When will this end?

I watched a movie titled "The Six Triple Eight" this week on Netflix. It's a war drama film directed by Tyler Perry, focusing on the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-Black and all-female unit to serve overseas during World War II. They were given six months to fix the three-year backlog of undelivered mail in Europe and faced with massive discrimination, they managed to sort more than 17 million pieces of mail and get it delivered to troops. See more here. 

It's a powerful movie and several scenes brought tears to my eyes.  It also reminded me of how the discrimination these women faced did not end with their success in delivering the mail. It continued when they returned to the United States, from the late 1940s till now, entering 2025.

For the past 23 years I've been building a library of articles related to race, poverty, segregation and inequality in America.  

Browse this section and one of the first articles is this one from The Atlantic, asking "How Did We Get Here?" and sharing "163  years of The Atlantic's writing on race and racism in America."   This is one of more than 100 websites I point to in just this one section of the Tutor/Mentor library.

Another section focuses on Black History and also has dozens of links. Scroll to the bottom and you'll find the Zinn Education Project, with teaching materials that educators, parents and youth program leaders can use to expand our collective understanding of this tragic, continuing, history. 

I majored in history at Illinois Wesleyan from 1964 to 1968.  It wasn't until my senior year when I did my senior thesis on the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, which consisted of all African-American enlisted men commanded by white officers, that I was officially exposed to this history. And, it wasn't until I started volunteering with a tutor/mentor program in Chicago, serving elementary school kids from the Cabrini Green neighborhood, that I began to take a personal interest, that has grown over 50 years.

Another section of my library focuses on poverty and crime mapping.  One of the sites is the American Inequality site hosted by Jeremy Ney, with data maps and articles like the one shown below. 

You can also find many links in articles on the Mapping for Justice blog. For instance scroll these articles and you'll see how I've shared the American Inequality site. 

The maps are important. This Pew Research Center article provides facts about the U.S. Black population, which was an estimated 47.9 million in 2022.   Scroll down on this page to look at data about educational attainment and household income.  "Among Black U.S. households in 2022, 27% earned less than $25,000, 23% earned less than $50,000, while 51% made $50,000 or more. A third of Black households (34%) earned $75,000 or more, including 22% that made $100,000 or more."

The maps I share focus on that 27% who earn less than $25,000, and who are living in highly segregated, persistently poor areas of big cities and rural areas.  These are places where organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs can expand the networks of opportunity for kids living in highly segregated poverty.

However, the color of your skin and racism affects people of all income levels.  Maps can help target resources and programs to areas of high poverty. They can also show incidents of police violence, traffic stops, drug arrests and other systemic practices that affect people of color more than others.  We need to understand and address both issues. 

Many of the sites I point to are libraries themselves, with links to hundreds of additional books, articles, movies, etc.  There's a lot to learn. Maybe too much to learn.  

Yet, without making the effort the racism and inequality that persists in America will continue. Will you add this to your 2025 commitments?

Thanks for reading my articles this year. I hope you're sharing them.

I can be reached on Bluesky, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.  See links on this page.

I depend on a small group of donors to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and that enables me to keep the library on line and to keep writing articles like this.  If you can help, please visit this page.

InJustice in America - Bryan Stephenson talks in Chicago

On Thursday night I attended an event hosted by the Chicago Urban League, where the featured speaker was Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. Below is a Tweet posted from the event by MENTOR Illinois.

“Resist the politics of fear & anger!” - Bryan Stevenson pic.twitter.com/eFDf2qx9tH

— MENTOR Illinois (@ILMentoring) June 29, 2018

I've heard Bryan speak via live presentations on the Internet in the past, but this was the first time I've seen him in the flesh.

He talked of his own journey and use the term “proximity” to show how important it is to get close and personal to people living in poverty and stuck in racism and the American criminal justice system.

I posted a couple of Tweets which you can see if you look at the #CLUSummit2018 timeline, just to connect my network to him and to try to connect with some of the five hundred other people in the room and the millions around the country who are affected and care about what he was talking about. Here's one:

This is reason I have supported organized volunteer based tutor and mentor programs for more than 40 years. #CULSummit2018 https://t.co/c6weCszdQ8

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 28, 2018

I also added links to my web library to the Equal Justice Initiative web site, and to the “Just Mercy” book that Bryan wrote. In doing so, I also updated the concept map that I use to point to different sections of my library.

