- 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
Much of the urgency we felt in the beginning years of Community Change was rooted in response to Apartheid and to the Vietnam War. We joined the anti-war protests calling “for white people to disassemble those racist institutions that cannot change, and to redirect their resources to support oppressed peoples of the third world …it is the peoples of the third world who are the vanguard in the struggle for a human future. The hope for the white minority is to find a place in that future.” Viewing the international scene and the involvement of our nation, it was easy to connect the war in Vietnam and the different wars in southern Africa.
Part of our organizational work against Apartheid was to support the Boston-based Polaroid Revolutionary Movement, publicizing and critiquing the failure of Polaroid to abandon policies which gave support to the Apartheid rulers of South Africa.
Apartheid was also a priority for many church groups, and in the early days of CCI, my connections with the United Church of Christ were central. We joined in the formation of a South Africa Task Force of the UCC. We challenged the churches to become involved in a boycott of Gulf Oil, at a time when we felt that company was contributing to sustain colonial powers in parts of Africa. Corporate responsibility was an issue, and we joined coalitions working to influence the Trustees of Harvard University to divest from financial support of Apartheid regimes. The names of Chris Nteta, Ndabaningi Sithole, Gideon Mhlanga, Margaret Marshall, Ann Hope stand out as people who were mentors in the process of that work.