• Jacksonville, Florida
• Bermuda
• Baltimore, Maryland

FEATURED INITIATIVE: Seminar Alumni in Action- Baltimore, Maryland

“What is holding Baltimore back?” 

In October 2011 and February 2012, an impressive array of Baltimore’s civic leadership convened for the Racial Equity & the Future of the Baltimore Region Seminar. In October, Baltimore seminar alumni worked with Roundtable staff and considered in an exceptionally thoughtful manner the best way to bring the dismantling structural racism/promoting racial equity frame to Baltimore.

Though it was convened with the purpose of presenting and discussing the structural racism framework and its relevance to Baltimore, the seminar participants immediately recognized catalytic roles for themselves both individually and collectively, new ways to communicate with the range of the Baltimore region’s communities, and developed a number of policy and practice propositions.

Between the two seminars, these leaders put these thoughts into action through conversations with colleagues, staff & leadership of organizations, corporations, boards, and religious leaders. Prior to the February reconvening, alumni established a reading group at the University of Baltimore in order to integrate knowledge into professional practice.

Despite recognized challenges such as community pessimism and time constraints, participants proposed new approaches to their strategy towards community engagement.  We look forward to keeping you posted.

For more information on their effort, contact Gretchen Susi (gretchen.susi@aspeninst.org). 

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA: Project Breakthrough

After two community foundation-based teams participated in a Racial Equity & Society Seminar, the Roundtable was invited to partner with the Jacksonville Community Foundation in the creation of an initiative to promote racial equity in Jacksonville. Nina Waters, President of the Jacksonville Community Foundation, used the foundation’s convening power to introduce a cross section of Jacksonville leaders to the structural racism framework. The leadership group includes, among others, the mayor, current and former sheriffs, local philanthropists, the business manager of the Florida Times-Union, the school superintendent, the head of the local Republican Party/Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) lobbyist, a judge, a school board and city council member. In October of 2008, the group participated in a leadership seminar after which they decided to make a public statement about structural racism in Jacksonville (previously unheard of) and committed to continue to work together to develop a set of strategies they will implement to promote racial equity. 

These leaders formed an alliance which they call Project Breakthrough: Changing the Story of Race in Jacksonville, and have embraced the Roundtable’s structural racism analytical framework.  The group now includes a core group of more than 40 leaders which continues to expand as Project Breakthrough is consistently engaging other civic and community leaders. They meet quarterly to engage in continuous learning about the ways in which structural racism manifests in Jacksonville, and to work collaboratively developing strategies to address structural racism in Jacksonville and to promote racial equity in their spheres of influence.  Three sectors have made significant efforts: public education, the media and the justice system.

Public Education: At the end of 2009 The Roundtable and Project Breakthrough were invited to collaborate with the Duval County Public Schools (DCPS). Roundtable staff conducted a day-long seminar for all 70 middle school social studies teachers from DCPS in Jacksonville entitled “Bringing Our ‘A’ Game: Supporting Teachers & Students to Understand and Eliminate the Achievement Gap”. This training introduced the structural racism framework to the teachers, presented them with the local manifestations of structural racism in Jacksonville, and provided them with the opportunity and support to create lesson plans based on the framework and the video. As a result, the Roundtable and Project Breakthrough have also been invited by the DCPS to convene additional such seminars for teachers of 8th-12th social studies courses, and a series of workshops to help administrators and teachers apply the framework to their work. 

Media: The Roundtable and Project Breakthrough have also worked with Jacksonville media, convening 22 Jacksonville media professionals for a Racial Equity and Society Seminar. In the spring of 2010, the Roundtable began a collaboration with the Florida Times Union.  In partnership with Project Breakthrough, the Roundtable is conducting Racial Equity and Society Seminars for the entire newspaper staff about how to apply a racial equity lens. 

The Justice System: In the summer of 2010 The Roundtable/Project Breakthrough collaboration was invited by Judge Brian Davis, Fourth Circuit Court of Florida, to convene a ‘Racial Equity & Society Seminar’ for judges in North Florida.  Together, Davis and the Roundtable have submitted the paperwork to the Continuing Legal Education Division of the Office of State Courts Administration so that the Roundtable's Racial Equity and Society Seminar can be included as a recognized Continuing Legal Education course in the state of Florida.

Project Breakthrough is an Initiative of the Aspen Roundtable, the Community Foundation in Jacksonville, OneJax and the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission 

  BERMUDA: The Aspen – Bermuda Partnership on Racial Equity

On October 2009, June 2010, October 2010, and September 2011 four groups of leaders from the non-profit sector, business community and government in Bermuda were brought together for Racial Equity and Society Seminars. The Aspen Institute convened the groups at the Aspen Meadows in Aspen, Colorado and Wye River Conference Center in Maryland.  Participants met to identify the causes of racial inequities in Bermuda and develop strategies for promoting greater racial equity in the country.

Through interactive dialogue, readings, and group exercises, participants discussed the mechanisms through which racial inequities are reproduced in Bermuda.  These include:

• Attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices that blacks and whites still have about each other
• Policies and practices in key sectors that affect opportunities in Bermudian life, especially education, employment and criminal justice
• Social segregation that operates in various Bermudian institutions, beginning with the schools and continuing in many social, religious, recreational, and    civic institutions.

The Aspen – Bermuda Partnership on Racial Equity (ABPRE) is an outgrowth of the work started with the 70 Racial Equity Seminar alumni. The Partnership supports alumni in developing work plans and implementation strategies that will lead to a more racially equitable and socially integrated Bermuda. ABPRE aims to demonstrate that deliberate work in key areas will collectively lead to change at the personal and structural level which will create a stronger and more unified Bermuda.

ABPRE's Steering Committee was launched on February 10th, 2011, marking the official beginning of deliberate efforts that engages in both dialogue and action around racially disparate outcomes in Bermuda. There are 19 members of the Steering Committee, 4 of who chair working committees in the following areas: policy, community building, communications, and sustainability. As part of ABPRE the Roundtable works collaboratively with Bermudians to address disparities in Bermuda by identifying strategies and engaging individuals and organizations that have the capacity to sustain efforts around racial equity. The goal of the project is to better understand what constitutes structural racism while developing ways to dismantle this to make progress on promoting racial equity in Bermuda. Ultimately, ABPRE works towards a day when black, white, Portuguese and all other groups have equivalent access to influence and are equally likely to have similar positive or negative experiences in employment, education, criminal justice, and all the other arenas that determine life outcomes in Bermuda.

Funding for this project generously provided by the Atlantic Philanthropies