The Grassroots DC offers digital storytelling workshops to community-based social change organizations. Here’s one that was produced by Grace Ebiasah, a member of Different Avenues.
Hi, I’m Grace and I work with a non-profit organization called Different Avenues. The mission of Different Avenues is to build and share leadership skills as well as to organize to make change and improve and protect the health, rights and safety of women and girls in this region and thus nationally. One of the ways we do this is by making digital stories.
I think creating a digital story could be of a help to Different Avenues because most people in my community have different views and perspectives of different sorts of things that can have an effect on there everyday living and there daily life. Most people that I have run across in my 19 years of living on this earth have not discovered a reasonable way to cope with there anger and frustration and to get their points across. Some people feel as if they’re all alone and that they have no one to call on and that their voices and actions are never heard. I truly believe creating a digital story can help them find out who they truly are inside and also help people to make a difference.
Workers Rally at Giant Food in Greenbelt, Maryland
When you buy a box of cereal or a roll of toilet paper from a Giant in Maryland or the District of Columbia, chances are those products were stored at a warehouse in Jessup, Maryland before they went to your neighborhood grocery store. More than 500 employees of that warehouse in Jessup are in danger of losing their jobs. Giant plans to turnover operations of the shop to a notoriously anti-union company, C & S Wholesale Grocers, who will more than likely outsource the work to a non-union warehouse in Pennsylvania. This fear is justified by C&S’s closure of a distribution center in Woodbridge, N.J., which resulted in more than 1,000 layoffs.
To stop the loss of area jobs, hundreds of grocery and wholesale workers held a rally at a Giant in Greenbelt Maryland last Sunday, March 13, demanding that Giant respect the community that supports it by employing locally. If you weren’t able to attend the rally but recognize that the loss of jobs in the region is none too good for the local economy or if you feel solidarity for the workers because you yourself or someone you know has been or is at risk of being outsourced, you can at least keep yourself informed thanks to the following audio report produced by Netfa Freeman: Giant Food Worker Rally
For more information on the campaign itself and how you can get involved go to the Justice at Giant campaign website.
Giant is hoping this little maneuver will save them $10 million annually in non-labor costs. Turnout at the rally was perhaps better than it’s been for most labor demonstrations because of events taking place in Wisconsin, Ohio and as far flung as Egypt and Tunisia. It seems that workers around the world are finally coming to the conclusion that those of us on the relatively far Left have understood for a long time––the corporate oligarchies that control our economy don’t really have the best interest of the working- and middle-class at heart. Our elected officials, who are bought and paid for by those same oligarchies, will put the interests of their corporate masters ahead of the electorate every time.
So, when corporations like Giant Foods and elected officials like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and DC Mayor Vincent Gray say, “times are tough. We all have to take a hit.” We know they don’t really mean we as in everyone, todo el mundo. This may seem like common sense to your average progressive, but we haven’t been good at convincing most of the working- and middle-class of these facts. By bailing out those that caused the worst economic calamity since 1929 and having no empathy for the rest of us, our elected officials are making the case for us.
The sizable rally against Giant and the support for striking nurses at Washington Hospital Center are ripples of this growing realization that we are feeling here in the District of Columbia. Will it translate into a growing fight against austerity measures proposed to balance the city budget? Will more people get on board the effort to keep the city from selling off publicly-owned properties to developers or stop the corporate take over of public schools?
We as individuals cannot be at every rally. We cannot stay on top of every issue but we can get the word out about the events that we are able to attend in just the same manner as Netfa Freeman. Netfa Freeman is a volunteer radio producer at WPFW. He co-produces the public affairs program Voices With Vision. I am quite pleased to announce that he will be teaching a radio production class for the Grassroots Media Project which will meet on four consecutive Wednesdays starting March 23, 2011. There schedule is as follows:
Wednesday March 23 ……………….. 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Wednesday March 30 ……………….. 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Wednesday April 6 ……………………. 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Wednesday April 13 ………………….. 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Class will be held in the media lab at Empower DC, 1419 V Street NW, from 6-8pm. To sign up, email the coordinator at liane@grassrootsmediaproject.org. There are only six slots available.
If this movement that we are finally seeing is to be sustained, it will need a voice. Sign up for this radio production class and help give the movement, locally at least, the voice it needs to sustain itself.
Gentrification has a tendency to spread and as it spreads, communities turn over. Examples of racial and economic integration, which we all hope will be the result of urban development, are truly hard to find. In the 1940s & ’50s Anacostia was white and believe it or not, Georgetown was black. While it may be unlikely that Georgetown will ever be affordable enough to sustain a majority black population again, Anacostia may revert to it’s previous status. For much of the last decade many long-term residents of DC (black, white and Latino) who at one time lived in Northwest have sought more affordable homes east of the river. With the recession still in full force in Wards 7 & 8, a considerable number are heading even farther east, across the border into Maryland. Who will remain?
