Background
For 24 years, the Center For Community Action (CCA) has
been a base for both effective and successful grassroots,
multiracial community action and empowerment programs in rural
Robeson County, N.C. Its mission is to organize and empower
individuals, families, communities, and institutions in order
to improve the quality of life and the equality of life in
Robeson County, N.C. Robeson County is the most ethnically
diverse, rural county in the U.S. When starting its work many
years ago, CCA’s founders knew that if fundamental social
change could be achieved here in Robeson County through multiracial
and collaborative vision, values, and programs, its work could
serve as both a model and inspiration to numerous other communities
and organizations across the nation.
CCA’s work has been highly collaborative, teaming
with many other organizations, associations, and leaders in
Robeson County over the last 24 years to reach its goal. This
collaborative work has been very successful across many sectors
and systems, including court and law enforcement reform, school
reform, civil rights, political reform, economic justice,
and environmental justice. Robeson County now has all three
major races equitably represented on the County Board of Commissioners,
the Board of the Public Schools, and in the N.C. House of
Representatives. In county law enforcement, the Sheriff is
Native American, the Public Defender is African American,
and the District Attorney is European American. Beyond racial
inclusion, CCA has also contributed to the professionalization
of public administrators across the sectors of the county.
This effort has minimized the effects of the former system
of patronage in which hiring in almost all public jobs was
dependent on one’s access to internal relationships
and influence. The Center’s work has successfully combined
the strategies of grassroots community organization, multiracial
and multi-sector collaboration, research, policy change, and
development through numerous projects and programs. Over the
last 10 years, its work has increasingly been the subject
of more formal research among graduate researchers interested
in effective and successful community action and community
practice.
Just at the point in history when we achieved inclusive
and equitable representation in governance and were ready
to turn more attention to economic and cultural change, the
economic base of the county is ripped out from under it. The
manufacturing and tobacco industries had been the backbone
of the county’s private sector for the past 50 years.
Suddenly, with the passage of federal trade policies that
not only allow, but also encourage overseas investments and
the closing of U.S. factories and farms, the county’s
economy is de-constructed. It is as if, just when we get everyone
to a common table, the legs of that table are cut out from
under us. Thus, we have the context for the Jobs For the Future
Project.
After watching over 8,000 jobs leave over 8 years, the social
destruction that it caused to families and children, and the
pressures that it placed on the service delivery system in
our county, many of us began discussing what we could do in
a proactive way to counter this trend. We knew that we had
to research the impact of the job loss on the county’s
economy and its people. We knew that we had to address economic
development policy at all levels, particularly at the federal
and state levels. We also knew that we needed to have creative
and positive solutions that would not only solve our problems,
but also offer creative solutions to the problems of job loss
throughout Rural America. We knew that we had to develop policy
recommendations that could actually be realistically considered
and supported by both major political parties once the will
and skill of the people across the nation was organized. We
knew that these proposals had to be tied to major development
and reconstruction of the economies of rural America based
on the principles of sustainable development economies that
are:
- locally owned and operated
- provide wages and benefits that support individual and
family security
- protect and promote the environment
We are developing numerous policy recommendations with a focus
on a major grant program for rural development. Our Federal
Government is presently using grants as an economic and infrastructure
development strategy for rebuilding nations devastated by war.
We believe that this strategy of employing grants, in addition
to more conventional loans, both diversifies and strengthens
the federal approach to economic and social reconstruction.
This federal strategy of utilizing a combination of grants and
loans for economic and social development provides a model for
a more comprehensive approach to rebuilding the economies of
Robeson County and other rural counties in North Carolina and
throughout the nation that have been devastated by the loss
of wages and jobs. Thus, we have the content of the Jobs For
the Future Project: a combination of solid research on the impact
of the job loss on our county, solid policy recommendations
for remediation and reconstruction, and solid plans for small
business, sustainable development.
No other county in the U.S. has developed a comprehensive
strategy to address massive job loss that includes major policy
leverage on the state and national level and major development
initiatives on the local level. We hope that, not only with
the Jobs For the Future become a national model, but also
that our county will host both state and national meetings
in order to contribute more to the national discussion among
states with large rural populations that have been devastated
by job loss. A rise in the number of meetings and conferences
will also generate needed revenues for local businesses and
services. We also hope to invite and recruit businesses with
sustainable development principles and practices to become
partners in rural re-development and consider long-term investments
in our county.
Written by: Rev. Mac Legerton, Executive Director, Center
For Community Action
For more information, contact:
Center For Community Action
P.O. Box 723, Lumberton, N.C. 28359
Ph: 910-739-7851
Fax: 910-618-9839
cca@carolina.net
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