In the City Council meeting the other night when the Greensboro Truth and reconciliation Commission vote came up, Councilwoman Florence Gatten had some questions:
*Who's funding this?
*How much? $300,000.00?... $600,000,00?
*Who is the Andrus Family Fund?
*How is the money being spent?
*Who is profiting?
*Why is the money coming from out of state? Possibly as much as 80%.
*Why are no local foundations funding this?
*What exactly is restorative justice beyond technical jargon beloved of sociologists......?
*What is the rationale for expending vital resources in this cause
when there are so many worthy causes in our community that cry
out for funding and attention?
These unanswered questions was her reason for not supporting the Truth and reconciliation Commission.
Sandy Carmany also weighed in on her blog saying there was a " lack of trust in the process, and in the GTRC."
Then all the bloggers took to the cause with their takes on the whole thing.
While reading all of the blog posts and the comments, I did some follow up and found something a little disturbing to me.
In some comments, John D Young said you could go here to find the answers to the funding questions. I did, and the Andrus Family Fund name popped up along with lauding the Local Task Force and the college students giving thousands of hours of their time.
In this press release from the TRC they say that the Andrus Family Fund gave them a $60,000 grant, and that the JEHT Foundation also gave them a $75,000 grant.
I can't speak to the grant from JEHT, but while visiting the Andrus Family Fund website, this is what I found:
Beloved Community Center of Greensboro/Greensboro Justice Fund
417 Arlington Street
Greensboro, NC 27406
www.gjf.org
Grant Amount: $20,000 (3 months)
Purpose of Grant: To support the planning phase of a reconciliation process that would attempt to address the conflict in Greensboro surrounding the 1979 killing of five labor and civil rights demonstrators by Klu Klux Klansmen and American Nazi Party members.
Beloved Community Center of Greensboro/Greensboro Justice Fund
417 Arlington Street
Greensboro, NC 27406
http://www.gjf.org
Grant Amount: $330,000 (3 years)
Purpose of Grant: To support the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that will attempt to address the conflict in Greensboro surrounding the 1979 killing of five labor and civil rights demonstrators by Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazi Party members, and to work with community residents and stakeholders to implement the TRC's recommendations.
Just looking at the CTRC website, their address is 122 N. Elm St, Greensboro NC.
The Greensboro Justice Fund's address is P.O. Box 1594, Northampton MA. Don't really understand why a Greensboro Justice Fund is based in Massachusetts, but what the hell, there's a lot I don't understand about this whole mess.
WHY is the money going to an address on Arlington Street?
WHY did you need the City Council's endorsement to begin with? As Gate says "You don't need an endorsement to study history.
After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an automobile accident, it makes you wonder about history.
WHY is there a discrepancy of $290,000 in the grant total? You say the grant was for $60,000 and their website clearly states that the grants were for a total of $350,000 over 3 years.
WHO is the Beloved Community Center? Since the grant money was paid to them and the Greensboro Justice Fund, do you just get $60,000 and they get the rest?
WHO is the Greensboro Justice Fund and why are they sharing (from MA) in the grant money from this "project"? (Maybe the GJF does some good in Greensboro. It said on their website that one of their "funding hero's" was Project Homestead. They gave them a grant to erect a small monument at the site of the Klan/Nazi shootings of which you are reconciling. Wonder if it ever got erected?)
I don't know for sure, but after reading an earlier post of Ed Cone's, it seems that Nelson Johnson may be the man behind Beloved Community Center, and holding your purse strings, and I know already that Dr. Marty Nathan is the force behind the Greensboro Justice Fund.
These two people, having been involved in the shootouts that you are investigating, with both being tied to the grant money that your "commission" was founded on, reeks of bias and will never be accepted by the majority of people in Greensboro.
You wouldn't send a fox to guard the henhouse, would you?
Maybe Councilwoman Gatten's questions and commentary weren't as far out of line as everyone thinks.
I wouldn't say you have been untruthful, but you haven't been as forthcoming as you need to be. If you want the endorsement of the people in Greensboro, "truth" and "transparency" would go a long way in achieving that goal.
Put it ALL out there and let us be the judge.
UPDATE: Chewie sets me straight in her comments to this post.
In comments to different posts about this, and at least one speaker from the floor in the Council meeting, everyone has said that the answers to Councilwoman Gatten's questions about finance are easy to find. All you have to do is look.
I have looked. At the GTRP, GTRC, and the Andrus Family Fund websites. Still haven't found anything about a $60,000 grant to GTRC, so, no, it's not easy to find the answers.
Just reinforces my stand on "truth" and "transparency".
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4 comments:
Inkslinger, this is really quite simple. No need to start circulating conspiracy theories.
The Greensboro Truth & Community Reconciliation Project was brought into being by two groups: the Beloved Community Center, of which Nelson Johnson is the President, and the Greensboro Justice Fund, which is a foundation formed with the money won in the civil suit of 1985 (I'm not going to explain that further unless you need me to - basically, it's the money the shooting survivors won in court.)
The Andrus Fund gave the $20,000 and the $330,000 to the Project. This supported them for, I believe, three years, during the formation of the Project, hiring staff, opening an office in the Beloved Center (on Arlington St.), etc. That money was spent, and then some, getting this thing up and going -- since 2000, I believe.
The Greensboro Truth & Reconciliation Commission, which was just installed in June of 2004, received a $60,000 grant from Andrus and a $75,000 grant from JEHT. There are 5 (I believe) staff members there who draw a salary, there is an office in the Self-Help building on Elm St., there is printing, office expenses, Commission expenses, research expenses, etc. The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro handles the financial end of the Commission's business, and acts as their 501(c)3 sponsor.
There's no inconsistency in the numbers. There are simply two different groups. There is no crossover in the grants or the funds.
No conspiracy theory, Chewie. Just the facts as I found them on their website.
http://www.affund.org/comm_rec_grantees.html
The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission is listed nowhere as a grantee for $60,000.
The two I wrote about in my post were listed, which added to the confusion and brought up more questions for me.
Maybe they just haven't updated their website to include the 2004 grantees.
Thanks for slapping me and setting me straight.
Well, certainly no slap intended! Just trying to use the information I have to help keep the discussion on the right track. There's ample opportunity for confusion, due to the two groups having similar names, and a lot of pointed questions have been raised about the funding sources, when there's really no cloak around that information. Don't know why Andrus doesn't show the $60K grant yet on their website. I took that information from Jill Williams, the Commission's Executive Director.
Pick up a copy of this week's Yes Weekly for more on the money.
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