We have long said that public transit is a 21st-century civil rights issue. Tomorrow, this very issue will be debated in Congress — and their decision will affect millions of Americans who depend on public transportation to get to school, work, and the doctor’s office.

Your voices are essential right now to preserving this essential funding. Please contact your Member of Congress today and ask them to preserve funds for public transportation and reject the House Ways and Means Committee proposal.

You can access contact information for your Member of Congress here.

Onward for equity.

EquityNow Twin Cities from Works Progress on Vimeo.

Last November, 150 Minnesotans joined 2,500 equity workers from around the country at PolicyLink’s Equity Summit 2011 in Detroit. This video is our attempt to communicate deep knowledge, burning questions, and incredible passion of 150 Minnesotans.

Photo credit: Minnesota Post

In The Nation yesterday, Editor and Publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel explores the Occupy Wall Street’s impact on how the nation — from ordinary citizens to policy leaders to the mainstream media — talks about America’s rapidly growing economic divide. PolicyLink Associate Director, and co-author of “America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model,” is quoted in the piece explaining how the momentum spurred by the movement has galvanized advocates across the country:

Public attention to these issues shows no signs of waning—in fact, just the opposite is true, it’s on the rise and Mitt Romney can’t stop it—no matter what he has to say to protesters, or how much he wants this conversation to be confined to “quiet rooms.” (Read: back-room deals between powerbrokers to preserve and protect the status quo.) Sarah Treuhaft, associate director at PolicyLink, says grassroots equity advocates who have been working on these issues for years are now much more confident to speak up about inequality. That makes sense, since according to the Pew Research Center, conflict between the rich and poor is now “the greatest source of tension in American society,” with two-thirds of Americans describing that conflict as “strong.”

The full piece, which also ponders the impact OWS will have on the 2012 election, can be read here. 

Photo Courtesy of WhiteHouse.gov

The following is a statement by PolicyLink Founder and CEO Angela Glover Blackwell on President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address:

“If the playing field is level, I promise you — America will always win.”– President Obama

Last night’s State of the Union address laid out a solid vision for pushing America into a more equitable and inclusive future. With a targeted focus on job creation, infrastructure, workforce training, and fiscal reform, President Obama offered proposals for creating an economic system in which everyone can participate and prosper, including:

• Investing in infrastructure projects that would produce decent-paying jobs
• Funding community college programs to train America’s future skilled workforce
• Ensuring that the rich share the economic burden by paying at least 30 percent in taxes (the “Buffett Rule”)
• Preventing increases in student loan interest rates, and doubling the number of work-study jobs over the next five years
• Creating clean energy jobs programs

These proposals and others outlined in the President’s speech mark important steps toward closing the nation’s widening income divide. But absent a firm commitment from lawmakers to making equity an economic imperative, they will remain only ideas.

In a letter delivered yesterday to the President and members of Congress –- and signed by more than 130 organizations nationwide — PolicyLink presented a number of policy recommendations aimed at expanding opportunity for low-income people and communities of color hit first and worst by the recession and unfair economic practices. We stand with President Obama in pushing for equitable policy solutions that will help close America’s prosperity gap, and urge our legislators on Capitol Hill to do the same. Together, we can re-build an economy that works for all people.

Still buzzing about last night’s speech? Join us below in the comments to continue the conversation, and share your thoughts on President Obama’s vision for America.

Also, we encourage you to respond to local media coverage in your area and vocalize your support of a bold policy agenda for the 99%. 

In celebration of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday (and leading up to tomorrow’s first field hearing of the Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color in Oakland) the “teach-in” – a form of non-violent protest in which participants attend forums, discussion panels, lectures, and free debates – was organized by several Bay Area youth organizations, and featured engaging workshops such as:

• From the Fruit to the Root – Learn about the causes of community problems and how you can change the system.
• Who has Power & how do You get it? – Find out who has the power to make change and how you can get it back.
• Redefining Manhood – Define what it means to take care of business by being a man and building community.
• Express Yo’Self: Youth Voice, Youth Power – Learn how expression can be a form of power, healing and strength.

