General Convention Special Program Reports to Executive Council
Diocesan Press Service. May 26, 1969 [77-14]
GREENWICH, Conn. -- Both success and failure have been experienced in the Episcopal Church's General Convention Special Program, an effort by the Church begun in 1967 to assist "the dispossessed and oppressed" of the nation for which expenditures so far have exceeded a million and a half dollars.
The Episcopal Church's "urban crisis" program was authorized by the Church at its General Convention in 1967 at Seattle, Wash., as a top priority for the following three years.
In a progress report made to the Church's Executive Council at its quarterly May meeting at Seabury House, Greenwich, Conn., the program director, Leon E. Modeste, said that the Special Program has sought to assist groups of poor people "who have made their own analysis of the problems of their community and the effects of those problems upon themselves."
"Rather than offer our own 'package solutions' to these groups (as others have done without success)," the report said, "we have funded organizations which have developed their own plans of action. "
Funding of such organizations, Executive Council members were told, has totalled so far $1,676, 512 in 66 Dioceses of the Church, including six which are overseas.
The report emphasized the care taken in administering the program. A Screening and Review Committee, made up for the most part of representatives from poor communities, passes on applications for grants before they are submitted to Executive Council for authorization. In a few emergencies the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop, has authority to approve grants after they have been screened.
Other safeguards which are provided include field consultations, training and evaluation, but in spite of this, Mr. Modeste's report said, there have been a few projects which he described as "unsuccessful." The report cited two of these:
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center Leadership Training Program, of New Cassel, Long Island, N. Y., and the United Farm Workers, of Toppenish, Wash.
The Long Island training center was funded for a total of $4, 000, but $3,106 was returned when it became apparent the project was not going to succeed because of poor organization and community resistance.
The Farm Workers project received a grant of $4, 500 to establish a cooperative discount grocery store and a legal assistance project. A field appraisal disclosed that it lacked indigenous interest or leadership.
The report also included a description of two "successful" enterprises.
One, the Avondale Community Council, of Cincinnati, O., received a grant of $42,000. The Council, made up of representatives of more than 50 groups, broadly representative of the community, has a program directed to attacking problems in housing, community planning, education, health, employment, welfare and economic development.
The second, the South End Tenants' Council, of Boston, Mass., was funded for $18, 000. Representing more than 300 families, the Council has succeeded in negotiating realistic rents with landlords and in obtaining redress for housing code violations in an area characterized by substandard apartment buildings.
In summarizing the work of the past year, the report said:
"It is clear that our heaviest investment during the past year has been made in support of organizations which are not trying to pattern themselves after 'the system,' but rather to analyze the system. We continue to see such community organizations as our first priority."
A second priority in the coming year, the report said, will be combating white racism.
"The entire past year has impressed on us the importance of how we define racism," it said. "At least for the present, the following definition is regarded as adequate to meet our purposes:
"'White racism is the systematic individual and institutional oppression, exploitation and paternalization of the black race by the white race. It is based on the historic and cultural tradition of which superiority which led to the evolution of a society and government based on the right to rule'. "
"Any expansion of this definition needs to include several things:
Recognize that attitudes are a function of political and economic realities, rather than the other way around; make clear that the issue is not how whites see (define) blacks, but how whites see whites; make clear the tendency white Americans have for defining everything (incorrectly) in individual terms, and make their consequent inability to recognize institutional racism; make clear why many whites are primarily concerned with integration and making it work, while many blacks consider integration to be irrelevant at best and racist at worst. "
One whole section of the report was devoted to an acknowledgement of the "controversial nature" of the General Convention Special Program in which it said:
"It is imperative to recognize that a good deal of controversy is inevitable. The Episcopal Church is an 'establishment' Church -- that is, its members are almost all middle and upper-class white people, many of whom have positions of leadership in their own communities and in the nation.
