"For All" Collaborative
for Collective Empowerment
March on Washington, 1963.
“But I am very worried, about the state of the civilization which produced that photograph of the white cop, standing on that Negro woman’s neck in Birmingham.” Lorraine Hansberry, to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, 1963
For All's work stands on three truths:
1. Ultimately, only a society that works For All of us will work for any of us.
2. Any society where a portion of us rules the rest of us is destined to fail.
3. Only a government of the people, by the people and for the people is sustainable.
This is the essence of participative democracy -- rule of the people.
Though participative democracy begins with the sacredness of the vote for every citizen, it's about a lot more than that. It's about inalienable rights and self-evident truths for everyone, about equal protection and fair laws. It's about creating a society where "serving one's country" includes serving a term in public office and where all authority figures, from judges to police officers to heads of government agencies, are subject to the will of the people. It's about unbiasing our frameworks, repurposing our economy, elevating our politics, strengthening our solidarity and becoming a land where everyone can thrive.
And this work is critical. The only way we secure for ourselves a future is by becoming a society where "one nation, indivisible" and "liberty and justice For All" ring true.
This, doing our part to form a "more perfect union", is the work we're all called to do.
Power to the People Civic Action Campaigns - In ancient Greek, demokratia, the word from which we get "democracy" is a combination of dêmos ("people") and krátos ("power") -- "the people hold power". Or, as the Black Panther Party famously put it, "power to the people".
Faith in Democracy - Resources to help people of all faiths and non-faiths to engage in the formation of true democracy rather than seeking to make anyone's beliefs the law of the land.
Represent - An initiative committed to making serving a term in public office an attainable goal for every American who wants to do so and that makes doing so something that most of us do at some point in our lives.
Inalienable
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Listen to Someday (We'll All Be One)
Featuring the San Francisco Interfaith Gospel Choir (SFIFGC) |
"O, let America be America again, the land that never has been yet, and yet must be – The land where every man is free.
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek – and finding only the same old stupid plan, of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
The land that's mine – the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME – who made America, whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, must bring back our mighty dream again.
O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, and yet I swear this oath – America will be!"
Langston Hughes
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek – and finding only the same old stupid plan, of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
The land that's mine – the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME – who made America, whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, must bring back our mighty dream again.
O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, and yet I swear this oath – America will be!"
Langston Hughes