abstracts A Periodic Briefing of IRP Research and Activities Table of Contents “Breaking Barriers, Building Democracy” Conference investigated barriers to U.S. dream of democracy conference speakers: Alexander Keyssar, Paul Wellstone, Peter Edelman State of our democracy: We must encourage participation by all members by john powell Grass-roots level is where change is born State of our democracy Contributions Population increases alone won't change U.S. into a majority-minority nation Beyond Durban: Measuring efforts to eliminate racism around the world By Lindsay Jones Meet IRP Board Member Chester Hartman IRP releases new report on metro dynamics “Breaking Barriers, Building Democracy” Conference investigated barriers to U.S. dream of democracy National speakers focused on reforming our crippled democracy at IRP’s Jan. 26 conference. Alexander Keyssar, Harvard Professor of History and Social Policy, laid out the problems. “We are not quite the model city on the hill that our public officials try to depict,” he stated. Keyssar based his conclusion on these facts:

“A president was elected who received less than half the votes that were cast; that half of the electorate did not vote and that that half was disproportionately poor; and that the contours of all recent election campaigns have been shaped by the operators of fundraising from among the richest citizens and corporations.” Keyssar laid out the following lessons that we can take away from election 2000: We have no constitutional right to vote; The principle of “one person, one vote” does not apply to presidential elections; Turnout was heavily class correlated; Even if you register, you may not be able to vote; Even if you voted, your vote may not have been counted; If you are Black, the odds that you vote was tossed out are 4-10 times greater than if you are White; Political parties will only come to your aid if they think your uncounted vote may help them; they will work against you if they think your vote, if counted, will be against them; Both parties agree that third parties should be eliminated, unless they take away from the opposing party. Keyssar traced the history of suffrage and restrictions on minority and gender suffrage. “If you control the procedures, you can have a great effect on the outcome,” he stated. “If we are what we claim to be at this historical juncture, the standard bearer of democracy on the world’s stage, then we must have elections that do permit and encourage all citizens to vote and have their votes counted.” The world “looks at what we do and not just what we say,” Keyssar reminded. U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone concurred on the state of our democracy in a rousing early morning message. “The vast majority of people are disengaged, don’t trust the process, feel ripped off, don’t think it speaks for them, don’t think the system includes them,” he said. More specifically, Wellstone cited the imbalance of power as the major fault in the current system. “You have this huge imbalance of power between ‘elites’—be they economic or be they political—and ordinary citizens in the country,” he stated. Under the current system, what he would coin a “pseudodemocracy,” he worries that “the issue is whether or not we are going to be able to hold on to what we hold most near and dear, which is selfgovernance, representative democracy.” Wellstone advocated approaching the problem on several levels using three critical ingredients necessary for progress. First, people must begin with positive ideas, he stated, “denunciation is never as inspiring as enunciation.” Next, grassroots-organizing is necessary for change; and lastly, people must put pressure on electoral politics. Wellstone reflected, “the pattern of power in Washington is even more distorted than I ever thought it was when I was teaching.” Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Professor, couldn’t agree more. Recently he wrote, “Our politics have been corrupted with money and suffused with meanness. Trust in government and public institutions has eroded. Voter participation in elections has plunged. The commitment of the '60s was squeezed away in the economic crunch of the next two decades…. Yet with our current boom, and the surplus that goes with it, now is when we have the wherewithal to do better for everyone. Now we have the wallet. The question is whether we can find the will.” Edelman advised embracing populist themes as a framework for political inclusion, interjecting a commonality in the public debate he finds “far too narrow, and the discussion far too sterile.” He agreed, “the challenge of participation is partly a legal one, but it’s more about convincing people that political participation is worthwhile.” According to Edelman, populist themes that build base support and a strong foundation of people is where the real power lies. “There are two kinds of power”, said Edelman, “money power and people power”. Of those two, he observed, people power is more inspirational, will go farther, and should be the basis of any movement. “If the people don’t act, then the power of money will run away, even more fundamentally, with our democracy.” Edelman, like Wellstone, attacked the balance of power. Emphasizing his vision for a broad, united political movement for democratic reform, Edelman pushed for a party that emphasized the common good. “I would challenge us to rethink the balance between identity politics and politics that are based on what we have in common,” he offered. “I think there’s a progressive politics that is heavily based on the common good.” Though each speaker at the conference approached the problem differently, they all agreed that political exclusion plagues our democracy, and it will only be through an ongoing, united effort that the problem can be mended. As Keyssar put it, “We really have to imagine democracy … as an ongoing project, a permanent project; it’s a goal and something we have to work to nurture, to revitalize all the time.”

