Truth & Reinvestment Program Elements

Background & Rationale

In 2015 CCC Action together with Jobs with Justice, the Center for Popular Democracy, the Working Families
Organization and the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human launched Putting Families First: Good Jobs For All.
The central idea of Putting Families First is that everyone who wants to work should be able to secure a good job.
These organizations developed a platform about the interdependence of improving job quality, creating new jobs,
tackling racial bias and gender discrimination and targeting investments to communities that have experienced chronic
disinvestment all of which need to change in order to deliver good jobs to everyone that wants to work.

In mid-2015 the coalition agreed to focus our joint efforts on the demand for investment in communities that have
experienced racial bias, wealth stripping and chronic disinvestment and when possible link efforts to divest from over
policing and mass incarceration and redirect dollars to job creation and improved job quality.

In early 2016 CCC Action together with PFF coalition partners, other national groups and a set of field partners
undertook a series of events in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. These events, which
included two presidential forums, were designed to present several parts of the PFF platform but they placed emphasis
on a demand for a federal investment of at least $200 billion a year in target communities. Independently Neighbors
Organizing for Change (NOC) organized the Black America Presidential Forum in north Minneapolis. The forum used a
reparations framework to advance the divest-invest idea. In the days following these events the two leading candidates
for the Democratic Presidential nomination shifted their public statements to align closer with these proposals.

Linked Program Coming from Racial & Economic Justice Formation

Simultaneously another formation that includes the Ella Baker Center, Jobs with Justice, DEMOS, ROC and ENLACE have
been meeting to design coordinated program around these same matters of divesting from systems of oppression and
winning investment into better job quality, more job creation, education and infrastructure for low income communities
of color. CCC has joined this coalition and is enlisting our partners including our mass incarceration partners, our
economic justice partners and our allies from the Interfaith Organizing Initiative (IOI)** to take part in development and
implementation of a coordinated program.
** The IOI is a collective effort of committed denominations and religious bodies, congregation-based organizing
networks, and funders with two goals that work to move their own faith institutions to be engaged in public life for
the sake of justice and to build power requisite to win on justice issues at the national level. In the last several years the
IOI has been a force behind increased calls for criminal justice reform.

Narrative Shift / The Idea Of Moral Panic

The work ahead is not simply a battle of policies, but a battle of ideas. We must continue our efforts to shift the
dominant story about our criminal justice system and about our communities. Organizations involved in this effort have
been talking about how to shift societies triggers or moral panic. Is it possible to shift the set of ideas or panic that
has been used to degrade and contain people of color: namely that black and brown people as deficient, violent,
criminal, and thereby worthy only of disrespect, disinvestment, exploitation and containment. Could we instead create
panic about the things that we believe should be unacceptable? Can we create panic when young children lack
family, when they dont have enough to eat, when we see men and women being disappeared from their communities
through incarceration; through detention and deportation; through chronic unemployment; through addiction ?
 Draft Program Elements
A. July 4th Launch ( Campaign name TBD )
Use the anniversary of Frederick Douglasss famous speech on July 4th in 1852 to raise questions about
the state of racial injustice in our economy and criminal justice system
A series of well-orchestrated press events at sites that are symbolic of disinvestment
Possibly a series of sermons/ talks literary in faith institutions
Impacted people, Faith, political, labor leaders
Coordinated social media

B. August 4th Reclaiming the National Night Out Nights of Safety and Liberation
Counter dependence on policing strategies ( surveillance, neighborhood watch, etc. ) as the best
approach to neighborhood safety
Promote ideas & propositions around more targeted investment in communities
Engage elected officials and other grasstops
Coordinated Social Media

C. Mid August Late September - Truth, Justice, and Reinvestment Town Halls and Teach-ins
Events include exercises designed to allow people to engage in unapologetic truth-telling about their
own experiences
Events include presentation of information to expose fiscal, social, structural, and physical violence that
people have experienced in their communities
Events may include engagement of city, state or federal officials / candidates for office
Could be paired with grassroots ambassador trainings
Predominantly anchored by one group but also presents limited opportunities to invite sister
organizations to present
Ideally linked to some direct action - Bold and unapologetic protests/actions/events

D. October 8th or 9th - Large Scale Truth, Justice and Reinvestment Summit- St. Louis
Modeled on earlier forums this would be larger scale and involve regional and some national turnout
Media would be designed to poke at the Presidential debate scheduled for Oct 9t in STL

E. December 5-7th Post Election Convening

Election Analysis
Opportunities for Reflection on advancement of reinvestment and immigration agendas
Opportunities for field tables to meet
Meetings with incoming administration and Congress

F. First Hundred Days

Ongoing delegations of grassroots leaders and organizers to DC
Possible vigil / actions
Meetings with new administration & Congress