This day-long event for the greater Pittsburgh community offers workshops, art, entertainment, dialogue, and networking around the struggle for civil rights, economic justice, and peace.

The Summit will begin with registration and continental breakfast, followed by remarks from event organizers and Tim Stevens, founder of the Black and White Reunion and founder and chair of B-PEP (the Black Political Empowerment Project).  Celeste Taylor, vice chair of B-PEP and coordinator of the Racial Equity Monitoring Project (REMP), will release a report on Phase I of REMP, a project of B-PEP and the Hill House Association.  Taylor also will launch Phase II, the Regional Equity and Inclusion Project, at the Summit. 

The Black and White Reunion is very excited to confirm the participation of minister, journalist, and Hip Hop artist Jasiri X who will perform during the opening program.  Morning workshops will be followed by lunch, afternoon workshop sessions, and a closing presentation and art activity.

The theme of the 11^th annual Summit Against Racism is "The Power of One: Be the Change." This idea continues the discussion begun at last year's Summit, which focused on commitment to individual and collective action. Workshops will address such issues as racism in schools and universities, effective methods of interracial community organizing within faith communities, prisons and release programs, employment and economic justice for neighborhoods, race and class divisions in the peace movement, health care as a human right, and others. "Speaking the Unspeakable," a workshop on talking openly about racism, returns by popular demand each year.  Participants may select their morning and afternoon workshops the day of Summit from a final list published in the commemorative program book.

Robert Maddock and Ramona Roberts are co-coordinating this year's Summit Against Racism and were among the co-founders of the Black and White Reunion, a racially diverse group that was organized in reaction to the killing of black businessman Jonny Gammage by police in 1995.

"We hold the Summit on the Saturday after Martin Luther King Day every year to make the very most of people's commitment to ending racism," explains Roberts.  "We work hard to bring Martin Luther King's spirit with us - the commitment to ending racism, poverty and war."

"If we do not take the police killing of Jonny Gammage as a call to action and act accordingly, we just prolong and encourage more overt acts of racism with their terrible consequences," says Maddock. 

This year's Jonny Gammage Memorial Scholarship essay contest asked law students how the jurisdiction of Pittsburgh's Citizen Police Review Board – an independent agency that investigates citizen complaints about improper police conduct -- can be expanded throughout Allegheny County. The winners of the scholarship will be announced at Summit.

Approximately 400 people attend the Summit Against Racism each year. Following this year's afternoon workshops, participants are invited by facilitator Paul Hawkins to make their own "I Am the Change I Have Been Waiting For" t-shirts.  This will allow each person the opportunity to take home a t-shirt incorporating a "mandala," with the symbols of their choice to represent where they come from, what inspires them, their goals, their special gifts, and the things they carry in their hearts.

"Democracy defeated racism on the ballot this past November and we are going to celebrate this shift in the fabric of our society. African-Americans are experiencing the positive effects of that in ways many of us never imagined, " declares Stevens. "Defeating racism in a national election is not the same as defeating it in our communities and workplaces and local governments.  Black and white people have to work together to end racism and the social inequity here at home.  The Summit Against Racism is our invitation for them to do so."

Throughout the past thirteen years, the Black and White Reunion has coordinated ten annual Summits Against Racism and provided education, advocacy, and direct leadership for many campaigns and programs in support of racial justice and reconciliation in the greater Pittsburgh region. Specific strategies for forging  racial equality have included the Mural Bridge project, which used art to promote racial understanding among black and white people of different ages and backgrounds; the Jonny Gammage Memorial Scholarship, which is awarded annually to a local law student; as well as the annual Summit Against Racism.

Registration for the 11^th annual Summit Against Racism is $25 for adults ($30 at the door) and includes all-day admission, a commemorative program book, continental breakfast, lunch, make-your-own t-shirt, and one-year membership in the Black and White Reunion. Limited income and student rates, group discounts, and scholarships are also available.

East Liberty Presbyterian Church is located at 116 S. Highland Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206. To register or for more information, visit www.blackandwhitereunion.org. The Black and White Reunion can also be reached at (412) 441-3800 x 32 or blackandwhite_reunion@yahoo.com.

A recent report by the Heartland Alliance confirms what much of black America already knows: Black America is in serious trouble economically, and many black people are living in "deep poverty."

