Category Archives: Equity

Dorothy F. Cotton Passed Away

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Dear friends,

Sunday, June 10, 2018, our co-founder and Distinguished Fellow, Dorothy F. Cotton died peacefully in her residence, Kendal at Ithaca, with loved ones at her bedside. She was a remarkably courageous leader, an inspiring educator, a great spirit, and our dear friend. Thank you for the many kind messages that we at the Dorothy Cotton Institute (DCI) have been receiving from far and near. She is sorely missed. There will be a public memorial service for her in the future, and we will let everyone know the details once they are confirmed.

Please read the wonderful tribute to Dorothy Foreman Cotton written by her friend and colleague, Dr. Clayborne Carson, Founding Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

Feel free to contact us:

Laura Branca,
DCI Senior Fellow, laurabranca0@gmail.com

Kirby Edmonds,
DCI Senior Fellow and Program Coordinator, tfckirby@aol.com

 

 

Understanding “Ban the Box”: Creating a Fair Chance

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Friday, 3/10/17BAN-THE-BOX-employee-application-monitor 9:30 am – 11:30 am

Free & Open to All

Register online at www.hsctc.org/workshops
Borg Warner Conference Room, Tompkins County Public Library,
101 E. Green St. at S. Cayuga St., Ithaca, NY
Presented by the Diversity Consortium of Tompkins County in cooperation with the Human Services Coalition 
Co-sponsored by the Tompkins County Public Library
 
A NEW PANEL DISCUSSION FOR ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT REMOVING THE “CHECK BOX” REGARDING CRIMINAL RECORDS AND DELAYING THE BACKGROUND CHECK INQUIRY UNTIL LATER IN THE HIRING PROCESS.
 

The forum will bring together panelists from a cross-section of professions, including government, academia, law, and small business to discuss the ramifications of prematurely or illegally considering conviction information, and the role it may play in preventing people with past convictions from receiving a fair chance.

Questions will be addressed by panel members who have had experience with implementing ban the box in their work places; who have had experience with the criminal justice system; or who are working to support those who are re-entering the community and seeking to be productive citizens.
As a number of local employers are implementing “ban the box,” others are looking for more direction. Additionally, many community members are seeking guidance on how they can be part of a movement to welcome back those who have been formerly involved in the criminal justice system and to ensure that they have a fair chance to work. The Diversity Consortium of Tompkins County is sponsoring this forum to support this effort.
George Ferrari, Director, Community Foundation of Tompkins County will moderate this session.
Panelists include:
Khalil Bey, Ultimate Re-entry Opportunity Mentor Coordinator, Multicultural Resource Center
Laura Branca, Managing Partner, TFC Associates and Co-Owner of Moosewood, Inc.
Phoebe Brown, Ultimate Re-entry Opportunity Community Outreach Coordinator, Multicultural Resource Center
Amy Guererri, Commissioner of Personnel, Tompkins County Government
Jason M. Leifer, Attorney and Dryden Town Supervisor
Schelley Michell- Nunn, Director Human Services, City of Ithaca
Allan Bishop,  Associate Vice President Human Resources, Cornell University

Campus and Community Organizing for Liberation, Then and Now

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Saturday, November 5th, 2016 – 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM
at The History Center in Gateway Plaza
401 E. State Street * Suite 100 * Ithaca, NY 14850

free and open to All; light refreshments served

This is the third event in the series “Sharing Our Stories of Action for Social Justice and Transformation.” This series is a partnership of The History Center, the Dorothy Cotton Institute, in collaboration with the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library. The focus has been on sharing personal narratives and oral histories that highlight the contributions of individuals in our community who have worked on a range of issues for social justice.

Our third event will address Campus & Community Organizing for Liberation, Then and Now. We will begin with a panel of activists and community leaders who will share their work for racial equity in education, Black Studies, racial justice, and the Movement for Black Lives.  After the panel, everyone will have the opportunity to share their stories of taking action. Our panelists will be Kirby Edmonds, Ms. Lucy J. Brown, and Rafael Aponte.

About the Presenters…. 

Kirby Edmonds is a Cornell graduate, long-time Ithaca resident and community organizer, educator, a partner with TFC Associates and a Senior Fellow and Program Coordinator of the Dorothy Cotton Institute.