See map at this link

I have more than 2000 links in the main web library and more than 200 links in the section that points to Chicago youth serving organizations that include volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring in their strategies.

I actually go through the library on an on-going basis so that at least once a year I open every link to remind myself of what information it is sharing and to make sure it still works. Often I post Tweets or messages in Facebook or LinkedIN to remind others of different links that I point to.

Role of Intermediary 

I've created dozens of visualizations since 1994 to try to communicate my role as an intermediary and to show roles others need to take to help youth in high poverty areas have the support systems they need to move more safely and successfully through school and into adult lives.  The graphic at the left is one. You can find more in these articles or this page on Pinterest.  Or do a Google search for "tutor mentor intermediary" and then look at the images.


However, my efforts alone are not enough. Others need to be digging into web libraries like mine, reading the articles, reflecting on what they say, then sharing them with others.

I've been pointing to the United Nations Global Goals Tweets and web site in articles like this for the past few months because of the way they itemize issues and try to draw attention to each of the 17 goals/issues they focus on.

I included the SDG link in my library, plus many many more.

In 2010 a young volunteer joined the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum on Ning and wrote an article titled "Thinking Like Google". In it he wrote:

It occurred to me that this forum is essentially modelled on a similar format as Google's. Tutormentorconnection.ning.com a) looks for information, or content, and people relevant to the cause of tutoring and mentoring; b) organizes, analyzes, and archives that information for future reference; and c) utilizes those references for targeted advertising campaigns, social networking, grant-writing, and the like. Even more to the point, this forum is a way of attempting to grow the idea of tutoring and mentoring to scale, or to a point where it "tips".

The "In-Forming" Process works something like this:

1. Uninformed people interact with information and become informed.

2. Informed people interact with uninformed people, producing more informed people.

3. Informed people interact with each other.

4. To the point where new information is being passed along to all parties involved, starting the process over again.

Well Google has millions of dollars in investment and revenue to support what it does. I have my social security and that's all. Thus, for my library to have value others need to use it as I've suggested.

Maybe a few will even become partners and investors to help me keep it updated, growing and available to Chicago and the world in coming years. Here's a page you can use to send your support.

Stephenson ended his comments saying the size of your bank account, or how much you get paid is not what determines your impact on the world. It's what you do with your time. He could have been talking directly to me.

His presentation was summed up in this Tweet:

Takeaways from Stevenson’s talk: 1) Get proximate to the poor and marginalized. 2) Work on the narratives beneath the headlines. 3) Be willing to do things that are inconvenient and uncomfortable by positioning yourself in difficult places. 4) Stay hopeful. #CULSUMMIT2018

— Ms. H (@ClassroomQuips) June 29, 2018

That's a good summary.

Hospitals as hub for urban development and reducing inequality

I have written many articles over the past 12 years, focusing on the role hospitals could be taking to reduce inequality, improve public schools, lower health care costs and draw more young people into health care careers. Here's one article. Find others by clicking the #publichealth tag at the left.

In many of these I'm pointing to articles and research written by others to support my efforts to motivate hospital leaders to take on a broader set of goals (and to invite me into their conversations).

Today I was pointed to an article titled The Often Overlooked Solution to Income Inequality, which shows that hospitals, as the major employer in many inner city neighborhoods, could take on a much broader set of goals "to help make cities truly livable".

Below is a strategy plan template that was started by a team of DePaul University grad students in 2001. I've updated it a few times since then.

Tutor/Mentor Hospital Connection: A Vision by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

If you're involved with leadership at an urban hospital or teaching university I encourage you to use this and other articles I've written to stimulate thinking and discussion of strategic goals for your institution.

State of Racial Justice in Chicago - Who Cares?

My friends in the Connected Learning #clmooc are focusing on doodling this week and I'm seeing lots of creativity.  Visit the G+ page (no longer available) or follow on Twitter and see all the ways educators from around the world are connecting with each other.

Over the past few days I did not spend as much time with the #clmooc group as in earlier weeks because I was reading this report by the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at UIC that focuses on the State of Racial Justice in Chicago.  As I read I began to scratch out some ideas, and you can see my graphic below.

The report looks at the problem of racial justice from five different lenses which I've shown as spokes surrounding the UIC hub. With each section statistics are presented in a very clear format (very depressing, too). A list of citations is included at the end of each section.  I agree with the choices but the report could have also looked at the easy access to guns, or the impact of climate change, and done more to dig deeper into intentional racism. The section on housing touches on some of this.