One black-owned DC business that will not be relocating to Ward 9 (Prince George’s County) is Stewart’s Funeral Home. In an exploration of gentrification and those who are able to survive it, Brenda Hayes and Be Steadwell produced the following audio report: A_Home_Away_From_Home. It’s clear that Stewart’s Funeral Home is part of a legacy within DC’s black communities of taking care of their own that stretches from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement. But will that tradition last now that the black majority of the District of Columbia is dwindling and will soon cease to exist?
Video producers Judith Hawkins and Valencia Rutledge of Valencia’s It Is What It Is Mobile Talk Show make the case that it is not only African-American business owners who have been established for decades that will survive. The tradition of fulfilling the needs of the community within the community remains, despite the neglect that accompanied the flight of the middle class after integration. Their report on gentrification features a businessman who sells his wares on the street. No, he doesn’t deal drugs, but if you can’t afford a brick and mortar store, then pounding the pavement and taking the product directly to the consumer is one way to go. It may not make him rich, but it will keep him in his Ward 8 home.
The stories featured in this post show the kind of tenacity that’s necessary if native Washingtonians or immigrants from other parts of the country or other parts of the world are to strengthen their roots here and survive gentrification. To rebuild a sense of financial security among the middle class, working class and even low-income residents of DC, we must push for real economic opportunities that extend not only to for-profit developers but also to residents whose investments in the community represents more than just the all mighty dollar but the true wealth of the District of Columbia.
Gentrification is a funny thing. The developers who bought up all the property along the U Street Corridor staked their fortunes on being able to attract wealthy individuals looking for a central location to live and shop. They capitalized on the history along the corridor and named buildings and businesses after DC’s most famous African-Americans. Ironically, they attracted a whole slew of white folks who seem to think the cultural history of DC is cool, but the low-income and working class black folk who are alive and well today don’t always make the best neighbors. Thus, a neighborhood like Shaw, which was for decades a bastion of the black middle class, who came together to build a sense of stability within a deeply segregated city, remains stable only for those African-Americans who bought and paid for property before the housing bubble or those who are extremely well-heeled.
And so it was with the U Street Corridor. Only three U Street businesses between Georgia Avenue and 16th Street survived the riots of the 60s, the neglect of the 70s, the housing boom and the coming of the U Street/Cardozo Metro Station. Those three businesses are Lee’s Flower and Card Shop, the Industrial Bank of Washington and Ben’s Chili Bowl. How they survived is chronicled in the audio podcast 192 Years of Black B’ness on U Street produced by Brenda Hayes and Be Steadwell. The report makes it clear that although these business owners are thriving now, that was not always the case. For those of us attempting to withstand the harsh winds of gentrification, it is a history well worth remembering.
The Grassroots DC is all about community media. Valencia’s It Is What It Is Mobile Talk Show is as community media as community media gets. With nothing but a flash video camera and access to the internet, co-producers Valencia Rutledge and Judith Hawkins have presented Southeast DC and PG County to the world in a way that the mainstream media could never accomplish. Their work is raw–mostly unscripted, unedited interviews of the people they meet on the street or community members trying to make things better. They made some effort to polish their work by taking classes at DCTV, but found that the prices were too high. What does it mean that even the public access station isn’t accessible to everyone? Making community media takes commitment. Making community media without technical or financial support is only accomplished by the most determined. Having worked with Judith and Valencia on their editing skills for a little over a month, I can say that the word determined describes them perfectly.
I’m posting just a few of their videos here for your consideration. If you live east of the river, watching their videos is like checking in with your neighbors. If the other side of the Anacostia is like a foreign country to you, then be prepared to have your assumptions challenged.
Valencia’s & Judith’s Corner
Valencia and Judith speak to audience about their concerns for the surrounding communities and make a pitch for financial support, so they can continue their work.
DC Shootings!
Valencia and Judith return to the scene of shooting.
Homelessness in DC
Being homeless is no picnic.
N-PUT FEEDS THE NEEDY AND THE HOMELESS
Have you heard of the N-PUT Organization? I didn’t think so. Community groups doing positive work in Southeast DC aren’t commonly on the radar of our most common news sources.
DC Evictions
This was the first video that Judith and Valencia edited at the Grassroots Media Project lab. There pitch for financial support did not garner enough support, and Valencia was evicted.
To continue following the adventures of Valencia and Judith on Valencia’s It Is What It Is Mobile Talk Show, subscribe to their Youtube channel @ iiwiitalkshow111.
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