Sunday June 8, 2003
Dear Members and Friends of the Community Church of Boston,
On Tuesday evening, June 10th, Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) will have a sizable action with Governor Mitt Romney at New Covenant Christian Center in Mattapan. I want to invite you to be part of our action.
I am in my second term as President of GBIO, and I anticipate that this will be the last large public action where I will in any way preside. (I will continue to work with GBIO, but not as President, and not giving anywhere near the amount of time I've given these past 18 months.) One reason that I am DELIGHTED to be stepping down is because GBIO is finally beginning to live into its founding vision.
A year ago, I, with several core leaders of GBIO, asked that the organization "get real" about its commitment to Boston and to beginning to reflect the economic, ethnic and racial diversity of the city. Through a series of workshops with our larger leadership core, and with the full participation of our staff, we devised a workplan to begin to be a "majority minority" organization, like Boston. Through much hard work by our organizing staff, and with the full participation of our volunteer leadership, we are starting to look like Boston, all the while maintaining the participation of white middle-class congregations in downtown and the western suburbs. It has been a remarkable period of internal growth.
Our action on Tuesday will be like two meetings: the first half will be GBIO talking among its members about our new constituencies and the problems that we confront (as immigrants, as youth, as congregations based in communities that lack municipal services and face astronomical insurance rates); the second half will be introducing ourselves to Governor Romney.
Them most important part of the meeting, in my opinion, will be seeing our new leaders "running" this action on the Governor. We want to show each other our emerging power, and we want to show it to the governor as well. > From my perspective, this transformation of the organization into one that is led not by white liberals from downtown churches and the suburbs but rather people of all colors from congregations and community organizations in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. This transformation is as important, to me, as our winning the $100 million Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2000 and the extra $1 million for instructional supplies in the Boston Public Schools in 2001. Romney will, I believe, pledge to see the funding of the Trust Fund restored, and that will be good. We will ask him to use the $550 million "windfall" from the Bush tax cut (uggh!) to address social issues (beyond Medicare and the prescription programs he's promised to restore).
But the most important--and, in Boston, radical--thing is the emergence of his new venue for expressions of Power by working-class people and people of color generally. I am proud of this (slow, painstaking) development, and I hope you will be with us on Tuesday.
If you need a ride, there will be a bus leaving Copley Square between 5:30 and 5:45 p.m. to go to Mattapan where we anticipate a rather large traffic jam at the New Covenant center. RSVP if you would like us to hold a seat on the bus for you.
CCB, by allowing me to commit 8-10 hours a week to GBIO, has made a significant contribution to this development for our city. I hope you will come and celebrate with me and us. (And we will all look forward, together, to a similar Action with over 3,000 people in November where I will be very much in the background!)
Thank you for your encouragement and support. I'll try to see you among the 1,000 (plus!) participants on Tuesday.
With radical optimism, and love,
David
Carl Olson
Leader of Community and Minister of Church
Community Church of Boston
"Unleashing the Human Spirit for Justice and Peace"