Each problem by itself is a huge challenge. However, taken together they present a wicked, complex problem which has persisted for many years and seems to be growing with the new President.

I added four other spokes to the hub.  1) other issues 2) a link to my own research map, which points to sections of my web library with additional information related to these issues; and 3) a hope that all of the citations referred to in the report be aggregated on line using cmaps like I use.  A 4th spoke asks that the movements mentioned in the final section of the report be collected on line, as I've collected youth intermediaries on this map.

I also put a time line through the middle of the map. These problems have been with us for 50 years and longer. I mentioned a 1993 Chicago SunTimes article that I wrote about here, which talked about poverty being the same then as it was 20  years ago.  Below this I put in a box showing the 4-part strategy that the Tutor/Mentor Connection started in 1993.  To the right of the hub, I asked if UIC and others would adopt the 4-part strategy in 2017 so in 2037 we might see more change than we've seen in the past 20 years.

I listed the four steps in the 4-part strategy across the bottom of the graphic and referred to an "information flow" cMap that I use to show how I've been sharing this information since 1993 in an effort to support the learning, innovation and actions of  users throughout Chicagoland and in other cities and states.

At the top I talk about getting the village involved, building public will and focusing on all areas where people need help with the major heading of INCREASING WHO CARES.

That's what this graphic focuses on. How can the ideas we share reach millions of people and influence actions that change the future?

I plan to convert my graphic to a concept map and I'll share it on social media and in this collection of cMaps. I'll share the graphic I created today with my #clmooc friends.  My hope is that some of them use their creativity to help share the information in the UIC report, using their own doodles and creations.  For instance, the five sections in the report could be highlighted, using a Lumen5 video, or a GIF or other a poetic rendition, put to music.

While the report focuses on Chicago it shows that other cities face the same problems and have greater frequency of some of the problems for which Chicago has a nasty national news reputation.  That means the graphics people create can be intended to attract viewers from their own cities and states, not just Chicago.

Who knows. In a month or a year there could be a set of makes in the CLMOOC Make Bank focused on this single graphic and these issues. And, in 20 years maybe we can see evidence that a lot more people care and are more involved in solutions to these problems.

7-11-18 update -  above I added a link to the words "wicked, complex problem" which points to an article defining this term. Take a look. click here

1-30-2020  update - new State of Racial Justice report titled: "Between the Great Migration and Growing Exodus: The Future of Black Chicago?" available at this link.  See all Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP) research at this link.

Rich neighborhood. Poor neighborhood. Chicago map

View map

Last November I used this image in an article on the MappingforJustice blog to introduce an ESRI story map focusing on wealth inequality in American cities. Since then I've added a few updates at the bottom of the article, with links to other stories that include similar information.

Today Crain's Chicago Business published a version of the same storymap, focused on Chicago. Below is a tweet announcing this.

Chicago's wealth divide => Rich and poor areas are closer than you might think. Explore the lines with our map: https://t.co/39x300MUaM

— Crain's Chicago (@CrainsChicago) June 28, 2017

Leo and Dan - 1973

I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 after being part of a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago since 1973. It was my long-term involvement that led me to read more, learn more and care more about making mentor rich programs available in more high poverty neighborhoods.

All of the articles on this blog and on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site focus on actions that make great mentor-rich programs available in more places, by engaging volunteers who will care more and do more, just as I have been engaged.

Put yourself in middle.

That's the real issue. Not enough people and businesses and faith groups are doing nearly enough, on a consistent, on-going basis, to turn the information from articles like the Crain's story into acts of personal on-going responsibility.

If you want to learn more, skim through articles I've written in the past month, and in past years. Then create a discussion group with people who can help, reading these articles, and talking about ways they can help youth in one or more different neighborhoods, by helping needed youth serving and jobs building programs grow in more of the high poverty areas shown on these maps.

Want my help? I'd be happy to be part of your brainstorming.

Creating the World We Want - Engaging Youth

I've been following Dan Rather, retired news commentator and reporter, on Facebook. Today he posted this article, talking about "deep and abiding fear and panic across a lot of the country", resulting from the Presidential election in the US and similar elections taking place throughout the world.

He ended by saying, "There are no simple answers or silver bullets, but I would begin by saying you can start by doing something. Pick a worthy cause, like education, the environment, racial justice, and seek out where you can volunteer your time and energy."

