A Community Of Talents

Majora Carter shows how brain drain cripples low-status communities and maps out a development strategy focused on talent retention to help them break out of economic stagnation. "My musical, In the Heights, explores issues of community, gentrification, identity and home, and the question: Are happy endings only ones that involve getting out of your neighborhood to achieve your dreams? In her refreshing new book, Majora Carter writes about these issues with great insight and clarity, asking us to re-examine our notions of what community development is and how we invest in the futures of our hometowns. This is an exciting conversation worth joining.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda How can we solve the problem of persistent poverty in low-status communities? Majora Carter argues that these areas need a talent-retention strategy, just like the ones companies have. Retaining homegrown talent is a critical part of creating a strong local economy that can resist gentrification. But too many people born in low-status communities measure their success by how far away from them they can get. Carter, who could have been one of them, returned to the South Bronx and devised a development strategy rooted in the conviction that these communities have the resources within themselves to succeed. She advocates measures such as • Building mixed-income instead of exclusively low-income housing to create a diverse and robust economic ecosystem • Showing homeowners how to maximize the long-term value of their property so they won't succumb to quick-cash offers from speculators • Keeping people and dollars in the community by developing vibrant “third spaces”—restaurants, bookstores, and places like Carter's own Boogie Down Grind Cafe This is a profoundly personal book. Carter writes about her brother's murder, how turning a local dumping ground into an award-winning park opened her eyes to the hidden potential in her community, her struggles as a woman of color confronting the “male and pale” real estate and nonprofit establishments, and much more. It is a powerful rethinking of poverty, economic development, and the meaning of success.

Providing a new perspective on the undeniable relationship between education reform and democratic revitalization, Nicholas V. Longo uncovers and examines practical models in which communities play an essential role in teaching the art of democracy.

Place- and community-based education – an approach to teaching and learning that starts with the local – addresses two critical gaps in the experience of many children now growing up in the United States: contact with the natural world and contact with community. It offers a way to extend young people’s attention beyond the classroom to the world as it actually is, and to engage them in the process of devising solutions to the social and environmental problems they will confront as adults. This approach can increase students’ engagement with learning and enhance their academic achievement. Envisioned as a primer and guide for educators and members of the public interested in incorporating the local into schools in their own communities, this book explains the purpose and nature of place- and community-based education and provides multiple examples of its practice. The detailed descriptions of learning experiences set both within and beyond the classroom will help readers begin the process of advocating for or incorporating local content and experiences into their schools.

How can we harness the energy for change that lives in each of us?In Soul Force, nonprofit leaders Reesheda Graham-Washington and Shawn Casselberry offer seven pivots that unleash the creative energy within us toward courage, community, and change. Building on Gandhi and Martin Luther King’s concept of a power mightier than ourselves, Soul Force moves us from barriers to bridge-building, self-centeredness to solidarity, consuming to creating, and maintenance to movement. Packed with stories from the authors’ work with Communities First Association, L!VE Café, and Mission Year, Soul Force invites readers on a journey from the societal shackles that bind to the Spirit who frees. From those working at the grassroots to those leading at the grass tips, Soul Force offers a compelling and practical model for personal and collective transformation.

Our stories are what connect us.When we share our stories we connect with each other and we become better humans. S P E A K is a love letter to my story and everyone in it, as well as an invitation to speak your own story. I believe in letting our love speak by loving our story like it's our job and sharing our story with others. When we love our story we remove fear from speaking in public, we engage our audience more easily, we speak from our heart, we are a little unexpected, and we help others heal. Let's speak, speak up, speak our story, speak our truth and live a life where love always speaks.