A Man in Love with his City

 

Walter Kenney (Photo: Cricket White)

When Walter Kenney was elected along with five other African Americans to Richmond's city council in 1977, Ebony magazine declared: "Former Confederate Capital Finally Falls To Blacks." The new political reality provoked stormy debates as the status quo was rocked in a city long known for a "polite silence" on racial matters. But Kenney had been a pioneer for some time as the first African American national vice president of the American Postal Workers Union. He was to serve Richmond's sixth district for seventeen years and as mayor from 1990 to 1994.
 

On December 3, more than 150 family members, friends, and fellow congregants gathered at St. John Baptist Church to celebrate the eightieth birthday of a remarkable public servant. Many paid tribute to Kenney's leadership, courage and integrity, and to his passion for Richmond. "Walter Kenney is in love with this city," said one friend...
 

Kenney, who encountered Initiatives of Change soon after joining the city council, understood that trust is built by those who are prepared to look at their own leadership style: "If I change, if I learn how to care more deeply, or listen more intently, then I bring that to virtually everything I touch, whether it is regional discussions, the national agenda, or settling a neighborhood dispute," he once said. At his birthday celebration, Kenney was uncompromising in his call to the black community to take charge of its neighborhoods and to pay attention to the needs of its youth on issues of education and family values ...
 

It was Walter Kenney's inspiration to create the annual Metropolitan Richmond Day, a breakfast forum which for the past fourteen years has convened hundreds of representatives of non-profit organizations, corporations, local government, education, and faith communities. Kenney also took Richmond's story of racial healing to South Africa, Europe, and Canada and to cities across the United States. In 1994 he told community leaders at Brooklyn Borough Hall: "The mentality of victimhood or guilt-ridden shame anchors us in inaction...Regardless of past or present injustices, we are all responsible for shaping our common future."
 

  

Read the complete story here.

Hope in the Cities Dialogue Takes Root at Wright State University
 

WSU Dialogue Group

 

Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, has used the Hope in the Cities dialogue curriculum for students, faculty, and staff, for a number of years. Simone G. Polk and Jeffrey Vernooy report on recent developments.
 

In 2009 we included the Dialogue as a part of Sociology 442 - Race and Minority Relationships. In this course, students study intergroup, racial, and ethnic group relations including the processes and consequences of conflict, prejudice, and discrimination. Students also participated in a Service Learning placement with social service agencies where they were not members of the majority population. They created a DVD that captured their reflections of the Dialogue experience. In it they speak of creating opportunities to understand "the other person's point of view," "breaking the pattern of ignorance," "taking risks" and "acknowledging the similarities and not focusing on difference."

In addition to the original version of the Dialogue, WSU Dialogue Facilitators hosted, "WSU Dialogues for the 21st Century," which added new dimensions to the curriculum. Facilitators engage participants in an open discussion about their "Multicultural Self" as a way to introduce themselves to their dialogue group and build trust and security. We also conduct the "Privilege Walk," followed by discussion; and we introduce materials and discussion on creating a "More Perfect Union" of a multicultural society of people in the U.S. and the world.  We link understanding, awareness, celebration and appreciation of diverse and multicultural people to the future success of students and staff in leadership positions.

Finally, using the "Personal Commitment Card" in Session 6 of the Hope in the Cities curriculum, participants document their personal commitment to "Be the Change..."  and share the commitment with an "Accountability Partner."...

Comments from students included these: "The Dialogue made me more aware of diversity and how I can do things to overcome negative things and feelings." "Some issues surfaced that helped me understand some mixed feelings." "Facilitators challenged us to look at ourselves..."

Wright State University is a partner of the Dayton Dialogue on Race Relations (DDRR). Over the past decade more than three thousand people in the Dayton region have participated in dialogues using the HIC curriculum.

Simone G. Polk is assistant vice president for Student Services and chairs the Education Subcommittee of the University Diversity Advocacy Council at Wright State University. Jeffrey Vernooy is the chair of the University Diversity Advocacy Council.

Read the complete story here.
 

Caux Opportunities for Summer 2011

Caux, Switzerland

 

"Caux is a world unto itself. And what a world! A mountain village of breathtaking beauty where one can actually experience in a very real way, the ideal world one dreams about. A world where young and old, black and

white, Christian, Jew, Hindu and Buddhist, believers and non-believers, liberals and conservatives live and work together, share experiences, hopes and dreams in peace and an atmosphere of incredible trust for a week or a whole summer." So writes Susan Korah from Canada in the 2010 report of the summer conferences at Caux.