I created the above graphic many years ago to show the power of individuals to influence change in the world, or to help non-school, volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning programs be available to youth in more places.

Below is a presentation that shows how young people and adults can unleash their own personal power to influence change.

Network Building - Unleash Your Personal Power to Make Good Things Happen by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

I created a version of this, focusing on a specific issue, STEM education, to illustrate how a group could focus on distributing a specific form of learning in many places.

I've been building the Tutor/Mentor web library for over 20 years, so there's much more information available than any person can learn in one visit. Just like reading the Bible, or earning a college degree, is an on-going process of learning, I encourage groups of people to dig into sections of my library on a weekly basis, then form discussion groups to share what they are reading with a larger network of people.

This graphic is from an animation created by an intern from South Korea, who came to the Tutor/Mentor Connection via a program at IIT in Chicago. You can find it and many others on this page.

Here's another page, titled "Getting to know the T/MC and T/MI", introducing past interns and work they have done.

As you look for ways to use your time and talent in 2017 and beyond, and for ways to engage young people and their talents, consider enlisting students and volunteers as your "research" team.

Have them dig into my web sites and presentations just as past interns have done, then create blog articles, visualizations and videos that share what they learn and show how the ideas can be applied in their own community, or by universities, businesses,  hospitals, faith groups and others, to help make more learning and work opportunities available in more places.

Teach them that solving problems, building networks, and building resources is an on-going effort that requires daily and weekly actions and outreach via traditional and digital media channels.

Creating the world we want requires the work of many people, in many places, who are on-going in their efforts, and who are connecting, learning, inspiring and supporting each other, again, using traditional and Internet based formats for connecting.

I'd be happy to help you think this through. Leave a comment or connect with me on one of these social media spaces.

What are youth orgs doing to help fill all needs of youth they serve?

I've been creating maps like this for nearly 20 years.  It shows a small area in Chicago, the level of poverty in the area, and is centered around a single youth serving organization, which in this map is Family Outreach and Educational Center. 

This map was created in the mid-1990s so demographics have changed and I'm not sure this organization still operates at this location.


Let's just use this as an example.  

I'm passionate about maps because they focus attention on all of the places in Chicago where youth and families need a wide range of extra help. In many stories on this blog, and on the MappingforJustice blog, I show many uses of maps.

I'm also a fan of concept maps. They work like blueprints, to show the many different actions needed, in sequence, to help a youth born today be starting a job and career by his/her mid 20's.

Below I'll show two concept maps that illustrate the range of extra help needed.

This "mentoring to kids to careers" map shows that kids living in high poverty areas often need  help from first grade all the way till they are in their first jobs.  If you look closely at the map, you'll see that at each age level kids need a range of supports to help them move safely and successfully to the next level, and over 12 years, through high school.

Volunteer tutors/mentors can be extra people to help kids get those extra supports. That's what I'm describing in this pdf essay. 

However, kids and families face many other challenges beyond those related to education and learning. 

This map shows that affluent families face many of the same challenges as do poor families. They just have far greater resources to help overcome their challenges.  

Thus, if you lead a youth serving organization in a neighborhood, and you focus on serving kids in 1st to 6th grade, or you offer STEM, or character education, or you serve 50 kids in a community area with 1,000 or more, what are you doing to draw people together to focus on the other support kids need, beyond what you provide?

This is a different version of the top concept map, showing the time line every child grows through as they move through school and into jobs. It shows three time frames when support needs to be available.  It suggests that just providing a specific service for a few years may not be enough to overcome the tremendous negative impact of concentrated poverty.

This is a graphic that could be produced by any of the organizations operating in a specific community area, or by a team of youth studying this problem and visualizing solutions. You could highlight the age group you serve, and show the type of supports you offer. Then you could invite others to help provide the additional needed support.

The two concept maps I show here are part of a library of concept maps. Any team of students,  volunteers and/or professionals could create their own version of these....or you could invite me to work with you. 

The graphics are included in a library of PDF essays that I've created since the mid 1990s. Anyone could create new versions of these, just as interns have done since 2005. 

Below are two more maps, showing the neighborhood around Brownell School, on the South side of Chicago. 

The top map shows poverty levels (based on 2000 census data) and the number of kids age 6-17 living in the area who are below poverty levels (from Social Impact Research Center of Heartland Alliance).   The bottom map shows some of the faith groups, hospitals and banks in the area. 

