Labor & Community Unite to Redlight the Gulch on MLK's Birthday

Today on the steps of Atlanta's city hall organized labor joined community groups on the Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr to appeal to the Mayor and other city leaders who often invoke the name of Dr King but pursue policies and projects(Like the Gulch project) that continue to widen the gap between rich and poor in Atlanta.

Today was significant because the Redlight the Gulch Coalition, which is made up of several community groups, was joined by a number of labor unions including International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, District Council 77, Laborers International Union of America, Local 515, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, Local 33

United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, Local 136, Unite Here, and Teamsters local 728.

Our Communities can no longer survive this approach to development that sees our city leaders cutting billion dollar welfare checks to the super rich to develop luxury developments with little to no affordable housing, community benefits, and workforce agreements. The money we are spending on the Gulch isn't monopoly money, it's real, which means public funds are being diverted from other public needs in order to help billionaire Slum lords from LA(CIM group) to build a city within a city. CIM will own the sidewalks and the streets. Where is that money coming from? A very large chunk(over 500 million) will come from a Tax Allocation District(TAD) that would otherwise go to our already struggling public schools in Atlanta. The cruel irony is that we are being forced to pay for our own gentrification through projects like the Gulch.

What adds insult to injury is the fact that our current Mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms made a promise to the community when she was running for mayor. She committed to support legally binding community benefits agreements between developers and the communities they seek to profit off of whenever public funds were involved. It would appear that she was either lying, or that she very quickly changed her mind after winning the election.

Tomorrow at 9am at the Fulton County Superior Court in courtroom 9G the Redlight the Gulch coalition goes back to court. Members of the Coalition have intervened on the bond validation process in order to get in the way of this 2 billion dollar welfare check set to help fund the luxury development. The legal fight is likely to go to appeal and the Redlight the Gulch coalition is raising money through crowdsourcing to cover the hefty legal costs.

The current City of Atlanta’s Gulch proposals DO NOT include:

Community benefits agreements

Community workforce agreements

Real affordable housing

Anti-displacement policies

Certified apprenticeship program

Community planning process

Marching For Healthcare on Martin Luther King Day

Yesterday the American Friends Service Committee marked the Martin Luther King holiday by working with the Moral Monday Georgia Coalition to organize a contingent in this year's march to focus of pressuring Governor Deal to accept Medicaid expansion in Georgia.

The contingent was big, energetic, and committed to building people power through the Moral Monday Coalition. Thousands of fliers for Moral Monday Georgia's next action at the capitol were enthusiastically passed out yesterday.

Medicaid expansion would mean health coverage for 650,000 uninsured Georgians and 70,000 new good jobs in our state. It's estimated that Georgia loses $93 a minute as a result of Governor Deal's choice to not accept Medicaid expansion.

Link to Facebook event for next Moral Monday action.

Poor Peoples Day and Dr King's Legacy

Today is a day to reflect on the legacy of Dr. King, and for many in Atlanta it's a day to retrace the great man's foot steps from Peachtree street, down Auburn avenues, all the way to Ebeneezer Baptist Church.

This year I had the extreme honor to March as a dignitary for the second year in a row and speak at the rally at Ebeneezer. Usually AFSC organizes an anti-war contingent in the march but this years mobilizing efforts went toward supporting the efforts of Occupy Our Homes Atlanta in building a large housing justice contingent in the march.

Knowing that I was to speak in the march I spent a great deal of the last few days thinking about what brief comments I might say from the stage. It my be a cliche, but Dr King's work and writing has done more to inspire my work and life direction then anything else.

This week I've been thinking a lot about poor peoples campaign, the last campaign Dr King organized. In November 1967 Dr King and the SCLC organized the campaign to address economic injustice and housing for the poor in the United States, the aim was to rebuild America's cities. The Poor Peoples Campaign didn't just focus on poor black people but addressed all poor people. Dr King labeled the campaign as "phase two" of the civil rights movement- setting goals like gathering activist to lobby Congress for an "Economic Bill of Rights", Dr King also saw an crying need to confront a Congress that demonstrated a hostility toward the poor yet provided an over abundance to the military industrial complex.

Under the "Economic Bill of Rights" the Poor Peoples Campaign asked for the federal government to prioritize helping the poor with an antipoverty package that included housing and a guaranteed annual income.

