Multiple grants allow Jackson County NAACP branch to continue efforts on top 2020 priorities

Press release from the Jackson County NAACP chapter:

Last December the Jackson County Branch of the North Carolina NAACP received a $5000 grant from NC Wins to hold a one-day workshop at Western Carolina University, facilitated by Dr. Dana Murray Patterson, Director of the WCU Office of Intercultural Affairs. Participants included business, religious, academic, and other community leaders. They discussed strategies to combat racism in Jackson, Macon, and Swain Counties which are all served by the Jackson County Branch. Literally dozens of ideas emerged, including what each individual can do and what communities can achieve through collaboration. Branch members then met in February 2020 to prioritize the ideas into a list of what should be done immediately. In the intervening 10 months, that small $5000 seed grant for the workshop has produced two projects, funded in part by more than $50,000 in new grants.

The Branch’s top priority is to work with public schools to increase racial equity in classrooms. Members are teaming with the Haywood County NAACP Branch and faculty from Western Carolina University to pilot test a unique opportunity for teachers in all four counties’ school districts. These plans built on diversity training for educators that the Haywood Branch held in November 2019, funded in part by a small “School University Teacher Education Partnership” (SUTEP) grant.

While plans were slowed by the pandemic crises facing schools, the Branches adapted their ideas to fit an online approach to helping teachers meet North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards to “demonstrate knowledge of diverse cultures; select materials and develop lessons that counteract stereotypes and incorporate contributions; recognize the influences on a child’s development, personality, and performance; and consider and incorporate different points of view.” Then in November 2020, the Branches were delighted to learn that the Jackson County Branch has been awarded a $25,000 grant from the Duke Energy Foundation to carry out the plan.

The grant will assist teachers in these school districts who wish to gain knowledge and confidence in doing this racial equity work. Teachers in small, virtual “communities of practice” will share their knowledge and problem-solving experiences. Participating teachers and experienced facilitators will receive small stipends to cover materials and related expenses, to be funded by another small SUTEP grant.

This Duke Energy Foundation grant is one of 40 such grants to local nonprofit programs throughout the state that are focused on achieving social justice and racial equity in their communities. “This is important work. We need to continue to have a changing conversation with the school system, positively affecting the relationships between teachers and students, and developing curriculum that addresses racism,” said Rev. Walter Bryson, president of Haywood County NAACP, and Dr. Enrique Gomez, president of Jackson County NAACP. More details about these plans will be available in the next few months.

A second top-priority goal from last December’s workshop is for the Branch to build a coalition of community partners who will provide community events for multi-cultural interactions aimed at transforming the way histories are told in the public space and presenting a more complete and equitable picture of our collective past. This fall the Jackson County Branch and its partners was offered a unique opportunity to begin to realize this goal by sponsoring a 3-month traveling exhibit of Jackson County resident, award-winning Wesley Wofford’s sculpture of Harriet Tubman, “Journey to Freedom,” to be installed in Sylva from September – November, 2021.

To make this happen, the Branch received a grant from the Dogwood Health Trust for $24,558. The Sylva Board of Commissioners has offered space in Bridge Park and assistance with security for the sculpture. Other partners in the coalition include WCU’s John W. Bardo Fine & Performing Arts Center, WCU’s Office of Intercultural Affairs, and WCU’s Mountain Heritage Center; the Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center; the Jackson County Arts Council; Friends of Jackson County Libraries; and Reconcile Sylva.

“We expect that this will be a springboard for increasing racial equity, starting in Jackson, Swain, and Macon Counties, through launching a parallel, year-long program of community education about the history and lives of African Americans, Native Americans, and LatinX in Western North Carolina,” Dr. Gomez said. “To achieve this aim, the Cowee School will serve as our fiscal agent and we will partner with the Jackson County Arts Council to develop a marketing plan to educate residents in the diverse histories of our multicultural region and to encourage persons from diverse cultures to consider moving here. We will partner with WCU to 1) provide student stipends to develop QR-code based programming about Harriet Tubman for young children, teens, and adults while they visit the sculpture. We will include students’ readings from Harriet Tubman’s writings and writings about her, recorded by WCU students. We will 2) pilot test a plan to develop a mobile, geo-coded APP that highlights the history and present-day lives of Jackson County’s intertwined cultures. A minimum of five historic sites will be included in this pilot project featuring histories from communities that have often been denied historical recognition such as i) Native Americans, particularly the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians; ii) African Americans; and iii) Latin Americans. In the fall (when in-person conferences should be possible), we will co-sponsor two nationally prominent lecturers as keynotes to anchor region-wide explorations of issues and answers for building racial equity in Western North Carolina. Short-term evaluation will include tracking visits and uses of the APP.”

The Jackson County Branch was established in 2014 after a 2013 rally in Sylva on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech drew about 500 people. This month Dr. Gomez will complete six years as second Branch President. He said, “I am proud of what the Branch has accomplished in its first eight years and look forward eagerly to what the Branch, led by our newly elected President, Dr. Dana Murray Patterson, will accomplish in 2021 and beyond.”