ROLAND S. MARTIN: CBC Foundation Blows Another Great Opportunity
For the last four years I’ve traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate as a panelist or moderator of a workshop during the annual legislative conference put on by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
An annual event for the last 36 years, the four-day confab brings together thousands of people, namely African Americans, to meet with the black members of Congress and discuss a wide variety of issues in the various “brain trusts” and seminars that are offered. Washington, D.C. hotels are packed, entertainers and celebrities blow through for a ton of receptions and parties, and attendees go back full of bubbly, food and lots of conversation.
And nothing ever really gets accomplished.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I have a great time. Being able to converse on a panel dealing with marriage and money, as well as talking to nearly 200 young leaders, was wonderful. We shared great ideas and got a chance to dialogue, but does the conference ever produce any lasting change for Black America? Nope.
A lot of this isn’t the fault of the attendees. My position is that you always make the best of a situation and keep on moving. The problem? The repeated failure of leadership by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation to fully understand what to do with the thousands of people who attend.
Between last year’s legislative conference and this year’s event, I didn’t receive one e-mail related to any public policy we discussed last year. The purpose of the caucus foundation is to “focus on education, public health, economic development and African globalism. CBCF is the premier organization that creates, identifies, analyzes and disseminates policy-oriented information critical to advancing African Americans and people of African descent towards equity in economics, health and education.”
So what’s up with the lack of communication? I have no clue who gets their e-mail blasts and public policy positions. You would think those who have attended past events would at least get regular updates on bills that relate to the overall mission of the group.
Then again, why should I expect to get an e-mail blast when the effort isn’t even made to drive the thousands of attendees to the U.S. Capitol to meet with their elected leaders? The way I see it, when you register, they should print on your nametag your U.S. House representative and the two U.S. senators where you hail from (be honest, a lot of us have no clue who represents us in Congress). That way, when you visited the Hill, you would meet with your rep first and then visit with others.
But the foundation must make this possible by setting aside one day to call on members of Congress. My suggestion? Make it Thursday. Members of Congress get out of town on Friday, so send folks to Capitol Hill on Thursday morning to drive home the agenda of Black America.
Other groups do it. The NAACP, Delta Sigma Theta and Alpha Kappa Alpha sororities do variations of this, so you would think that the foundation affiliated with the 43 black members of Congress would have this figured out.
Not.
And what about those great sessions? If you didn’t a chance to travel to D.C., at least make them all available as podcasts. It’s cheap and easy, and folks all over the world could benefit from the great information that is disseminated. Lastly, send the attendees home with a real agenda. This year’s theme was “Changing Course, Confronting Crises, Continuing the Legacy.” Fine. But when I got on the plane Sunday, I didn’t have a list of initiatives and talking points that reflect the agenda leading up to the next gathering. How can you speak of a “Black Agenda” but never present one?
This has often been the failure of many organizations — and not just those led by African Americans. We are the “meetingest” folks in the world, but what is accomplished out of these gatherings? Is there a collective agenda that is advanced, worked on and implemented?
I’ve shared my frustrations with multiple members of Congress, including Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Mel Watt, D-N.C. (the outgoing and incoming chairs of the CBC) last year. What happened? Nothing. I’m not holding my breath expecting next year to be any different. And that’s a shame.
But at least the chocolate cake at Morton’s Steakhouse was good. That was about the only thing I savored the whole weekend.
Roland S. Martin is general manager/executive editor of The Chicago Defender, the nation’s largest Black daily newspaper. His columns are syndicated to newspapers nationwide by Creators Syndicate and his commentaries appear on the TV One Cable Network. And he can be heard daily from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Chicago’s WVON-AM/1690 or http://www.wvon.com/ . He is the founder of BlackAmericaToday.com. He is also a contributor to The Paradox of Loyalty: An African American Response to the War on Terrorism. He can be reached at rmartin@chicagodefender.com or roland@rolandsmartin.com .
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