State of our democracy: We must encourage participation by all members Editor’s note: On Jan. 26, IRP cosponsored a conference entitled “Breaking Barriers/Defending Democracy: A Call to Establish Political Inclusion and Equality”. This article includes john powell’s remarks from an opinion piece in the Star Tribune prior to the conference and from his speeches at the conference. A conference report will be published in August. Other conference sponsors included: Headwaters Fund, the DFL Education Foundation, Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action (MAPA), The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis Branch of NAACP In the name of anti-terrorism, our nation has embraced a series of policies that abandon perhaps the most elemental and crucial tenet of a democratic society: fair treatment of all citizens by the government. In lieu of this most fundamental of democratic protections, our federal government has adopted a panicked, racist, and unfair agenda. The changes in some of these protections are reminiscent of the McCarthy era, which most of us condemn in hindsight even though some of us support similar tactics today. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's order authorizing law enforcement officials to listen in on the confidential attorney-client communications of individuals being held, rightly or wrongly, in federal custody is just one example of how we have cast aside one of the essential principles of democracy. Freezing Somali assets and detaining and questioning thousands of individuals of Arab descent and others without charge are additional examples of how quick we have been to discard our democratic principles when fear rather than fairness prevails. This latest crisis of democracy comes only a year after our highly suspect presidential election. Ultimately, during the fall of 2000, the constitutional right to vote and have that vote counted was flat out eliminated for many people of color and others throughout the nation. These recent trends illustrate all too pointedly that fair treatment of all citizens by the government in this nation has been more of an aspiration than a reality. Our failure to live up to these principles can be understood as a culmination—and symptom—of larger democratic failures. Despite a wealth of studies that describe large racial disparities in critical life areas, such as education, employment, and health, we too often fail to recognize the interconnected, interdependent nature of these inequalities and the fact that the persistence of inequality across all life areas suggests a deeper failing on our part. Just as Nobel-prize winning economist Amartya Sen has observed that no truly democratic nation has experienced famine, we must question whether a truly democratic nation would experience centuries of racial inequality. In a society where all members realize the right to influence policies and political processes, it does not seem possible that these policies and practices could so consistently harm and neglect some sectors of society to the benefit and privilege of others. As was suggested at our conference, our democracy will become stronger and more reflective of our collective values if we encourage participation by all members. This starts with voting. Thus, we plan to work with the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul to implement one of the ideas that came from the small groups who met during the final hours of the conference. Voting rates among those who live in our urban cores – mostly minorities and low-income people – is half of that of their suburban counterparts (See map on page 11). To address this, we have recommended a friendly voting competition between the two Twin Cities to help spur an increase in participation. We plan to work with the Children’s Defense Fund of Minnesota and others to accomplish this through grass-roots efforts and a communication campaign. Please check out our Web site at www.umn.edu/irp for more up-to-date information on this initiative. I invite all of you to participate in the aspiration of making America what it aspires to be, but what it never has been.

