At the intersection of Philanthropy and Tech: Sharing my perspective at ACT-W

This first in a series of blogs will focus on what tech, as a sector and a community, gets right. The three big ideas: how the philanthropic sector can maximize impact with better technology, developing a more generous attitude toward risk and how philanthropy can invest internally by creating an open and mentoring work culture that spreads beyond the bounds of the individual workplace.

In July, I had the opportunity to speak at ACT-W Portland, the annual conference for our city's local ChickTech chapter. My talk, "At The Intersection of Philanthropy & Tech," was about the ways I think the tech industry is ahead of philanthropy, the things it can learn from philanthropy, and areas where both industries need to work together for the betterment of society. Last year, I attended my first ACT-W conference, when I was just beginning to get my head around the idea of being a "techie": I was three months into learning Python and a year or so into developing websites.

I was inspired by the conference and its unique mix of high-tech, person-centered and down-to-earth sessions –– so much so that –– this year I wanted to share my thoughts at this particular conference because I've been working at the intersection of tech and philanthropy, and I see the gaps in-between what each sector wants to accomplish and what they are currently achieving. Furthermore, I wanted to provoke and facilitate a conversation on this subject and felt that ACT-W was the right venue, as it brings together socially-responsible minded people rooted in tech.

The idea of better systems is close to home, because Meyer has maintained an in-house grants management system since 2004, when we decided to move toward digital. Technological advancements within the past decade have provided significant growth in tech products aimed at the philanthropic market and I think the future promises us not just the tools to do our jobs but also tools that will make philanthropy more effective. For example, data visualization platforms and real-time data platforms (as an alternative to traditional grant reporting) are already in the works. Just imagine how the entire conversation about the U.S. 2020 Census and the importance of an accurate census count could be changed if funders didn't need to rely on census data collected once per decade. Additionally, projects such as Grantmakers.io are utilizing APIs and caching tools to create more transparency in our sector, which is great news for nonprofits –– because it's 100 percent free –– and great news for the public, who deserve to know where philanthropic dollars go.

Philanthropy's attitude toward risk needs a shakeup.

As a sector, we tend to be risk-averse, which is funny, since our primary goal is to lose money. Foundations that have roots in tech are modeling the big-bet approach to philanthropy. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is best known for global big bets on eradicating malaria and ensuring family planning and reproductive health care for all women. However, they also invest heavily (if quietly) in the Pacific Northwest, specifically in helping marginalized people secure education that leads to high earnings. They describe this work as "big bets in innovation." I'd call it equity, because it is looking not just at getting marginalized people into the workforce or into traditional university education, but also intentionally striving to build their long-term power. Another example of big-bet philanthropy is Michael & Susan Dell Foundation's annual expenditure of 15 percent of its assets, as opposed to the industry-standard (and legally required) 5 percent. In 2017, Fast Company profiled Dell Foundation's risky spending, their influence and their impact investing strategy as it relates to broader sector trends.

Finally, I think the way that the tech industry invests in people is absolutely phenomenal. From hosting weekly Meetup groups to participating in and supporting conferences like ACT-W, the people of tech are wholeheartedly engaged in sharing knowledge, mentoring and moving folks into the fold. Techies understand that the future success of their sector — and of society — depends on developing more programmers. If that sounds hyperbolic, consider cybersecurity expert and "Future Crimes" author Marc Goodman's warning: reserving high-level knowledge for an elite task force will only ensure that the bad guys stay ahead of us in matters of personal, institutional and national security.

I have personally experienced this supportive culture and learning environment: through groups such as Women Who Code and Latinx Tech PDX; through mentorship, encouragement, and being given advice by tech professionals; through free learning platforms such as Khan Academy, GitHub Labs and edX; as a member of the LaunchCode community; and from organizations such as ChickTech, who provided an interface for me to engage and platform for me to connect and share with peers. All of this has happened free of charge and within the past 18 months.

Philanthropy has nothing on this! I think it's time our sector got strategic about how to recruit, mentor, and retain instead of assuming that there are a finite amount of jobs in grantmaking and no one ever leaves them. I managed GRANTMAKERS of Oregon and Southwest Washington's jobs board for more than three years, and I know that's not the case. People move through our sector from government, academia, nonprofits and for-profits all the time. Philanthropy needs to consider doing more than the occasional diversity pipeline or leadership program (most of which don't result in getting folks of color into leadership).

If the idea of funders stationing a booth at a career fair or hosting a Meetup for folks interested in learning about grantmaking seems totally wild, it says something about our sector and the value we place on investing in people. That's not a message I want us to send.

If you're a funder and this blog feels like a total downer or if you're a techie patting yourself on the back for being awesome, stay tuned. I have more thoughts on how our sectors can work together. I think philanthropy has a lot to teach the tech industry about deploying resources for social good, and I think engaging tech in this work is one of our most pressing tasks.

Rhiannon

Photo caption:  Participants at the 2018 Advancing the Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W) Conference in Portland smile and wave in anticipation of their next workshop activity.

Photo caption: Participants at the 2018 Advancing the Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W) Conference in Portland smile and wave in anticipation of their next workshop activity.

News Category
By and About
News Menu Category

Affordable Housing Initiative: Changing the statewide conversation around housing issues

Meyer's efforts to help better inform and align work around affordable housing in Oregon are a good example of how philanthropic funders can deepen their impact. A recently completed evaluation of 2017 efforts under our Affordable Housing Initiative (AHI) describes the effectiveness, results, limitations and lessons learned from AHI grants related to advocacy, policy and systems change.

Kristina Smock Consulting prepared the evaluation based on a review of grantees' report documents, interviews with key partners involved in affordable housing and related work, and discussions with Meyer staff.

Meyer began the Affordable Housing Initiative in 2008 in part because we recognized that housing is an essential foundation for thriving families and equitable communities, and we wanted to engage in a more focused and systems-based way with partners working on housing issues. In recent years the statewide shortage of affordable housing (even for people working full time), the vulnerability of low-income households to eviction and a rise in homelessness have become front-page issues.

Meyer always understood that dollar-wise we are a small part of the puzzle when it comes to addressing those issues and that helping inform and influence public policy and larger systems issues are where we can make the most difference.

So how did that work out last year? The full report is worth reading, but we think key takeaways include:

  • Foundations and philanthropic funders clearly can support important policy and advocacy efforts without running afoul of legal constraints on lobbying.
  • Targeted grants have successfully elevated and amplified the voices of low-income Oregonians most affected by housing issues, including people of color and culturally specific organizations.
  • There are longer-term and more immediate and tangible targets in the area of policy and systems-change and it's important to work on both tracks.

