On an early morning in the third week of June we packed a mixer, a pair of speakers, a microphone, and five mini-synthesizers into our car. We were on 270 heading west as the sun came up. By late afternoon we’d reached Detroit. We went there to participate in the Allied Media Conference and to present Beat Club, a digital music workshop that travels to neighborhood libraries and community centers in the DC area.
On Friday we set up our gear in a classroom in the Education building of Wayne State University. People began coming through the door. They headed for the seats but I invited them to stand around the table. As I demonstrated how to play the instruments, more people came in and joined the group. Everyone took a turn playing. Pretty soon a beat was going, bass lines were squealching, chords and notes began to come together. Grouped around their instruments, people laughed and encouraged each other. Freestyle raps began flying. Like any good party, it got too loud and after about half an hour we began receiving complaints about the noise from neighboring classrooms.
The next morning the streets around the campus were filled with marchers marking the 5oth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1963 march in Detroit. We set up at the campus conference center in a room designated as a play area for kids. Over several hours all sorts of people- kids, teens, adults – came by to play and ask questions. Parents snapped pictures of their kids making music. Eventually a nice man who was leading a session next door came over to ask me to turn the volume down.
I mixed down the recording from our Friday session and brought it to the temporary radio station set up for the conference so it could be broadcast. They were interviewing Quese IMC (who later hosted a great session). We left the next day, grateful to have met so many good people, both at the conference and in the city of Detroit.
Watch a vine of Beat Club at AMC2013 or listen to the recording
People from Washington, DC report back on their knowledge and experience from the 2013 Allied Media Conference in Detroit. Find out how to share your story below!
The Allied Media Conference (AMC) brings together organizers and technology buffs every summer in Detroit. Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, the AMC has earned a reputation among community media makers and grassroots researchers for highlighting positive solutions for social movements, not just stating problems. In addition to providing an inclusive space for sharing knowledge and skills, the conference is tons of fun!
Due to a strong presence of people and organizations from DC, some AMCers coined the term “DCtroit,” a phrase of solidarity between DC and Detroit. After my first AMC in 2012, I started saying that I connected with more DC people in Detroit than right here at home!
Now, we want to stay connected and share the love. A group of media producers from Grassroots DC is putting together this series of blog posts in order to reflect on our experiences and bring the AMC back to our communities.
Contribute!
This is an inclusive effort to share perspectives of anyone from DC who attended AMC 2013. We want to hear from you! Contact Grassroots DC Coordinator, Liane Scott (liane[at]grassrootsdc.org), to post your story about the AMC to this blog. We will compile posts and cross-post them to the Allied Media Project’s Talk forum in order to stay informed and stay connected.
Next year, we hope to recruit and fundraise so that even more people from DC can attend the AMC. Beyond the conference in Detroit, we are thinking about how to organize a similar convergence of local media creators and change makers in DC. How do we create a strong network of like-minded people to work together? Ultimately, we are stronger together than apart. Comment or contact us, and let’s build a more beautiful DC!
The following digital story, produced by Empower DC member Ernestine Ward, summarizes how she came to Empower DC, and why she believes its work is important.
Ernestine is a somewhat new DC resident and, unlike many other transplants to the area, she intends to stay. According to Ernestine, “volunteering with Empower DC has not only helped me gain a sense of community, but has also helped me become aware of many of the city’s pressing issues.”
I believe the above digital story exemplifies the mission of the Grassroots Media Project, which has been, “to provide a space for media production and training to individual activists and community-based nonprofits in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. Through the creation and distribution of news media, such as radio segments, short videos, public service announcements, digital stories, etc., GMP producers will educate and inform policy makers and the public at large about issues that matter to them. Our productions will be distributed on the Internet, public radio, public access television or any distribution outlet willing to work with us. We hope to provide an alternative to the mainstream media, which often overlooks or misrepresents issues and causes that matter most to low-income and working class residents of the District of Columbia.”
Unfortunately, Empower DC is no longer able to support that mission and this will be my last post for the Grassroots Media Project. Fortunately, Executive Director Parisa Norouzi has said that Empower DC would welcome another organization that fills the media training niche now left vacant by the suspension of the Grassroots Media Project and that she would like to have the content of the blog accessible as an archive, which you can find at the site grassrootsmediaproject.org.
In the meantime, GrassrootsDC.org is still up and running. The content on that site will be produced by former Grassroots Media Project volunteers who want to continue to work towards the project’s former mission. We are no longer working for the Grassroots Media Project but are instead in the process of forming a new organization called Grassroots DC. Grassroots DC will continue to fulfill the media training niche to which Parisa Norouzi referred. We will also continue to cover not only the work of Empower DC but as much of the considerable work being done by DC’s entire progressive community as we can manage.
Beyond our home online as GrassrootsDC.org, we don’t yet have a brick and mortar location. Producers continue to work collaboratively but from a variety of locations. With any luck, that will change soon and we’ll be able to resume training in person. In the meantime, you can still find our curriculum online and the alternative media that covers the issues that matter most to DC’s low-income and working-class residents at GrassrootsDC.org. It’s not the end of the Grassroots Media Project but a shift to what I believe will be a more sustainable organization, Grassroots DC.
This Tuesday, June 5, 2012, I will be facilitating a workshop entitled “Use the Media Before It Uses.” The Youth Education Alliance, which recently merged with Empower DC and one of the very few organizations in the city dedicated to helping DC’s youth realize their own political power, used the media effectively. Jonathan Stith, Empower DC’s Youth Organizer and former Executive Director of YEA has provided us with two powerful examples of their work.
