“Fired up!” and “Ready for the Fight” were consistent rally calls during the Sixth Annual Black Women’s Roundtable Summit recently held in Washington, D.C. “The time is now. We have to be fired up and ready for the fight as we move our agenda forward in a Post-Obama era,” said Rev. Dr. Judith C. Moore, executor of the local BWR affiliate, Sisters Saving Ourselves Now. She was one of four Pittsburghers that participated in the four-day summit.
The purpose of the summit, according to President and CEO of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation and Convener of the BWR, Melanie L. Campbell, was for the participants, nearly 300 women and girls, to advance issues of importance to women, their families and the communities they serve. “Throughout the years, we have proven that we were ready for the fight and during this summit we prepared participants to sustain, overcome and take action,” said Campbell. Some activities during the summit included; the release the of the fourth BWR’s Black Women in the U.S. and Key States, 2017: Moving Our Agenda Forward for a Post-Obama Era Report, a press conference addressing the federal budget, Supreme Court nominee and the Affordable Health Care Act held at the House Triangle on Capitol Hill, the Public Policy Education and Action Day visits to Congressional representatives, and other panel discussions.
The summit’s theme was “Invest. Inspire. Unite. Act!” What Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas described as “a thin budget” was discussed. The proposed 2018 discretionary budget request of $1.06 trillion is calculated as a reduction of $2.7 billion from the 2017 enacted fiscal year total. The budget, according to summit participants, will harshly affect children, senior citizens and low-income families. Some agencies slated to experience significant cuts include Agricultural, Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency. Budget increases are proposed for the Defense Department and Homeland Security.
“We have to find a way to get people involved in local elections,” said Ebony Baylor, assistant to the senior vice president for policy at the National Urban League Washington Bureau. While presenting during the #Ready4theFight for Our Rights and Justice for All panel, she emphasized that local elections are most important. “Once people are elected , building relationships with the politicians and having meetings expressing what you want and why is a way to have your voice heard.”
Focused around five pillars: Black Women’s Health and Humanity; Black Women and Education; Black Women’s Politics and Perspectives; Entrepreneurship and Technology; and Challenges and Change Agents—Telling Our Stories, this year’s Black Women in the United States report lays out a forward path towards continued action on issues that are most critical to women’s needs, even in the face of a very different political landscape. Authors of the report say it is meant to provide an in-depth analysis of the needs and conditions of Black women throughout the nation. “This year’s report, however, is positioned somewhat differently than previous publications. At the dawn of a new political era, we thought it was wise to not just describe how Black women are faring, but instead, examine their challenges and needs through a prescriptive lens,” said Campbell.
Headings of key findings from the 72- page report are: A Sense of Responsibility and the Importance of Jobs Drove Voters to the Polls; Black Women are Expanding Political Power; Back Women and Girls Are Caught in the Crosshairs of Human Trafficking; Black Women’s Health Still in Peril; Black Girls Ensnarled in the Juvenile Justice System for Non-Criminal Acts; Black Women Excel in Higher Education, but Still Have Room to Grow in STEM; and Women Are Building Businesses and Breaking into Tech Entrepreneurship. The full report can be obtained from the NCBCP website.
Founded in 1976, the NCBCP is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing civic engagement and voter participation in Black and underserved communities. NCBCP strives to create an enlightened community by engaging people in all aspects of public life through service, volunteerism, advocacy, leadership development and voting. It has served as an effective convener and facilitator at the local, state and national levels of efforts to address the disenfranchisement of underserved and other marginalized communities through civic engagement. NCBCP has a national membership of organizations representing a diverse constituency base including civil rights, labor, and business organizations, fraternities and sororities, women, youth, educators, faith leaders, public policy makers, researchers and others.
In addition to the Pittsburgh area, NCBCP has affiliate chapters in Alabama, the Bay Area, Chicago, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Northern Virginia, Ohio, Virginia and Texas.
The BWR is an intergenerational civic engagement network of the NCBCP. It promotes public policies that ensure stable families and a prepared workforce for today and tomorrow. BWR believes that there must be intentional efforts, including program development, funding, staffing, administrative practice and rule of law to ensure genuine equity — especially for women, communities of color, low income communities and others that have been traditionally left out of the policymaking arena. BWR promotes women’s health and wellness, economic security, education and global empowerment as key elements for success.
Excited about the summit, Moore said her organization has a lot of work ahead of it to carry forth the agenda. One of her immediate tasks is to begin organizing the “BWR Take it to the Top HBCU and Community College Women’s Entrepreneurship Challenge.” She described the Challenge as a “Shark Tank-style entrepreneurship competition” consisting of two minority, women-owned business categories in three age groups. Categories are ideas/pre-venture concepts and start-up businesses two years old or under. Age brackets are collegiate 18 to 35, 36 to 49 and 50 and older.
The goal of Sisters Saving Ourselves Now is to develop a national agenda for mobilizing areas of concern for women of color. It is dedicated to actionable steps facing women with a specific focus on underserved women. The organization’s objective is to convene other like-minded organizations that have a passion and a willingness to collectively participate in eliminating the challenges women.
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