Attendees were also treated to a mix of education and entertainment (or “edutainment”) led by a diverse group of facilitators, including an open mic session, drumming and cultural dance, and a musical performance by Ise Lyfe, a local hip-hop and spoken word artist who advocates for issues affecting low-income communities and people of color.

New America Media, a national collaboration of ethnic news organizations that also attended the event, will air a brief video during Friday’s Assembly Select Committee hearing documenting the teach-in and its impact on those who participated – some of whom will join policy innovators and community leaders in testifying on behalf of innovative policy and programmatic solutions that are already helping to improve the health and success of boys and men of color throughout the region.

Subsequent hearings will take place on the following dates:

• March 2, 2012 – Field Hearing (Los Angeles)
• April 13, 2012 – Field Hearing (Fresno)
• August 2012 – Final Hearing (Sacramento)

PolicyLink would like to thank the following organizations for their help in coordinating last weekend’s teach-in:

• Movement Strategy Center
• The California Endowment
• Youth Radio
• Oakland Kids First
• AYPAL
• Intertribal Friendship House
• Concerned Black Men of Oakland
• Youth UpRising
• Youth Together
• Center for Third World Organizing
• The Urban Strategies Council
• Urban Peace Movement
• Center for Young Women’s Development
• The Unity Council
• Beats, Rhymes and Life
• New America Media
• Lyfe Productives
• Fenton Communications
• Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
• Spanish Speaking Citizens’ Foundation
• East Oakland Building Healthy Communities
• East Oakland Youth Development Center
• McCullum Youth Court

For more information on PolicyLink efforts to improve outcomes for Boys and Men of Color, please visit www.policylink.org/bmoc.

To learn more about the Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color, contact Larry Broussard, Chief of Staff, or Angela Haywood, Legislative and Capitol Director, Office of Assemblymember Sandré Swanson at (916) 319-2016.

What do you think are the greatest challenges facing boys and men of color in California and across the nation? Tell us in the comments below, or join us tomorrow as we “live-tweet” from the Oakland hearing.

“As stated in the well-respected national research organization Policylink’s recently published paper, ‘public and private-sector leaders need to recognize that preparing the change in population for the needs of the modern economy is the key to our future and must make investments that allow all people to maximize their potential … [B]y building the capabilities of those who are furthest behind, America not only begins to solve its most serious challenges but also creates the conditions that allow us all to flourish … equity and growth need each other more than ever.”

Read the full article and let us know what you think? What will work in Minneapolis? What will work in YOUR city?

The major idea of America’s Tomorrow – that a policy agenda centered on growth-with-equity is the best way forward – is hardly radical.  The entire report is full of practical, common sense remedies to the current economic crisis. It should be a no-brainer. But it isn’t, because there are political forces in our country that demonize the very idea of equality, who stigmatize government as inherently inefficient, who think that if families struggle to find jobs, earn a living wage, and pay the mortgage it is their own fault, and who believe that there is no such thing as the common good or the public interest. In recent years, these forces have gained ground in the political world and in the battle of ideas.

But recently these forces, including the Tea Party and its allies in business and politics, have been in retreat.  The Occupy Wall Street movement helped change the national conversation. At kitchen tables, in coffee shops, in offices and factories, and in newsrooms, Americans are now talking about economic inequality, corporate greed, and how America’s super-rich have damaged our economy and our democracy. The wide gulf between the richest one percent and the rest of Americans hasn’t changed during the past year, but Occupy Wall Street has made it a major topic of discussion across the nation.

