The following is a statement from PolicyLink CEO Angela Glover Blackwell in response to President Obama’s first State of the Union address:

“A recovery that merely recreates our inequitable pre-recession economy is no recovery at all. Throughout his first year and his first State of the Union address, President Obama has made it clear that all Americans deserve to live in opportunity-rich communities. He has listened to and learned from those closest to our nation’s challenges.

During his the first year of Obama’s tenure, PolicyLink and our allies have:

• Pushed for greater investment in green jobs. The president listened.
• Advocated for career ladders that help a job turn into a lifelong profession. The president listened.
• Argued that job training is crucial to creating a sustainable, flexible 21^st Century workforce. The president listened.
• Shown that hiring local residents and steering projects to local, minority-owned businesses has a phenomenal impact on a community. The president listened.

Of course, listening is just the first step. We must now put these ideas and innovations into practice. The path is clear…the president and all allies of equity in America must now walk that path with purpose. A true national recovery depends on it.”

The first year of the Obama Era has been defined by noise - voracious political pundits, screaming Tea Partiers, and cries of “too left” and “not left enough” from competing corners of political world. With the surprise election of Scott Brown yesterday following a loud and boisterous campaign built on voters’ anger at a still-stagnant economy, the noise isn’t likely to ebb soon.

But hard work gets done beyond the noise. Check out Angela Glover Blackwell’s piece in the Huffington Post today, “Beyond the Noise — 12 Quiet Ways Obama is Building a More Equitable America.”

But the best ideas don’t come from Washington. They come from community leaders closest to our nation’s challenges.

How would you make sure Year Two of the Obama Era is a year of equity? What should the Administration and its allies make their top priority?

Please share your ideas in the comments section.

Check out this CNN piece on Rev. Yearwood and the Hip Hop Caucus’ efforts to bring their “Green the Block” message to Washington:

On my way to work today, I walked through a park in downtown Oakland, passing row after row of African American, Asian American, White and Latino men, searching the want ads and calling friends, relatives, and anyone they could think of who might have work, if even for a day.  And many were sitting with heads hung low, having long ago given up.

These are New Deal times — after decades of slippage, the government is, like it or not, the “investor of last resort” for millions still not lifted up by Great Society programs designed to overcome exclusion based on race, gender and status and by the failed privatization schemes of Reaganomics.

Despite moves by the House and Senate Budget Committees to preserve most of the Obama budget goals — at least as far as human services, equity and infrastructure are concerned — there is still some naïve, if not mean-spirited, thinking in this country that could sink some needed and deserving programs.  The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the [House Budget] committee, said, “With this budget, the president and the Democratic majority are attempting, very quickly and rather openly, nothing less than the third and great final wave of government expansion, building on the Great Society and the New Deal.”

The perceived scandal of helping poor people and repairing what’s broken in urban and rural areas “rather openly” is the kind of denial (Rush Limbaugh are you listening?) that comes from those who can’t see the day-to-day human collateral of the economic collapse.

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The energy at “Realizing the Promise” was palpable.

More than 2,500 community leaders and organizers - including top Obama transition leaders - came together in Washington DC, last week for the forum on community, faith and democracy. The event was hosted by the Center for Community Change and the Gamaliel Foundation, and cosponsored by a number of organizations, including PolicyLink.

As part of this democracy day: 400+ people marched to reform health-care; 500+ people joined in a press conference on immigration reform; and 700+ people held 178 legislative visits with their senators and representatives voicing their needs.  All in one morning!

One after another, leaders of community organizations from across the country stood at the podium and spoke of their hopes for their communities.   Over and over, people talked about the need for jobs, comprehensive immigration reform, the right to organize, and health-care reform.

Then two roundtable discussions were moderated by award-winning journalist, Juan Williams.  The first focused on A People’s Perspective of the Economic Crisis and the second on Democracy in the New America.  Notably, Melody Barnes, Director of Domestic Policy Council for President-Elect Obama was on the panel, with luminaries like Manuel Pastor, a leading expert on environmental policy and regional equity at University of Southern California, Joseph Hansen from United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), and Maria Socorro Pesqueira of Mujeres Latinas en Accion.

These are the people who make our democracy real -the people who organize community voices and find ways to insert community needs into the often esoteric political processes which shapes our lives.

The forum ended with closing address by Valerie Jarrett, co-chair of the Obama-Biden Transition Project and White House Senior Advisor.

Ms. Jarrett ended her talk with one simple question -”are you fired up?” The roar in response made the answer — and the promise — perfectly clear.

Check out the Realizing the Promise intro video below and visit the conference site for more info on how to get involved:

The passage of the $307 billion federal Farm Bill drew hoots of derision from nearly all shades on the political spectrum. Deficit hawks said it was laden with pork. President Bush said it was a boon to rich farmers. International poverty leaders said it would exacerbate the world food shortage.

