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About This Conference
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New York/New Jersey Conference
“Changing the Image, Changing the Reality, Taking Responsibility”
In New York and New Jersey SAAM was spearheaded by Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, with the support of CBC members Rep. Charles B. Rangel, Rep. Major R. Owens, Rep. Edolphus Towns, and Rep. Donald M. Payne of New Jersey. A regional conference was held on Saturday June 18, 2005 at New York University Law School, attracting some 1,200 people; including academicians, not-for-profit executives, community advocates, and business professionals. The conference theme was “Changing the Image, Changing the Reality, Taking Responsibility.” The event was co-sponsored by the Community Service Society (CSS), at 160 years-old, one of New York City’s oldest not-for-profit research and advocacy organizations focused on poverty.
The conference included several panel discussions, chaired by CBC members, and featuring experts in various fields. The first panel “Image v. Reality: African American Males in New York City and Newark in 2005” was chaired by Rep. Major Owens and included a presentation by David Jones, CEO and President of the Community Service Society. Rep. Donald Payne moderated second the panel, “Changing the Reality of African American Males in New York City and New Jersey.” The final panel was moderated by Rep. Ed Towns and titled “African American Males in New York City and Newark Taking Responsibility.” Lunch speakers included the Minority Leader for the New York State Senate, Senator David A. Paterson, and civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton.
Rep. Meeks closed the conference by restating the priorities of the SAAM initiative and laying out next steps, including the convening of program participants for a follow-up discussion. He noted, “Everyone – Black men and women, whites, Hispanics, Asians, business people, union leaders, scholars, researchers, activists, clergy, artists and entertainers, who want to help address the issues we talked about today is welcome to participate as we undertake the challenge of changing the image, changing the reality and taking responsibility.”
Post-Conference Activity
A meeting, hosted by Rep. Meeks and David Jones, was convened on July 6, 2005 at the Community Service Society following the conference to discuss how best to proceed to address many of the issues raised at the event. Attending the meeting were a small group of program participants. Rep. Meeks designated his special assistant James Steele and Walter Fields, Vice President for Government Relations at CSS, to serve as the day-to-day coordinators for SAAM. Both men were tasked with identifying a proper organizational structure to ensure that projects identified as critical to the mission of SAAM are carried out. The group also determined that to facilitate ongoing communication and work flow it was necessary to develop and launch a SAAM website. The responsibility for the implementation of the website was assigned to Walter Fields.
A second meeting of a much larger group of program participants was convened as a “Continuations Committee” at the Community Service Society on October 28, 2005. At that meeting, James Steele presented the group with the proposed structure under which he, and Walter Fields, recommended New York/New Jersey SAAM operate. Ali Sharif, Managing Partner of Diversified Media Design (DMD) and Walter Fields made a presentation on the proposal for the SAAM website. DMD was selected to design and launch the website, as well as identify possible funding sources for the project. The group voiced support for the recommendations made by James Steele and endorsed the proposal for the SAAM website, with direction from Rep. Meeks to proceed on both items.
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