Blog
This weekend thousands took to the streets and engaged in acts of political protest and community building to reclaim the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Using the hashtag #ReclaimMLK communities across the country planned activities—from die-ins, to marches, to political education seminars, to people’s assemblies, to community healing activities—in an attempt to honor the radical vision and brave tactics of Dr. King.
The nationwide call for action was an attempt to reclaim Dr. King’s radical and uncompromising message of principled resistance and to continue the growing movement against all forms of state violence. Many of this weekend’s events emphasized the relationship between economic deprivation, subpar education, mass incarceration, political disenfranchisement and police violence. The prevalence and diversity of events makes clear that the energy and spirit of resistance that flooded the streets after the killing of Mike Brown continues and is part of a larger struggle for recognition of the value and rights of black and brown communities.
Our partner’s across the country took part and helped plan events that elevated and embraced Dr. King’s visionary politics—a politics rooted in urgency and action. In St. Louis, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) and our allies Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) supported a series of events and disruptions throughout the weekend. In New York, Make the Road New York (MRNY) and New York Communities for Change (NYCC) took part in the #March4Justice, where thousands took to the streets Monday demanding an end to state violence and police brutality. Events in Oakland, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Boston also made news as communities came together to manifest their commitment to justice and equality.
In a major victory for the Fed Up campaign, the Federal Reserve announced on January 16 that it is establishing an advisory council “with a particular focus on the concerns of low- and moderate-income populations.” The announcement comes five months after CPD and our partners led a protest at the Fed’s annual policy conference at Jackson Hole, Wyoming and two months after our Fed Up coalition met with Fed Chair Janet Yellen and three other Fed Governors, both of which were widely covered in the press.
At our November meeting, leaders like Philadelphia’s Kendra Brooks, St. Louis’ Reginald Rounds, and Wichita’s Rev. David Carter told Chair Yellen about the struggles for people who are unemployed and underemployed in their cities. The Fed’s new advisory council will formalize the opportunity for leaders to relay such perspective to Fed policy makers on a regular basis, which is critical because the Fed usually hears only from business and banking executives.
The Fed is currently in the midst of an intense debate about whether to reduce its support of the economy by raising interest rates. Although the headline unemployment number has dropped significantly, wages remain stagnant and millions of workers are underemployed or have left the workforce entirely because of dim job prospects. That’s why CPD and our Fed Up allies are urging the Fed to maintain its low interest rate policies for the foreseeable future, so that the labor market can tighten significantly and workers can start to see meaningful improvements in their wages.
Although this new advisory council is a good first step, the Fed still needs to do a lot more. A priority should be to reform the currently opaque and insular process that is being conducted by the regional Federal Reserves in Philadelphia and Dallas to select their next bank presidents.
It is imperative that genuine community representatives be appointed to the Class B and Class C seats on the Fed’s 12 regional bank boards of directors – i.e., to the decision-making positions – as well as to the advisory positions on the new Council and its regional equivalents.
The Fair Workweek Initiative and Starbucks baristas are making significant progress in their three month campaign to push Starbucks into changing its scheduling policy and practice for 130,000 baristas.
In August Starbucks barista Jannette Navarro’s story about struggling to raise her son with an ever-changing part-time schedule made the front pages of the New York Times. The company responded swiftly to pledge reforms. But many baristas recognized immediately that the company didn’t go far enough to ensure that their 130,000 baristas have predictable, stable schedules with adequate hours.
In response, the Fair Workweek Initiative teamed up with a number of Starbucks baristas, including member leaders of the Starbucks Workers Union, to launch a Coworker.org petition which garnered over 7500 signatures. The escalating campaign drew coverage from a wide range of media outlets, including stories in PBS NewsHour, NPR, Huffington Post, CBS News, NY Post and a second New York Times story.
The company responded by reforming their official policy to now give 10 days’ notice of work schedules and workers from over 40 locations across the country have reported their managers are going further and giving them three weeks’ notice. Managers are being encouraged to create schedules that are more responsive to workers’ needs and are prohibited from scheduling workers with back to back opening and closing shifts known as “clo-pens.”
Tuesday night’s elections were tough to watch—the shift in the political landscape made our already gridlocked federal government even more intractable, and there were several significant statewide losses.
But, there were also many victories. When given the chance, people voted to support progressive values— increasing the minimum wage, guaranteeing paid sick days and reforming our criminal justice system. Yet, the candidates on the ballot in most places reflected a relatively narrow ideological spectrum of moderate to extreme conservative.
If we are to turn the the tide, we must stand on progressive values—good jobs, livable wage, strong public education, immigrant equality and just policing. We must also push for transformative change that strengthens our democracy, making our electoral process open and accessible. The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and our partners understand that change will come from deep and long-term organizing.
