ST EOBHCSunset 072321 - Flipbook - Page 33
Cultivating relational
capital among people
and organizations in
East Oakland
“I need everyone in this room.
We have to stop blaming each
other. I don’t have to do what
you do, and you don’t have to
do what I do. I do need your
love and patience.”
—Reverend Damita Davis-Howard, First
Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church
In 2019, EOBHC organized a “Power Formation Convening,” and unlike previous EOBHC convenings,
the invitation was solely extended to TCE grantees dedicated to organizing, policy advocacy, and/
or systems change work during the past ten years of BHC. Thirty partner CBOs provided critical
perspectives on the state of organizing in Oakland. The community organizing framework 8 below
provided the starting point for the convening:
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
Can employ multiple power-building strategies:
• Electoral
• Cultural Work
• Policy Advocacy
• Service Provision
• Economic/Social Enterprises
• Administrative Reform
In service of an organizing approach:
• Base-build and develop new leadership
• Narrative centered on lived experience of base
• Expand power and influence of base in terrain
• Delivers concrete, material changes to base
8 Credit to Jennifer Ito and Manuel Pastor of PERE for the power flower, which emerged as a tool that informed TCEs new
planning process for post-2020
FOR THE LOVE OF BLACK EAST OAKLAND: EOBHC Sunset Report
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