An opinion piece by Frank Pierson in the Arizona Daily Star

Settlement produces big wage gains, better working conditions.  Community allies led by Colorado IAF  help power win.  Denver Post story.

By Michael Gecan
 A friend in a very blue part of the country recently sent me an email describing his experience with much younger progressives singing the praises of rising political stars Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

​His very basic question — “What have they done?” — is met with stony silence and barely restrained frustration. The message in their silence is implicit: You’re too old to understand that matching words with deeds doesn’t matter, accomplishments don’t matter. What matters is who they are — young, hip, fresh, unencumbered – and how they talk.

Colorado IAF is standing with teachers as they negotiate with the Denver Public School District to improve teacher compensation and classroom conditions.  After a winter assembly, in which hundreds of Colorado IAF leaders challenged school board members to stand with teachers, many elected officials publicly declared their support, including a Colorado State Senator, Denver Public Schools Boardmember and local City Councilmember. ​

Some thoughts on disco-era blackface

Brown v. Board of Education was Reconstruction, redux. As the freedom struggle (finally) got Brown enforced, a generation of Southern whites had the experience, for the first time in their lifetimes, of encountering black people in “their” institutions in a posture of social equality.
​
​The shift in power for whites was destabilizing, threatening, unpleasant; even at the "open-minded" end of the white-opinion spectrum, it was "weird.”
It was also reminiscent.

Leaders from 120 institutions  unite behind light rail project: Less traffic, living wage jobs, connection to education, employment, healthcare & affordable housing ​

Metro IAF Issue Briefs

• DO NOT STAND IDLY BY (DNSIB): Combating Gun Violence with Safety Campaign
• CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM: Local Accountability & Statewide Criminal Justice Reforms
• HOUSING & NEIGHBORHOOD REVITALIZATION: Organizing for Revitalization & Affordable Housing in Divested and Gentrifying Communities
• IMMIGRATION & MUSLIM ORGANIZING: Building Power within Community
• LIVING WAGE JOBS: Implementing Local Hiring Mandates, Creating Jobs Pipelines & Developing Anchor Institution Job Strategies
• MENTAL HEALTH, YOUTH & CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM: Organizing for Mental Health & Youth Support in the Criminal Justice System
• OPIOID CRISIS: Fighting to End the Opioid Overdose Crisis
• PUBLIC TRANSIT & INFRASTRUCTURE: Metro IAF Organizing Leads to $15 Billion Victory for Public Transit

Nogales City Council calls on feds to remove all border razor wire in the Arizona city

Look for Albuquerque Interfaith/IAF to be crawling all over the New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe during this year's legislative session.  About an hour away from Albuquerque - the state's largest city - the broadbased citizens organization is stepping out.  Focus:  1) Neighborhood Preservation, Community Safety and the Criminal Justice System; 2) Strengthening Schools and Public Education for All; 3) Immigrant Justice, Worker Protection and Workforce Development; and 4) Rebuilding Behavioral Health System and Health Security for All.

It has been a David vs. Goliath story in the Louisiana capital, where a grass-roots coalition of black and white churches, activists and ordinary citizens have successfully clamored to democratize a system that used to dole out billions in property-tax breaks without giving the local school boards, city councils and other government entities that depend on those taxes any say in the matter.
New York Times story here.