Grass-roots level is where change is born The panel discussion at IRP’s Jan 26 conference highlighted the problem of democracy on a community level; specifically, the problem of minority voices being shut out of the system. Local leaders, Neva Walker, Minnesota State Representative for District 61B in Minneapolis, Tony Anderson Sölgard, board chair of FairVote Minnesota, and Jamal Omar, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, presented their ideas and experiences in grassroots organizing in a discussion facilitated by University of Chicago Professor of Political Science and IRP Advisory Board member Iris Marion Young. Neva Walker can easily trace her roots from a “community baby” to being elected Minnesota’s first female African-American representative. “There is no difference between community work and political work,” she stated. “Everything we do and say and everything around us is political.” Walker pointed out that one of our biggest problems is that our state governance does not reflect our population. Of the 67 Minnesota senators, only one-third are women and there is only one senator of color, she said. In the Minnesota House of Representatives, minority representation isn’t much better: female representation is even worse. Less than one-third of the 134 House members are women, said Walker, and there are only three members of color. “There is no difference between community work and political work, Everything we do and say and everything around us is political.” —Neva Walker It was when her community organizing took her to the state capitol that Walker first found out that there had never been a female African-American member in the Minnesota State Legislature. Initially, she didn’t want to shed her role as organizer to run for state office, but soon it became clear that no one else was going to fill the role and she stepped up to the challenge. Tony Anderson Solgård voiced concern about the voices currently shut out of government by our “winner take all” system. As an alternative to a predictable and inadequate system, Solgård promotes proportional representation. Proportional representation is “the principle that every vote should help elect someone and that groups of like-minded voters should be represented in proportion to their share of the total vote,” according to Solgård. Inspired by a similar system in Sweden, he says proportional representation will give everyone a voice in government. “Everyone should have a seat at the table,” Solgård stated, “not just the ones that can afford to pay $1,000 a plate.” Jamal Omar came at the issue from a global perspective. Omar grew up under a dictatorship and cherishes the human rights and freedom granted to each person by the U.S. Constitution. He warns, however, that if we give up our commitment to democracy, we will destroy what sets America apart from other nations’ governments; we will lose that which makes us special. Of the 67 Minnesota senators, only one-third are women and there is only one senator of color. Omar says that skin color should not be the hindrance it currently is in our democracy. “Only after I came to America did I notice that I was a different color, because it’s not an issue outside of this country,” he stated. Biologically speaking, there is no such thing as race, Omar points out, “We are all the same color, the same species.”

State of Democracy Links between race and social failures Here are just a few examples of where our democratic failures have translated directly into persistent socioeconomic failures: • Seventy-seven percent of White families in Minnesota own a home, while homes are owned by only 32 percent of African-American families and 43 percent of Latino families, according to research released by ACORN in October. • While African Americans make up 10 percent of the adults in St. Paul, they comprise 26 percent of the drivers stopped by law enforcement officials, and 43 percent of the individuals searched, according to an Institute on Race & Poverty report on St. Paul police traffic stops. • An African-American man in Minnesota is 27 times more likely than a White man to be incarcerated. Only the District of Columbia has a worse ratio, according to Human Rights Watch. • African-American and Native American infant mortality rates are two to four times higher than those of Whites in Minnesota, according to the state Department of Health. • Eighty-three percent of Whites graduated in four years from Minnesota high schools in 1999, compared to 39 percent of African-American and 48 percent of Latino students. Contributions IRP is grateful for the contributions of the following grantmakers: C.S. Mott Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$265,000 The McKnight Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$75,000 Tides Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$24,923 Working Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$35,595

Population increases alone won’t change U.S. into a majority-minority nation In his recent article, “A Majority-Minority Nation: Racing the Population in the Twenty-First Century,” john a. powell suggests that the demographic forecast of a majority-minority nation by 2060 is unlikely. Yet, even if the projection proves true, he suggests that it will not necessarily change who holds political power. powell has no doubt that future Census data “will reflect a nation of immigrants just as it has for over 200 years,” but points to the fluidity of racial and ethnic categories to suggest that projections which assume that these categories won’t change are unfounded. “The Census has racially and ethnically classified and reclassified different segments of the population based on the social, economic and political climate of the time,” powell writes. Current projections “presume . . . that the method for categorizing the booming Latina/o population or the Black population will not change in the future. This assumption relies on the idea that Latina/os and Blacks have immutable and inherent traits that will be as easil recognizable in 50 years, as they are today. In truth, no easily recognized trait has