Initiatives of Change - Hope in the Cities - Stories of community change

The Unity march in Richmond, Virginia, in 1993

There is a seeming paradox in talking about "a vision of community" coming from Richmond, Virginia, a city which for many years symbolized so much that is the antithesis of community. For some, the past conjures up images of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. For others, Richmond is the city credited with the debasement of African Americans through its institutionalization of slavery and its massive resistance movement against school integration. It’s a city where until 1977, when the first African American mayor was elected, 50 percent of the population had no voice in the vital political and economic decisions affecting their lives.

But Metropolitan Richmond is a study of contrasts. Once the capital of the Confederacy, it became the home of the first elected African American governor in the nation. The city's Monument Avenue has long showcased a proud legacy of Confederate heroes, but today includes a statue of tennis legend Arthur Ashe, once shut out as an African American from playing on certain courts in the city. After decades of mistrust, the city and the county jurisdictions are taking the first steps towards genuine partnerships.

While much needed change has occurred, it has not been without pain and further division. Twenty years after a study was released by the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission, its words remain true: "The racial issue appears to be, either overtly or discreetly, at the heart of nearly all issues facing the Richmond region today ... there are very few rational solutions to many of the region’s present problems without a willing recognition to this fact." This is particularly evident within the economic life of the region. In a 1985 study of 43 mid-size cities with populations between 150,000-450,000, Richmond’s west end was by far the richest neighborhood of its size and the city’s poorest neighborhoods were exceeded only by Atlanta’s. While the region as a whole is enjoying an unprecedented expansion, the center city has experienced negative growth particularly in the area of unemployment.

"In the last 15 years in Metropolitan Richmond, we've been overwhelmed by the national economic redistribution of wealth. There is a tremendous backlash against racial and social integration and there are class based and race based protectionist attitudes threatening to completely split the country and its certainly happening here," says Rev. Benjamin Campbell, pastoral director of Richmond Hill, an ecumenical retreat center. "If these economic movements had not been so destructive of social relationships, we would have made enormous strides."

In light of Richmond’s past and present pain, one might wonder what lessons there are for other cities. But today Richmond has become a study in conversations; conversations between blacks and whites, city and county officials, old Virginia families and newcomers in the region, grassroots activists and business leaders. These are not conversations merely of a cordial nature through which relationships and business remain as usual. These are conversations focused on change: change in an individual and thus change in the life of the greater community.

From the city and the counties, from all faith traditions and walks of life, Hope in the Cities has called the community to an honest conversation on race, reconciliation and responsibility. This has not been an overnight response to local and national racial incidents, but a commitment that has been fostered and sustained over time.

While Hope in the Cities was launched formally in Richmond in 1990, several residents had been working together for many years with MRA: Initiatives for Change, an international not-for-profit organization with over 50 years experience in the field of reconciliation and community building. [See page 4-10] For the first time, white Richmonders began opening their homes to other races. When a black majority was elected to the city council in the 1970s, this group actively worked to build bridges with the council members, as well as with the white business establishment, which had largely walked away from partnering with the elected leaders. Their aim was to support Henry Marsh, Richmond’s first African American mayor, in his vision that Richmond could be a model city for the nation.

Early meetings of Hope in the Cities often consisted of brown bag lunches with community leaders whose paths might have otherwise not crossed. All with divergent opinions, the team — grassroots activists, bankers, liberals and conservatives, a minister and a retired dance instructor — defined together the need to focus on underlying issues of race in their region. Through their outreach in the community, they were guided by shared beliefs that established four working principles for their productive fellowship in the community.

•Model, within the group that is attempting to bring healing, the change and the relationships that the group is asking of the wider community.

•Be inclusive. Take the risk of approaching as potential allies even those who are different or difficult to work with.

•Hold up a vision of what the community can be. Difficulties, if faced honestly, can become assets.

•Recognize that real change comes about when the hearts of people are changed. The energy and will for constructive change, including the political will, can only come through a transformation in the hu- man spirit.

Calling on Community Leaders

Before long, the HIC core group began to foster conversations not only in private homes, but also within the public arena. Their first public event was held at City Hall and co-sponsored with the Human Relations Commission. The growing HIC team defined several key approaches as they reached out to the region's leadership.