 

The program for the Caux summer conferences 2011 is now available on the web site, and the various conferences have been highlighted in the right column of this newsletter. Of interest to young people are three special opportunities that offer a unique engagement with the Caux experience:
 

The Caux Scholars Program is an international academic program of applied studies in peacemaking and conflict transformation preparing a new generation to be trustbuilders. The program focus is on the moral and spiritual dimensions of peacebuilding and the relationship between individual transformation and change in the world. The 2011 course will run from July 3 to 31.  

The Caux Artists Program is an interdisciplinary summer course in music, music theatre, dance and the humanities that will challenge artists to explore the ethical and spiritual dimensions of the arts, build bridges across different cultures and faiths in the global community, and create a lively and challenging cultural exchange at the Caux conferences. The program lasts three weeks running from July 18 to August 7. 

The Caux Intern Program is an opportunity for young people to experience the full richness of the Caux Conference center, by contributing their service to the conferences and participating in a training program to engage with the needs of the world-thereby developing a deeper sense of where they can contribute. The intern program is divided into two overlapping sessions: June 27 to July 22 and July 17 to August 9.  
 

For more information and to register, check the website. 

For Peace and Reconciliation in Korea

(Photo: Karen Elliott Greisdorf)

 

Dr. Syngman Rhee is the co-chair of the National Committee for Peace in Korea. He has served as president of the National Council of Churches USA (1992-1993) and moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (2000-2001).
 

I was born and raised in Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea. My father was a Christian minister. By the time of the Korean War in 1950, he had been imprisoned along with other Christian leaders. When I was 19, he was killed. One snowy day, at the urging of our mother, my brother and I escaped to the South, walking for a month through the Korean winter. We never saw our mother again. Coming to the United States, I studied as a Presbyterian minister and worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Civil Rights Movement. This caused me to look at the Korean situation in a new way. When I left home I was full of hostility and enmity; I saw myself as one of the oppressed. I learned that the oppressed have the choice of revenge or forgiving and working for a new beginning. This has led me to make more than thirty visits to North Korea since 1978 in efforts to bring about reconciliation.

It is important to recognize that the Korean War never formally ended. Only a temporary armistice suspended the military hostilities in 1953. Millions of Koreans remain separated from their family members, like my own, due to the continued state of war and division in Korea.

Without a permanent peace treaty, the two Koreas have not agreed on mutual recognition of maritime borders, and they lack formal diplomatic channels that could help prevent the escalation of border clashes, particularly in contested waters off Korea's west coast. Those waters have been troubled ever since 1953, when the U.S. Navy unilaterally imposed a ceasefire line at sea, the Northern Limit Line (NLL), north of the Military Demarcation Line on land. North Korea has long objected to this Northern Limit Line, which is not recognized internationally...

Recurring tragic incidents underscore the frailty of the Armistice Agreement and confirm the urgent need for a permanent peace treaty. We should urge President Obama to stop any further U.S.-ROK joint exercises and to recognize that such war-simulation maneuvers inevitably increase the risk of an uncontrollable escalation that would threaten millions of lives... 

On January 5, the North Korean government along with major political parties and organizations issued a common communiqué to the South Korean government, political parties and civil organizations for "Reconciliation and Cooperation for Peaceful Reunification," hoping for a positive response. It appealed for dialogue and cooperation, expressed willingness to meet South Korea representatives anytime and anywhere to discuss relaxation of tensions, and appealed for a commitment to eliminate damaging actions. Unfortunately, South Korea rejected the proposal.

Recent comments by Stephen W. Bosworth, the special representative for North Korea policy, underscore a shift in the American approach to North Korea, away from two years of what the administration called strategic patience marked by a steadfast refusal to engage with the North. Obama administration envoys central to the stalled six-party talks met with their Chinese counterparts and have expressed optimism that serious talks on North Korea would begin soon.

Direct negotiations, as a first step toward a peace treaty, are the one viable option in a heavily militarized region characterized by recurring naval conflicts, disputed borders, and unresolved grievances. The stakes for peace in Korea are enormous, and the time for a genuine peace process is now.

 

Syngman Rhee spoke in Caux in 2002 about his vision for reconciliation. 

 

Read complete commentary here.