Ms. Lucy J. Brown was born and raised in Ithaca, and her outspoken commitment to racial justice and educational equity spans decades. Ms. Brown is the mother of four children who went through the Ithaca City School District. She has served on the district’s Board of Education, as well as on the Board of Public Works. She worked at Cornell University for thirty years, and as one of the few Black employees, she readily gave her support to the student organizers of the 1969 Willard Straight occupation and the movement for Black Studies and racial equity at Cornell. She was a founding member of Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services. The Lucy J. Brown Leadership Award was established in her honor by INHS, where she continues to serve on their Board of Directors.

Rafael Aponte has a deep commitment to education, food justice, and sovereignty. Born and raised in the South Bronx, he has over twelve years of experience working as a community activist, advocate, and educator in NYC. In 2012, Rafael relocated to Tompkins County and established Rocky Acres Community Farm in Freeville, NY . The 10-acre farm focuses on education and the sustainable production of local, culturally appropriate vegetables, herbs, meat, and eggs for marginalized communities in and around Ithaca. He is currently the acting director of the Youth Farm Project in Ithaca and a member of the working group for Black Lives Matter Ithaca (BLMI).

Hope to see you there!

History Center:

phone: 607-273-8284, ext. 5

e-mail: director@thehistorycenter.net

website: www.thehistorycenter.net

 

 

Sharing Our Work for Social Change: Taking Action

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Join us for the first event of a series presented by The History Center in Tompkins County and the Dorothy Cotton Institute titled “Sharing Our Stories of Action for Social Justice and Transformation.”

Series Kick-Off Event:

Sharing Our Work for Social Change: Taking Action
Saturday March 19th, 2:00 – 4:00 at The History Center in Tompkins County

(401 E. State St., Suite 100 — Gateway Plaza)

“Saturday will be the first of a series of community gatherings for sharing our personal narratives, and creating an archive of oral histories so that we can build the knowledge of how people achieve justice and effect change. No story is too short.”     – Dorothy Cotton Institute

“Ithaca and Tompkins County have a long history of involvement in social movements and issues.”           – The History Center

This series will encourage people in our communities to share their personal stories and oral histories that highlight individual contributions for working for social change across a broad range of issues and social movements. At this event, four panelists will share their work for change and address what they had to overcome and what sustained them. After the panel, everyone will be invited to meet in small groups to share their work for social change.

Panelists:

Carlos H. Gutierrez, Former Chilean Political Exile & Labor Community Organizer
Jhakeem Haltom, Dean of Student Life, New Roots School
Mary Milne, Fabric Artist & Local Ribbon Coordinator, 1982-85
Joyce Muchan, Former Chair of the Ithaca LGBT Task Force

There will be future events to help community members learn from one another and to highlight that we can all choose to take action. This project will include oral histories will be captured to archive the richness of action and involvement of Tompkins County residents in a variety of social movements.

Co-sponsored by
The History Center in Tompkins County & The Dorothy Cotton Institute,
The John Henrik Clarke Africana Library & Cornell University Public Service Center

The Legacy Foundation of Tompkins County provided support for the series

For more information, contact Kayla Sewell at Community@TheHistoryCenter.net
or call (607) 273-8284 x 227

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Tackling Structural Racism: What we can see early 2016

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The Building Bridges initiative exists to support the growth and connectedness of a network of people and organizations working to eliminate structural racism and poverty in our county.

With that in mind, the Steering Committee has identified many local efforts that move us toward the elimination of structural racism and poverty. We also see that these efforts, although significant, are only a beginning. There is a huge amount of work still to be done.

If you know of steps towards eliminating structural racism and poverty that are not mentioned here, please share them (in informational and/or story form)

through the Building Bridges Network.

In the plus column:
 Continue reading →

The Human Rights Arts Competition 2015

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UDHR for webThe Office of Human Rights and the Dorothy Cotton Institute present

The Human Rights Arts Competition

The Dorothy Cotton Institute is partnering with the Office of Human Rights to co-sponsor the Human Rights Arts Competition, open to all K-12 students in Tompkins County, whether in public school, private school, charter school, Montessori, or home-schooled.

Teachers and students are encouraged to explore the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to submit students’ artwork (visual, poetry or short film) expressing their understanding of one or more of the 30 articles of the UDHR . Click the link to find out details.  The Dorothy Cotton Award will be presented by Ms. Cotton to the winning poet.