Any of these could be inviting people to come together to talk about the needs of youth and families in the area, and to develop on-going strategies to support existing programs and create new programs where they are needed.  

My maps can be a starting point.  You can copy these to PowerPoint and then add additional information showing police, library, fire department, and/or other organizations who occupy real estate in the map area who could either be providing direct service, or supporting those who do.

Ultimately, each neighborhood needs to be creating their own unique set of maps. 

When events like #OntheTable2016 are organized, I'd love to see people supplied with maps and graphics like I show here and on other pages of this blog and the MappngforJustice blog, so they could talk about what's needed, what's available, and what they can do to help.

Perhaps funding from The Community Trust could support such map building, in preparation, or follow up, to each community gathering. 

Furthermore, I'd like to see these maps used from  year-to-year, along with network analysis and participation maps, so that such events support ongoing growth and nut constant start up of new ideas aimed at solving old problems.

This is the fourth of four articles I've posted related to this week's #OnTheTable2016 event. Others were posted on May 10, May 11 and May 12. 

This is not easy work.

Getting people to adopt these ideas, provide leadership, funding, and on-going actions that bring people out of their silos to focus on more comprehensive, long-term strategies is not an easy task. Some might say, "IT IS IMPOSSIBLE".  

Yet, unless a few people say "BUT WE MUST TRY" and then spend time thinking about solutions and sharing ideas, as I have for the past 20 years, we'll still be talking about the same problems, or maybe worse, 20 years from now.

I look forward to connecting with those who are trying.

Chicago OnTheTable2016 event - Follow Up Thoughts

I was one of nearly 50,000 Chicago area residents who met with others in small groups yesterday to discuss issues important to us, our neighborhoods, our city and our region.  This was the third annual OnTheTable event, organized by the Chicago Community Trust.  


I participated with a group of civic technologists, data scientists, web developers, communicators, etc. who meet weekly at the ChiHackNight event, which meets at the Merchandise Mart.  Last night's gathering was their 204th weekly gathering, stretching back a few years. Every week an effort is made to introduce everyone to each other, and to introduce an organization doing some interesting wok with civic technology.  

Last night, for instance, the Invisible Institute introduced a new data portal that communicates police misconduct information. This is incredibly important information bringing to light a problem that has been allowed to persist in Chicago for decades.

It's the exact type of information that would make a great starting point for an OnTheTable discussion, not in one place, but in dozens of places.  However, that was not how the discussion was organized, so instead we covered a lot of territory. Fortunately, a Google Doc had been created so that comments from participants could be recorded by a scribe, or individuals could go directly to the document to add their comments. 

"How can we keep attention focused on issues once the scandals have blown over. Can civic tech people help develop strategy to do this?"

One of the recommendations, and one of the potential outcomes, is that people who attended this session, or who did not, will find the Google Doc and read it, and even add their own ideas.  The ChiHackNight group has an online community on Slack, open to people who attend their events, or who are interested in civic technology, so it's hoped that people will read the GoogleDoc and then organize new discussions around some of the ideas generated last night.  Perhaps some of the other groups that met in the Chicago region also used Google docs to capture ideas. These could be aggregated, and organized by issue, perhaps using concept maps like the one below.

I've been using concept maps for about 10 years. Here's a page with my entire collection. On each map the nodes are connected and there are links in many nodes that lead to other pages, or to sections of my web library. This type of organization of ideas could be duplicated by organizers of the OnTheTable event, or others who are trying to support community-wide problem solving.

Here's another recommendation, based on my own work. 

When I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, one of its goals was to increase attention focused on volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region. This story was included in the Chicago Tribune in 1994. 

Part of this strategy centered around events that I organized quarterly, such as the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences and the August/September Chicago Area Volunteer Recruitment Campaign.  Another strategy was to create "map stories" telling "The Rest of the Story" after media used front page, or half page stories to draw attention to violence and/or poorly performing schools in Chicago. The maps story below is from 1996.

If you browse the maps or violence section of this blog, you'll see stories like this, where I illustrate that youth and volunteers in different neighborhoods could be using map platforms to create their own follow up stories, which they now can communicate on social media, blogs, YouTube videos and in presentations to big or small groups.  

I'm not doing as much of this as in the past because I don't have the funds, or organizational structure to keep my map platform updated or to do regular stories myself. I've not convinced any university or potential sponsor to adopt and support this strategy.  