Martin Luther King Jr wanted to shut down Washington DC. Poor Peoples Campaign was to be the longest running protest in the nations capitol. Dr. King intended to dramatize the suffering of the nations poor by bringing them to the capitol. Poor people would live together on the national mall, between the capitol and the Lincoln memorial- and engage in widespread civil disobedience. King wanted to force the federal government to deal with poverty.

After Kings assassination the King family, along with the SCLC, decided to go on with the campaign to honor King. On May 12th, 1968, the first wave of protesters showed up. One week later Resurrection city was built on the Washington Mall, a settlement of tents and shacks to house protesters. Demonstrators were sent to various federal agencies to protest and spread the message of the campaign. Sadly the campaign lacked the leadership and momentum Kings involvement might have brought.

The combined setbacks of RFK's assassination, and a series of bad press further limited the campaign success. Failing to force a response from lawmakers, the poor peoples campaign closed camp on June 19th 1968.

It should come as no surprise that many veterans of the civil rights saw the Occupy movement as an extension of Dr King's work and legacy.

Occupy The King Center

I've been so busy that I've found it almost impossible to make time to update the blog. I originally had hoped to blog daily but my engagement with the Occupy Atlanta movement has ended taking way more time then I had anticipated. It's been a beautiful frustrating struggle worth every moment.

I've decide just to write entries whenever I have the chance and to focus on smaller stories that aren't getting enough love in the press. I promise to have more updates from here on out!

Last Tuesday Mayor Reed decided to evict everyone from Troy Davis park with overwhelming force. There was mounted cops, SWAT team, helicopters, barricades, giant spotlights, and an overwhelming number of police.

52 of us were arrested inducing myself. After spending a day in jail we began talking about where and how we would reoccupy a space.

It was my sense that we needed a morale buster. Something bold and in the spirit of civil disobedience, yet something that wouldn't end up in certain arrests since Occupy Atlanta had been relegated to public enemy #1 by Mayor Reed.

So we decided to take refuge in the shadow of an Atlanta giant, Martin Luther King Jr. We knew it was federal property but we couldn't imagine the city dragging us away in from of the Martin Luther King Jr Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

Within five minutes of our arrival we had a police helicopter and about fifty police officers. Though our crowd was scared most decided to stay. Senator Nan Orrock and City Counsel person Kwanza Hall showed up to try to talk the police out of arresting. After an hour or so police finally gave up and went home.

We spent the rest of our night fellowshiping around the Gandhi statue, in total awe of the surreal experience of camping outside the King center.

When morning broke we decided to stick around and experience the King center. Kwanza Hall was nice enough to bring us some breakfast and talk to use about his fathers legacy in the civil rights movement.


Channel 11 coverage


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Be The Change 2011 Day 1

On April 4, 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a groundbreaking speech in which he famously made the link between the war in Vietnam and the “giant triplets” of militarism, racism, and poverty. Unfortunately, his message resounds all too clearly today with regards to our involvement in Iraq and elsewhere, and the link between our country’s militarism abroad and poverty at home. In Georgia, our communities spiral further into poverty while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq approach the decade mark . Young people see no option to pay for school other than joining the military, while others end up getting caught up in the prison system. Meanwhile, 35,000 four-year scholarships to colleges and universities could have been given for what we spend on just one day of the war. There is a new sense of hope in 2011, particularly among young people, yet that energy and excitement must be harnessed and focused for any of this hope to materialize.

The American Friends Service Committee and the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition are organized a three-day convergence for Georgia youth that created space for youth to imagine the Georgia that they want to live in, grasp organizing tools that lifted up past movements in the South, and build community with each other.

Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech will serve as the “grounding text” for the weekend. The speech was a great way to star conversations around the deep connections between systems of violence and oppression that control our bodies, minds and communities. How does recent anti-immigration legislation, like HB87, have anything to do with the war in Afghanistan? How does the foreclosure crisis, or the recent drastic cuts the public education have anything to do with the prison industrial complex? King's groundbreaking speech proved extremely relevant when exploring these questions.

