Leadership Day and the Human Rights Dinner are once a year back-to-back events celebrating leadership in the movement to end poverty.
Leadership Day is a day for members to come together, share updates, plan ahead, and have our Leadership Council election. Harbor workers, stadium workers, friends and family gathered at the Presbytery of Baltimore. We reflected on where we’ve come, the victories we’ve won and the current fight for Fair Development at the Inner Harbor. We assessed the steps we’ve taken, from declaring the Inner Harbor a “Human Rights Zone,” to taking our demands to the top of the profit chain to harbor developers, Cordish and GGP, from staging a community-wide participation play on “Our Harbor Day,” to taking the campaign on the road with Poverty-Zone Reality Tours to New York and Chicago, from demanding that the ESPN Zone do the right thing, to calling out Hooter’s and the Cheesecake Factory out on rampant wage-theft practices. But Leadership Day is not just a reflection on specific actions that we’ve taken, but the leadership that has got us there and the leadership that will be needed to both secure human rights demands for all harbor workers and build a larger movement to end poverty led by the poor.
We often look for lessons in human rights history, like when we prepared for the Living Wages Hunger Strike, we looked to Cesar Chavez and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. This Leadership Day, we looked at the victory for human dignity that was secured by the people of Egypt. We discussed the unity, courage, and willing sacrifice demonstrated by their collective actions to overthrow an oppressive dictator. When we see people unite and organize under incredibly challenging circumstances, it gives us hope that we too can make human rights history, again, and that each of us has a critical role in making this history. GGP and Cordish might not be listening now, but we have faith that they will come to the table with workers, because we will not stop exposing the human rights violations, uniting and organizing ourselves, and connecting with consumers, faith leaders, students, and other community allies.
These conversations prepared us to take on the task us electing new members to the Leadership Council. The Leadership Council is the all member decision-making body of the United Workers and each year at Leadership Day, members elect or re-elect leaders to this body. This year, five members were elected to the Leadership Council bringing the Leadership Council to a total of 19. After the election, we broke up into small groups to plan how everyone can participate in the United Workers as leaders through our “End Poverty Radio” Program, membership-driven fundraising and community outreach.
With little time between Leadership Day and the Human Rights Dinner, we all quickly worked together to transform the room into a vibrant dinning hall. Smells of delicious Creole cooking filled the air as Generations for Peace and Democracy, who catered the evening, began setting up the buffet table. As guests arrived, they were greeted by the lovely sounds of singer and labor organizer, Pam Parker, and guitarist, Richard Miller. Members, family, and community allies mingled, talked, shared stories, and laughed together over an incredible meal.
Janice Watson, a leader from the ESPN Zone, opened the dinner with a poem she wrote called, “Rich Man, Poor Man.” Her poem touched on the “Rich Man’s” unwillingness to look at the “Poor Man” and acknowledge him as a person, valuing his personal possessions above human life. It had a ring of familiarity to it, as Cordish and GGP have failed to acknowledge the well-documented cases of human rights abuses at the harbor and work with workers to make the Inner Harbor a place that benefits all.
Juan Paredes, a Cheesecake Factory cook, and Michael Coleman, Leadership Organizer, gave a Human Rights Zone Campaign update showing photos and videos. They also laid-out what’s next with the release of our Fair Development Report in April and our Fair Development Conference in the Fall.
Then we came to the graduation ceremony for the Poverty Scholars and New Organizers Program. Raquel Rojas, former Cheesecake Factory cook, graduated her first year of the Poverty Scholars Program and entered into her first year of the New Organizers Program. Armando Tema completed his second year, graduating into the final year of New Organizers. Both read speeches about their experiences in the program and the analysis and skills developed through this leadership development program. Raquel spoke about the challenges of coming to this country and having to leave her children behind so that she could make a better life for them. She connected the organizing at the harbor that she is doing as part of making the world a better place not only for her children, but for future generations. Armando spoke about how he used to believe that he was just a low-wage worker, who, despite his hard work, was to blame for his own poverty. Now after careful reflection on the root causes of poverty, he knows he is a leader and that all of us have the potential to be leaders in this movement.
But the major highlight was Veronica Dorsey, who became the very first person to complete all three years of the Poverty Scholars and New Organizers Program. She reflected on her journey as a leader: the challenges, the triumphs, and lessons learned. She ended her speech with her own catchy rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s classic, “People Get Ready.” But when she approached Luis Larin expecting to get her diploma, she was told she had to wait just a little bit longer. Rev. Roger Scott Powers of the Light St. Presbyterian Church came up to give Veronica a special gift, a copy of the Poverty & Justice Bible, to lead her in her organizing. But even with bible in hand, she didn’t get her diploma just yet. There was one last thing. A slide show with music played showing photos of Veronica from every event she took part in, from her very first protest at Camden Yards with short hair and coordinated yellow outfit to her at the Human Rights Zone March with her arm in a cast shouting into a megaphone. The room rejoiced in her accomplishments and then the moment finally came and she got that diploma!
It was really hard to top that, but we kept going to announce this year’s Human Rights Champions. Each year one member and one community ally is selected. From the membership, we strayed a bit from tradition. Instead of acknowledging just one person, the Human Rights Champion Award went to the ESPN Human Rights Committee, because it was their incredible unity and familial love for one another that made them such a force. On the community front, we honored Ron Kipling Williams, a long-time reporter and cultural producer, who has demonstrated time and time again his commitment to grassroots movement building.
At the end of this spirited program, Peter Sabonis with Legal Aid asked everyone in the room to help in sustaining the Poverty Scholars and New Organizers Program by making a one time donation or becoming a monthly sustainer. This Human Rights Dinner we raised over $3,500, almost doubling what we raised last year. Our goal is for the Poverty Scholars and New Organizers Program to be completely sustained by donations and free from dependency on foundations. So, far we are a little more than a third of the way towards sustaining one Poverty Scholar in the program. To help us get closer to this goal, you can now make a one-time contribution or become a monthly sustainer by donating online.
A movement is a community of leaders organized around shared values that builds on the actions and sacrifices both large and small of each person in that community. It was a marathon of a day that left us with our hearts and minds filled with the reminder of our power and potential. A power and potential that can unite harbor workers and connect with others around the shared fight for Fair Development!
‘ Movement. The MST has led more than 2,500 occupations of large estates in Brazil, leading to the settlement of around 370,000 families on the land. Janaina’s work focuses on the struggle of landless women.