Meyer-supported housing advocacy saw real wins in 2017, including a commitment from the state of Oregon of an additional $150 million for affordable housing and new policy initiatives from the state around preservation and manufactured housing. At the local level, several Oregon cities adopted construction excise taxes to support affordable housing and are engaged in lively debates about reducing unnecessary land use and zoning barriers to housing development. Stronger tenant protections and reform of the mortgage interest deduction fell just short in the Legislature, but both of those issues (and the advocates urging positive change) will surely be back.

Meyer also funded several collaborative projects across the state attempting to better align and coordinate housing and services, including areas such as health care, diverting families from foster care and early learning.

The report also highlights some of the grass-roots work Meyer has supported to help mobilize, organize and connect specific communities suffering most from the state's lack of affordable housing, such as Community Alliance of Tenants, Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, Unite Oregon and the Urban League of Portland.

Looking forward, we take to heart some of the lessons and challenges you'll see in the report:

  • Strengthening advocacy is a long-term project: doing it right requires a sustained, multi-year commitment and reasonable expectations about the pace of change and what "outcomes" can be easily documented. What we're really trying to build is a durable and effective constituency around the state to support affordable housing issues emerging from different communities.
  • Aligning systems is easier said than done, and we're still in a learning mode about the best ways to support collaboration across silos, re-structure incentives and overcome barriers to sharing data, resources and power.
  • External/environmental conditions matter: despite our efforts, the steep rise in housing costs and changes in federal policy make this work (and opportunities for leverage and collaboration) even more urgent.
  • Research and evaluation are important in this work: understanding what kind of data and evidence motivates decision-makers and funding it is essential to effective advocacy!
  • Meyer should be alert to opportunities to collaborate more with other funders; while advocacy can be a touchy or intimidating area for some organizations, more funders are hearing urgent messages around housing issues from their own stakeholders and we can do more to find areas where our priorities overlap with others.

As the Affordable Housing Initiative's current iteration wraps up in 2019, we expect to share more evaluation and reflection on the past five years and how that shapes Meyer housing efforts going forward. As always, we welcome your thoughts and suggestions on how we can be more effective and responsive partners!

–– Michael

Photo caption: Oregon State Representative for District 47 Diego Hernandez responds to questions posed from immigrant community leaders at Elders in Action’s Housing Alliance forum

Oregon State Representative for District 47 Diego Hernandez responds to questions posed from immigrant community leaders at Elders in Action’s Housing Alliance forum.

By and About
News Menu Category

Building relationships with Oregon Tribes

Last year, Oregon's Point in Time Count recorded that Native Americans are significantly overrepresented in Oregon's homeless population and the least likely to be sheltered of any community counted. Indigenous communities are facing substantial housing disparities in our state and we need to do more. As Meyer continues to work toward our mission of a flourishing and equitable Oregon, the Housing Opportunities portfolio seeks to understand the unique challenges that face our indigenous communities and what we can do to better serve them.

Although Meyer has funded Native organizations that work on affordable housing, such as the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA), until recently we had never funded the efforts of Tribal Nations to house their members. Meyer's housing portfolio is committed to building lasting relationships with tribes in order to partner with them in their housing priorities, educate ourselves about Native housing issues and advocacy priorities, and understand the challenges of housing development and homeownership that many tribes face.

Earlier this summer, Meyer collaborated with the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians to convene a group of foundations and tribal housing representatives from across Oregon for a roundtable discussion about how philanthropy can support the ongoing housing work of tribes across the state. As a newcomer to the sector, it was intriguing to hear how disconnected many tribes felt from philanthropy as a whole. One person stated the impression that tribes were not eligible to apply for philanthropic support. It was clear that foundations must do more than just harbor the idea of engaging with tribal entities: we must actively work to earn a relationship of trust, respect and partnership.

The Housing Opportunities portfolio is making strides in our journey to support our Native communities, and the convening was just a start. In 2017, we joined the Northwest Indian Housing Association as an affiliate member and have attended several quarterly meetings around the Pacific Northwest. We continue to visit directly with tribal governments and housing departments to build relationships and understand their specific priorities. As a result of this focus, we have developed deeper connections and pathways of communications with tribes and began making grants to tribal housing entities: The Klamath Tribes through our Affordable Housing Initiative Systems Alignment RFP in 2017 and capital funding to the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in 2018. We are so honored to have supported these projects, but we still have a long way to go to strengthen our relationships with tribes across the region and we are ready to learn.

–– Lauren

The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians welcomes the Oregon Funders Panel
By and About
News Menu Category

Exploring approaches to advancing DEI

Exploring different ways to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a core interest to the Building Community portfolio and Meyer.

Over the past two years, we have pursued two topics in depth with a select group of grantees through a learning process called "Nonprofit Sector Support" (NSS). With one group of 11 grantees, we had the opportunity to think about how leadership development-related programming can advance equity. In a second related cohort, we had a chance to work with 22 groups interested in advancing equity through work as capacity builders or providers of technical assistance to others.

Grantees gave us great insights and real time examples of this work in action. We have also been learning how this work takes shape in different parts of the country (more on this below). With this knowledge, we have started to synthesize our findings, and our program officer, Carol Cheney, will be sharing them in the coming months. A few headlines from what we have gathered through our NSS effort about how to advance DEI through leadership development and support for capacity building:

Strategies that are working well:

  • Lifting up multiple ways of knowing
  • Focusing on healing and the intersections between issues
  • Challenging and reframing dominant culture narratives
  • Sharing stories as a capacity-building strategy
  • Creating intensive experiences for peers to learn together and from each other
  • Creating multiple opportunities for the end-users or ultimate beneficiaries to help shape programs, provide feedback and define success
  • Cross-sector relationship building (e.g., across public, private and nonprofit sectors)
  • Building advocacy skills and providing opportunities for participants to take part in public policy

Areas of persistent challenge:

  • Taking time to build relationships and trust
  • Connecting across distances
  • Inadequate resources to meet needs
  • Entrenched systems of white supremacy
  • Challenges in accessing influential networks and building power together
  • Fear and mistrust based on the political environment

Racial Equity to Accelerate Change Fund

This past year, Meyer joined with nine funders from around the country to establish a new initiative called the Racial Equity to Accelerate Change (REACH) Fund. At the heart of REACH is an interest in advancing promising practices for supporting nonprofits interested in addressing issues of racial equity and inclusion.

Being part of REACH is tied to the reality that Meyer's grantees and applicants are paying heightened attention to DEI in formulating and achieving solutions to entrenched problems. In recent years, we have experienced a significant increase in requests from leaders for capacity building support to advance DEI both within their organizations and in their program work.