The question now is whether a coalition of conscience can take advantage of the new mood in the country, which has created openings for unions, community organizations, faith-groups, and fair-minded elected officials to promote the “growth-with-equity” agenda. What’s need now is a broad movement that can translate the ideas in America’s Tomorrow into the world of politics and policy. Expanding much-needed public infrastructure, creating good, green jobs that pay a living wage, and advocating a progressive fair tax system should be the rallying cry of grassroots activists and the litmus test issues in the upcoming 2012 elections. The urgent ideas in America’s Tomorrow offer a blueprint for the next New Deal.  Can we seize the opportunity to make it happen?

Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. He is coauthor of Regions That Work, Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21^st Century, and The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City.  His next book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20^th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame, will be published by Nation Books in the spring of 2012.

• Choice Neighborhoods will receive $120 million to create communities of opportunity with stable affordable housing, up from $100 million last year.
• Healthy Food Financing Initiative will receive $32 million–$22 million through the Department of Treasury, and $10 million through the Department of Health and Human Services–to expand access to healthy food in low-income communities. USDA will be able to use additional resources for related efforts.
• New Starts will receive nearly $2 billion to expand public transportation systems across the country, an increase of over $300 million from last year.
• Prevention and Public Health Fund will receive the full $1 billion authorized through the Affordable Care Act, including $280 million for Community Transformation Grants, which support community-level chronic disease prevention and the promotion of health and wellness. This is a $135 million increase from 2011.
• Promise Neighborhoods will receive $60 million to support communities of opportunity centered around strong schools, based on the principles of the Harlem Children’s Zone. That’s up from $30 million in 2011, and $10 million in 2010.
• The Sustainable Communities Initiative, which helps communities plan for their future economies and implement major infrastructure investments, will receive $2.6 million for operations–but will not receive funding for the grant program.
• The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) will receive $500 million to create multi-use transportation hubs.

Inspired by the model of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Promise Neighborhoods wrap children in high-quality, coordinated health, social, community, and educational support from cradle to college to career. This successful program is exactly what we need to break the cycle of generational poverty, but Congress may not agree.

Congress is currently negotiating the FY 2012 budget, and funding for Promise Neighborhoods could be eliminated.

Tell Congress to keep Promise Neighborhoods off the chopping block.

We’ve already begun to see the remarkable strides of communities building Promise Neighborhoods throughout the country. Last year, 21 communities started planning Promise Neighborhoods with grants from the Department of Education, and this year over 200 communities applied for $30 million in grants to plan or implement Promise Neighborhoods.

Send a message to key Senators and members of Congress to make sure Promise Neighborhoods stay funded so children in every community have the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed.

On Tuesday, President Obama made a major speech from Osawatomie, Kansas on what he called the “most defining issue of our time:”  restoring growth and prosperity for all Americans. Taking aim at the alarming growth of income inequality in this country, his speech hit on many themes lifted up in our framing paper, America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model. Here are my relections:

• A perfect diagnosis of the problem. Our economic model is broken: the middle class is shrinking and economic opportunity has dimmed. The Occupy movement gave voice and action to our national unease: an economy that benefits the few and exploits the many is unfair and unjust. Inequality is not only a moral issue, but also an economic one. Inequality is not only bad for those at the bottom; it is bad for everyone. The one percent depend on the 99 percent: who else would patronize their stores and buy their services? To put it simply: we all do better when we all do better.

• A fine start on solutions. We must advance policies that foster an economy that works for everyone. This means getting our financial house in order and setting up a tax structure that allows us to make investments in the infrastructure and education we need to secure the nation’s economic future in the global economy.

• Don’t forget America’s Tomorrow. We are quickly becoming a majority people-of-color nation and yet there remain wide disparities. Among children born poor in 1968, 45 percent of white children climbed to the middle class or beyond, but only 26 percent of black children experienced the same upward mobility. A successful economic growth strategy will pay particular to communities of color who’ve never had a fair shot at making it into the middle class and were hit first and worst by foreclosures and the economic crisis. Their future is our future: we must make choices that allow them to reach their economic potential.

We applaud the President for shining a light on these very important issues, and making clear what must be done to secure a bright and equitable future for everyone.