Moosewood Bans the Box

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BAN-THE-BOX-employee-application-monitorAcross the nation and here in Tompkins County, there is a Ban-the-Box movement to reduce barriers to employment for applicants who have a felony conviction on their record. Given the enormous number of people who have been convicted, the vast majority for non-violent crimes, employers play an important role in helping people find decent, stable employment. Other states such as Hawaii, Ohio, Oregon, Massachusetts, California and N.J., and municipalities such as Orlando, NYC,  and the City of Rochester have passed Ban the Box Ordinances. In June of 2015, NYC went beyond banning the felony box on applications for jobs in city government, and now prohibits both public and private employers from asking questions about felony convictions during the initial employment application process.

As a business that has employed a lot of people over 42 years and values fairness in employment, this seemed like something important for us at Moosewood Restaurant. In our case, we were actually using the same old boiler-plate application for years; I looked at it and there was the question: “Have you ever been convicted of a felony? If yes, please indicate which charges may be relevant to the position you are seeking.”  All we needed was to agree that this was an unnecessary barrier, and we revised the application and deleted the question. Simple.

banbox_196There are multiple steps in a hiring process, and employers may ask about prior convictions at later stages. In some cases employers must ask about felonies up front if it’s relevant to the position the candidate is seeking, for instance, as a police officer or as a childcare worker.

In N.J…

“Unless one of the limited exceptions applies, an employer cannot make any inquiry—either verbally or in writing, including in an employment application—about an applicant’s criminal record during the “initial employment application process” (IEAP).  Once the IEAP is complete, an employer can make inquiries about an applicant’s criminal history”

Ban the Box laws and policies don’t require the employer to hire a particular applicant, but one of the goals is to reduce recidivism among qualified people who happen to have a record and to help people who could be fine employees make it through the application screening process. The Obama Administration’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force gave the movement a boost when it endorsed hiring practices “which give applicants a fair chance and allow employers the opportunity to judge individual job candidates on their merits.”

We encourage other businesses and institutions in Tompkins County to adopt Ban the Box policies. Whether one is a small business owner, manager, department head or human resource director, employers understandably have important questions.

These links may be helpful:

Huge Success–the Building Bridges Community Forum

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On May 13, 202 people attended a Community Forum to learn about Collective Impact processes creating big successes in various communities, and possible “big results” we might want to work on in Tompkins County.

Here is a link to the presentation slides:

Building Bridges Forum CI presentation

Highlights from the feedback include:

Of the 119 evaluations we received:
41 organizations asked to be added to the Building Bridges Coalition list *
100+ new people have joined the Building Bridges Network listserve
96% of you said you learned more about Collective Impact
96% of you said that CI is a direction that we should pursue as a community
97% of you said the time was worthwhile
89% of you said you would do your work differently as a result of the time we spent together.

Once again, a big THANK-YOU to
  • GreenStar staff support, use of The Space and coffee, tea, fruit salad, yogurt and  pastries
  • MRC for the mini-bagels
  • GIAC for the cheese, crackers and cookies
  • Ithaca Bakery for the pastries
  • Moosewood Restaurant for the Brownies and Vegan Chocolate Cake
  • CCE staff for stuffing packets
  • Park Foundation for supporting this intro to Collective Impact

*If you would like your organization added, please contact Kirby Edmonds at 607/277-3401

DCI’s Celebration of International Human Rights Day

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On Tuesday, Dec. 10, the Dorothy Cotton Institute held our first DCI Gala and Dinner in honor of International Human Rights Day, and featured the presentation of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s 2013 Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Award to our distinguished guests, Dr. Vincent G. Harding and Ms. Dorothy F. Cotton, with inspiring remarks by the award recipients and Ambassador Andrew Young.

Over 200 people attended the event at the Trip Hotel, enjoying good food, great live jazz by Fe Nunn and friends, and Harry Aceto and friends, and a remarkable performance by the Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers. Our Master of Ceremonies was Cal Walker.

Our celebration began with a visit to the Greater Ithaca Activities Center by DCI National Advisor Dr. Harding and Ms. Aljosie Aldrich Knight, both of whom participated in the DCI’s 2012 delegation to the Israel and the West Bank. They graciously spent the afternoon at GIAC, speaking first with local activists, educators, and organizers, and then another two and a half hours with teens from New Roots Charter School and GIAC’s Conservation Corps. Their conversation with young people was truly remarkable.

