DBC Senior Fellow Is Editor of DMI Book About New York’s Economy

“From Disaster to Diversity: What’s Next for New York City’s Economy?”

This wide-ranging collection of essays published by the Drum Major Institute is the result of an intellectual organizing effort, convening a diverse group of people whose ideas and arguments, proposals and prescriptions, are brought together here for the first time. All are equally concerned about how to make New York City stronger and healthier than ever. The book was edited by Jonathan Hicks, a senior fellow at DBC, and Dan Morris, the communications director for the Drum Major Institute.
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DBC Senior Fellow Jonathan Hicks Receives Ford Foundation Grant For Writing and Journalism Training in Liberia

Jonathan Hicks, a senior fellow at the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College and former political reporter for The New York Times, has received a grant from the Ford Foundation to travel to Liberia to write articles and opinion pieces about the redevelopment of that West African country in the aftermath of its lengthy civil war. The grant also provides for Mr. Hicks to begin development of a journalism training program in Liberia. He will be traveling there in November.

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Watch: DBC Symposium on Emerald Cities Plan Brings Together Officials, Labor, Civic Leaders On Expanding Green Jobs in Urban America

The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy held a symposium recently that discussed a comprehensive plan on how federal stimulus funds might be best used to create green jobs for the urban workforce in the United States. The discussion centered on the Emerald Cities Collaborative, an initiative aimed at greening urban areas in a way that advances equal job opportunity.

The initiative is being promoted by a broad, national consortium of business, labor, community, environmental, social justices, technical assistance and research organizations. DBC is a strong supporter of the initiative, which is based on the idea that the creation of green jobs in America’s urban centers has the potential of reducing poverty and unemployment in cities.

The symposium featured presentations by two members of the executive committee of the Emerald City Collaborative: Gerald Hudson, executive vice president of the Service employees Union International Union, and J. Phillip Thompson, professor of urban planning and politics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The meeting was convened by Roger Green, the executive director of the DuBois Bunche Center and was held on Oct. 24, at Medgar Evers College.
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South End Press Comes to Medgar Evers in Collaboration with the DBC and the Center for Black Literature

South End Press, one of the country’s oldest independent, nonprofit book publishers, has opened its new headquarters on the Medgar Evers College campus of the City University of New York. Through the joint efforts of the college’s Center for Black Literature and the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy, the 32-year-old publisher has taken residence at Medgar Evers’ offices in the MetroTech Centre in downtown Brooklyn.

Founded in Boston, South End Press is dedicated to publishing books that encourage critical thinking and constructive action on the key political, cultural, social, economic, and ecological issues shaping life in the United States and in the world, while providing an alternative to the practices and products of corporate publishing. South End’s author list—which includes bell hooks, Noam Chomsky, Winona LaDuke, Andrea Smith, Manning Marable, Cherríe Moraga, Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva, and Howard Zinn—reflects South End’s commitment to publish on diverse issues from diverse perspectives, while developing the publishing capacity of individuals and groups from diverse communities.

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DBC Offers Support For Mortgage Insurance Fund Legislation

The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy has offered its enthusiastic support for a bill now before the Legislature in Albany that would aim to create more affordable housing. The bill calls for the state providing assistance to developers to refinance troubled loans in amounts as high as $150 million in order to encourage them to convert their financially troubled condominium and rental projects into moderate-income rental apartments.

The bill was authored and introduced by Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat who represents several central Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Fort Green and Clinton Hill. Under the terms of the legislation, developers would be allowed to refinance their loans in exchange for making nearly half of the units available for below market rates.

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DBC Offers Support For “Prisoners of the Census Bill”

Roger Green, the executive director of the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy, has offered the center’s enthusiastic support for a bill now before the Legislature in Albany that would change the method of counting prisoners for the collection of census data. The bill would allow prisoners to be counted as part of the population of the areas considered to be their home areas, rather than as residents of the locations of the prisons.

The bill’s prime sponsors are Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat and State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, both Manhattan Democrats. Under the current system, New York State’s nearly 70,000 prisoners are counted in the locations where they are incarcerated, often upstate locations far from the urban communities where they reside. As a result, they are counted as part of the population of those rural communities, a practice that has a significant impact on how state funds are allocated and how voting districts are carved.

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