Civil rights lawyers, including Penda D. Hair and Judith A. Browne-Dianis, reached out to help fledgling grass-roots community organizations by forming a nonprofit collective 10 years ago known as the Advancement Project.
“Rosa Parks took a stand, and lawyers like us helped bring the lawsuits for the buses,” Ms. Hair said this week, “but it takes community activism supported by the legal analysis to be effective.”
Since its founding, Advancement Project has become a force for civil justice, and Thursday night, it celebrates its 10th anniversary by honoring individuals and organizations that have contributed to a national voice for racial equity.
Among the people and groups being recognized at the Advancement Project gala at the Mayflower Hotel are twin sisters Gloria Williams and Bobbie Jennings along with Odessia Lewis and Stephanie Mingo, who are fighting to return to their New Orleans homes’ after Hurricane Katrina; New York Times columnist Bob Herbert for a column about school inequity in Mississippi; Padres y Jovenes Unidos for working for equity in Denver’s school disciplinary codes; Jenner & Block LLP, a Chicago-based firm that litigated on behalf of Hurricane Katrina victims; and the Open Society Institute for its support for the Advancement Project’s Voter Protection Program.
The anniversary gala will feature Sweet Honey in the Rock and Raddy’s New Orleans Second Line Band in a tribute to the work of the thousands of volunteers who have worked to ensure a better life for those who are often underrepresented.
More than a dozen years ago, Ms. Hair, who is a lawyer, and other civil rights lawyers discussed how to better enable lawyers who work with civil rights groups to obtain justice. They contend that they noticed a major shift in the actions taken by judges appointed by former President George H.W. Bush and his administration, Ms. Hair said. The attorneys said they thought “there was not much empathy” and it was harder to get justice in the court system.
The lawyers discussed actions to take to achieve civil rights on a wider scale. That was the beginning of the Advancement Project. They thought that if lawyers teamed with grass-roots efforts, they could make a difference. A lawsuit is not always necessary, so they set out to effect change by serving as advocates for the underdog.
The Advancement Project’s first national issue was education. This year is no different, as the group got involved with the community protesting the punishment dealt to a Newark, Del., student who brought a plastic knife to school to cut his lunch.
Throughout its 10 years of advocacy and service, the Advancement Project has acted as “a bridge to power” as it has provided grass-roots organizations across the country with the tools they need to make positive changes in their own communities.
A recent example of work accomplished by Ms. Hair and Advancement Project is the taxicab struggle in Alexandria - and in Prince George’s County, where the cabbies have staged strikes. “Cabs are owned by dispatch companies, and [the companies] were getting enormous fees,” Ms. Hair said of the Alexandria drivers’ situation. The dispatch companies owned the meters, and the drivers had “no way out.”
“Taxi drivers did some major organizing, and they now own their own permits and go out and form their own companies,” she said. “And it was the work of Advancement Project that got the job done.”
She went on to say that following the taxi incident in Alexandria, numerous taxi groups have asked Advancement Project for its help, and this is a model that will be implemented in other communities.
“We go into local communities, learn how things work, and from that we create models and spread it so we have a big impact,” Ms. Hair said.
In another example, the group litigated with the Department of Housing and Urban Development for New Orleans residents to regain access to their homes that had been destroyed after Hurricane Katrina.
For six years in Denver, the Advancement Project has worked with other organizations in an effort to end the schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track by developing a model school code to give students more appropriate guidance to improve their behavior instead of arresting them.
“From New Orleans to Mississippi to Virginia and to Florida, Advancement Project has been on the front lines fighting tirelessly against racial injustice for the last 10 years,” said Ms. Browne-Dianis, who is co-founder and co-director of Advancement Project. “[It] seeks to provide organizations with research tools, insight, legal analysis and communication strategies to help them make an impact in their community from access to decent housing, an equitable education, economic justice and the ballot box.”
Lyndia Grant is a writer living in the District.
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