I attend events like the OnTheTable2016 and share ideas on this blog and social media as part of my own effort to support problem solving in Chicago and other cities.  I'll keep trying.

This is getting a bit long.  Over the next couple of days I'll post a couple more articles with recommendations for next steps in community building and collaborative problem solving, based on the OnTheTable2016 event.

Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis - follow up to Putnam talk in Chicago

Dr. Robert Putnam was in Chicago again last week to talk about his book, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, and to  point people to a new publication titled, The Opportunity Gap, which contains the ideas of many deep thinkers who were gathered over the past year by Dr.  Putnam and The Saguaro Seminar, which he leads at Harvard  University.

I heard Dr. Putnam speak in Chicago a couple times in early 2015 and wrote a series of blog articles, starting with this one. 

I have been using maps since 1993 to focus attention on all the places in Chicago where poverty creates unequal opportunities for the American Dream so the case made in Dr. Putnam's book is nothing new to me.  

I spent time in the past week reading through The Opportunity Gap, to see what ideas were being suggested for closing the gap.  It's over 70 pages of text with lots of ideas.  My first thought was "Who's going to read this?"

A few years ago I read a book titled "Uncharitable" by Dan Pallotta, which challenges the way non profits are funded and offers suggestions of different paths. I spent some time creating a concept map, to outline chapters in the book, hoping people would use this as a study guide. I also wrote a series of blog articles, applying these ideas to the youth tutor/mentor sector, which I feel is a strategy that should be considered not just for the impact well-organized tutor/mentor programs can have on kids, but on how they might involve more adults. After his TED talk, I updated the concept map to point to places where people were talking about his ideas. 

I sent an introduction to The Saguaro Seminar, and posted a message on Dr. Putnam's Facebook page, encouraging them to do the same to help people dig through the book and the ideas in The Opportunity Gap white paper.

Then, I went ahead and created a concept map, that I'm showing below.

This map is a starting point, that people at Harvard, or any other university, high school and/or civic organization, could use to build their own study guide as part of an on-going effort to get more people involved in actions that make opportunities available to k-12 youth and families now living in the high poverty places that Putnam and others describe in their writing and research.

On the left side of the map I focus on the book, and the white paper. I don't know of a place that I could point to with links to specific chapters, but someone else could provide this. 

On the right site of the map I point to sections of my own web library, with links to hundreds of other web sites with information that learners should look at, including information about challenges facing non profits who we're asking to do much of the work.  I also show examples of data maps, and of ways maps and network analysis could be used to show who is joining in this effort.

One of the organizations I point to is the Community Commons web site, which is a resource many could use, and a model of telling map stories and focusing attention on others,  that I feel many could duplicate.  They create maps such as the one at the left, showing faith groups in the Chicago region.  And they create map stories, such as this, showing how leaders in the St. Louis area are responding to the 2014 Ferguson riots. 

I dug a bit deeper into this story, and took a look at the web site of For The Sake of All, which is a  multi-disciplinary project focused on the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis.  I really like the ways that they are breaking down segments of their report and featuring them on the web site.  I think others could duplicate this to help learners dig deeper into their own publications.

On pages 56 and 56 of The Opportunity Gap, I found this message:

Page 51

We agreed that any policy agenda designed to reduce segregation and its consequences should begin with several principles.

First, it must be place conscious. Community experts have long debated whether to invest in places or the people within them. We argue for a place-conscious approach that recognizes how inequality is organized along spatial lines, and includes investments both in places and the people within them.6

Second, the policy agenda must consider both structure and choice.7 To close the opportunity gap for children, we must reduce structural barriers that shape neighborhood inequality and block their success while encouraging individuals to make choices that will facilitate their own mobility.

Third, a community agenda must include multi-level and cross-sectoral interventions. Confronting the decline of communities requires policy from multiple sectors operating at multiple levels, from the nonprofit and private sectors to local, state, and national government.⁸

Fourth, dosage matters. Over the past several decades many exciting community-rebuilding policies have been diluted in the political process or abandoned before they could realistically transform communities.⁹ Any place-conscious policy should be assessed for its long term sustainability so it can forge durable change in families’ lives and their communities.

Page 56

We shouldn’t kid ourselves about quick neighborhood turnarounds. It takes time to create stable communities, establish partnerships, and change accountability. Organizations often resist the call to broaden their efforts to reach the community as a whole, claiming that a broader agenda will dilute their focus or make their task too hard.

