Healthy School Lunches Lay the Foundation for Better Learning

What’s on your child’s school lunch tray today?

Parents nationwide believe it’s important for schools to serve nutritious food and healthy meals to students.

A new national survey by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation  shows that people in the United States overwhelmingly support current efforts to keep school meals healthy.

The survey results come just as congress is considering whether to renew the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act law enacted in 2010 by President Obama that sets nutrition standards for school meals. The measure expires on Sept. 30.Continue reading “Healthy School Lunches Lay the Foundation for Better Learning”

Learning in the Streets

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Building strength in numbers. Developing grassroots leaders. Raising independent money. Mapping power relationships.

These are some of the key ingredients that go into building powerful community organizations that can win transformative change – which is why they’re core elements of the Alliance’s flagship Four-Day Organizer Training.

Our training team has been leading the Four-Day program annually for over a decade to build the organizing, strategic planning, and media skills of Alliance affiliate organizers and grassroots leaders.

Continue reading “Learning in the Streets”

Racial Segregation: Righting the Wrong and Making Restitution

At a time in history when crime continues to decline, same-sex marriage is legal, and innovation is powering advances in technology and bioengineering – one issue fails to progress: racial justice.

The unemployment rate for African-Americans continues to be more than twice that of whites. Public schools are more segregated now than they were in the 1950s and young black males are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than their white equivalents.Continue reading “Racial Segregation: Righting the Wrong and Making Restitution”

Voting Rights Restored

John Mahan never worried about voting, it didn’t seem important. He was young and he figured he had many years ahead of him to vote for politicians, and laws didn’t really seem to personally affect him anyway.

Then, in 1986, the young Virginia man was arrested and convicted of a felony. Mahan was finally released from prison in his 40s. And although he had regained his freedom, he had lost his right to vote.

“I never voted before I went to prison, I never thought it was important,” said Mahan, who lives in Martinsville, on the southern edge of Virginia. “I figured whoever got elected would just do whatever they wanted.”Continue reading “Voting Rights Restored”

Prison Reform, a Step Toward Racial Equality and Respect

Last month, President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison as he begins pushing congress to reform the nation’s criminal justice system.

Obama is urging meaningful sentencing reform, steps to reduce repeat offenders, and reform for the juvenile justice system to improve public safety, reduce runaway incarceration costs and make the criminal justice system fairer – and for good reason. The U.S. criminal justice system is in desperate need of reform.Continue reading “Prison Reform, a Step Toward Racial Equality and Respect”

#BlackLivesMatter. #UnitedWeFight.

Saturday, a group of ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ activists protested at a Seattle public event to celebrate decades of Social Security and Medicare. Our affiliate organization, Washington Community Action Network! was a cosponsor of the event. The event featured U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. Sen. Sanders was unable to speak to the crowd because of the protest.

The issues of Social Security, Medicare and racist police violence are issues that are very important to us, our organizations and our grassroots members. It should be noted that other speakers earlier in the event spoke about the urgency and importance of the #BlackLivesMatter movement on the eve of the one year anniversary of the killing of ‪ ‎Mike Brown‬ in‪ ‎Ferguson‬, MO.Continue reading “#BlackLivesMatter. #UnitedWeFight.”

Medicaid Refusals Create New Mason-Dixon Line

“Medicaid Refusals Create New Mason-Dixon Line” by LeeAnn Hall and Glenn Harris, has appeared in these publications and websites:

Black Star News
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis)
The Houston Chronicle
The Atlanta Journal – Constitution
The Progressive
Howard University District Chronicles
Frost Illustrated
Howard University District Chronicles
Bradenton Herald (Florida)
The Palm Beach Post
Island Packet (Tribune News Service)
Arca Max (Tribune News Service)
The Intelligencer (Pennsylvania)
The Ohio Gazette

Indian People’s Action Conducts Youth Training

The Native Organizers Alliance (NOA), a network of grassroots Indian groups, is only as strong as its local affiliates. In Montana, we’re proud to have Indian People’s Action (IPA) in the NOA!

IPA has a long history of grassroots organizing in Montana with significant victories over the past two years on voting rights, health care, and addressing injustice in the judicial and prison systems.

Michaelynn Hawk, executive director of IPA said, “This year, IPA set the goal of expanding our leadership to include more young activists because in Indian Country, a large percentage of the population is below the age of 30 years old.”Continue reading “Indian People’s Action Conducts Youth Training”

To Fight Racism, Protect Voting Rights

The cold-blooded murder of nine people at a Charleston church made it impossible to deny the persistence of racism across the nation. So do the symbols of support for slavery and segregation that remain emblazoned on public property throughout the South, and scattered among some Northern states as well.

What will it take to bring real racial justice to our country? For starters, protecting the right to vote.Continue reading “To Fight Racism, Protect Voting Rights”