ever defined these populations, as demonstrated by the various methods the Census has used to categorize populations in the last century.” “Minorities’ ability to turn numbers into political capital will greatly depend on their ability to address and confront the structural barriers that isolate them in central cities. Civic and social participation depend on a quality education and access to stable housing and employment. Structural biases have denied people of color access to such opportunity structures in the past, and are likely to continue to do so in the future. Until we break down these structural barriers, minorities will not be able to fully participate in American democracy, regardless of their numbers.” powell suggests that the national media has speculated too much on the increase in the Latina/o population recorded by the 2000 Census. “Contrary to essentialist notions,” powell writes, “race is not an objective reality that can be scientifically categorized and reported on. Rather, race represents a set of human-created social constructs that are formulated and re-formulated over time through institutional and individual processes. Ȃ If anti-subordination movements are to succeed in de-centering White privilege, they must first move beyond essentialist discourse.” The Census, he acknowledges, found that the top 100 cities gained 3.8 million new Hispanic residents between 1990 and 2000—an increase of 43 percent—while many cities lost a significant number of Whites; regardless, he points out, non-Hispanic Whites still make up 69.1 percent of the overall population. “The idea of a majority-minority nation invokes notions of a country that is politically and socially accountable to its diverse population,” powell explains. “For those who hold power, it invokes fear that their power and their privilege will be lost. For those who are disenfranchised, it gives hope that their voices will soon be heard. Demographics, however, have never been an indicator of a nation moving toward racial justice. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, and increases in the foreign-born populations have historically not resulted in racial equity.” Despite minority increases, racism persists “Increased racial populations will not alone destabilize white racial domination,” stresses powell, because “Racist policies and practices will persist, preventing minorities from turning numbers into political capital, unless minorities organize to dismantle racially oppressive structures.” In particular, powell focuses on the “instability of the Hispanic category, and how Hispanics might be ordered within the White/non-White racial structure in the coming years.” powell writes that future racial demographics “will largely depend on how Hispanics are racially ordered in relation to Whites and Non-whites.” “I am skeptical,” he states, “that we will categorize those immigrants such that the majority is non-White. When we talk about changing demographics we must remember that we are in control of how we categorize our population. Racial ordering is not a natural phenomenon. Further, foreign migration cannot alone destabilize White dominance. Social and political accountability to our racial minorities can only follow from the dismantling of America’s current racist practices and policies.” “Measurement tools are not objective,” according to powell. “Rather, these tools reflect the way we envision ourselves as a culture and as a nation. As author Naomi Mezey has contended, the Census ‘is both a legal and cultural mechanism for imagining the American nation, a nation that has always represented itself with racial specificity.’ The Census measures people based on color, because Americans see divisions in the population along color lines. “If we did not view color as significant to our politics and to our culture, we would not measure it, and we would not be debating the potential of a majority-minority nation. Color has always been significant in America. Historically, we have envisioned ourselves as a nation of free White persons who have full rights to participate in civic and social society, and a nation of racial others with varying degrees of social and political rights. The Census has always mirrored this vision.” powell supports his assertion that “the Census has historically contributed to White dominance” with the original language of the U.S. Constitution itself. “The Census was to add the ‘whole number of free persons,’ exclude Native Americans, and include ‘three-fifths of all other persons’”, before the process was amended. “While the Constitution did not expressly refer to color or to race, the point is not lost that Native Americans and non-free persons were also primarily people of color, states powell. “This method of counting the overall population established a tradition for distinguishing whites from nonwhites,” which continued in later government actions. According to powell, to break away from a system that prevents full citizen participation based on color lines, we must eliminate obstructions to racial equality. “Minorities’ ability to turn numbers into political capital will greatly depend on their ability to address and confront the structural barriers that isolate them in central cities. Civic and social participation depend on a quality education and access to stable housing and employment. Structural biases have denied people of color access to such opportunity structures in the past, and are likely to continue to do so in the future. Until we break down these structural barriers, minorities will not be able to fully participate in American democracy, regardless of their numbers.” “History certainly suggests that the White majority may try to absorb the Latina/o population, as it did the Irish and the Germans at the turn of the century,” he concludes. “Ultimately, we cannot guess what will become of the Latina/os. We have no model that fits their experience, and we cannot guess the events that will shape racial relations in the next 50 years.” For the full text of the article, please visit the “Articles” section on our Web site: www.umn.edu/irp.