Finding fault with this farm bill isn’t hard; efforts to push for a major overhaul definitely came up short. But in addition to significant increases in funds for food stamps, particularly important in a time of escalating food prices and higher unemployment, embedded in the huge bill are some provisions that could be the building blocks for much bigger changes in the future and could strengthen equity efforts already underway in states and cities to increase access to healthy foods.

As part of the powerful reframing of the farm bill as the “food bill“-a very important success in and of itself-the bill recognizes the problem of lack of access to healthy foods in communities across the country suffering, in some cases for decades, without access to a grocery store with fresh fruits and vegetables. In between patching together trips to a supermarket-by car, bus, carpool or taxi-residents typically rely on corner stores or convenience stores stocked with high-fat junk food. These high-in-calories, low-in-nutrition foods are a major driver of the nation’s obesity and diabetes epidemics.

The bill establishes a Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development Center to increase access to healthy, affordable food-including locally produced agricultural products-to underserved communities. Grants and technical assistance are to be provided for feasibility studies to support the processing, distribution, and marketing of healthy foods. The overall focus is on meeting the needs of historically underserved communities.

In addition, the bill calls for a one-year USDA-led study (with the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Small Business Administration, the Institute of Medicine, and others) to look at the incidence of “food deserts” -areas without access to healthy and fresh food retail outlets-while identifying strategies to reduce their incidence. Backed by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), this provision could lead to better and wider understanding of the problem and support for innovative change efforts.

Beyond just studying the need for access to healthy food options, though, the farm bill also provides support for real steps that are underway to address the problem.

After a lot of effort, advocates were able to capture support for farmers’ markets-a great way to increase access to healthy food in low-income communities and sustain small farmers within the region. To reach residents who need these markets the most, the bill helps with market start-up fees and ensures that those with food stamps can make purchases. The bill’s provisions will provide grants to promote farmers’ markets and help secure the technology to take Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) payments.

Advocates also earned several hard-fought victories for farmers of color. Backed by leading groups like the Rural Coalition and the Land Loss Prevention Project, advocates were able to get the bill to include more than 30 provisions from the “Diversity Initiative” - substantially increasing access to credit, grants, services and education for socially disadvantaged farmers and farm-workers.

One of the greatest advances may actually lie in the area where many advocates were the most disappointed - specialty crops. These crops-known as fruits and vegetables to you and me-will get nearly $3 billion in grants and subsidies from the bill, the first time the bill set aside a significant sum for these crops. More than $1 billion will go directly to farmers of healthy crops like grapes, pears, and avocados. Another $1 billion will expand a pilot fruit-and-vegetable snacks-in-school program to all 50 states.

Though subsidies for corn (and the resulting cheap, unhealthy, sugar substitute corn-syrup) still significantly dwarf those for specialty crops, this is a major shift in policy that hopefully can be expanded in the future. A new alliance between advocates and growers of specialty crops was an important element in these provisions successfully making it through the arduous legislative process.

Each of these changes required a champion, from Reps. Bobby L. Rush (D-IL) and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) to Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and the agreement of leaders including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-ND), and his Senate counterpart Tom Harkin (D-IA). While the overall bill only offers a glimpse of what a true equity-driven farm bill might look like, we must not lose sight of that vision and of what it could bring us in the next food bill debate.

Market Photo by Flickr user Wiedmaier, used under a Creative Commons license. Please visit Wiedmaier’s photostream for many more beautiful photos.

The nation’s capital is a bit of a microcosm for the changes we’re seeing in neighborhoods and communities across the country. A great NPR story this morning, “From Riots to Revival,” highlights the rebirth of DC’s U Street neighborhood in the 40 years since the MLK riots.

It is a story of the uneasy balance between revival and gentrification that echoes across the nation as American looks back on the progress and obstacles we see on the 40th Anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. U Street was once a center of middle-class African-American culture in DC, anchored by shops, theaters and thriving families. After the riots, though, U Street fell on very hard times. Now, condo towers and new development are threatening to displace longtime residents.

The nonprofit Cultural Tourism DC describes the neighborhood this way:

By the early 20th century, the area was the nerve center of the city’s black community, home to businesses and places of entertainment, and the major social institutions of black Washington. Until 1920, when Harlem surpassed it, it was the largest urban African American community in the nation. All the great entertainers played at its lively theaters and clubs. The old timers say that U Street was so grand that to go there, “you had to wear a tie.” Duke Ellington is one of many national figures to call this neighborhood home.

Today, with a new subway stop, a resurgence of nightclubs, and the renovation of many of its historic buildings underway, the neighborhood is seeing a renaissance.

A renaissance is in the eye of the beholder. For a nuanced view of what the new gentrification means for residents of U Street, check out this 2006 Washington Post story, “U Turn.”

And, just because this place has the best half-smokes and chocolate shakes in the city, here is a photo the Mayors of Washington and Seattle standing outside of beloved U Street landmark Ben’s Chili Bowl.