This year's Youth Convergence was like no other. In years past we've held the youth convergence at Koinonia Farms in south Georgia, and it's been attended by mostly college aged youth that had some experience with activism. While we all REALLY love Koinonia, we wanted to do something different this year. There was a feeling that we needed to reach out to younger folks. So we decided to exclusively outreach to high school aged youth in Atlanta, we focused on schools we had relationships though out Student Career Alternatives Program(SCAP) and several Boys and Girls Clubs. We decided to hold the convergence at the Horizon's School in Atlanta, who we've had the pleasure of working with in the past.

Well this past Friday, day one of the convergence, we were all super excited to have a crowd of mostly high school aged youth, along with several middle school students, and a few college aged youth.

There was a little bit of tension in the first few hours of Friday's program, most of the folks had never met before and I won't lie, I thought it was going to be a challenge to get folks to come out their shell and take the risk to put themselves out there to each other....I was wrong.

The King Center facilitated an ice breaker and a presentation on Dr. Kings, "Beyond Vietnam" speech, and by the time dinner started folks were really mixing it up with each other. Nothing prepared me for what went down after dinner. Art as an Agent for Change has facilitated an hour long ice breaker at every Be The Change Youth convergence and this year was no different. They asked folks to develop a short skip, each group with a different topic, with topics being, militarism, racism, poverty, and hope. The skips were to be intertwined with each other with hope going last. At the end of the hope skit unplanned spontaneous singing just happen, and it was beautiful. Friday night was a highlight for me, I'll admit it brought tears to my eyes. Check out the video:



Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

A Day At The Boys & Girls Club!

We're in the final push to outreach to Georgia youth for our 3rd annual,"Be The Change" youth convergence so it's an understatement to say we were excited to be invited to facilitate workshops at multiple Boy's & Girl's Clubs in Atlanta. It was a special experience for me as the Boys & Girls Club was a refuge for me when I was a youngster.

Several of us got together over the past week and developed a new, more interactive, "Be The Change" workshop designed explore Martin Luther Kings legacy, specifically the last year of his life, the beyond Vietnam speech, poor peoples campaign, and the events surrounding Dr. King's murder. The workshop effectively uses discussions sparked by the explorations of Dr.King's often untaught legacy to ask questions about the modern relevance of Dr. King's political analysis, and perhaps more importantly, how can we grasp the tools that enable us to pick up where King and other social justice leaders have left of, how can we create the change that we want in our communities?

In what ways do the giant triplets of evil(poverty, racism, and militarism), as King called them in his landmark, "Beyond Vietnam" speech, control our minds, bodies, and communities? How do these systems of violence and oppression interact and support each other?

Youth participants, many of whom where as young as thirteen years old, took time to break into groups and discuss they ways in which they see racism, poverty, and militarism effecting their lives and communities. Participants also spent time imagining the communities that they would like to life in, how would they be different, what would they change.

Lastly, after talking about local changes students would like to see in their communities, we gave a pitch for this years "Be The Change" Youth Convergence which is being held in Atlanta July 29-31.

We ended up registering fifteen more folks for the conference! We're super excited to be able to facilitate another workshop at the Brookhaven Boys & Girls Club next Tuesday!!


Here's one of the video clips that we showed to help youth understand other somewhat untaught aspects of Dr. Kings legacy:




Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Be The Change Edgewood Farm Crew!

Today we had the pleasure of spending an hour of so doing our "Be The Change" presentation to a group of youth who are no strangers the concept of being the change they want to see in their communities, the Edgewood Farm Crew. The crew's made up of about 15-20 youth age 14-21.

The manage a pretty extensive organic community garden which provides rich educational experiences to the community, youth leadership development, and delicious organic produce to folks that need it most. I gotta say, we were impressed.

The "Be The Change" presentation is something we put together specifically for classroom presentations. The presentation's focus is Dr. King's message and work in the last year of his life. The presentation also focuses on the modern relevancy of radical work in the late sixties.

In what ways do the giant triplets of evil(poverty, racism, and militarism), as King called them, control our minds, bodies, and communities? How do these systems of violence and oppression interact and support each other? How is Dr. King's message relevant today? What are issues he might be working on if he were alive today?

Students identified food justice, or access to food for low income folks as an issue they felt needed to be addressed. Racial profiling and police brutality was also a concern.


Lastly, after talking about local changes students would like to see in their communities, we gave a pitch for this years "Be The Change" youth convergence which is being held in Atlanta July 29-31.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Be The Change Grady High School!