For many of our grantees, creating a more inclusive and equitable society is at the heart of their missions and the reason they do their work. For other organizations, a renewed commitment to DEI flows from an increasing awareness that fulfilling their missions requires that they understand and embrace these issues. Wherever grantees may be along this continuum, they increasingly are seeking help with these issues.

Although this growing attention to DEI is promising, a steady stream of events in recent years has made it clear to many Americans how far we still have to go. A surge in white supremacist, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes has startled a nation that had come to think of these attitudes as relics of a more distant past. Rolling back laws and policies that represent hard-won civil rights, such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, is also increasing. The extent to which racism is still deeply entrenched in America has been thrust into view, and increasing numbers of people believe that achieving racial equity is one of the most important challenges of our times.

Against this backdrop, the nonprofit and philanthropic sector is also confronting troubling data that, even in our own sectors, we need more traction. Several studies reveal that the diversity of nonprofit boards and executive leadership has hardly budged for decades even as the diversity of the country has grown significantly. The underrepresentation of people of color on boards and in executive leadership is stark when viewed alongside the racial composition of the communities we serve, and it means that the work of these organizations is not benefitting from all available talent, perspectives and experiences.

In a values-based sector that largely argues for fairness and equal opportunity, we need to do better. This means not only working harder but also trying new approaches.

Toward that end, REACH Fund is seeking participants for its first cohort of racial equity practitioners. Participants will receive grants of $50,000 - $150,000, which will be applicable to both general operations and on-the-ground racial equity support to nonprofits (either new or existing clients). More information about this opportunity can be found here.

— Dahnesh

Participants in the Building Community portfolio's recently completed Nonprofit Sector Support Leadership Development Learning Collaborative.

Participants in the Building Community portfolio's recently completed Nonprofit Sector Support Leadership Development Learning Collaborative.

Portfolio
By and About
News Menu Category

Take action to support an accurate 2020 U.S. Census count

The 2020 U.S. Census is coming, and by now you may have heard that it's slated to include a question about U.S. citizenship status. That question has implications for the accuracy of the count, and the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the count has implications for all of us.

Indeed, census data have a tremendous effect on distribution of resources. In 2015, more than $10 billion of federal funding was allocated to Oregon based on census data. Census data are also used to determine sites of schools and other infrastructure; businesses regularly use the data when deciding where to locate and invest. The shape of our voting districts and allocation of representative seats in government draw upon census data. Perhaps your organization refers to census data, too. Meyer does.

Data collected in 2020 will have far-reaching impact, so anything that gets in the way of a full and accurate count is concerning. It is widely believed that asking about citizenship status will suppress U.S. Census participation. Immigrant communities, who already experience real consequences of harsh public discourse and policy, are very likely to be undercounted as mistrust of the government keeps many folks from answering Census questions, regardless of their own citizenship status. We're hearing this directly from community leaders we've spoken to.

Oregon's attorney general has joined a lawsuit with 17 other states seeking to bar inclusion of the question. And you can take action, too.

The Commerce Department, which oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, is accepting public comments about the 2020 survey. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, NALEO Educational Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice are working collaboratively to encourage nonprofits and the public to submit comments before the August 7 deadline. They've created a simple portal at CensusCounts.org to make the process as easy as possible. I used it to submit comments myself in just a few minutes.

–– Erin

The 2020 American Census Survey
News Category
Portfolio
News Menu Category

ICYMI: Mid-Coast joins PSU to study views on water

The city of Newport and Portland State University are partnering to collect information from coastal communities about how they view water issues.

Newport News Times wrote about the new partnership for collective input from Oregon coastal communities:

“It’s Oregon’s Kitchen Table, which is through Portland State University. The city received a grant of $185,000 from the Meyer Memorial Trust for the collective policy or collective process to determine what are the long term best practices for dealing with the watershed in Lincoln County,” said Spencer Nebel, Newport’s city manager. “This is part of the pilot project that’s being funded by the state as well.”

Data collection is crucial to ensuring the well-being of human and natural communities and reducing environmental harm. A two-year grant from Meyer's Healthy Environment portfolio will support this project's efforts to ensure that natural systems are healthy and able to adapt to changing conditions and long-term impacts in the Mid-Coast region.

The port of Newport Oregon.
News Category
By and About
News Menu Category

Meyer sets lofty housing target: the “1 Million Month Challenge”

Meyer will select a small number of projects to develop innovative approaches to housing affordability in Oregon, with initial grants of up to $125,000 available early in 2019 and potential follow-on grants in 2020 to further develop the pilots and broadly share results of the work.

Defining the problem

Meyer prioritizes stable, safe and affordable housing as one foundation of a more equitable Oregon. A shortage of housing generally has driven up rents and home prices across the state, and for those unable to earn enough to pay for even very basic housing without help, the consequences can be life-altering. A growing body of research shows that housing instability contributes directly to poor performance in school, difficulties getting and keeping a good job, and poor health outcomes.

Our tax code and social policies invest billions into housing in the form of property tax deductions (for mortgage interest and property taxes) that mostly benefit affluent households. For poor people, people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, and people of color, public investment (outside of prisons and jails) has been rather less lavish.

Even at that, publicly subsidized affordable housing has long been under intense scrutiny around cost. Hardly a week passes without a new article or news segment challenging the ostensibly high cost of new affordable housing. The urgency behind that concern is understandable, as the gap continues to grow between the demand for affordable housing and the public investment necessary to meet the need. There's no doubt we must look for ways to get more from every public dollar going into affordable housing.

Beginning in 2015, Meyer has sought to play a constructive role in this conversation, convening 16 experts as the "Cost Efficiency Work Group" and producing a report aiming to clearly articulate the factors that tend to drive up costs in affordable development and to focus on real opportunities to bring down costs.

Part of this work is a communications challenge. Subsidized affordable housing is different in significant ways from market-driven real estate development, and there are constraints that are beyond developers' control that make it easy to put affordable developments in an unflattering light for those unfamiliar with the special nature of this work. There's also an important conversation about tradeoffs between long-term lifecycle costs and upfront construction costs -- building smart for the long term is not necessarily "inexpensive."

Still, in the face of urgent unmet need and a widespread skepticism about government's ability to respond effectively, it's critical to achieve as much as possible with the limited amount of public subsidy available. Although it's unlikely there's a completely novel "silver bullet" approach to creating affordable housing no one has ever thought about or tried before, it does seem worthwhile to support exploring new ways of looking at these perennial issues.

Changing the frame: focusing on the big-picture outcome

In mid-July 2018, Meyer will release a Request for Proposals that builds on our recent efforts to support innovative work around how to provide more affordable housing by lowering costs. In 2015-16, we awarded funding to five projects looking at different approaches to bringing more housing online at a lower cost, and we continue to follow that work with keen interest.

