‘Environmental organizations in America have mostly tried to color within the lines, lines that the establishment has drawn. However, a new movement, though it rejects violence as a tactic, also does not play nice.’
Learn from defeat. Think big. Follow the money. And organize, organize, organize.
East New York has long faced problems like poverty, disinvestment and crime. Now its worries concern gentrification and displacement. In a neighborhood confronting so many different risks, what role can community artists play?
Advocates using Theater of the Oppressed techniques are turning an empowerment tool developed in South America in the 1970s to homeless policy issues, with HUD and City Councilmembers in the audience.
As housing justice advocates across the city review the outcomes in East New York, many say the results attest to the power of community organizing, especially when stakeholders put forth detailed policy alternatives.
Art has been part of the response to the killing of Eric Garner and other incidents. But artists with a political message can face challenges finding space to show their work and reaching the audience that ought to see it.
A long subway ride from the Lower Manhattan epicenter of the Occupy phenomenon, community activists in one Brooklyn neighborhood are trying to translate the movement’s goals into local action.
A coalition of economic advocacy groups wants a federal bank regulator to give JP Morgan Chase a poor grade for its compliance with an anti-redlining law.
Opponents of the Harlem Children’s Zone’s plans to open a school in the St. Nicholas Houses are organizing a grassroots effort aimed to prevent it.
Brazilian artist Adriana Bertini leads Brooklyn’s Midwood High School students in a fashion show where the outfits are made from condoms.