•Call on all elected leaders, including those who might not be the easiest to work with or approach, to develop a vision for Richmond within which there is a challenge to deal with its racial history.

•Approach leaders expecting them to rise to the occasion. Don't go to criticize them.

•It's important that the core group provides the foundation for the process while giving ownership to the larger community. In this way, the integrity of the process is obvious and will not be viewed as being manipulated for political reasons.

In June 1993, with the guidance of a metropolitan wide sponsoring committee, Hope in the Cities held a national cities conference, Healing the Heart of America: An Honest Conversation on Race, Reconciliation and Responsibility. The event which drew 1000 people from 50 U.S. urban centers and 20 foreign countries was co-sponsored by the City of Richmond and Richmond Hill. Key to its lasting impact on the region was the participation of county supervisors and city councilors alike, as well as business, education and religious leaders.

The Power of History to Heal

During the conference, attendees took part in the Richmond Unity Walk, a two mile route through the city, which visited previously unacknowledged sites in the city's history of black/white relations. The walk through history began on Church Hill, where Patrick Henry delivered his famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech though the liberty was not intended for everyone in Virginia at that time. Identified for the first time were the Manchester Docks, a major point of entry for African slaves from 1680 to 1780. At these and other sites along the route, participants first heard the untold history of each location and then prayers and songs were offered in an effort to heal the land, further bridging relationships in the life of the community today. [For a full account of the conference and the Unity Walk, see both the resource section and press clippings in the Appendices.]

Reaching Out to the Media

Hope in the Cities has developed a community outreach strategy that can be applied when working with all community organizations, both public and private, so that they might fully contribute to the community's honest conversation process. Believing that naming an enemy doesn’t solve a problem, Hope in the Cities’ approach to individuals and organizations is to encourage the best, rather than confirm the worst beliefs that may be popularly held. A particularly good example of this in Richmond is through the team's work with the media. The editorial policy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch had long sharply divided the community.

•Several months prior to the June 1993 conference, the HIC team met with senior editors of the Rich- mond Times-Dispatch to share their vision for Rich- mond and enlist the support for the newspaper in communicating the importance of this initiative.

•Following the conference, which the paper covered extensively, HIC brought together five senior editors from the paper and a diverse group of community leaders to view a documentary on the Richmond Unity Walk and to dialogue on the paper's responsibility within the community. A month later a week long series ran on issues related to racial disparities within the region.

•HIC has also developed a partnership with a local public television station, WCVE. In addition to airing the Unity Walk documentary, the station produced, in coordination with Hope in the Cities, a seven part series entitled, Outspoken: Black and White in Richmond, which has aired twice. "Our mission is education and any question that affects the community affects us," says Marge Meyer, program director of WCVE. "Hope in the Cities brought the resources that helped us in planning the series and without their help we couldn’t have done it."

•In addition to receiving event coverage, the HIC office is also frequently contacted to comment on stories affecting the region, such as a rise in violence or controversy surrounding the placement of symbols of Confederate history.

•The HIC Richmond core group has worked over time to build personal relationships with individuals within the local media and supported them in their work of interpreting key issues and covering ongoing stories. Some of these individuals have also gotten involved with HIC programming, such as the dialogue program.

Reaching Out Regionally

Like many other regions around the United States, metropolitan Richmond is characterized as a "donut city," a term suggested by author David Rusk in Cities Without Suburbs. This refers to regions in which the suburbs are flourishing, but the economic or social health of the inner city is languishing. Rusk’s research demonstrates the reality of interdependence and that there can’t be a healthy region, without a healthy central city. Compounding this in Richmond is the fact that Virginia is the only state in the union with separate city status. Dr. John Moeser, Professor of Urban Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, explains, "You have dejure separation between the political jurisdictions where the city is separated from the counties and then you overlay defacto racial segregation where you have a predominantly black central city and a sea of whites in the suburbs. Often that leads to some unspoken dynamics." In light of those unspoken dynamics, a beginning discussion on regional revenue sharing is particularly revolutionary. Hope in the Cities has given grassroots support to leaders to take visionary and courageous action to build bridges between the city and suburbs. Again, fresh thinking coupled with some significant steps in outreach has distinguished Hope in the Cities’ work.

•Always refer to the region as a whole community when talking with residents and elected leaders alike, rather than perceiving the issue as the city v. the suburbs.