For this RFP, we wanted to open the doors even wider to innovative ideas and approaches and to focus more clearly on the end goal: creating as much access as possible to affordable housing for as little public subsidy as possible. To that end, we are defining a "moonshot"-style challenge, focusing creativity and energy around a specific, lofty goal.

The 1 Million Months Challenge ("1MM"):

Bring us your best ideas for guaranteeing 1 million months of affordability, using as little public subsidy as possible.

This takes a bit of unpacking. There are many possible paths to 1 million months; here are some potential examples to illustrate the kinds of ideas this could include:

  • Piloting an approach to build, site and deliver new factory-built units meant to be affordable for 20 years that would aim for just under 4,200 units (240 months x 4,167 units = just over 1,000,000 months of affordability)
  • Creating affordable units for 60 years with lower rents through cross-subsidy from other income-producing uses in the same properties, aiming to scale up to about 1,400 total units (720 months x 1,389 units = over 1,000,000 months)
  • Maybe your best idea doesn't involve building any new housing? Exploring a sustainable approach to master-leasing new units in the private-market for five-year increments, staggered over time, to assist nearly 17,000 households five years at a time (60 x 16,667 = over 1,000,000)

The key point is that we are leaving it up to people who know the most about these challenges to define how to reach the goal. We're framing the goal this way to emphasize flexibility and focus on the outcomes:

  • Flexibility: This is less about developing "projects" than creating a viable model or path; we are explicitly open to purely financial strategies that deliver on the outcome of creating more access to affordable housing.
  • Outcomes: We are not necessarily focused on production of units (although more housing is important, and some strategies will rightly focus on that), but rather on the end-goal of housing large numbers of people for an extended period of time.

Finally, it's worth highlighting that we're pulling the focus away from the raw total development cost to focus on what really matters most: the amount of public subsidy required to achieve the goal.

Unlike a typical Meyer RFP, we're not looking for affordable housing projects per se, but a model or path that changes the game. You could say we're trying to "get out of the way" of solving these problems, by putting as few limitations as possible on what counts as a solution. We're calling the question for those who insist that the current system doesn't deliver bang-for-the-buck and there are better ways to do things. Ultimately, the point of this RFP is to give you an opportunity (and some resources) to take an idea or a notion or intuition that you've been thinking about and build it out to a full-fledged plan, test it, improve it and share it.

Sharing ideas, results and lessons learned will be a central part of participating in this experiment. Project teams funded under this RFP will be expected to participate in a learning cohort with each other, sharing and critiquing ideas, and helping each other refine and improve each model. Additionally, Meyer will create a variety of platforms and public events to highlight this work, to broaden the circle of folks around the state trying to think about these challenges in a different way and improve upon the ways we help people into housing they can afford, and ultimately to help public funders and other partners identify new models and approaches worth their support.

About the RFP 

The strongest proposals will be invited to submit more detailed proposals in the fall, with decisions and grant funding in early 2019. Grantees receiving funding under this RFP will be eligible to request follow-on implementation grants to be awarded in early 2020.

Finally, because it matters who is being helped and how much rent they are able to pay, and because there are distinct challenges in this larger context of cost and efficient use of subsidy, Meyer has defined three categories under the RFP and hopes to make awards in each:

  1. Hard-to-House or Extremely Low Income: Housing solutions affordable to people/households between 0-30% Area Median Income (AMI), and/or designed and specifically intended to assist populations with significant challenges around access to affordable housing:
    • Transition Age Youth exiting foster care
    • Immigrants and/or refugees
    • People of color
    • Indigenous communities and tribes
    • People with disabilities (including severe and persistent mental illness)
    • Domestic violence survivors
    • People released from incarceration or people with a criminal record
  2. Rural Workforce Housing: Housing solutions intended to serve residents of rural communities up to 100% of the local AMI. "Rural" in this context means any community not located within one of the federally defined "Metropolitan Statistical Areas": Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, Salem, Eugene-Springfield, Medford, Corvallis, and Bend.
  3. The Open Challenge: Housing solutions affordable to households at or below 60% AMI that do not fit in the other two categories.

Applicants will be asked to specify one of the above categories when they apply. Meyer's intent is to make at least one award in each category, depending on the quality of proposals received.

For more answers, check out this recording from our 1 Million Month Challenge Information Sessions or contact me directly at michael [at] mmt.org (michael[at]mmt[dot]org) or (503) 228-5512.

–– Michael

The application deadline for this RFP was 5 p.m., on Tuesday, August 13, 2018.

Preview this RFP

Cost Efficiencies: 1 Million Month Challenge RFP details

  1. Information sessions
  • Funds will be awarded in two stages: 

    • Concept Development (early 2019)

    • Implementation (late 2019 or early 2020)

  • For Concept Development, Meyer expects to award grants ranging from $75,000 to $125,000 (up to $550,000 in funding will be available in this stage.)

  • Grantees awarded Concept Development funds under this RFP will be eligible to for Implementation grants (up to $1.2 million in funding will be available.)

  • Final award decisions are expected in January 2019, with first-year payments released in February 2019.

Meyer staff will present an overview of the RFP and be available to answer questions at two information sessions:

  • Tuesday, July 24, 9:30-11 a.m.
  • Monday, July 30, 3:20-5 p.m.

Both information sessions will be held in Portland at Meyer’s office (425 NW 10th Avenue, 4th floor); interested parties may also participate by telephone conference. Visit our official event page to RSVP.
 

Funding Timeline

Oregon needs new, bold ideas to solver our affordable housing problem.

 

1 Million Month Challenge

Close card stack
Whats your idea for more cost efficient affordable housing?

Oregon needs new, bold and innovative ideas to solve our affordable housing problem. What's your idea?

News Category
By and About
News Menu Category

Spotlight on male Latino educators: Marty Perez

A key outcome for the Equitable Education portfolio is increasing workforce diversity in public K-12 education. We're always on the lookout for research and programs with the ability to grow our knowledge about this important equity issue. That's why an article from ED Weekly focused on building a pipeline of male Latino educators caught our attention. The article highlighted barriers that male Latino teacher candidates face when deciding to enter a teacher preparation program, challenges they may face while teaching within the education system and targeted programs designed to support their success. Latinx students make up about 25 percent of our student body nationwide, but only 2 percent of our teachers are male and Latino. In this blog series, inspired by creating a more reflective education workforce, I'll share recent interviews I've had the privilege to engage in focused on the unique experiences and perspectives of male Latino educators in Oregon. All the interviewees for the series are male Latinos, spanning the education profession but with commonality in their purpose and struggles. We hope by sharing their stories and their insights, we'll be able to draw attention to the great value male Latino educators bring to public education and help to spark conversation around the state toward recruitment and retention of this rare and impactful population of educators.

