On Tuesday, Oct. 21, the Center for Social Concern (CSC) hosted a conversation on affecting change through social movements. As part of its Hop Talks series, the event aimed to create a space for respectful conversations about actionable change. The speakers included Hahrie Han, Erricka Bridgeford and Marci Yankelov. Organizers of the event explained their choice of guests in a virtual interview with The News-Letter.
“Each of our guests approaches their work differently, and together they show that impact can come from many directions, whether that's research, grassroots organizing, or community care,” they explained.
Willow Goode, a civic life specialist at the CSC, began the event by directing attendees’ attention to cards on the tables. Each card had a list of constructive dialogue principles. The principles included letting go of winning, getting curious, sharing stories, navigating conflict with purpose and finding what is shared. Goode asked everyone if any of the principles resonated with them.
Jasmine L. Blanks Jones, the executive director of the CSC, found the first principle applicable to a world dominated by opinionated media. She explained that the emphasis on emotionally driven opinion in social media and on news channels has prevented people from having conversations based on facts. She believes that a lot of discourse has become about convincing people to believe what you think.
Ben Belz, the associate director of civic learning at the CSC, shared that the principle about navigating conflict with purpose resonated with him on a professional and personal level.
“It’s applicable in all areas of life; relationships, parenting – eveything I do,” he said. “Sometimes the purpose is just to have a conversation, not necessarily to convince someone.”
Goode then asked each of the guest speakers to introduce themselves and talk about their work.
Hahrie Han introduced herself as a professor of political science and the director of the SNF Agora Institute. Han explained that the Agora Institute is modeled after the ancient Agora marketplace, a place of gathering and discussion.
“One of the challenges with the communities we live in, is that a lot of the Agora-like spaces have been hollowed out or emancipated,” said Han. “Part of the work that we do is trying to figure out how to recreate the principles of those spaces.”
Han then explained that her work involves research on social movements. She partners with organizations to study what makes a movement most effective. She has worked with tenant organizers, interfaith organizations and immigrant life groups.
Han also spoke about the misconception that social upheavals are fast-paced and coincidental. She explained that this thinking, influenced by the media, neglects the creative and strategic work done by organizers.
Part of Han’s work involves figuring out how community organizations can be structured so that everyone can help facilitate positive change.
“If ten people show up, but they feel like they’re pawns in a game, that’s not the same as ten people who show up and feel like they have their hands on the levers of change,” she said.
Erricka Bridgeford then introduced herself and her work. Bridgeford used to say she did anti-violence work, but now, in an effort to decenter violence, she describes it as work toward peace.
“Violence is not promised. However, each and every human on the planet has peace somewhere inside of them,” she said. “People just need opportunities to have their peace nurtured and supported.”
The Baltimore Peace Movement, formerly Baltimore Ceasefire, was created in 2017 as a reaction to the amount of violence in Baltimore. The year it was created, Bridgeford had an idea for a peace challenge, one weekend, 72 hours, of intentional peace.
The peace challenge now happens four times a year. The Baltimore Peace Movement provides a calendar with dozens of events that happen from Friday to Sunday. Members of the Baltimore community can suggest and organize events.
“Violence is a language, and if you’re going to say, don’t use that language, you have to replace it with something,” Bridgeford explained. “So we said, let’s replace it with joy.”
Bridgeford has found that violence is reduced up to 53% during those weekends.
Bridgeford also works in community mediation, which comes out of the peace movement. She acknowledges that there will always be conflict in communities, but there doesn’t need to be violence. Mediation is another way to address that.
The Baltimore Community Mediation Center provides free, confidential mediation services in the communities where conflict happens. The Mediation Center provides mediation training for free, and in return, trained mediators provide their services for free. Bridgeford also fought for a Maryland law that protects the confidentiality of mediation conversations so that people can be completely comfortable during their discussions.
Bridgeford explained that patriarchal guidelines often inhibit people’s ability to properly communicate. She said that by disallowing people to raise their voices, interrupt each other or use vulgar language, authentic expression is suppressed. Comfort is a priority during mediation, so those guidelines are not enforced.
Another way in which Bridgeford aims to make conversations as productive as possible is by ensuring that the mediators reflect the diversity of the communities they serve.
“We work hard to recruit people from all walks of life – ages, gender expressions, educational backgrounds,” she said. “When people show up at mediation, they need to see mediators that look like them in some kind of way.”
Marci Yankelov then introduced herself and asked the attendees what they had for breakfast. She explained that she thinks it is important that people think about the things they take for granted, because there are many people who go throughout their day without eating out of necessity. That is what motivates her work.
Yankelov explained that there are barriers that limit the reach of food pantries. Sometimes they are closed when people get out of work, or they are not accessible because of a person’s disability. Community fridges are different from food pantries because they give people the freedom to take what they need when they need it.
Additionally, many community fridges depend on small efforts of the community, in addition to leadership’s organizing. Yankelov said that people leave leftovers from their dinner and canned goods from a food pantry that they don’t want. Others save food from restaurants and grocery stores that would have been wasted.
“It is really the community itself that supports the refrigerator,” she said.
Yankelov uses her own job to help the community fridge network.
“I’m a full time real estate agent. I work with a lot of investors,” Yankelov explained. “When they buy a house, they always take out appliances. So I get them to donate the refrigerators.”
Eight months ago, there were two community fridges in Baltimore. Now there are more than 20. Yankelov believes that part of the network’s success comes from everyone’s ability to set aside their feelings about politics. The organization does not tolerate polarizing discussions that blames people or groups.
“All we talk about is the hunger,” she said.
After the guest introductions there was a break for dinner. The event was catered by Lote 787, a woman run and owned Puerto Rican catering business – one of the only ones in Baltimore.
Following dinner, attendees broke into three groups, each table with one of the guest speakers.
Julie Rivera, the assistant director of student leadership at the CSC, spoke about her earlier experience as a student at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She explained that because Hopkins was founded as a research institute, social activism looks different. The role of the CSC is to help facilitate activism in a way that is compatible with the interests and capabilities of students.
“We hope to help students find what they like about Baltimore and then capitalize on that,” she said.
A sophomore spoke about the Hopkins Applied Physics Lab’s (APL) recruitment of undergraduate engineering students. While a position working for the lab would provide job stability, some students find that the APL’s connection to weapons production is an ethical disadvantage of working with the lab.
The event concluded with a conversation about the future of social movements. In a virtual interview with The News-Letter, organizers explained ways that students can get involved.
“The work we do at the CSC is more important than ever,” they explained. “We’d encourage students to start by checking out Hopkins Groups to see all the amazing student organizations we advise through the Center for Social Concern…you can also check out Hopkins Engage to learn about volunteer opportunities in Baltimore City.”