•Include residents from both the city and counties in the core group.

•The first regional summit with the counties was held in the spring of 1993 leading up to the Healing the Heart of America conference in June. This led to a significant and united endorsement of the conference aims by all elected leaders.

•HIC invited author David Rusk to the June 1993 conference. He brought a voice of authority and focused the issue on interdependence between the city and suburbs.

•During the conference, councilman Larry Chavis, now Richmond’s mayor, called for a consolidation of the city and county governments. HIC has no political agenda, but encourages public conversation on key issues that need to be discussed frankly.

•Six months later, HIC team members facilitated a return visit by David Rusk for a one day working session sponsored by the Richmond Business Council.

•Chesterfield County Supervisor Jack McHale says now that he went on the Richmond Unity Walk in 1993 in large part to get to know Walter Kenney, then Richmond’s mayor. That informal setting allowed the two leaders to get to know each other in a new way and to start a conversation. Providing such opportunities for local leaders has become one of HIC’s most significant contributions to the region. Today McHale and city councilman, Tim Kaine, are exploring the possibility of "growth sharing" and as Dr. John Moeser puts it, "You wouldn’t have had a supervisor using that language five or six years ago. Hope in the Cities came at the right time. There is a confluence of events and trends."

•In 1995, Focus Forward was launched by the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission to con- vene community wide meetings identifying key areas of concern. HIC, along with the Richmond Urban League is a lead organization on the "People Task Force," addressing issues of human relations and human/social services. The task force has since adopted much of HIC’s approach and it’s vision state- ment reads, "A community that values diversity, has healed its racial differences and has developed an inclusiveness that respects and honors all its people." As part of the Focus Forward process, Hope in the Cities collaborated with Leadership Metro Richmond, by providing resource materials for dialogue groups.

•At the suggestion of HIC core group member and former mayor, Walter Kenney, the elected leaders of the city and surrounding jurisdictions stood together to proclaim November 18 as Metropolitan Richmond Day, when HIC locally launched its document A Call to Community in 1996. "On behalf of Hanover County we will redouble our efforts," said the chairman of the board of supervisors, "Buddy" Klotz. Councilman and former mayor, John Newell of Ashland said, "There has been a lack of trust. We seem to reach our limit. This process can be a major step to reaching common ground for all of us." Robert Johnsen, chairman of the city's Commission on

Human Relations said his office would work towards the development of a regional human relations commission.

•The region’s three counties and the city have all passed resolutions endorsing A Call to Community and On Track, a newsletter in the town of Ashland, located in Hanover County and a seat of deep racial divisions, has printed the Call on the front page with an opportunity for citizen endorsement.

"I just knew that for there to be any kind of forward movement, the political leaders had to be a part of this. Not that they were necessarily going to provide the leadership, but they needed to be part of the conversations and that citizens would be the ones to kind of press them forward," Moeser adds. "That’s what captured my interest knowing that Hope in the Cities wanted to work with these governments and the elected officials. Hope in the Cities is not only talking about race; I think it’s talking about community building too and so you’ve got to address issues of poverty and class, and that too is a major concern. "

Redefining The Bottom Line

Just as the Hope in the Cities core group has worked over the years to involve not only city, but county leaders in the honest conversation process, they have also included business leaders, whose involvement is critical. At the November 1996 launch of the Call document, several business leaders came forward to publicly express their commitment. ‘The business world is notorious for its emphasis on the bottom line,"said J. F. Williams III, chairman of Harrison and Bates, Inc. "The bottom line here today is whether we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution. It's not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do." Referring to the Texaco racial discrimination lawsuit that was in the headlines at that time, the President of Nations Bank-Virginia, Douglas Cruickshanks. Jr. said, "It’s not enough to be outraged. It’s not enough to say that we have individually rid ourselves of racism. Generations have delivered us to this point of incipient racism that is covert." Robert Grey, Jr., the first African American chairman of the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce challenged participants to take the "creative risks" called for by Hope in the Cities. "This is our community. It's our responsibility to make it all it can be. We need to make sure that all share in the vision."