The first interviewee in our series is Marty Perez. Marty is an accomplished educator; he's been teaching for almost a decade at both the middle and high school levels. He is dedicated to the teaching profession, dual immersion programming and closing the achievement gap. He is vice chair of the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission representing secondary educators and serves on the Oregon Governor's Council on Educator Advancement, where his valuable insights helped to shape the council's November 2016 report. The son of a Mexican American immigrant and a Klamath tribal member, Marty has spent his life navigating a bicultural, bilingual family while striving to promote academic excellence through Latino and Native representation in our public schools. Currently he teaches high school Spanish in the Portland area. This interview has been edited.

 

Bekah Sabzalian:

What inspired you to enter teaching?

 

Marty Perez:

I was about ready to finish my undergraduate degree in 2008, and I was looking for my next chapter, my next step. I had spent all this time and energy into a four-year degree in Spanish literature. I got a minor in business, and then I got a second minor in economics. I was very vulnerable about my next stage in life, and thankfully, I heard about the Sapsikwala teacher training program at the University of Oregon. I decided, "Hey, I could be an educator. I could be a teacher, and I think that I could be a pretty successful Spanish teacher." That is exactly what I did. I applied for this federally funded program and received a letter confirming my admittance.

That was when all the chips were in for me to become an educator. I decided that if somebody was going to pay for me to be a teacher, if somebody was going to invest in me for a certain mission or a vision, then I'm going to try to hold true to their investment for as long as I possibly can. I was committed to teaching in schools with Native American populations. I've taught in Alaska, California and Oregon.

Another moment when I knew education could be a calling was when I was a sophomore and junior in high school. I used to tutor fifth- and sixth-graders through the 21st Century Community Learning Program, which used federal money to provide supplemental resources to students in the areas of math and English, and I enjoyed it. It was maybe one and a half, two hours after school. I was making enough money in that moment to pay for my car payments and some gas, and I felt like it gave me this experience that wasn't too formal. I was able to interact with kids on a different level, that wasn't this teacher level. I felt like I had ways to communicate the tricks to navigate certain benchmarks, or content standards, or whatever the function may be; I felt that I was able to convey a message that it was attainable.

 

Bekah Sabzalian:

It sounds like when you decided to pursue teaching, it was in a supportive program.

 

Marty:

You know, I really read through the Sapsikwala mission statement and materials; my experience echoed 90 percent of the statistics that were stated. Growing up in small rural town, Tulelake, Calif., I had zero educators of color. To reference the Ed Weekly article, I could really relate to the teacher, Angel Magana, making a connection with other people of color in the school building who are not in an educator role. My mom was an instructional assistant, or a teacher's assistant, who worked in the school system: In my eyes, the roles that people of color are carrying out in schools, day-in and day-out, are just as important as a teacher, principal or politician. Without them and their work, the school environment would not function.

In the graduate program, we were a cohort within a cohort. Thankfully I had that experience. I just felt like when I was in the Sapsikwala program, there were some twenty-odd Native American educators who were pursuing the same dream, trying to envision the same mission that was set before them. That support definitely led to my success.

 

Bekah:

Once you became a teacher, how did you find support?

 

Marty:

As a first-time Spanish teacher, I was living in Anchorage, 3,000 miles away from everything I was familiar with. I quickly became friends with the school secretary, the custodial staff, the people who were holding down the "service" positions within the school. That made my time there bearable. I also was a very gregarious person; I reached across different departments and found friends in the math, special education and English departments. I tried to make sure that everybody knew that I was here to not only be an educator, but also to make those connections that would ultimately make me feel like I belonged in the building. They did an excellent job at Mears Middle School in Anchorage.

But if we were to analyze the teaching staff by race, there were only a handful of educators of color among close to 80 staff members. Most of the them were working in the world language department and or in the Indian education program.

 

Bekah:

I love that example about how you just built community so you could stay.

 

Marty:

And I had to.

 

Bekah:

You're from a culturally and racially blended family. How has that affected your approach to teaching?

 

Marty:

My dad worked in agriculture for 30 years. My mom, the only one of eight in a Native American household who graduated high school, has been extremely impactful. They've both affected my approach to teaching because I feel like their stories are often left out of text books; they're left out of examples; they're left out of conveying a message that the work that they put in to the system is ultimately as important as any other profession out there. I will often reference my dad and my mom when I teach and when I bring up certain concepts, especially talking about strict parents or Latino experiences. My students truly understand and love and have validation from that perspective.

 

Bekah:

Your mom is from a Native tribe and your dad was born in Mexico?

 

Marty:

My mom, myself and my daughter, we are from the Klamath tribes. We're of the Modoc Tribe, and my dad is from a little, little place in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. His town is called El Mezquite Grande. He came when he was 12 or 13 to the United States and has been working in agriculture ever since. He taught himself how to be a mechanic. He can barely read or write but he can tear apart huge heavy machinery and diagnose a problem and fix it. He is self taught, which is incredible. Such resilient genes reside in myself and my daughter, but don't ask me to fix anything. I will save that for the experts.

 

Bekah:

What's kept you in education all these years? What makes you hopeful for Oregon's education system?

 

Marty:

You know, I will say, I always think back to the Sapsikwala program and their vision and mission of getting indigenous educators inside classrooms to teach indigenous students and other students of color in a way that is missed by the majority of the teaching field. I wanted to stay true to the mission, and they invested a lot of money in me to become an educator. Even though they only asked us to make our repayment for a few years after we received our degree and our license, I sometimes have a hard time letting go because somebody has invested money in me. I was given an opportunity, and I feel grateful for it.

I also feel like what keeps me in my current position is my department. I couldn't ask for a better department, and when we spoke about my community that I formed in Alaska, I've been creating this community in every position since. I feel like I have a community at my high school. I don't have to explain myself when I am upset regarding something I just heard or some micro-aggression that I just had to deal with. They get it, and they don't only get it in real life, but they're able to convey that "it" in a different language as well. I think it's remarkable to know that the community, the department, has helped me stay in a difficult environment.

What originally hooked me at my school has kept me there: the students. I saw a lot of students of color who were poor on the socioeconomic scale, but they were rich in knowledge and they were so wealthy with grit and they wanted so much for their family. They wanted so much for their community, and they were determined to get it. Knowing that I helped them keeps me hopeful and fuels my desire to continue in the teaching profession.

 

Bekah:

How do you help your students navigate experiences that they have, that they feel are discriminatory or they feel are microaggressions?

 

Marty:

I've had a lot of students come up to me, and they say, "I see you as that angry uncle who will go to bat for us. I see you as that strict father that we know, if we step out of line, we will get reprimanded or get corrected in some way." I will put my title on the line when it comes to helping students sort and navigate a system that was not designed for them.