Today was the last day of school for Atlanta public schools and we were given a monumental challenge. Saji, Josie, and I were given the opportunity to do our, "Be The Change" presentation to four different classes. Normally this would be no problem but given that fact that we would be competing with the pure excitement that come with the last day of school, well, we've all been there.

The "Be The Change" presentation is something we put together specifically for classroom presentations. The presentation's focus is Dr. King's message and work in the last year of his life. The presentation also focuses on the modern relevancy of radical work in the late sixties.

In what ways do the giant triplets of evil(poverty, racism, and militarism), as King called them, control our minds, bodies, and communities? How do these systems of violence and oppression interact and support each other? Pretty serious questions for the last day of school right?

Lastly, after talking about local changes students would like to see in their communities, we gave a pitch for this years "Be The Change" youth convergence which is being held in Atlanta July 29-31.

We were all surprised at how interested all the students were, the Grady crowds were all totally interested and many of them registered on the spot! We even were asked for a photo OP with the 9th grade class president.

So we're just that much more excited about this years "Be The Change" youth convergence!
Keep in mind that we are totally available to do the presentation, which is about 45 minutes, over the next few months. It's appropriate form high school and college aged folks and can be tweaked for specific audiences.


Here is a short part of the presentation:



Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

AFSC @ Washington Highschool

Recently the King Center started an after school program at Booker T. Washington high school, which is the school Martin Luther King Jr graduated from.

Several weeks ago the King Center invited us to be a part of their after school program and we graciously excepted. Our assignment was to organize a workshop on Bullying, Peer pressure, and how to respond to both. These issues are of course a part of everyday life for most high schoolers.

We knew that we wanted to avoid the standard," Bullies are cowards" type talk that basically can come across as simply criminalizing the student body. Bullying on the school yard can and should be connected to the larger systems of violence and oppression plague of global society. If history and modern foreign policy teaches us that whoever has the most wealth and weapons is right then why is it shocking when this dynamic plays out on the school yard?

Students at the workshop basically boiled bullying down to this: The humiliation of others to build yourself up. Sadly we've seen this behavior almost everyday at the Georgia capitol during this legislative session. Whether it's low income students seeing their public school defunded so that corporations can keep record tax breaks or undocumented Latino's being forced to watch Georgia transform into an apartheid state so that right wing politicians can appease their base(at the cost of Georgia economy). These are all connections that youth were able to establish.

What is it about our culture that seems to foster competition and conquest, over cooperation and community?

It's appropriate to point out that Martin Luther King was well known for establishing the links between systems of violence and oppression, so it was exciting to be a part of the discussion at the King Centers after school program at MLK's old school.

After much discussion students were asked to split up into three groups and create anti-bullying public service announcements for their peers. Students came up with some pretty good ideas.

We're really glad that we got to play a role in starting some of the conversations today, and we can only hope that some of them will continue as weeks pass. Big thanks to the King Center for allowing us to be a part of their after school program.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

We Are One

Today around six hundred people gathered at the King Center to march to the Georgia State Capitol to demand that governments across the country and corporate interests respect workers' rights.

The action was part of the international campaign, We Are One. It was no accident that the rally was scheduled for April 4th, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. Today marked 43 years since Dr. King was murdered outside his hotel in Memphis. He was in Memphis to support sanitation workers right to collectively bargain for a better life.

Today's rally brought out workers, students, community members, young, old, black, white, brown, and everything between. Everyone that graced the mic at the rally made case for connecting all struggles. Workers rights, students rights, immigrant rights, gay rights, need to be in the sentence. An attack on one, is an attack on all.

Martin Luther King III spoke at the capitol, reiterating his fathers most relevant messages on labor issues. His speech drew much applause but was also a painful reminder that all the issues Dr. King died for are just a pressing as they ever were. Workers rights are under attack, our state and federal budgets are being robbed by military and prison industrial complexes, programs of social uplift continue to disappear while wallstreet gets billion dollar bailouts, and Jim Crow has moved from the law books into economic policies. Martin King III said that if his father was alive today, he would be fighting for workers rights.


AFSC was also there to show our solidarity. We passed out countless, "One Minute For Peace" fold outs that make our federal budget easy to read. The fold outs highlight the economic crisis of priority. The resources our communities need are there, they're just being spend on the wrong things that benefit the wrong people.