The truth is that the stakes are too high for business as usual. We must begin by identifying actors within and outside of a community, core anchor institutions, and funders and policymakers willing to plan for long-term change, agree on these broader metrics and the importance of working together to achieve them, and have the public or private sector support this collaboration and the data systems that enable communities to track their progress.  

Can this have greater long-term impact than similar initiatives in the past?

I've pointed to past news stories, like the one below from 1993, to reinforce what is being said in The Opportunity Gap report.  

I've also attempted to fill an intermediary role, collecting, organizing and sharing information, that others can use in their own efforts, and long-term commitments, to help close this gap, in Chicago, or in any other part of the USA, or the world.

I hope that role is appreciated, and that the ideas and resources are used and applied.  I started doing this in 1975 when I began to draw volunteers together to support youth  in the Cabrini-Green area of Chicago, then expanded my role in 1976 and 1977 when I began to invite leaders from other programs in Chicago to gather and share ideas and resources.  I formalized this information collection and public awareness campaign in 1993 when the Tutor/Mentor Connection was created. I continue this effort under the structure of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, created in 2011.

This timeline shows some of the actions taken since 1992.  

I'd be happy to share my ideas and experiences with any of those who are also focusing on this problem. I'd love to have help to communicate these ideas more effective, more consistently, and to more people. I keep looking for a benefactor who would put his/her name on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, either as a stand-alone think tank, or as a policy/action center on a university campus.

Let's connect if you want to use the ideas or want to help.

Injustices in Urban America - How Do We Make this Important to More People?

Yesterday a message on my Twitter feed pointed me to an article titled "Anita's Army: Rank and File Racism in the Power to Prosecute". Reading this illustrates how deeply rooted racism and injustice is in Chicago.  

I might not be reading this, or caring, if I had not become a volunteer tutor in 1973 and stayed involved in tutoring/mentoring for the 42 years since then.  I did not grow up in Chicago, but in small towns of Illinois and Indiana. Like so many others, the problems of urban America were not problems affecting me and my family...at least not that I realized.

Yet, as I've led a tutor/mentor program, and built a personal relationship with so many youth and families, this has become personal to me.  Over the years I've built a library of articles describing inequality in America, and describing reasons a tutor/mentor program are needed. Open this map, and click into the nodes on each box, and you can find numerous articles that will expand your own understanding of these issues. 

The links in my library point to nearly 2000 other web sites, and each of these have multiple publications, and links to other sites. It's a vast library of information, that could be a source of on-going learning for volunteers who get involved with any tutoring/mentoring program in America.  The only way we'll reduce injustice is to dramatically increase the number of people involved. When Bernie Sanders talks about a 'revolution' in America, he's talking about getting millions of people deeply involved in the political process. I think he's also talking about getting millions of people personally involved, in their communities, in building solutions that don't need government involvement, such as volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning organizations.

As the weekly flow of bad news comes across our daily news feed, think of what this graphic is suggesting.  The "circle" to the left of the map of Chicago, represents a community, an organized program, where people make a commitment to help young people move through school and into jobs. The map shows that the community supports the growth of mentor-rich programs in all poverty neighborhoods of a city, not just a few good programs in a few places.

To the left of the grey circle is a box representing leaders and organizers, including youth. Every time there is a bad news story, or new report, such as the one I shared at the start of this article, these people reach out to volunteers in their programs (represented by the next box to the left). These people not only read the articles, and reflect on ways they might respond, but share the invitation to learn and be involved with others in their own networks.

As this repeats, week after week, more people get involved.  As volunteers build personal connections with young people they meet in organized programs, some begin to look at these kids as part of their own family, not strangers. Some become willing to do much more to help end the root causes of inequality and injustice. 

I've tried to communicate this idea of a tutor/mentor program as a form of "adult service-learning" via many visualizations.

This one was created by one of my interns in 2006, then updated in 2010. I encourage you to listen to it. Click here.

If you think that the problems we face are mountains far to high to be climbed, think of how you and others might become involved with the problem via the articles I share on this blog, and by your own involvement with youth via a volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring program in your community.

If you're part of an existing program, or a donor, encourage that program to form a "learning" strategy, where staff, donors, volunteers, youth and all stakeholders are reading articles like the one posted at the top on a weekly basis, then gathering in big and small groups to discuss the meaning, and look for ways to respond.

This is not a short term strategy. It can bring solutions as more people adopt it and the army of the "involved" become a revolution in America.