I have many students bringing problems and dilemmas to me that are often never repeated to anybody else, other than maybe their parents. They share with me and I bring it to my administrator's attention, and I think it's important for them to know that they have an advocate, an ally and a teacher on their side. I won't be the one to tell them, "I think you're stepping in the wrong direction or you're overreacting to something that wasn't meant to be big." I will always try to validate their perspective and their concern. I try to give them the tools that they need to be successful, in order to graduate on time.

 

Bekah:

We have big gaps, right? We have made some progress but the achievement gaps between students of color, English Language Learners, students with disabilities, they've remained consistent. We've never reached a point where we've had a representative teacher workforce that matches the students. But we do know that where there are highly skilled representative teachers, there is positive achievement for students of color. We do know representation and culturally responsive teaching works, we just haven't gotten there yet.

 

Marty:

I think that a lot of what is achieved by having students taught by educators of color is often something that is hard to measure. How do we measure that positive cultural shift? How do we measure the ability to reflect on your own person, see a teacher leader who looks like you, can understand your struggles and because of this, know that you're not confined to entry-level positions?

I feel like I would have been content working alongside my dad in the fields and his message to us always was, "Don't ever feel like this work that I do is below you." It is something that is needed, and my dad is probably one of my biggest fans.

I remember when I graduated with my bachelor's degree, he used to tell everybody, "Oh my son's a licenciado." Licenciado has a double meaning: It could be a lawyer or just somebody who has a formal degree. It was almost like that was his entry point into many conversations. "My son is a licenciado; he has this degree." I carry my dad and his story with me, on my shoulders, and I guess he vicariously tells his story through me.

It's beautiful to know that there are so many stories out there in this world that have never been told, they've never been taught in a public forum. It is disheartening and it's sad that classrooms have excluded the stories, cultures and histories of so many of our students. I think all kids, regardless of color, deserve to hear these diverse stories and they also deserve to be taught by a qualified individual who loves their job, a teacher who's passionate about kids and what they bring to the table.

 

Bekah:

Thank you for doing what you do, Marty!

A quote from Marty Perez: I think that a lot of what is achieved by having students taught by educators of color is often something that is hard to measure. How do we measure that positive cultural shift? How do we measure the ability to reflect on your own person, see a teacher leader who looks like you, can understand your struggles and because of this, know that you’re not confined to entry-level positions?

Marty Perez is an accomplished educator; he’s been teaching for almost a decade at both the middle and high school levels. He is dedicated to the teaching profession, dual immersion programming and closing the achievement gap.

News Category
By and About
News Menu Category

Indigenous rights and public lands: A chat with Anna Elza Brady

A key goal of the Healthy Environment portfolio is to support a movement for a healthy environment that is effective and relevant for all Oregon's diverse communities. So we were delighted to have a chance to speak with Anna Elza Brady, an advocate who works to elevate the voices of people and place. Next month, Anna will be speaking on a panel titled “Decolonizing Public Lands” at the University of Oregon Symposium on Environmental Justice, Race and Public Lands. I recently caught up with her to get a preview of thoughts she will share on the panel on Friday, May 11.


Jill Fuglister:

Can you please share a little about the coalition of tribes that have led the Bears Ears protection effort and why this place is important to them?

 

Anna Elza Brady:

From the outset, the effort to protect the Bears Ears cultural landscape as a national monument was developed by elders and local Native American grassroots citizens and later led by a historic coalition of sovereign tribal nations. Five tribes — the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, and the Ute Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation — came together as sovereigns in 2015 and, with a unified voice, called on the president of the United States to designate 1.9 million acres of shared ancestral homelands in southeast Utah as Bears Ears National Monument.

As I have heard expressed time and again by tribal leaders and elders, the Bears Ears cultural landscape is important to the five tribes because it is the dwelling place of the spirits of the ancestors. For those peoples who have inhabited these lands since time immemorial, the spirits of the ancestors are still very much alive in the Bears Ears landscape. When tribal members travel within Bears Ears, they are visiting those who have come before, who walked these lands, harvested its foods and medicines, and left their stories etched in rock. Archaeologists estimate there are over 100,000 cultural and archaeological sites within Bears Ears National Monument — the densest and most well-preserved concentration of such sites anywhere in the United States. For the coalition of tribes that led the effort to protect Bears Ears National Monument, these sites are not simply objects of study: They are the resting places of the Ancient Ones. In this way, the Bears Ears region is sacred and must be safeguarded accordingly.

Bears Ears is also important to local people because it serves as a key source of essential natural resources, including firewood, medicinal herbs and food plants such as pinyons. In the arid desert southwest, Bears Ears is a sort of island ecosystem, providing habitat for a variety of plant and animal species, many of which are not found elsewhere in the region. Jonah Yellowman, a Navajo elder and spiritual leader who has lived in and around the Bears Ears region since birth, explained to me in 2014 how Bears Ears is “our grocery store; it’s our pharmacy.” Jonah also taught me about nahodishgish, the Navajo word for wilderness, meaning literally “places to be left alone.” Nahodishgish recognizes that some landscapes are meant to be used by human beings and others should remain as they were created: untrammeled places from which wild life emerges. Native peoples of this region know that the Bears Ears landscape — the rugged terrain of canyons and mesas fanning up from the sacred confluence of the Colorado and San Juan rivers — is a place of healing and renewal for all people and all beings.

 

Jill:

In what ways is their organizing approach different than other national monument/public lands protection organizing efforts, particularly those led by mainstream environmental organizations?

 

Anna:

The tribes’ organizing approach around Bears Ears National Monument has been fundamentally different than other public lands protection efforts, in part because of tribal peoples’ profound history and depth of relationship with these lands. The tribal leaders continually express and bring to bear the central role of culture and spirituality that has driven the vision of Bears Ears National Monument from the very beginning. Tribal leaders aren’t simply advocating for a place they find beautiful or enjoy visiting from time to time. They are giving voice to the land — its plants, animals, waterways, weather patterns — that has sustained their peoples since time immemorial. Bears Ears holds the songs and stories of their past and the seed-in-promise of their future. In that way, the organizing effort around Bears Ears National Monument has been a reaffirmation of identity.

I’ll never forget something that Willie Grayeyes told me on my first day helping out with the Bears Ears initiative in 2014. Willie is the board chair of UDB (Utah Diné Bikéyah) and a Navajo elder and grassroots community leader from Naatsisʼáán (Navajo Mountain). Willie is also a former Navajo Nation council delegate and currently serves on the Bureau of Land Management’s Utah Resource Advisory Council. Willie has long, silver hair that he wears bound in a traditional Navajo bun, a tsiiyéé?, and he is both quick-witted and wise. Our Ute Mountain Ute board members have teasingly nicknamed him gamuch, which means jackrabbit. Willie has been a thought-leader of the Bears Ears initiative since its inception. It was he who articulated that Bears Ears has always been first and foremost about healing. That notion has been an orienting and unifying compass for the entire Bears Ears Coalition throughout the long journey to protect and defend Bears Ears National Monument.