From the beginning, HIC has invited the business community to make an investment in the community conversation process. In 1993, the corporate community gave $20,000 to support the organization of the Healing the Heart of America conference. Business leaders, such as Jeff Williams, have over time also come to invest their time and talent. As part of the Richmond steering committee, Williams is now reaching out to the business community to draw others into the process. "My message to the business community is that there are parts of this community that can no longer be ignored. When the political thing got too hot, the business people, who are very end-result oriented, abdicated responsibility and said, ‘We'll go back and do our business.’ In the 70s, there were two major recessions and it was easy for business to abdicate responsibility and not be involved with the politics directly. I was in business at that time too, so maybe the description fits me in part. Some business people have gotten it through their heads and they say, ‘Well, we can't ignore this anymore or we won't be in business.’ As they've done this, it's begun to take a legitimate dimension of their mission statement, of their strategic plan and of their budget."

Meeting the Community’s Needs

While all of Hope in the Cities’ work in Richmond could be defined broadly as community outreach, two programs which the team has developed meet specific needs and involve diverse teams of people.

•Wellsprings, a moral enrichment program for youth in detention, is at work in the city of Richmond at the request of the Chief Judge of the Juvenile and Domes- tic Relations District Court. Richmond has one of the highest homicide rate in the country. Collie and Audrey Burton, who designed and run the program, draw on their life experience and work with Hope in the Cities to help turn these young lives and staggering statistics around. Audrey Burton comments, "I consider Wellsprings to be that part of my work with Hope in the Cities that sends a message of healing the mind and the spirit. It is geared

towards the African American child who needs healing. This child needs healing in a society that has sown a seed of separation, of discord and of neglect. In some instances, we live in a society that has sown seeds of hate and it's been based on race and for no other reason."

•In partnership with a local church, Hope in the Cities has designed the Fatherhood Employment Project to support men of color who are fathers in search of sustainable employment. To design and launch the program, Hope in the Cities convened a task force including several representatives from social service agencies, the business and education communities, and churches. The needs were deter- mined and the program outlined prior to the national conversation and policy debate on welfare in 1996.

A Call To Community

While Hope in the Cities has long been engaging the greater community in an honest conversation on race, reconciliation and responsibility, a formal metropolitan wide season of dialogue based on A Call to Community was launched in November 1996. This program provided an opportunity for further partnering in the community with such organizations as Leadership Metro Richmond, Richmond Urban League, YWCA, National Conference, Catholic Diocese and the Virginia Museum of the Fine Arts. Through the launch, newspaper articles and word of mouth, the HIC office has received a tremendous response from those interested in being trained as dialogue facilitators, as well as groups wanting to be paired.

•Facilitators receive an intensive 16 hour training program and are not just community activists. They include a CEO, a general manager of a local TV station, pastors, teachers, retirees and few of them would consider themselves race relations experts. In facilitating a discussion group, they work as an inter- racial team of two.

•The dialogue group pairing has brought together black and white churches; the Jewish Community Federation and the local chapter of the NAACP; black and white student groups from city, county, private and public schools; and black and white women’s groups at the Museum of the Confederacy.

Rev. Sylvester Turner, director of the Peter Paul Development Center, is a dialogue facilitator. "We have learned our place as black and white, but the media is constantly pushing out the fact that racism is alive and well in America and that forces you to look internally. In the workshops, we've found that we have stuff on our records. And those individuals who are coming to the table to try and bring about change discover that there is a lot on their records and that has caused us to challenge our own selves."

While there are a number of dialogue programs in place around the country, Hope in the Cities puts a strong emphasis on the need for personal transformation and not merely the exchange of information. Rev. Paige Chargois, associate national coordinator of Hope in the Cities, explains: "There used to be what were called encounter groups, where European Americans would ask African Americans various questions. ‘Do you really eat watermelon? Can I touch your hair?’ In the last 30 years, we've sat beside each other enough for different events to know a little more about one another and so the encounter now is not just on the basis of exchanging information, but the transformational process. We've gotten beyond information to now transform emotions and attitudes and spirit and we could not have done that 30 years ago."

[For a further explanation of the dialogue program, refer to the Resource Section in the Appendices section of the Manual.]

As the Hope in the Cities' Richmond team sustains the honest conversation process in their own city, they are benefiting from and contributing to a larger process of dialogue and reconciliation around the United States and overseas. Citizens and established organizations alike have borrowed from the Richmond experience to meet their own city’s needs for healing. A collection of those stories follows.