In more than a dozen states our partners engaged voters on issues of importance to them and their families. CPD partners collectively did more than 2 million door knocks and phone calls and had conversations with more than a half-million young people, women, and people of color.
Other important achievements include:
- In a first-of-its-kind victory, our partners ACCE Action engaged more than 10,000 unlikely voters in Oakland to raise the city’s minimum wage to $12.25 an hour and provide earned sick days. The ballot measure won the support of 81% of Oakland’s voters.
- Wisconsin Jobs Now organized more than 50,000 voters statewide to sign a pledge to vote yes on raising the minimum wage. Though Scott Walker won reelection, WJN and more than 100 workers are suing the governor over a state law that requires Wisconsin’s minimum wage “shall not be less than a living wage."
- Action Now knocked on over 127,000 doors in Illinois to get out the vote in support of a statewide, non-binding minimum wage increase to $10. Nearly 70% of Illinois voters voted in favor of the advisory measure.
At the end of election night, one of our partners sent a note saying they will keep fighting despite the setbacks. We, too, will keep fighting. We will keep fighting for working families. We will keep fighting for racial justice. We will keep fighting to build the strength we need to transform our communities and our country.
On Oct. 15, the New York City Council held a hearing on two bills introduced by Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to significantly curtail the city's entanglement with the federal government’s deportation programs. The legislation prohibits the NYPD and the Department of Corrections (DOC) from holding any person in custody on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), unless ICE presents a court-ordered criminal warrant for that person’s arrest. Requests from ICE to the city to hold immigrants are known as "detainers," and this new legislation improves on the city's existing policy of limiting compliance with some immigration detainers.
The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) is proud to be part of a strong coalition, including our partners Make the Road New York, the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo School of Law and Northern Manhattan Coalition, that was instrumental in passing the original detainer discretion policy and has never stopped fighting to expand the policy to protect more immigrant families. When New York passed its first detainer policy, there were only a handful of other jurisdictions around the country with similar laws. Today, over 250 localities have such policies.
The new policy also prohibits federal authorities from using DOC’s facilities or resources for the purposes of investigating potential violations of civil immigration law. Thus, ICE will have to give up the office it has been operating, rent free, on Rikers Island for over a decade – the main conduit that results in deportations in New York City.
The signing of these new laws is a huge victory for CPD and our partners and allies, and will prevent thousands of deportations every year, keeping New York City families together and New York communities strong.
Every 28 hours, a person of color is killed by law enforcement in this country. The killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri this August – and the militarized response by police to the outcry of a community under siege – has called attention to the systemic reality of state sanctioned violence and police brutality nationwide. The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and our partners across the country are engaged in the ongoing fight against bias-based policing and criminal justice practices.
This month, our partner organization, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) co-hosted the “Weekend of Resistance” in St. Louis. The weekend was part of #FergusonOctober, a month-long mobilization of organizations, individuals and communities nationwide who are demanding transformational changes to policing.
Over 3,000 community members, families, organizers and advocates participated in marches, rallies, panels, workshops, sit-ins and acts of civil disobedience across the St. Louis area – standing in solidarity with community members, who have taken to the streets nightly since the execution of Mike Brown. CPD has been working with MORE and other local organizations in St. Louis, including the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS), to help support their fight for systemic change. A number of staff members from CPD went to Ferguson during the Weekend of Resistance to provide logistical and communications support to the organizations on the ground working tirelessly to transform policing and criminal justice practices in St. Louis and beyond.
The Weekend of Resistance was just the beginning. CPD will continue to work with our partners across the country to reform bias-based policing and criminal justice policies and to ensure the safety and dignity of our communities. In addition to continuing to support the work that MORE and OBS are doing, in the upcoming months CPD will release a policy tool-kit detailing best police accountability practices and a report highlighting some of the insights and information shared during the National Convening on Police Accountability, which we co-hosted with Communities United for Police Reform and Local Progress in September.
We are honored to be part of the movement that organizers, community members and our partners are creating out of this historic moment.
Mike Brown. Eric Garner. John Crawford III. Ezell Ford.
These are the names of black boys and men who were tragically murdered by police this past summer. Names that we didn’t see in corporate media coverage are Yvette Smith, Eleanor Bumpurs, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and Tarika Wilson, some of the black women who have also been murdered by law enforcement. There are thousands of other people who have been hurt or killed by systemic, discriminatory police brutality, in communities from Ferguson to New York City to Ohio to Los Angeles. And, while millions stood in solidarity with Mike Brown’s family and demanded justice, a grieving community was met with a brutal, militarized response.
We can no longer deny the epidemic of police violence. We can no longer allow for policies and practices that devalue black and brown lives and undermine racial justice.
This weekend in Ferguson, MO, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) will stand in solidarity with our partners and allies from Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), the Organization for Black Struggle, and Hands Up United to call for justice and lasting change. Join us.
