hope to the people of South Africa. In August 2001, Ms. De Bruyn was honored by President Thabo Mbeki for her role in the 1956 protest against the extension of pass laws.

Saturday - December 8, 2001

Plenary Session Senator Myron Orfield

Closing Worship/Regional Commitments

12:00 - 1:00 Box lunches and Evaluation 1:00 Dismissal

1:00 - 2:30 NLA Board and Staff Evaluation

Congregational  development