On that first day, I was timid and quiet, listening and observing, not wanting to impose or offend. I had written an essay about the fledgling vision for Bears Ears National Monument, and to my surprise (and mild alarm) the executive director had given copies to all the board members. I remember Willie Grayeyes approaching me late in the day, my essay in his hands. His eyes were on mine, unwavering, as he leaned in and told me, in his signature growl, both fierce and patient, “Don’t be afraid to say it’s spiritual.”

The tribes have never shied away from saying that protecting Bears Ears is ultimately a spiritual journey of healing: healing the relationship between Native peoples and their ancestral homelands, between tribes and the federal government, between people and the Earth. Organizing takes on a whole different feel and purpose when it rises out of the long history and deep spiritual connection that Native cultures and communities have with the land. Such a spiritual orientation cannot be manufactured, nor should it be co-opted. Yet individually and collectively, we all share an inimitable bond with the Earth that sustains us. Starting from that space, and constantly nourishing and returning to it, has made tribes’ organizing approach around Bears Ears uniquely resonant and powerful.

 

Jill:

Do you see some of this approach reflected in public lands protection efforts in Oregon? If no, what’s a missing piece?


Anna:

That’s a tricky question. I have not been as intimately involved in public lands protections efforts here in Oregon as I have been in Utah (even as an Oregonian!). From what I saw and knew of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument designation effort, as well as the ongoing Owyhee Canyon National Monument initiative — both areas very worthy of federal protection — tribes have not been nearly as involved as the five tribes at Bears Ears, much less in the lead.

That said, a significant facet of recent public lands protection efforts here in Oregon has been the defense of public lands against the armed takeover of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in early 2016. Perhaps the most potent and resounding response to that bewildering occupation was the Burns Paiute Tribe’s statements on behalf of the 190,000-acre wildlife refuge, which lies within the their ancestral territory. Tribal Chair Charlotte Roderique cogently pointed out the irony of the armed occupiers’ claims to be returning federal public lands to their “rightful owners”: “This is still our land, no matter who is living on it.” Chairwoman Roderique told reporters, “Armed protesters don’t belong here. By their actions, they are endangering ... our sacred sites.”

Chairwoman Roderique’s words rang out across the globe, exposing not only the narrow hypocrisy of the Bundy-esque perception of the commons, but the narrative of settler colonialism that has underwritten natural resource management and allowed the Malheur occupation phenomenon to take root and persist. The Bundys’ rallying cry to “return federal lands to their rightful owners” — i.e. Euro-American ranchers and resource extractors — rings hollow in the face of Chairwoman Roderique’s resoundingly simple statement about true belonging: of people to place, rather than the other way around.

If there’s one piece that’s missing when it comes to efforts to protect public lands, in Oregon and throughout most of the country and the world, it’s this idea of letting tribes lead. Getting out of the way, stepping aside, making room for other voices to rise in their own time and in their own way. Listening: that is the biggest takeaway from the Bears Ears process, and it’s right there in the name — Bears Ears. Native people listened to the land, tribes listened to one another, and the federal government listened to the sovereign tribal nations — for a time anyway.

We’ve got to learn to listen, and not just when it’s convenient or comfortable or happens to behoove our mission or our egos. Rather than approaching tribes and Native communities with ready-made solutions, the first step that the conservation community and mainstream environmental organizations can and should take is to recognize tribes as sovereign nations with complicated modern histories and carefully guarded, highly nuanced traditional knowledge about ancestral ecosystems, organisms and lands. Then organizations that are really ready to be in it for the long haul might patiently seek to cultivate relationships and build trust with tribes. Show respect for tribal protocols and observe tribal chains of command. Be prepared for long pauses. Talk to tribes before talking about tribes. Start by asking, “What do you need?”


Jill:

What would it look like if public lands protection in the West accounted for the U.S. legacy of colonization and focused on indigenous rights and tribal sovereignty?


Anna:

That would look amazing! In fact, public lands are a natural space for such a reckoning to take place, where truth and reconciliation might begin. As ecologist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer (Citizen Potawatomi) has explained, public lands are ancestral lands after all. Where do we think public lands came from in the first place? Who did they belong to before the National Forest Service or the BLM stuck a sign in them and traced their boundaries on a map? Federal public lands, in particular, are a tremendous seed of reconciliation waiting to sprout.

Under the legal doctrine of the federal Indian trust responsibility, all branches and agencies of the federal government owe a fiduciary duty to every federally recognized sovereign tribal nation and enrolled tribal member. This solemn trust responsibility has been articulated and recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court for nearly 200 years and imposes an affirmative duty of care and loyalty on the part of the federal government toward all 573 recognized tribes and Alaska Native villages. This includes the obligation to protect tribal interests and property.

When we put the two together — the very real fact that virtually all public lands are ancestral tribal territories, alongside the doctrine of the federal trust responsibility (not to mention the perennial underfunding, understaffing, and under-enforcement that federal land management agencies face) — a holistic solution begins to emerge that could help heal the legacy of colonization and honor indigenous rights and tribal sovereignty. What if agencies and administrators charged with managing federal public lands invited tribes to the table and formally engaged the continent’s original sovereigns in helping to oversee and steward their ancestral territories? What if, with the permission and inclusion of practitioners, tribal traditional knowledges began to inform management of America’s public lands? What if tribal co-management of traditional lands and resources was the rule rather than the exception? What if healing historical wounds, inflicted on both people and place, was part of our public lands policy?

That is the vision that was realized through the designation of Bears Ears National Monument, and it’s a model that resonates in our bones and in our bedrock. It also makes sense economically, as the West transitions from a resource extraction economy to a recreation, service and information economy, in which quality of life and climate resiliency increasingly drive decisions about where to live and work.

In this process, tribes have much to teach about renewing humanity’s relationship with the natural world and dwelling in place for the long haul — should we choose to finally listen.


Anna Elza Brady hails from the Olympic Peninsula and has been a lifelong resident of the American West. She has served as co-director of the University of Oregon's Native American Law Student Association and as the policy and communications strategist for Utah Diné Bikéyah, a Native American-led nonprofit, where she supported tribes in securing protection and designation of Bears Ears National Monument. Anna holds a master's degree in environmental humanities from the University of Utah.

View our cardstack to learn more about Anna and the Bear Ears National Monument leaders, here.

