- Autobiography
- A Break in Family
- Childhood Years
- Judging People on My Experience
- At Home
- Parents, Home, Neighbors
- Early Lessons about Race/Ethnicity
- Early “Organizational” Life
- Church and Christian Contradictions
- Silent Prejudices
- Classes and Class
- College & the Beginning of the End of Innocence
- War without War
- A Lesson in Manipulative Power
- Decision for Ministry
- Preparing for Ministry
- Academic Major at Amherst
- Extra-Curricula Learning at Amherst – Enter Bill & Alice Wimer
- Unrecognized Introduction to Feminism
- Sylvia
- Andover Newton Theological School
- Church Pastorates
- Denominational Staff Ministry
- Wakefield
- From “Black Problem” to “White Problem”
- Stealth-Like Learnings: “Sexism”, “Racism” and Institutions
- Shifting Sands of Faith Demand Action
- Advancing “dis-ease”
- Changing View of the World
- The New Beginning
- Genesis of Community Change, Inc.
- The Early Years at CCI
- Boston’s Struggle for Equal Schools
- Attention to National Issues
- People Participating = Hope
- Enter: James Baldwin
- White Identity Challenged
- Urgency Requires Anti-Apartheid Action
- Suburban Operations Simulation
- Police Brutality
- Local Organizing and Seeking Ways to Combat Racism
- The Move to Boston
- “People”, “People”, “People”
- Moral Man and Immoral Society
- The “office” not an “OFFICE”
- Probing History Moves to the Center of Work
- Affirmative Action
- Little GIANTS
- Expanding the Work
- National Day of Mourning
- Chinatown and Beyond
- “People” not “leaders”
- 1492 Becomes 1992
- Harassment of Black Leaders
- Immigrant Action
- The Photography Collective
- Following (not very well!) Freire
- Enter Derrick Bell
- Using “Privilege to Subvert “Privilege”
- Becoming a Historian
- On the Trail Where Yesterday Inspires, Challenges Today
One nationally known blind man, Dr. John Langston Gwaltney’s book , Drylongso, became the inspiration for the Community Change Drylongso Awards, begun in 1989. As Libbie Shufro and I shared lunch, we began to name people we honored for their consistent dedication to anti-racism work. We wanted to lift up individuals who were not often publicly recognized. That discussion led us to our library and to Dr. Gwaltney’s book. Together we read excerpts from it and found stories of remarkable people who lived quiet lives of dignity and resistance in the face of oppression; they are the “Drylongso” of the world. Thus was born the Community Change Drylongso Awards, celebrating people who have been called “ordinary” people doing “extraordinary” things. We were purposeful in the beginning NOT to recognize those who had already been noted and made notable by public attention. We wanted to name the “Drylongso” people of Boston.
Commensurate in purpose with Drylongso, and with the concept of our library as an “Oasis”, we began inviting people to “bring lunch” and to engage in conversation. Emerging from these gatherings, came the anti-racism “Brown-Bag” lunch program, with focused discussion around the work of a particular person or group. The “Oasis” was becoming a place of purposeful networking and planning.