Minnesota Magazine article focuses on powell and IRP The March/April issue of Minnesota Magazine, the bimonthly publication of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association, ran a cover story on john powell and profiled the work of the Institute. The article, “On Race and Space”, examines the work the Institute is doing around urban sprawl and fragmentation and discusses the IRP vision of putting regional governance on the civil rights agenda and incorporating a racial focus into regionalism agendas. The article also contains interviews with Gavin Kearney, IRP director of research, Colleen Walbran, a research fellow at IRP, and Eric Myott, IRP’s Geographic Information Systems specialist. If you would like a reprint of the article please contact Lynn Nelson at 612-626-2277 or by email at nelso355@umn.edu. Alternately, you can visit our Web site at www.umn.edu/irp.

Beyond Durban: Measuring efforts to eliminate racism around the world By Lindsay Jones An IRP delegation lead by its director, john powell, traveled to Durban, South Africa in late August and early September of 2001 to attend the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR). WCAR was the first international forum to focus closely on identifying specific practical steps to implement the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), with the goal of eradicating institutional racism worldwide. Since its adoption in 1968, ICERD has been an available, but substantially ineffective, political lever for fighting racial discrimination. The effectiveness of the Convention has been limited by a number of factors, including: Lack of political will of governments to fully comply with the Convention. Confusion as to what constitutes racism in light of how diverse and complex the process of racialization appears throughout the global context. Structure of having governments do their own compliance reporting to the Convention’s monitoring body. Absence of uniform measures of structural social exclusion to guide the implementation of its political mandates to dismantle institutional racism. IRP’s goals at the conference included bringing attention to the lack of adequate measures and understanding of how the issue is critically related to the other factors contributing to the ineffectiveness of ICERD. We organized a symposium in conjunction with the conference to elevate these issues in the public discourse. The symposium, chaired by john powell and composed of a diverse group of international experts, was entitled, “Strengthening International and Intra-National Efforts to Eliminate Racial Discrimination through the Development of Uniform Measures of the Race and Poverty Intersection”. The symposium helped organize a lobbying effort by grassroots delegates from around the world to successfully secure language in the conference’s official documents, urging governments to collect uniform measures of racism. Since returning from South Africa we have focused on developing a project to promote WCAR’s political mandate for governments to collect uniform measures of racism. We have consulted with experts from around the world are assembling a global advisory committee to help guide the development of the project, and recently participated in a meeting of international experts convened in Geneva, Switzerland. There we made recommendations to the 58th Session of the UN Human Rights Commission regarding the need to implement uniform measures of racism to be reviewed in a five-year follow-up conference to WCAR. Our work at IRP over the course of nearly 10 years has focused on examining disparities in housing, education, employment, healthcare and criminalization to question the effectiveness of governmental policies aimed at eliminating our domestic brand of racism in the United States. In examining these disparities, we have tried to identify the root causes, or structural dynamics, that allow racial disparities to persist, despite government sponsored remedial efforts offered to counter their impact, such as affirmative action remedies. We believe that structural dynamics, such as the level of inclusiveness in our decision-making institutions, ultimately shape and support the existence of disparities between racial groups. An important goal of our developing project will be to promote an understanding of this relationship in the international debate over the implementation of uniform measures of racism. The disproportionate life expectancy rates between Western and developing nations illustrate race and poverty intersections at the global level. The HPI index is determined by the average poverty rate of nations combined. The negative Standard Deviations (STD) represented by the darker colors, indicate the increasingly higher poverty rates in developing nations, which are populated primarily by people of color. Lindsay Jones is a research fellow at the Institute on Race and Poverty. A more comprehensive version of this article will soon be available on our Web site. Please check back for an updated link.

