PRINCIPLES FOR RACIAL AND CULTURAL EQUITY

OAP has adopted these principles which guide our work to reduce racial disparities in income, wealth, employment, health, education and criminal justice. Here are the elements:

Focus on racial equity outcomes
As the population of people of color continues to increase, Minnesota has to adopt a proactive racial equity agenda to match the growing concerns of residents of color. To uphold this agenda, public policy must be formulated and enforced to ensure that racial inequities are eliminated.

Uphold equity, enfranchisement and economic justice
Minnesotans of color must have rights to civic enfranchisement, access to institutions and public benefits such as education, employment, housing, health care and voting rights to advance justice. Attributes of people of color such as culture, language, immigration status and income should not be grounds for discrimination.

Invest in opportunity and advancement
Public, nonprofit, and private institutions in Minnesota have to invest in improving education, expanding access to public services, strengthening the workforce, and spurring community development to build stronger social and economic returns for Minnesotans of color and Minnesota in general.

Strengthen protections against discrimination, racial violence and racial profiling
Long before and after September 11 communities of color have been subject to hate crimes and public policies that widen racial disparities in the criminal justice system (i.e. racial profiling), and K-12 education system (i.e. zero tolerance, budget cuts). Minnesota has to build on and enforce policies to end discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or immigration status.

Recognize and harvest the contributions of racial and cultural communities
For too long,cultural communities have been denied access to their heritage culture, rendered statistically insignificant and absent in policy designs. These are expressions of structural and institutional racism, placing all students, particularly these communities at a further disadvantage in opportunities and outcomes. Minnesota must design policies that build upon the languages, values, cultural history and end racial and cultural inequities.

About

Advancing racial,cultural,social & economic justice through organinizing, public policy & collaboratives

HISTORY

OAP’s was one of the first organizations in the United States to create a training program capable of teaching organizing across some of the traditional lines that divide communities and organizations. Created in 1993, our original mission was to improve the quality of community organizing in Minnesota by working to increase the number, diversity of and relationships between skilled community organizers. OAP’s founders were a group of organizers, community and foundation leaders who saw a need for a larger, and more diverse group of trained organizers to work with the rapidly changing communities of Minnesota. We shared a commitment to and vision for organizing people and communities as a powerful and essential approach to work for justice and for positive social change. We believed that community organizers were essential to that vision, and created the apprenticeship program to provide the training space, relationships, support and experience to advance that vision.

From 1993- 2005, our primary program was a 6-month paid apprenticeship program for emerging organizers. This program focuses on core principles, but teaches and works with mentors and organizing projects from very different communities and using very different approaches to organizing for justice, equity and positive change. This has created a very dynamic and challenging training experience for OAP apprentices and has been a continual source of new learning and challenge for OAP itself. OAP’s in-depth apprenticeship program has been a model for other statewide and regional training programs in the U.S., and OAP graduates have become leaders in state, regional and national organizing campaigns and organizations

Contact Us

Beth Newkirk was born and raised in Ohio, but has lived in Minnesota for over 25 years. She has organized with the United Handicapped Federation, was the founding director of All Park’s Alliance for Change and served for four years as Campaign Director of what is now the Community Solutions Fund. She is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont and recieved her Masters in Mass Communication, with a focus on Mass Communication and Social Change. She is the founding, now Executive Director, of the Organizing Apprenticeship Project.
Email newkirk@oaproject.org

Salvador Miranda was born and raised in St. Paul, MN. He attended the University of MN, majoring in Chicano Studies, later he went to the law school. Miranda was the second Chicano from St. Paul to attend that law school. He was a founding board member of the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless and has organized in faith communities with
JMP, Interfaith Action, ISAIAH and, on a national level, the Gamaliel Foundation. He organized with LEDC to help create the Mercado Central. Since 2000, Miranda has been the Associate Director with the Organizing Apprenticeship Project.
Email miranda@oaproject.org

Jermaine Toney is the lead researcher with OAP. He is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Minneapolis, MN. He received his B.A. from University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Toney received his M.S. from New School for Social Research in NYC. He has worked for Phillips Neighborhood Healthy Housing Collaborative, conducted policy research while in school for Bedford Stuyvesant Family Health Center, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, NYC Department of Transportation and Central Community Housing Trust.
Email toney@oaproject.org

Julia Freeman is the Senior Organizer for Racial Justice Organizing. She has worked as a labor organizer for over 12 years, most recently as organizing director for SEIU Local 26. She has a long history of involvment and leadership in community organizing organizing efforts. She is a co-founder and Assistant Director of the African American Action Committee. She is Vice president of the board of the Community Stabilization Project and a board member of the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability.
Email freeman@oaproject.org

Gwyneth Olson has been Operations Manager at OAP since 2004. She was born and raised in Minneapolis and is a graduate of Minneapolis’ South High. She has a background in theater with a focus on the theater of change. In addition to her work at OAP she is a student at Metro State University. She lives in the Powderhorn Neighborhood of Minneapolis with her husband and daughter.
Email olson@oaproject.org

Our Board

affliation listed for identifcation purposes only

Kaying Hang Otto Bremer Foundation

Ron Hick, OAP Board Chair

Mary Keefe HOPE Community

Steven Renderos Latino Media Project

Elaine Salinas MIGIZI Communications

Duke Schempp People Escaping Poverty Project

Hashi Shafi Somali Action Alliance

Mark Schultz Land Stewardship Project

Jesus Torres Centro Campesino