Black people in America are not just poor by American standards; many of us are "third-world" poor.

While some economists praise the American economy with talk of low unemployment, record housing starts and a booming gross national product, none of this tells the real story of a quickly declining black economy within America. For instance, 30 percent of black Americans in Illinois live in poverty compared with only 8 percent of white Americans.

According to the Children's Defense Fund, nearly one million black children in the United States are living in extreme poverty. While the official national unemployment rate is 4.4 percent, the official unemployment rate for blacks is 10 percent. Of course, the official unemployment rate does not include people who have given up looking for work and those who are underemployed. In 2003 in New York City, 48.2 percent of black men ages 16 to 64 were officially unemployed!

As American cities become more expensive to live in, black people, with our declining wealth, are forced by economics to leave these cities. Although things might be good economically in America, the majority of black people are living through their worst economic depression since slavery!

Ironically, even as black people earn more money in the United States, the wealth gap between blacks and whites grows dramatically. Misery indices in the Black community -- poor and useless educational preparation, mass unemployment, low-quality housing stock, disintegrating communities, and failing families -- are rising. According to a 2004 study by the Pew Hispanic Trust, between 1996 and 2002, the median net worth of blacks dropped by 16 percent.

Black net worth declined to a paltry $5,998 per household, while the net worth for white households grew by 17 percent during the same period to $88,651. Twenty percent of black median net worth was in cash, approximately $1,200, with the balance comprised of home equity.  The housing foreclosure crisis of the past eight years has caused Black America to lose between $72 billion and $93 billion in housing-equity wealth.  

"Black families lost 25 percent of their wealth during the jobless recovery from the recent recession," said Thomas Shapiro, a Brandeis University professor of law and social policy.

This means that more black people are struggling in 2006 with such basic conditions as securing employment, paying rent or a mortgage, paying utilities and insurance, obtaining affordable health coverage and buying food.

Shapiro also stated that only 26 percent of black families could survive more than three months after a major income interruption. The other 74 percent would be forced to seek government assistance, dip deep into savings, sell off assets, relocate with a friend or relative, file bankruptcy or become homeless!

In this economic depression, college is an unaffordable luxury for many black people. Higher education, once the reliable key to moving from low-income to middle-income status, is no longer an option. The portals that lead away from poverty, crime and despair are closing or have already closed. Generational poverty is inextricably intertwined with race. Hope for breaking the poverty cycle diminishes and another generation of the impoverished is born. Many blacks in America are slipping from poverty to deep poverty into a third-world status.

We as black American families cannot wait for the government to save us. Annually, black Americans generate about $700 billion within the U.S. economy. However, a 2005 report by the Target Market Group shows that we don't use our dollars wisely to improve our plight in America. For example, in 2004, we had collective purchases that included $22 billion for clothes, $10.7 billion for furniture, $28.7 billion for cars, $14 billion for phone service, $3.7 billion for consumer electronics (not computers) and $2.3 billion on alcoholic beverages.

Unfortunately, the only area where we showed restraint in our spending was on books, where we spent only $257 million, down from $303 million in 2002. We spent more on our fingernails and our hair -- $6.3 billion on personal care -- than on books and reading materials.

We must take control of our economic destinies to improve black personal finances, our family wealth and our community economies, and to help lift many blacks out of deep poverty.

TEN KEY SOLUTIONS FOR BLACK ECONOMIC WELL-BEING:

1. Start your own business. By starting your own business, you can hire family, friends, and community members.
2. Get as much education as you can.
3. Stop renting an apartment. Save enough money to make a down payment on a house. Then buy a house.
4. Open savings accounts for your children, teach your children the value of money and take personal finance classes.
5. First, invest your money and your time in your skills, your knowledge base and your self-improvement. Second, learn how to let big companies work for you rather than you only working for them through stock ownership. And third, invest your money in the U.S. and global stock markets.
6. Manage your credit carefully and avoid unnecessary debt.
7. Get married!  Two-person headed households are more viable economically. Marriage can be an economic advantage when both parties are aligned on financial priorities and fiscal realities.
8. Create a living strategy that includes good nutrition, plenty of exercise and proper rest so that you can share your good fortune in a long and healthy life.  Health is wealth!
9. Contribute to your faith-based institution or invest in a social cause.
10. Create a will to pass on your accumulated wealth.