Race Forward

Last updated
Race Forward
Formation1981
Type501(c)(3)
PurposeRacial justice, civil rights
Director
Glenn Harris (2017 - present)

Rinku Sen (2006-2017)

Gary Delgado (1981-2006)
Website www.raceforward.org
Formerly called
The Applied Research Center

Race Forward is a nonprofit racial justice organization with offices in Oakland, California, and New York City. [1] Race Forward focuses on catalyzing movement-building for racial justice. In partnership with communities, organizations, and sectors, the organization build strategies to advance racial justice in policies, institutions, and culture. [2]

Contents

History

Race Forward was founded by Gary Delgado in 1981, and was known as the Applied Research Center until 2013. [3] [4] Delgado remained in leadership until 2006, after which point Rinku Sen became executive director. [5] In 2017, Race Forward merged with the Center for Social Inclusion and is now under the leadership of Glenn Harris, former President of the Center for Social Inclusion. [6] Rinku Sen remained with the organization as Senior Strategist. [5]

Activities

Race Forward advances racial justice through research, media, and leadership development. [7] The work of Race Forward focuses on finding ways to re-articulate racism to draw attention to systemic racism. [8] Their work is based on an intersectional understanding of race and the impact of racism alongside other social issues. [3]

Race Forward emphasizes three principles: using specific and plain talk to say what you mean about race issues; focusing on impact rather than intention; and using strategic terms as well as moral arguments. [7] The organization has published research reports and editorials on issues such as millennials and their attitudes towards race, environmental issues and grassroots organizing, race and religion, and police accountability. [9] [10] [11] Race Forward uses research on community demographics and shifting populations of Black communities to understand and support community organizing efforts. [12]

Race Forward has endorsed the Movement for Black Lives. [13]

Publications

Publications from Race Forward include:

Beyond the Politics of Place: New Directions in Community Organizing in the 1990s (1994) [14]

Deliberate Disadvantage: A Case Study of Race Relations in the San Francisco Bay Area (1996) [15]

Education and Race (1998) [16]

Crisis: How California Teaching Policies Aggravate Racial Inequality in Public Schools (1999) [17]

Facing the consequences: An examination of racial discrimination in U.S. public schools (2000) [18]

Racial profiling and punishment in U.S. public schools: How zero tolerance policies and high stakes testing subvert academic excellence and racial equity (2001) [19]

"Cruel and Usual: How Welfare 'Reform' Punishes Poor People (2001) [20]

Welfare Reality (2001) [21]

Mapping the Immigrant Infrastructure (2002) [20]

Profiled and punished: How San Diego schools undermine Latino and African American student achievement (2002) [22]

Multiracial Formations (2003) [23]

Race and Recession (May 2009) [24]

Don’t call them “Post-Racial”: Millennials’’ attitudes on race, racism, and key systems in our society. (2011) [25]

Shattered families: The perilous intersection of immigration enforcement and the child welfare system (2011) [26]

Racial Equity Impact Assessment Toolkit

Race Forward publishes the daily news site Colorlines , published by Executive Director Rinku Sen. Colorlines was initial a magazine, and it transformed into a website in 2010. [8]

In 2015, Race Forward launched an interactive multimedia tool called "Clocking-In," designed to highlight race and gender inequality in service industries. [27]

Conference

Race Forward presented Facing Race: A National Conference. Facing Race is the largest national biennial gathering of racial justice advocates, journalists, community organizers, artists, and more. [28] The November 2016 conference in Atlanta featured speakers including Isa Noyola, Alicia Garza, Jose Antonio Vargas, and Michelle Alexander, and included discussion about strategic responses to the election of President Donald Trump, with a focus on solutions and opportunities to grow existing racial justice agendas. [1] In 2018, the conference in Detroit featured keynote speaker Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement. [29]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental racism</span> Environmental injustice that occurs within a racialized context

Environmental racism, ecological racism, or ecological apartheid is a form of institutional racism leading to landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste disposal being disproportionately placed in communities of color. Internationally, it is also associated with extractivism, which places the environmental burdens of mining, oil extraction, and industrial agriculture upon indigenous peoples and poorer nations largely inhabited by people of color.

Critical race theory (CRT) is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing how social and political laws and media shape social conceptions of race and ethnicity. CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules, and not only based on individuals' prejudices. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Conference Board</span>

The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research group organization. It counts over 1,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries. The Conference Board convenes conferences and peer-learning groups, conducts economic and business management research, and publishes several widely tracked economic indicators.

Colorlines is a digital media platform that seeks to build a political home for everyday people and activists. The platform creates accessible multimedia to power its vision of a just multiracial democracy where all thrive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advancement Project</span> Civil rights advocacy organization

The Advancement Project is a politically liberal American nonprofit organization that focuses on racial justice issues. The organization has a national office in Washington, D.C., as well as a California-specific office based in Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Negrophobia</span> Fear, hatred or extreme aversion to Black people and Black culture

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Internalized racism is a form of internalized oppression, defined by sociologist Karen D. Pyke as the "internalization of racial oppression by the racially subordinated." In her study The Psychology of Racism, Robin Nicole Johnson emphasizes that internalized racism involves both "conscious and unconscious acceptance of a racial hierarchy in which whites are consistently ranked above people of color." These definitions encompass a wide range of instances, including, but not limited to, belief in negative stereotypes, adaptations to white cultural standards, and thinking that supports the status quo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimberlé Crenshaw</span> American academic and lawyer (born 1959)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reproductive justice</span> Social justice movement

Reproductive justice is a critical feminist framework that was invented as a response to United States reproductive politics. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to parent a child or children in safe and healthy environments. The framework moves women's reproductive rights past a legal and political debate to incorporate the economic, social, and health factors that impact women's reproductive choices and decision-making ability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Chavis</span> African-American civil rights activist (born 1948)

Benjamin Franklin Chavis Jr. is an African-American activist, author, journalist, and the current president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. He serves as national co-chair for the political organization No Labels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rinku Sen</span>

Rinku Sen is an Indian-American author, activist, political strategist and the executive director of Narrative Initiative. She is also the co-president of the Women’s March Board of Directors. Sen is the former president and executive director of the racial justice organization Race Forward and publisher of ColorLines.com and Mother Jones magazine.

Black Women's Health Imperative, previously the National Black Women's Health Project, was formed in 1983 in Atlanta, Georgia out of a need to address the health and reproductive rights of African American women. NBWHP was principally founded by Byllye Avery. Avery was involved in reproductive healthcare work in Gainesville, Florida in the 1970s and was particularly influenced by the impact that policy had on women of color and poor women. Additionally Avery was also concerned with healthcare choices and wanted "to provide an environment where women could feel comfortable and take control of their own health".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Lee Boggs</span> American social activist, philosopher, feminist, and author (1915–2015)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-racism</span> Beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism

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