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Former MA Congressman and NAACP President team up for community non-profit

BOSTON — Former Congressman Joe Kennedy and NAACP President Derrick Johnson are partnering on a new project to help emerging civil rights activists and community organizers.

It’s called the “Organizing Accelerator” and is part of Kennedy’s non-profit, Groundwork Project. Sixteen organizers and activists from 11 states answered that call…becoming the inaugural members of the Organizing Accelerator -- a partnership between the NAACP and the Groundwork Project. The non-profit invests in local grassroots organizing and was founded by former Congressman Joe Kennedy.

“The goal behind this is trying to build a sustained, robust and representative democracy,” says Kennedy.

The 20-week fellowship program for social justice organizers, advocates, and leaders. It puts a focus on training, mentoring, and building networks between organizers from historically disenfranchised and under-resourced communities. The first in-person event kicked off in Boston with stops at Harvard and the JFK library and museum.

“Whether it’s through an individual who’s running for office or a policy campaign. The goal here is for individuals to understand their agency plug into a network and effect structural changes for the good. And that’s what’s most important and exciting for me about this project,” says Derrick Johnson, president of the national NAACP.

The project focuses its efforts in the deep south -- Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, but organizing in Massachusetts is also important, says Kennedy.  According to Groundwork, in 2020, rich, white suburbs around Boston saw voter turnout as high as 90 percent, while communities of color and Gateway Cities saw two-thirds of that. Kennedy and Johnson believe community organizing will affect those outcomes in future election cycles.

“You know, Boston is America. Boston is reflective of the culture, but Boston has evolved just like Mississippi is America. And Mississippi has evolved. Now, the direction they are going could be different places, but it’s all informed by the ability of young talent,” says Johnson.

He tells Boston 25 that as the NAACP’s national convention comes to Boston, summer partnerships like this one are important.

Organizers to really drive the conversation, which comes back to this project, us coming here is important. We can highlight some things, but this project is about the systemic infrastructure that’s necessary to move big public policy questions.”

Boston is just one of three in-person second meetings. The next two are at the Biden Institute in Washington, D.C. and Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi.

The 2023 NAACP national convention will be held in Boston from July 26th through august 1st.

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