Lynchburg race forum submits action plan

By Alicia Petska

Published: April 14, 2008

Change is not a destination, it’s a journey, say the forces behind the Community Dialogue on Race and Racism.

“Already, this community has changed,” Leslie King, assistant coordinator, said. “We are in a different place than when we started. We are in a better place.”
The question before Lynchburg now, she added, was “What’s next?”

That was a question answered on Monday night, when officials revealed the dialogue’s top 10 “action” ideas, as voted on by the community last weekend.

Close to 350 people took part in selecting the final list of recommendations, which will now be turned over to community volunteers to implement. The favorites included strengthening opportunities within city schools, improving community relations with police, and encouraging churches to be an active force for diversity.
The results, announced at E.C. Glass High School, marked the culmination of a year’s work on the part of dialogue volunteers, who brought hundreds of people together to talk about the state of race in Lynchburg.

City officials, who initiated the program, are now encouraging the public to take ownership of the “action” phase of the undertaking.

“You don’t need local government’s permission to take action to make positive change in the community,” City Manager Kimball Payne said.

Up until now, city employees have made up the bulk of the dialogue’s coordinators. Officials now plan to change that and create a new oversight committee that includes no public employees, although the city will continue to provide support services as needed. The re-formed committee will be responsible for supervising implementation of the action ideas and providing an annual report of their progress.

Volunteers are still being recruited for those continuing efforts. A workshop is planned in May for training and selection of specific projects.

Close to 1,100 people have been involved with the dialogue so far. Of those who took part in the discussion groups, 98 percent said they wanted to continue working on the effort and 63 percent said their attitudes on race had been changed by the experience.

In the words of one participant, Joyce Price, it was not an “easy” experience by any means.

“It was challenging, it was almost frightening, at times disgusting, and certainly maddening and infuriating,” said the Lynchburg woman, who graduated from the all-black Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in 1957. “Fortunately, it was also inspiring, encouraging, wonderful and, most of all, it was real.”

Price, who spoke at Monday’s ceremony, drew a standing ovation from the 100 or so people present. She asked the community to continue its commitment to the dialogue and efforts to promote equality.

“Remember,” she said, “Rome was not built in a day.”

THE RECOMMENDATIONS
1,072 voted on 117 plans for action, compiling a list of the 10 best. Smaller groups will meet to try and implement these goals in the coming months.

1. Acceptance in Schools
Lynchburg City Schools should develop and implement a user-friendly, pre-school through 12th grade curriculum approach to promote awareness and acceptance of cultural diversity, including school forums, anti-racist and anti-bias curriculum that develops a sense of social and individual responsibility, and take-home exercises.

2. College-Bound
Establish a community foundation to guarantee college tuition to all Lynchburg City high school graduates to any college or university in Lynchburg.

3. Local Apprentice
Create partnerships with schools and industry to provide apprentice programs for vocational/technical jobs to fill the gap of what is currently available to kids in school and what is needed for kids who drop out and need to learn a trade.

4. Church Connection
Community-wide and longer-term relationships of paired churches, perhaps organized by interested clergy and lay leaders, focused on volunteers from both congregations joining to work on or start a community outreach project they would accomplish and sustain together, getting to know each other as individuals in the process.

5. Freedom Trail
Create a “Lynchburg Freedom Trail” pinpointing important events of the segregation of Lynchburg’s black community, highlighting the public pool history and locations where substantial civil rights activities took place.

6. Faith Support
Establish a multicultural leadership group of faith-based communities to develop joint projects with the goals being: 1) To break down racism within own communities; 2) To develop relationships; and 3) To open communication.

7. Lunch Leaders
Grow Your Own — create a lunch program where police and other business and trades people eat lunch in school cafeterias on a regular basis to build police/community relations and encourage students to consider law enforcement careers.

8. Accountability
Create a community-based group to stay focused on issues of race and racism, and hold the community accountable for implementing actions items from the study circle process.

9. Family Empowerment
Lynchburg City should develop and implement monthly family empowerment workshops in various locations covering topics such as finance, health, employment, education, self-respect and interpersonal relationships.

10. Police Diversity
Improve police/community relations and trust. Encourage Lynchburg Police Department to establish a police force that is representative of Lynchburg’s demographics, is actively participating in neighborhoods and communities, is sensitive to issues of diversity, and is committed to the individuals, families, neighborhoods and communities they are serving as they learn and develop their own roles as assets and resources.