MEET THE BEARS EARS NATIONAL MONUMENT LEADERS

Close card stack

Anna Elza Brady with Willie Grayeyes, Board Chairman of Utah Diné Bikéyah.

Local Navajo youth demonstrate the next generation’s solidarity with Bears Ears National Monument during the 2016 Annual Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Summer Gathering.

Source: Photo by Cynthia Wilson

Regional Native youth at the Procession Panel within Bears Ears National Monument during a Native American Youth Cultural Awareness & Leadership Workshop facilitated by Utah Diné Bikéyah in March 2017.

Source: Photo by Gavin Noyes

A listening session between federal officials and tribal leaders from the five Tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, at the Bears Ears meadow in 2015.

Source: Photo by Tim Peterson

The Bears Ears Buttes at sunset with Navajo Mountain (Naatsisʼáán) in the distance. Bears Ears National Monument was named for these distinctive twin buttes, visible throughout the Four Corners region. In the languages of every regional tribe, the names for the buttes translate as ‘Bears Ears.’ (Photo by Anna Elza Brady)

The Bears Ears Buttes at sunset with Navajo Mountain (Naatsisʼáán) in the distance. Bears Ears National Monument was named for these distinctive twin buttes, visible throughout the Four Corners region. (Photo by Anna Elza Brady)

By and About
News Menu Category

Visiting Whitney Plantation, aka Habitation Haydel

I’m standing inside a cabin, a wooden structure too sturdy to be called a shack but with enormous gaps between boards where the mud has worn out. I’m thinking about the bed in this room: Who got to sleep in it? How many of them shared it? Was it even comfortable? The view out the back is of a canal that was dug to keep the ground from flooding — this is swamp land, after all. Our tour guide has reassured us that the resident 6-foot gator, Buford, would probably stay out of our way today because it was too cold for him, and I’m wondering: Did they have to contend with alligators on top of everything else?

The cabin is an original Whitney Plantation structure. It has four rooms, two in front with a double-sided fireplace to warm both and two in back. Inside are a few beds, a spinning wheel, a single chair and a table for eating. It was home to up to 20 people at a time, so there was never any privacy. It strikes me as a sad place to come home to.

By contrast, the “Big House” is a broad structure with bedrooms upstairs, sitting and dining rooms downstairs, and galleries on both levels and both sides. It actually isn’t that impressive in size, and I remember Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil.”  The house is built in a style called Creole cottage: two levels, with rooms only accessible via the galleries. The thing that stands out most about this house is the way the rear gallery functions as a panopticon.

Passion project

Whitney Plantation was opened to the public in 2015, a passion project of retired lawyer John Cummings and the brainchild of historian Dr. Ibrahima Seck. The museum cost about $8.6 million of Cummings’ personal money and took over 15 years to build. I first read about it in 2015, when The New York Times published an article describing the museum as “both educational and visceral.” This assessment, I would say, is apt. Whitney Plantation is America’s first museum of slavery and slaves, and it has changed the region around it. There are many plantations along the “German Coast” that are open to visitors and double as event venues, but until Whitney Plantation, they focused on the white masters’ homes and lives exclusively. Today, the Laura Plantation, a nearby museum focused on Creole women, has a permanent exhibit dedicated to the people who were enslaved there.

The tour begins in the gift shop and visitor center, where guides greet guests before taking them through a series of monuments and historical buildings. Guests are allowed to visit the grounds only as part of a structured tour, as museum guides work hard to control the narrative. They keep those enslaved at the center while they educate visitors about the region, the technologies and the buildings on the site. Many museum employees are former visitors who fell into an uneasy love with the place, and I can understand why. As a historian, I can appreciate the way the museum balanced historical specificity and accuracy with a deeply humanistic intimacy. The emphasis is on names and experiences, not statistics and dates, and I came away having learned and felt in equal measure. I credit Dr. Seck with knowing just how to strike that balance (and I credit John Cummings with knowing enough to begin by hiring one of the world’s top scholars on the subject).

Slavery on the human scale

When we use the word scale in philanthropy, we usually think taking something to its largest and broadest possible configuration. At Whitney Plantation, I got a sense of something I can only describe as the human scale of slavery: shrinking my view of the system down to the level of the personal. I began to appreciate the amount of manpower it took to produce hundreds of thousands of pounds of sugar or to build a levee, using 18th century technology. I understood more profoundly that American slavery was, as Dr. Seck put it, by design “a transfer of technology and know-how experienced for many centuries on African soil” and that “Cajun” and “Southern” foodways aren’t just influenced by West African culture — they are West African.

My thoughts are still unsettled about this experience. I glimpsed something I cannot, yet feel compelled to, describe. I recorded on my heart Lucien and Marie Therese, two babies who share my birthday. Their names were inscribed on the Field of Angels, a memorial dedicated to the 2,200 slave children who died before the age of 3 in St. John the Baptist Parish. I crouched inside a metal prison cell where runaways and those destined for the auction block were crammed.

I also stood inside Antioch Baptist Church. The church was built by the Anti-Yoke Society, an organization founded by freed black people in St. James Parish 8.5 miles down the road, to pay for Christian burials. They built the church as a place where they could worship the way they wanted to, as free men, women and children, and later “biblicized” the name to Antioch. It is the first stop on the tour. Beautiful statues of children, representing the hundreds who were enslaved along the German Coast, sit and stand at intervals in the church. The children are the heart of this museum, and guests are constantly reminded that the violence of slavery was violence inflicted on children.

Finally, I have stood in a garden that memorializes the bravery of the 1811 German Coast Uprising. This memorial is optional, not part of the tour. Visitors are asked to remain silent, and the only sound is the gentle tinkling of wind chimes. Roses bloom on either side of the central installation, a series of sculpted heads on pikes. After the largest slave insurgency in American history, those captured were beheaded and their heads were displayed along the river road. Disturbing and controversial, it too is a part of the history of this particular place.

The area around Whitney Plantation feels a world apart from the vivacity and wealth of New Orleans. It sits amid a dozen correctional facilities in Southern Louisiana. It’s hard not to see the continuity between these systems designed to imprison black people and exploit their labor. The panopticon lives on. Places like Whitney Plantation put a human face on imprisonment and guide us all toward a more empathetic future in which reparations are not only possible, but imperative.

Without a doubt, I would advise everyone to visit Whitney Plantation. As America’s first attempt to deal with the realities of slavery, it gives to the visitor much more than the toll it takes. Until you get there, I recommend the following readings and videos:

Rhiannon

his sculpture represents the longboats that took captives from the shores of Africa to the slave ships.

This sculpture at the Whitney Plantation represents the longboats that took captives from the shores of Africa to the slave ships.

News Category
By and About
News Menu Category
Subscribe to Toward Justice