Decades of WILPF US Racial Justice Work - Part 1

By Darien De Lu
President, WILPF US

September 2021

In WILPF’s past, our racial justice work has addressed both “inner” work – addressing the personal awareness, attitudes, and unconscious biases of WILPF members – and “outer” work – addressing race-related injustices in education, employment, the law, etc. 

I believe the distinction between these two kinds of work is important, and I’ll touch on it later in this article. Our political work is WILPF's purpose, and should, I believe, focus on the outer.  At the same time, to be a healthy organization, we also want to be aware of our own attitudes and structural biases –  the inner. So we do both.

The Advancing Human Rights Issue Committee has a newly forming subcommittee pursuing “outer” anti-racism work.  Contact Joan Goddard, the interim AHR coordinator, for further information on that: ahrchair@wilpfus.org. 

In order to be more welcoming to all kinds of possible WILPF members, another committee will help members and branches increase their awareness about various “cultural” differences, including economic, gender-identity, and age. For information on this WILPF “inner” work, or if you would like to be part of this ad hoc “inner” work committee (that met through the summer and which will reassemble soon) please contact me (President@WILPFUS.org). 

Members and branches can combine both inner and outer work. Watch for more information about the group book study curriculum on Uprooting Racism by Paul Kivel. Also, see this Resource List for Dismantling White Supremacy for over twenty pages of resources for WILPF branches and members. 

In this article I talk about the last few years of national WILPF work on diversity and race matters. For the decades before that, see Part 2 in the next eNews.

Work from 2017 to 2020 

In an initiative to make diversity and inclusion a part of all WILPF work, in 2017 a national board committee looked at options. In early 2018 the board agreed to incorporate diversity and/or inclusion questions in the agenda of each Board and Steering committee meeting. Also, the board agreed to specialn board training sessions with Dr. Kesho Scott to broaden thinking about racism and biases, as well as to have Scott available as a resource to get direction on any issues members might want to discuss.

At about the same time, the 2017 Chicago WILPF Congress discussed possible WILPF racial justice work. Program Chair Barbara Nielsen, a white woman, did a workshop on that topic at the Chicago Congress; and a Black WILPFer, Courteney Leinonen, got involved through that Congress. Subsequently, on February 18, 2018, the first monthly Racial Justice call took place, in response to the workshop at the 2017 Chicago WILPF Congress. Nielsen and Leinonen served as the coordinators. 

At some point, the calls became the Racial Justice Working Group (RJWG). The RJWG was sponsored by the Advancing Human Rights (AHR) Issue Committee, under Chair Barbara Nielsen. The AHR during that time did not generate “outer” work. In order for the RJWG to be open to non-WILPF-members, it was considered a “working group” instead of an actual issue committee activity.  Participants communicated via teleconference calls, using the Maestro system, discussing books or, more often, some articles, expressing their personal responses and analysis. 

However, in the summer of 2018, Leinonen became frustrated with the work of the nearly all white group. (The only Black participants in 2020 were Phillip Cole and Theresa El-Amin.) An increasing practice by the other RJWG coordinator – of sending emails to the group a day or less before the call, listing current (e.g., NYT) news articles for discussion – caused the group to postpone the more focused book discussion. Also, the group had dropped reading/studying the book that Leinonen had started them on, White Rage. Instead, Nielsen had shifted to White Fragility, a book more directed to white people. Leinonen left the group.

In the Fall of 2018, Nielsen was unable to consistently organize the monthly discussions, since she was working two jobs at that time. She was ready to cancel the upcoming meetings, and also said she’d be willing to step down as AHR chair. However, when others offered to facilitate the RJWG, Nielsen resumed facilitating the meetings. As an inward-focused group it continued for two years, with slightly shrinking numbers.  

The Advancing Human Rights Committee from 2020 to Now

In early 2020, after requesting but not receiving meeting minutes or other documentation to show that AHR met issue committee standards I instigated a re-formation of the group, to have it function as an issue committee. In January 2020, I invited all known AHR and RJWG contacts to a conference call meeting to determine whether the AHR committee would re-form or should be deactivated. Sufficient interest arose to re-form the issue committee.

At the subsequent February 6, 2020, AHR meeting, three co-chairs, all Black women, were elected by acclamation: Valarie Young, Setou Ouattara, and Martha Collins. At that time three from the RJWG group – Black members, Phillip Cole and Theresa El-Amin, and white member, Nielsen –  seconded the three-person nomination.

Unfortunately, later that month, the next (and last official) meeting of the RJWG did not go well. Young introduced herself to the group and explained about the new AHR co-chairs and possible RJWG changes. At his request, the three co-chairs had agreed to let Cole facilitate that RJWG meeting; however,  Cole’s first act as facilitator was to announce that he had decided to change the focus of the meeting, away from the document on the characteristics of white supremacy culture and discussion questions that Val had disseminated to the group. Additionally, Nielsen demanded of Young whether she was going to continue to “lecture us”, taking up so much time to introduce the meeting and new co-chairs. Harshly critical emails to the RJWG listserve about the transition followed this meeting.

Other circumstances arose and complicated the situation from there. Although AHR initiated some work on the UN Decade of People of African Descent, suggested a Racial Justice Library (see this article for Racial Justice Library listing), and spoke up about protecting voting rights and the accuracy of the vote count, the pandemic greatly affected the lives of all three co-chairs, with family deaths and community demands. They were eventually unable to facilitate regular meetings. 

Matters came to a head at a September 2020 AHR meeting, facilitated by Joan Goddard, former (2019) Program Chair. The meeting was sparsely attended and the participants, including Nielsen, Cole, and El-Amin,  declined to talk about the announced agenda – future plans for the AHR. Instead they criticized the current leadership and the meeting process. The three co-chairs all eventually resigned. 

In late 2020, after a hiatus in AHR meetings, and moving forward after March 2021, Goddard, has worked consistently to renew the AHR. On Monday, August 30, the third AHR meeting in as many months continued with multiple (about five) subcommittees and plans for the subcommittees to meet independently. One subcomittee is on anti-racism. Because WILPF issue committees address “outer” work, that will be the focus of that subcommittee’s work.  

So please contact Joan Goddard, the interim AHR coordinator, for “outer” anti-racism work through the AHR subcommittee and for further information on AHR or any of the AHR subcommittees: ahrchair@wilpfus.org. As I mentioned above, please contact me (President@WILPFUS.org) if you would like to be part of the ad hoc committee on “inner”  work. That ad hoc committee will focus on helping branches be more welcoming to a wider range of members.