News-Record.com

I had the pleasure of listening to the Rev. Mac Legerton, Robeson County educator and community activist, speak to doctoral students at UNCG's School of Education last night.

I found that the organization he represents -- Center for Community Action -- can serve as a model for social/economic justice and community building here in Guilford. The center is a multicultural, community-based, nonprofit organization that specializes in grassroots empowerment and multi-sector collaboration as the foundations for social change. Some of the center's projects include training unemployed and underemployed women for health and education careers, helping high school and university students map the county's assets ("green mapping"), and creating an alternative economy based on the exchange of time and talent versus money. The center has helped Robeson County, the third poorest county in the nation among those with populations between 65,000 and 250,000, rebound from the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs.

Now, Guilford is not in as severe a shape as Robeson. But the county does have its fair share of challenges, including a flattened tax base and racial tensions. Some have questioned the quality of our public schools. I also wonder if the county relies more on a secondary export market than local economy. What do you think?

Anyway, Legerton said yesterday that communities must learn to hold each other "capable" instead of focusing so much on holding businesses and government agencies "accountable." That means becoming a vested stakeholder who actually participates in providing people and their representative organizations with the tools to tackle ecological, economical, political and social issues, rather than finger-pointing from the sidelines.

An essay called "Global Justice and Local Practice" Legerton co-wrote also says this:

"One response to the challenges of this narrowing view of the economy has been to further silo the social justice vision into distinct and separate issues and strategies: racial, political, legal, economic, gender, lifestyle, ecological and cultural justice forms. While each organization and groups in these categories have worked diligently on their social justice issue and constituency, the sector as a whole has continued to lose ground. Justice advocates too often end up competing with each other -- for public recognition, for private funding, and for citizen involvement....

What we need is a clear and concise, long-term vision for comprehensive, cooperative social justice, complete with short-term goals and benchmarks. Without a long-term vision with clear definitions and directions, our central convictions get lost and our strategies have limited results. With a coherent, concise, and comprehensive vision, we are not only clear about what we are pushing for, but also about the concrete goals towards which we are being pulled."

Legerton said many people want to be a part of "movements," but don't want to sacrifice their time for the more difficult task of community-building. Any group that wants to make significant change must meet once a week, he said.

"In this day and age, that's really hard," he said.

Mr. Legerton is right. And here is an example where the whole is better than its parts: Say a group called Relocalize Greensboro wants to work for policies that will help the city become more resilient against the outsourcing of jobs. But the group finds its members can't contribute adequate time because of job commitments. Well the next street over is a group lobbying state and federal congressmen and women for laws that will increase vacation and sick time for workers while giving them more desirable choices for part-time work. And another group wants to increase the amount of parent involvement in the schools. Maybe these groups are more likely to accomplish their tasks by working together, even though their specific missions differ.

That's why I get excited when I see umbrella groups such as Sustainable Ballard in Washington and WELL in California.

Greensboro and Guilford County have a lot of organizations pushing for "change." How can those groups work together so that the change that occurs is comprehensive, long-lasting and paradigm-shifting?