abstracts Institute on Race & Poverty Research, Education and Advocacy

"Abstracts" is published on a quarterly basis to share IRP research findings, discuss current events influencing those adversely affected by racism and poverty, and to announce upcoming programs. The newsletter is edited by Lynn Nelson, who can be reached at 612.626.2277 and via e-mail at nelso355@tc.umn.edu. IRP staff members also contribute to the newsletter. To be put on our mailing list, contact Eric Stiens at 612.624.2904 or stien002@tc.umn.edu. We share our mailing list on occasion with other University divisions with similar missions and goals. The University of Minnesota is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status or sexual orientation. This publication can be made available in alternative formats for people with disabilities. IRP Staff john a. powell, executive director Lynn Nelson, director of public education Gavin Kearney, director of research and programs and acting deputy director Julie Nielsen, director of development and administration Susie Hartigan, research fellow Lindsay Jones, research fellow Colleen Walbran, research fellow Eric Myott, GIS specialist Ken Bechtel, office manager Eric Stiens, education, development & research assistant Tiffany Stedman, communications intern National Advisory Board Michelle Alexander, ACLU John Calmore, University of North Carolina School of Law Roger Clay, Attorney Gary Delgado, Applied Research Center Nancy Denton, State University of New York, Albany George Galster, College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs, Wayne State University James Head, National Economic Development and Law Center Chester Hartman, PRRAC Paul Hudson, Broadway Federal Savings and Loan Paul Jargowsky, University of Texas, Dallas S.M. Miller, Commonwealth Institute Michael Omi, University of California, Berkeley Gary Orfield, Harvard University John Red Horse, University of Minnesota, Duluth Florence Roisman, Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis Eric Saltzman, Harvard University Theodore Shaw, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Ada Shen-Jaffee, Columbia Legal Services Reverend Bill Smith, African Wellspring Mission Fred Smith, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota Maya Wiley, Consultant Jack Willis, World Link TV Dorreen Yellow Bird, Grand Forks Herald Iris Marion Young, University of Chicago ©2002, Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota

Meet IRP Board Member Chester Hartman Chester Hartman’s roots are in New York, “the Bronx, to be more precise,” even though his work advocating and organizing around race and poverty issues has taken him around the country and abroad. Since 1990, he has headed the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) in Washington D.C. PRRAC serves as the “network between the civil rights and antipoverty communities, trying to make each take the other more into account, and between the research and activism worlds,” according to Hartman. Examples of PRRAC’s substantial contribution to the race and poverty dialogue include: PRRAC’s small research grant program, the bi-monthly newsletter/journal Poverty & Race, and several notable books— including: Double Exposure: Poverty & Race in America; (1997), with introductions by Julian Bond, Bill Bradley and john powell; and Challenges to Equality: Poverty & Race in America (2001), with an introduction by Congressman John Lewis. Among its many projects, PRRAC is creating a Poverty & Race Information Service. It includes a comprehensive listing of the nearly 7,000 resources listed in the PRAAC newsletter, since it began publication in 1992. Each issue contains 100-150 references to recent studies, report, conferences, etc., by topic. PRRAC wants to make this body of research widely available to advocates, researchers, legislators, media, foundations, libraries, etc. The new service will also identify important research in academic literature and make it available to advocates and other potential users, via “translation” (short versions, op-eds, legislative proposals, etc.) and wide dissemination. The plan is to initiate this work in the topic area of education, and then expand it to other substantive areas. “ It is disgraceful that our economic and political system will not bring about greater equity for all its people.” Chester Hartman It is tough to pinpoint one event that spurred Hartman’s passion and dedication to race and poverty issues, but certainly his educational surroundings played a part. “One strong influence was the elementary and high schools I went to,” he offers. It was “a Dewey-ite progressive school that was aggressively interracial. Andy Goodman went there as well, and a wing of the school was named for him.” Hartman also cites the influential nature of another experience, “the Unitarian Service Community project at the Highlander Folk School (now Highlander Center) in Tennessee.” The center was a meeting place for “Southern progressives on race, labor and poverty issues,” as Hartman points out, “Rosa Parks got training there prior to her work in Montgomery.” Hartman’s