All three of our speakers exhorted the audience not to wait for someone else, some celebrity or high-placed official, to lead the change we want to see in the world, but rather to rely on ourselves and take action to create the kind of world we need. Being in the presence of people whose courage, commitment to non-violence, and willingness to stay on the journey toward the realization of full human rights reminded us that we have progressed a long way toward freedom, but we still have a way to go.

At GIAC, Dr. Harding was asked by a student whether he and others in the Freedom Struggle were ever scared of the violence and danger down south. He shared that sometimes he and his colleagues were very scared, but that they never attempted to do things alone; when he was afraid, someone else would remind him that “You can do this.” They always had friends with them, and what kept them going when they felt like running away was both knowing that people had come before them in the struggle and sacrificed for his next generation, but more importantly, they knew that they had to keep going so that “you could be here today”–i.e., together, in an integrated gathering of students, sharing where we came from, what we want to be doing 20 years from now, and why, with pathways open to them that couldn’t be imagined back in the 60s.

Dr. Harding emphasized the great importance of knowing one’s background, learning our history, and becoming strongly grounded and nurtured in our own cultures and who we are, so that we can go forth into diverse, integrated settings and take leadership, sharing and exchanging our stories with people who are different from ourselves without trying to just be like them and losing ourselves.

Dr. Harding answered a question about the first time he met Martin Luther King, Jr. He described traveling to Montgomery, Alabama in a racially mixed group of 5 young ministers from his an integrated Mennonite church he founded in Chicago. They set out to test themselves as to whether they could prevail on this journey with their integrated group, meet Dr. King, and explore the possibility of establishing such a church in the south.

They looked up Dr. King in the phone book, called and spoke with Mrs. Coretta Scott King, and asked if they could meet her husband. She explained that he had just been hospitalized after being stabbed, and was now recuperating at home. She wasn’t sure he would be up to it, but that they could stop by and see. When they arrived at the door, they were invited to visit with MLK, Jr. in his bedroom. He was sitting up in bed in his bathrobe, and kept laughing and remarking that they had made it  through Mississippi.

Dr. Harding explained to the young people at GIAC that at the time, he was 27 years old, and Dr. King was only 29.  The image of these very young people who were doing extraordinary things in such violent and intolerable circumstances really made quite an impression, and challenged all of us to never do anything with our lives without knowing why.

Thanks to all of you who attended, who sponsored others to be able to attend, and who support the Dorothy Cotton Institute!

Please check out this piece from Fellowship of Reconciliation, posted before the Gala.

http://forusa.org/blogs/linda-kelly/we-shall-not-be-moved-two-civil-rights-heroes-receive-peace-award/12714

Reimagining a Fair & Local Economy

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Freeing Ourselves From Systems that Weaken & Divide Us

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this…We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality …whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. over 45 years ago as an impassioned call for “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution”, these words seem more relevant than ever to the linked economic, environmental and social calamities we face today. Our global economy and its effects on nearly every facet of our lives is increasingly seen as a root of these problems. With a warming climate and epic failures like the BP oil disaster and financial crisis, this system and its structures are looking catastrophically flawed and outdated. The “economic genius” of Frankensteinian creations like derivatives has turned our world economy into a shell game, with perhaps the worse yet to come.

Communities have become ground zero for a resource extraction model seeking to maximize short-term profits for distant stock holders while externalizing as many costs as possible. Those “externalities” include many of our own who are left behind as the divide between the haves and multiplying have-nots grows. Making matters worse, the reach and influence of the too-big-to-fail juggernauts responsible for these crises extends deep into our systems of governance, playing no small part in the recent government shut-down.

At the same time, a growing number of communities like our own are grappling with how to sustain basic civic infrastructure, including water, transportation, health, social services and educational systems. Put into place decades or centuries ago, many are now crumbling and we find ourselves without adequate means to maintain or replace them. Extreme events like Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, expected to increase in frequency, are also revealing a lack of resilience in our support systems and compromised landscapes.

We seem to be caught in a destructive feedback loop, unable to break free from a system that is continually reinforcing itself (with the help of bailouts and subsidies) while weakening our communities and endangering the planet. Some are wondering what alternatives might exist – how can we reinvent a new economy that serves, not consumes us?

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.  -Buckminster Fuller

Unseen by some, another great revolution, or “reimagining” is already occurring. It is rising from communities like our own, leveraging the power of We to solve intractable problems collectively.  Here are some signs of and guideposts for this emergent and hopeful movement. Continue reading →