"The organizations to whom we provide funds and other resources are aggressively in the business of trying to gain political and economic power. To the extent that they succeed, the pattern of community and national decision- making will be changed both in substance and in direction.
"If influential and respected members of our Church do not become acutely uneasy about the changes taking place in their communities -- changes which the General Convention Special Program is directed to assist -- then there is substantial reason to doubt whether the staff of the General Convention Special Program is doing what the Council and the Presiding Bishop have directed it to do."
The Council after hearing a report from the Screening and Review Committee, made by Marvin Gentry, of Cincinnati, O., approved funding of six grants totaling $175,600.
They were as follows:
Hilton Head Fishing Cooperative, Hilton Head, S.C., $20, 000 -- Funds from the GCSP will assist the Cooperative to expand its facilities and handle its current volume of business. It is located in a farm area where one-third of the Afro-American families earn less than $1,000 per year and more than one-half earn less than $2,000 per year. The cooperative was organized by 10 black men in 1967. Its primary purpose is for the catching, processing and marketing of shrimp. Its facilities are open to all and the Cooperative, along with a newly-formed credit union, have the potential of providing employment at substantially increased wages to area residents. Up to $10,000 is also authorized in matching funds, with $1. 00 given for every $2.00 raised by the Cooperative.
Chicago Black Action Committee, Chicago, Ill., $15,009 -- This community action organization proposes to address itself to the manifold problems encountered by residents of the urban ghetto -- education, employment, police- community relations, health, welfare, and housing. Major emphasis will be on the establishment of an economic base from which programs in other areas can spring. CBAC has already been active in supporting the efforts of boycotting high school students who were demanding community control of schools and an expanded Afro-American history course, and in the struggle for open housing. Also authorized was a $10,000 matching grant on a 1:1 matching basis.
Afro-American Society of Greater Atlanta, Atlanta, Ga., $20,000 -- The Society has a three-point program: the development, printing and distribution of an Afro-American History Primer for children age six to 14; a school for black history and culture for children and adults; and the establishment of an institute for training community organizers. An additional $5, 000 was authorized on a 1:1 matching basis.
Jackson Human Rights Project, Jackson, Miss., $6,600 -- The Project is engaged in community organization in Hines County, Jackson. Despite harassment, the Project runs a liberation school for children and political education and adult education classes. Meetings are often alternated between private homes and the place communicated by word of mouth at the last moment, but they are held. A newsletter is also published keeping persons current in politics, and providing information on black culture and history. The staff is largely volunteer and most are students at Tougaloo College.
ABC (Accion de Bronce Colectiva), Los Angeles, Calif.,$14,000 -- ABC is engaged in a three-point program in Los Angeles. It sponsors, in part, a program for the resocialization, training and reemployment of black-and brown ex- offenders and/or ex-addicts; and sponsors itself a youth development project focusing on leadership training of persons between 15-24 with the intention of stimulating and developing community organization; and a Chicano (Mexican American) Speakers Bureau which provides a central information and booking agency for the Mexican community. The Bureau gives training in public speaking and provides speakers on assignment. ABC, which is a coalition of local community organizations, was the Mexican-American unit of the Afro-Mex Coalition in Los Angeles. Its Afro-American counterpart, the Black Congress, no longer exists. ABC, however, continues to be active.
Regional Coalitions through Training Programs and Conferences, $100,000 -- This grant will enable the staff of the General Convention Special Program, working with consultants and grant recipients, to sponsor a series of regional training conferences for black and brown community organizations. At these conferences representatives from community organizations, both recipients and non-recipients of GCSP grants, will meet together and obtain assistance in such areas as community organization skills, economic development and internal development. Participants will also focus on the "moral imperative" of such community organizations to build a unity based upon mutual love and trust among each other, and to work against the seduction of persons by the promises or rewards of individual privilege. The training conferences will be followed by further sessions, designed in response to particular regional needs and situations. A national conference also may be held to consider such national issues as Federal Aid to Education and federal welfare standards.