WISDOM has announced its second 2020 “Leadership for Community Transformation” training class will begin on August 6.
These trainings, held on five consecutive Thursday evenings via Zoom, cover the essentials of community organizing. A similar training program offered earlier in the summer included more than 50 people from around the state, and even from organizing projects outside of Wisconsin.
The Thursday evening trainings are useful for people who are just getting involved with a WISDOM affiliate (like ESTHER), or who want to know more about what community organizing is and how we do it. We have also had some good reviews from organizing “veterans,” who appreciated the refresher and the chance to interact with a wide variety of people who share a passion for social justice.
The trainings are interactive and participatory. People should register to participate only if they expect they can attend at least four of the five Thursday evening classes.
5-week Leadership Training Class
Thursday, August 5, continuing on August 6, 13, 20, 27, and September 3
6:30 - 8:00 pm
The first time I went out into public places wearing a mask in the beginning stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, it was different. I realized that I could not recognize people, nor could they recognize me. What is more important than our individual identities is the identity of the common good. The good of my community and society requires me to filter out as much virus as I can by wearing a mask. It was Thomas Aquinas who wrote, “The common good of many is more godlike than the good of an individual.”
Rev. Blackmon is the Associate General Minister of Justice and Local Church Ministries for the United Church of Christ and Senior Pastor of Christ The King United Church of Christ, three miles from Ferguson, Missouri. She was a registered nurse for 25 years prior to becoming an ordained minister. As a featured voice on many regional, national, and international platforms, Rev. Blackmon’s life work focuses on communal resistance to systemic injustice. Her response in Ferguson to the killing of Michael Brown resulted in national and international recognition, gaining her audiences at the White House, the Carter Center, and the Vatican. She co-authored the White Privilege curriculum for the UCC and toured the nation with Rev. Dr. William Barber of Repairers of the Breech and Sister Simone Campbell of Nuns on the Bus, proclaiming the need for a Moral Revival in the nations.
