Lecia Brooks, the Outreach Director for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, is the second guest for the Q&A series.
The 2011 Student Freedom Ride will be visiting the SPLC & Civil Rights Memorial tomorrow, and I have had this event circled in my calendar for days.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Lecia Brooks and everyone at the SPLC.
Check out these links for more information:
Southern Poverty Law Center--http://www.splcenter.org/
Teaching Tolerance--http://www.tolerance.org/
Follow on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/splcenter and http://twitter.com/#!/tolerance_org
1. What does civic engagement mean to you?
Civic engagement means paying attention to what’s going on in your community and the nation and then doing something – anything. It means being a part of our democracy, voting in every election, knowing who your elected officials are, and making them aware of your concerns and priorities. It also means knowing your neighbors and building a community with those who live around you. And lastly, it means staying interested and involved even when you do not want to.
2. How have you seen the college generation use technology and social media for civic engagement? What most surprises you about their use? How have you used it personally?
Technology and social media are very powerful vehicles for spreading information quickly and encouraging civic engagement. Nothing really surprises me about its use. I’ve seen social media used to post community events and send out alerts and online petitions -- all of which help bring about positive change. I’ve personally used social media to alert others of current events that impact us all.
Here in Alabama, we’ve seen very effective social media used in the tornado recovery efforts. A lot of college-age people were affected by the storms and they are using the social media tools they know to organize friends for cleanup days or gather relief supplies. A small town north of Montgomery had a huge turnout for a cleanup day – people from all over the country – and most of the word was spread via social media.
Social media is an excellent organizing tool, but it’s important to remember that it’s only a step in the process of real engagement. If you want to change your community, you will need to do more than send a tweet – though sending a tweet is a good place to start.
3. The Southern Poverty Law Center has played an integral part in the Civil Rights movement; what are a few of the greatest successes that SPLC has had over the years?
Over years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has celebrated many successes in its fight for justice – namely the landmark case against Tom and John Metzger and other followers of the White Aryan Resistance for the killing of an Ethiopian student in Oregon; the desegregation case against the YMCA in Montgomery, AL; the Joann Little case, where the SPLC intervened to help Little, a black inmate fighting charges of murdering a white jail guard in North Carolina during an attempted rape; the 1973 Tarboro 3 case, and the case against the United Klans of America for the lynching of Michael Donald, a nineteen-year-old who was randomly selected by members of the Klan to be lynched in an attempt to intimidate and threaten other blacks. In that last case, the court entered a $7 million verdict against the group and ordered them to turn over their headquarters to Beulah Mae Donald, Michael’s mother. The verdict marked the end of the United Klans, the same group that had beaten the Freedom Riders in 1961 and bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963.
But, the march continues. The SPLC continues to battle racial and social injustice through tracking the activities of hate groups and domestic terrorists across America launching innovative lawsuits that seek to destroy networks of radical extremists, using the courts and other forms of advocacy to win systemic reforms on behalf of victims of bigotry and discrimination and providing educators with free resources that teach school children to reject hate, embrace diversity and respect differences.
4. How does civic engagement relate to the Southern Poverty Law Center? How does the Southern Poverty Law Center facilitate, encourage, and promote thoughtful civic engagement in employees and community members?
The SPLC promotes civic engagement by exposing the activities of hate groups and domestic terrorists and educating people about them; attacking some of the most difficult civil rights issues of our time, including the school-to-prison pipeline, which refers to policies and practices by schools systems that have a tendency to push black and learning disabled children out of school and into the juvenile justice system; and providing educators with free resources that teach school children to reject hate, embrace diversity and respect differences.
5. One of the key memorials in Montgomery is the Civil Rights Memorial Center. What is the history of this memorial? What are the most important elements of this collection of memorials? How has the community, state, and nation responded to this project?
The Civil Rights Memorial honors the achievements and memory of those who died during the Civil Rights Movement, a period framed by the momentous Brown v. Board decision in 1954 and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968. It serves as a vehicle for education and reflection about the struggle for equality.
Since its dedication in 1989, we have had an overwhelming response to the Civil Rights Memorial. Each year, thousands of people from all over the world come to visit the Center to reflect on the Civil Rights Movement and to remember those who lost their lives during the struggle.
6. How does the Southern Poverty Law Center use technology and social media to further its mission? What opportunities does social media offer that traditional outlets do not?
Social media offers a conversation. In the past, we weren’t able to interact with our supporters regularly. So much of our work is done in courtrooms and there are rarely opportunities for people to participate, at least not in the way people think of the direct action that was commonplace during the Civil Rights Movement. For us, the Civil Rights Movement is still going on. The march continues. With every case we file, we hope to create change for not just one client, but for others suffering from similar injustices.
Social media lets us discuss the work we’re doing while we’re doing it. A lot happens between a case filing and a verdict. With Facebook and Twitter, we can talk about the work we’re doing and encourage our supporters to bring their friends into the conversation. Lawsuits on behalf of parents of students with special needs or exploited and abused farmworkers don’t often make the front page of the newspaper, so social media helps us inform people about the injustices that still exist – especially younger people. It’s important for us to show younger people that although great change occurred as a direct result of the Civil Rights era activists, we still have much to do.
So communicating via social media has been great for us. It’s gratifying to know there are people out there who share our passion for justice. Social media has also connected us to other advocates and created opportunities to support one another’s work.
7. Name one initiative or type of civic engagement that you are personally involved in and would like to share with everyone. How are you involved in this project or initiative? What are the most important aspects to this type of civic engagement?
We are currently involved in a number of initiatives that encourage civic engagement, however, the most recent being the petition to put an end to the contract between the state of Mississippi and the youth prison in Walnut Grove, Mississippi. The children there are forced to live in horrific conditions and have endured physical abuse by staff members. The petition is a call to action asking people from all over the country to speak out against this injustice by signing their name.
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