Youth Education Alliance at the April 5, 2007 Budget Hearing
This is video is an example of how youth have used media to spread a message of inspiration and education. In 2007, with Mayor Fenty making drastic budget cuts, YEA members devised a cleaver and creative testimony to then City Council Chair Vincent Gray to portray how the budget cuts were impacting them.
The testimony was an adaptation of an exercise that Christina Reyes-Mitchell did with our youth members during her interview to be Youth Organizer. She didn’t get the position but she made an impact. The exercise became a part of our regular political education toolbox.
The video features YEA alumni David Lawrence Jr.; Taneisha Palmer Tanika Kat Palmer; Rob Gorham; MakinMoves Margaret who gave up their vacation to make it happen when the city unexpected moved the budget hearing to occur during their Spring Break.
Special Shout-Out Ann Caton -one of the finest organizer turned consultant transformed to mom!
The Unguided: Why DC Students Need Guidance Counselors
The Unguided was made in 2006 after YEA had established an office in Anacostia. We found out students had one guidance counselor for the entire school. There were 900 students attending Anacostia. Then we found out they weren’t the only school. The Guidance Counselor Campaign really took off.
YEA members were ahead of the curve on this issue. A great guidance counseling system is a fulcrum and critical support to enriching academic and social environment. The movie shows that great schools have great guidance counseling. Research from Philadelphia seems to support it. Graduation rates in their schools rose to the 90th percentile when students were connected to at least “one caring adult” in the building, even if that person isn’t involved in academic instruction. Isn’t that what Guidance Counselors are supposed to do? The truth isn’t complicated.
Interestingly both Mayor Fenty and Mayor Gray promised to address the guidance counselor shortage to end the school-to-prison pipeline and “double the number” of high school and college graduates. In fact, Mayor Gray promised to “double the number” of guidance counselors as one of his campaign promises. I wouldn’t hold your breath for that one.
If, like the members of the Youth Education Alliance, you would like to learn to use the media to advocate for a cause that’s important to you, then join us at the following:
Empower DC & DC Jobs with Justice Present Grassroots Leadership Education Program
How to Use the Media, Before it Uses You!
Tuesday, June 5th 6:30-8:15 PM Benning Library
3935 Benning Rd, NE / Minnesota Ave Metro / Wheelchair Accessible
Developing a clear, concise message is the key to effectively advocating for your issue in the media! Join Empower DC for our upcoming Empowerment Circle on how to effectively create and use media, Liane Scott from our Grassroots Media project will lead this interactive training!
RSVP to Liane@empowerdc.org or (202) 234-9119 x 106. Limited child care is available – please RSVP!
The Allied Media Conference (AMC) http://alliedmedia.org/ was held in Detroit Michigan at the McGregor Conference Center at Wayne State University from June 23 – 26, 2011.
Allied Media Conference, June 23-26, 2011
The AMC was founded in 1999 to cultivate strategies for a more just and creative world using both traditional and new forms of media to communicate more effectively. There were representatives of grassroots media organizations from all over the US and Canada, poets, artists, singers, dancers, rappers, actors, burlesque dancers, clowns, farmers, computers techies and Dee Jays. This broad range of people made for a marvelous display of fashion, hairstyles, piercings and tattoos which were as memorable as the sessions themselves.
The AMC had over 120 caucuses and seminars here are a few examples:
Video Blogging to Expand Your Message detailed the steps needed to reach a wider audience through your blog by using comedy, surprise and even shocking pictures to get your point across.
Cooking as a Form of Media was a seminar for using food as a media tool, where the facilitator shared recipes for pickling different things to give participants ideas about media making with food.
There was a seminar called Text Messaging for Activists which detailed how to contact a large number of people and to formulate your message to get the most out of your message with as few words as possible.
Bypassing Internet Censorship was a seminar on by-passing the Internet using a Program called TOR http://www.torproject.org/ which enables a user to hide their Internet footprints.
The Cyberskills for Elders seminar was a basic how-to for people over 40 to learn how to utilize digitized and computerized media to continue to organize and advocate their causes and share their insights in inter-generational communities The classrooms had both MACs and PCs.
The Seminar This Ain’t a Peep Show taught participants techniques to involve the audience in their presentations.
There was a discussion on Generations of Black Lesbian Brillance, this discussion specifically highlighted generations of black lesbian media makers in Detroit and their contributions to the furtherance of media in Detroit.
There was a seminar called Narrative Campaigns, Storybanking and the Restoration Campaign that asked the question, what if artists, community activists, former and current prisoners, family members and justice groups worked together using cutting edge web tools and street smart organizing. Click on the link to see – http://www.kitescampaigns.org/campaign/community-restoration-campaign/
The common theme of the Digital Justice coalition http://detroitdjc.org/ is to put people back into the center of any discussion involving digital technology, innovative strategies involving digital literacy people centered policies and community ownership.
This conference was a great place for activists, advocates, artists, farmers, and computer techies to get together and brainstorm ways to use media to make the world a better and more peaceful place. Hope to see you there in 2012!
On an early morning in the third week of June we packed a mixer, a pair of speakers, a microphone, and five mini-synthesizers into our car. We were on 270 heading west as the sun came up. By late afternoon we’d reached Detroit. We went there to participate in the Allied Media Conference and to present Beat Club, a digital music workshop that travels to neighborhood libraries and community centers in the DC area.