first stop after New York was Boston. He did both his undergraduate and Ph.D. work in City and Regional Planning at Harvard—which included low-income housing work in Puerto Rico and Boston—and then taught in the Planning Department for four years. While teaching at Harvard, Hartman was an “overt supporter of the 1969-70 student strike and its demands to: create an African-American Studies department, end ROTC, and stop the university's expansion into working-class and minority Cambridge and Boston neighborhoods,” he remembers. The administration responded by not renewing his contract and he, in turn, left for the Bay Area. In his new community, Hartman worked with the National Housing Law Project, became “a full-time activist around San Francisco's housing and neighborhood preservation struggles,” and founded The Planners Network, a national organization of progressive urban planners. From the Bay Area, Hartman first made the transition back to the East Coast by way of a teaching position at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and then moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as a fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies. While at the Institute, he contributed to several housing policy publications, including the book: Winning America: Ideas and Leadership for the 1990’s (South End Press, 1988). One of Hartman’s latest initiatives is his work on “evictions and the need to create a national database on the incidence of evictions, the reasons, what happens to evictees, and the need for eviction prevention programs of all sorts.” In addition, look for PRRAC’s expansion of “After Durban,” originally published in the Jan./Feb. 2002 issue of Poverty & Race. This work is the culmination of “reflections by a dozen attendees at the UN Conference, including Samuel Myers, Makani Themba, Gary Delgado, john powell, Wade Henderson, and others, on the meaning of that event.” When asked about his outlook for the future, Hartman responded: “While I am not sanguine about the state of race and poverty problems in the United States, we all need to keep at it. It is disgraceful that our economic and political system will not bring about greater equity for all its people, and will not understand the profound ways in which racism infects every aspect of our lives, as well as the role of our nation's racial history in perpetuating structural racism.” For more information on PRRAC, go to www.prrac.org. IRP releases new report on metro dynamics During April, IRP released a new report on the importance of effective regional governance in achieving racial equity. "Racism and Metropolitan Dynamics: The Civil Rights Challenge of the 21st Century," commissioned by the Ford Foundation, builds on past work by the Institute on the racial implications of urban sprawl and regional fragmentation. It is closely tailored to the specific needs and interests of racial justice advocates, civil rights groups, community organizations, and funders. The briefing paper offers many real-world examples of regional strategies that racial justice advocates could replicate in their communities and highlights three leaders doing exemplary work to advance racial equity at the metropolitan regional level. http://www.umn.edu/irp/publications/racismandmetrodynamics.pdf. Please note: this is a 32 page pdf document, and may take a few minutes to open. Free Acrobat Reader software is available at: http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html. Copies of Racism and Metropolitan Dynamics: The Civil Rights Challenge of the 21st Century can also be requested by contacting Eric Stiens at 612-624-2904 or by email at stien002@umn.edu. In Pursuit of a Dream Deferred: Linking Housing and Education Policy co-edited by john powell (Executive Director), Gavin Kearney (Director of Research and Programs), and Vina Kay (Senior Researcher) The book brings a fresh perspective to both education and housing debates. The authors advocate policies that recognize the link between these systems and suggest ways to break down barriers to integration in both arenas. The book argues that the reality of our democratic ideal of equality and opportunity inevitably turns on our recognition of the central role that segregation plays in maintaining inequality and denying communities of color key resources and opportunities. Copies of this book are available for distribution. Please contact Eric Stiens at 612-624-2904 or stien002@umn.edu.

Voting rates among those who live in our urban cores - mostly minorities and low-income people is half of that of their suburban counterparts. To address this, a small group that participated in the January democracy conference recommended a friendly voting competition between the two Twin Cities to help spur an increase in voter participation in the metropolitan area. The Children's Defense Fund of Minnesota, IRP and others plan to work together to accomplish this through grass-roots efforts and a communication campaign. Please check out the IRP Web site Home Page at www.instituteonraceandpoverty.org for more up-to-date information on this initiative.