Photo Credit to Al Viola

Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

4th Annual King Peace Program Provides Rare Insights and Inspiration

American Friends Service Committee's 4th Annual program had an exciting change of venue this year, the King Center. Ever since Alice Lovelace, our associate regional director, took over the annual event she has tried to highlight the historic connections between AFSC, Dr. King, and the civil rights movement.

The event is also a time when we lift Dr.King's Peace message that is often glossed over. To many believe that Dr.King's work became and ended with "I Have a Dream". The reality is that the last years of his life were devoted to building a broad movement to address the growing systems of violence and oppression. Dr. King saw and eloquently articulated the connections between militarism, racism, and economic injustice in his landmark, yet often unknown,
"Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence -- "Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

Dr. King was of course murdered exactly one year after delivering that speech. Most acknowledge that it was his work beyond the civil rights movement that made him such a threat to the wielders of power.

It is perhaps a cruel paradox that today, over 43 years after Dr. Kings landmark speech at Riverside church, that our government is spending more money on systems of violence and oppression than it ever has, while the back of our economy lies broken. We spend more money on prisons then we do schools, 59% of our federal budget goes to the military industrial complex while 4% goes to education. It's a known fact that drug addiction is just as prevalent in whites folks as it is with black folks, yet there continues to be dramatic disparities that disfavor blacks when it comes to non-violent drug offenses that come with prison sentences.

Oh yes, Dr. King's message is perhaps much more relevant today than it was the day he gave it. In fact if he called the speech, "I have a Nightmare" I would go so far as to say that it has been realized, we life in the nightmare.

So we lift this message as high as we can.

Alice organized a pretty amazing program this year. Paula Larke performed, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" powerfully, inspiring the whole audience to participate.

Then there was a pretty amazing group reading of selected parts of Dr. King's Beyond Vietnam speech, read by dozens of folks from different organizations, it was powerfully choreographed.

The Substance Abuse Prevention Teen theater put on a short play addressing the growing problem of bullying in schools.

Betti Knott, our regional director, introduced our keynote speaker, Dr. Bernard Lafayette. I'm not easily starstruck, and I'm a harsh critic when it comes to public speakers. I must admit that I hang on every word Dr. Lafayette speaks when ever I've had the chance to hear him, and I'm still star struck whenever I meet him.

Dr. Lafayette treated the audience to a largely unknown history, much of which I was unaware of. Since the event was sponsored by AFSC and the King Center Dr. Lafayette decided to focus on the relationship between Dr. King and AFSC. He went on to explain not only the impact that AFSC had on him(Dr. Lafayette was an AFSC staffer in Chicago) but the impact AFSC had on Dr. King and Coretta Scott King. Dr. King, Lafayette explained, chose to go to Chicago because of the groundbreaking work AFSC had already done around organizing tenants. It might have made more sense to go to Boston or New York, where fundraising was less of a challenge, but there was no real ground work done there to build on. AFSC had laid the foundation for King's work in Chicago.
The trip that the King family made to India to meet with folks that had worked with Gandhi was facilitated by AFSC, the Nobel Peace prize nomination was made by AFSC, but the deeper connection between Dr. King and AFSC was on the ground, in the trenches every step of the way, according to Dr. Lafayette.
Lafayette went so far as to say that Dr. King and Coretta Scott King's relationship with AFSC organizers had such an effect an his analysis that it was a major factor in his decision to break the silence about the war in Vietnam. A decision that came with great consequences for King, consequences which he had foreseen. Consequences that many believe resulted in his murder. Many civil rights leaders who worked along King Condemned him for breaking the silence, claiming that the war had nothing to do with civil rights.

The feeling on Tuesday night, while Dr. Lafayette spoke, was that we were being treated to very intimate information. That he was sharing unwritten history, fragile history with us. Dr. Lafayette actually put a challenge out to the group stating, "somebody here needs to start working on the book".

While I'm not gonna start working on the book, Tuesday night was a piece of magic for me. I also forgot to mention that I had the pleasure of sitting right next to Constance Curry(She was the first white woman appointed to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) executive board, and last years keynote speaker). Both Constance and Dr. Lafayette are former AFSC staff....big shoes to fill!!

*Photography By Al Viola


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee