Obama Foundation community conversation emphasizes organizing to create change

After finalizing plans for the Obama Presidential Center, the Obama Foundation returned to its mission of engaging with community organizers about how to have a greater impact in their community and the city on Tuesday.

The room was filled with about 300 local grass-roots leaders from all over the city for a day of discussion on what it means to be citizens “creating stronger communities.”

Speakers — and a pre-recorded President Barack Obama — noted that the day of community engagement fell on Juneteenth, the annual celebration of the emancipation of enslaved black people in confederate states and the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas.

The day is a “celebration of progress,” Obama said, “a milestone on our journey toward a more perfect union — an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, over time, America does change for the better.”

Speakers emphasized that for that change to happen, organizers at the grass-roots levels would need to branch out, know their history and work together.

Eighteen-year-old Terri Martin, a student at South Shore International College Preparatory High School, said that’s what she intends to do. She called the morning’s speakers “eye-opening” and she plans to share what she learned at the community conversation with people in her community.

“They showed me a mirror between the past and present and how our fights for change are similar,” Martin said. “I realized I can always do more — there’s always something to do to make change in my community.”

In workshops, organizers learned about creating meaningful and relevant dialogue through civic action; explored how young people — particularly in communities of color — could debunk stereotypes and engage with people in communities to address the problems and connecting with nonprofits and charities for funding.

Englewood resident Brian Geiger, 24, said that he planned to work with people from various backgrounds to achieve the goals of his organization, NeighborScapes, and to deal with problems in his community and others.

“Civic engagement and community organization can be long and tedious, but success is right around the corner,” Geiger said of what he learned during the morning sessions and one of the workshops he attended.

“We just have to be motivated to achieve our goals,” Geiger said.

David Simas, CEO of the foundation, said before the end of Obama’s time as president he told Simas and others he wanted to create an institution “whose sole mission was to inspire and empower the next generation of leaders to change the world.”

Simas called that statement the organization’s “North Star” and it was why the leaders were there Tuesday.

“To see what I have seen this morning — the activists and the organizers here in Chicago who are firmly rooted in the idea that change does not come from Washington, it does not come from Springfield, it does not come from City Hall — change comes from you,” Simas said. “People who see their agency understand their narrative, understand the coalitions and the power and the strategy and the systems and then move from individual agency to collective action [know] that’s the way change happens.”