It was 1970. I was fifteen the first time I marched the streets of protest. I grew older and focused my civic work on one issue. My issue was land-use. I read, studied, attended classes, trainings, seminars and meetings, conducted research, and analyzed data until I had a solid grasp of land-use history and practices in my region (19 poor, rural, minority-majority counties).

Then I went to work organizing people to work on land-use and spread my knowledge like seeds anywhere I found fertile minds.

In the early 2000s we hit our target. For 25 years, every objective, every goal and every strategy had been aimed at one and only one land-use goal. We wanted to end zoning. When we finally were able to give people a different choice, they rejected zoning. And the days when zoning ruled the use of land was over.

By finding one goal that would change the entire system, we turned the land into a fair and level playing field. That kind of goal is called a “strategic goal” and they are extremely hard to find. But you know you’ve found one, when everything in the entire system is connected to it.

We do NOT have 25 years to reach our targets anymore. We don’t have to wait either. Thanks to technology we can accomplish in one week, work it took a year to complete in 1990. Instead of talking, we need to get together and focus on specific systems. By learning the history of these systems and how they are practiced in our communities, we can begin the search for a strategic goal. Once we find that strategic goal, we will be effective.

Another example might help. School board members are amateur politicians at best. Unfortunately, they have power and little, if any, knowledge of the education system. As a result, school boards are dependent on administrators to “lead” them through their duties. Excuse me, but this is backwards. Administrators are supposed to answer to school boards. So how do you fix this problem? Figure out why school board members are incapable of independence.

We engaged in the process and found a strategic goal - School District Budgets. No one attends school board’s annual budget meeting. A school district budget is usually 200+ pages filled with numbers and codes in tiny 8-point type. It’s boring. It’s complicated. No one understands any of it. If school board members can stay awake long enough to “approve” the budget, they are happy. And that’s what we intended to change.

We attended budget night and started asking board members questions, explain this, we don’t understand that. The board kept referring questions to the superintendent and finance officer. And we kept asking questions. Around midnight, the meeting was continued to another date and the board president and superintendent scheduled a meeting with the trouble makers.

Long story short, the superintendent insisted we had to “trust” the people we’d elected to represent us understood the budget. We disagreed and asked the Board President, to tell us what a page of code meant. Of course, she did not know. The superintendent did not know. They called the administrator of finance. Seriously?

Our remedy was simple. Present the budget in a way everyone could understand. The finance director said she could not do that (very nasty tone). To which, we replied the district needed to replace her with someone who could. The superintendent wondered if we had any examples. Yes, we did.

End result? The budget presentation was so understandable, one board member exclaimed that was the first time she ever understood the budget. That woman had been on the board for 11 years – approving budgets she did not understand. Why was this so important?

States allocate more money for low-income, poor and minority students, with advisory conditions which are not enforceable. IOW, school districts can and do, transfer money “intended” for poor schools to “other” schools (then hide those transfers in 8-point type on budget reports). Poor schools get poorer and rich schools get richer. Hence 100 brand new laptops paid for by a low-income state allocation end up in upper-income student’s homes. Force a district to make its budget “understandable” and they can’t get away with that anymore.

In my mind, this is what anti-racism work means. Its about the work, not the talk. What are your thoughts on this work?