Policing and the U.S. criminal justice system disproportionately harm youth of color and their communities. In Missouri, for example, African Americans were 66% more likely than whites to be stopped by police in 2013, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Similar disparities in stops and arrests exist across the nation.
Racial profiling and other biased policing damage public safety. Public safety is promoted by a different approach to policing, one based on cooperation and respect, not discriminatory targeting and harassment.
We, along with thousands of others, will be in Ferguson marching, rallying, and strategizing this weekend. Please support the movement and join us in-person or online by following @popdemoc and #fergusonoctober. If you can’t join us in person, consider making a donation to local organizations working for lasting change.
On Wednesday, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) released a report exposing $30 million stolen from Pennsylvania’s children and families by charter school operators. “Fraud and Financial Mismanagement in Pennsylvania’s Charter Schools” details rampant abusive practices in a charter system that lacks proper oversight. Read The Philadelphia Inquirer front page exclusive here.
One administrator was found to have diverted $2.6 million to a church property; one charter school chief stole millions in school funds to bail out organizations associated with the school; and another charter employee embezzled $8 million for houses, a Florida condominium, and an airplane. These are just three of many examples of charter fraud and mismanagement detailed in the report.
As Salon reported yesterday:
What’s even more alarming is that none of these crimes were detected by state agencies overseeing the schools…every year virtually all of the state’s charter schools are found to be financially sound. The vast majority of fraud was uncovered by whistleblowers and media coverage and not by state auditors who have a history of not effectively detecting or preventing fraud.
We are standing with our partners ACTION United and Integrity in Education to demand a moratorium on new charter schools in Pennsylvania until necessary oversight measures are in place. Together, we rallied in front of Governor Tom Corbett’s offices in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to demand that he properly fund charter oversight.
“The current oversight system in Pennsylvania falls miserably short when it comes to detecting, preventing, and eliminating fraud,” said Kyle Serrette, Director of Education at the Center for Popular Democracy. “We plan to uncover fraud in charter schools state-by-state. The millions of children who are enrolled in charter schools nationwide deserve strong protections.”
Charter school fraud isn’t limited to just the $30 million stolen from Pennsylvania taxpayers. Earlier this year we released a report entitled "Charter Schools Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse," which found that over $100 million has been lost nationally to charter school operators’ abuse. It's a problem that affects us all.
Please take a moment to tell the Attorney General in your state to fight charter industry fraud.
Over 300,000 people took to the streets in New York City on September 21 to demand action from world leaders gathered for climate negotiations at the United Nations. One thousand community leaders, students, and advocates mobilized by CPD partner organizations joined the largest climate march in history. Click here to see photos from the march.
Loading buses and trains from throughout the country, CPD partners, including the Vermont Workers’ Center, Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts, Make the Road New York, New York Communities for Change, New Jersey Communities United, ACTION United, Delaware Alliance for Community Advancement, Action NC, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change called on world leaders to make and uphold significant environmental justice polices.
Beyond the importance of the scale of the march, the People’s Climate March signaled an essential turning point in environmental justice organizing by foregrounding the experiences of low-income communities, communities of color, and frontline communities that are most deeply impacted by climate change. CPD partners’ dedicated organizing in these communities amplified a growing narrative that identifies not only the need to cut carbon, but the crucial need to transform the unjust economic systems that are at the root of the climate crisis.
From Philadelphia, ACTION United engaged Terry King, a leader in the organization’s work to save Philadelphia’s public schools, who spoke for the first time about the oil refineries that sit next to her community and the pervasive respiratory problems faced by her family and neighbors in southwest Philadelphia.
Similar devastating stories on the impacts of climate change came from around the country: Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change members still trying to put their lives together two years after Hurricane Sandy, low-income members from across CPD’s partner organizations sharing stories of the rail cars that – with the rapid expansion of domestic oil production – now constantly run and carry unregulated, highly explosive crude oil next to homes and schools in their communities, and many more.
CPD partners continued participating in climate justice actions and meetings following the march and returned to their communities dedicated to expanding work that addresses the root causes of climate change, and focused on building critical climate justice organizing that will be necessary to transform this crisis.
September 11-12, 2014, New York, NY
Today, Communities United for Police Reform, The Center for Popular Democracy and Local Progress will kick-off a one and a half day meeting focused on police accountability with advocates, elected officials, funders and local leaders from across the country.
The national convening will focus on policy solutions to end discriminatory and abusive policing in New York City and across the country. By helping to deepen relationships among partners, elected officials and other stakeholders, the convening will be an important and timely contribution to the movement for respectful and responsive policing.
We invite you to join the conversation online, using the hashtag #ChangePolicing. Be sure to follow @changethenypd, @popdemoc and @LegalProgress on Twitter for updates.
