By Maggie Heraty and David Roswell of RG North Carolina
As Resource Generation North Carolina has grown in numbers and deepened in scope, we have recognized the need to strengthen our base and be more public and active in our community. In Fall 2015 we hosted two events to help meet these needs. Our hope was to both recruit new members and build energy as well as share in the existing public conversation in Durham around

A full house at the screening of Inequality for All at The Duke Coffeehouse.
In September we hosted a public screening of the documentary Inequality for All, a film following former Labor Secretary Robert Reich as he examines the unequal distribution of wealth in the United States today
Shortly after the screening, RG North Carolina hosted a workshop called “Created Equal: How Class Matters in Our Lives and Communities,” in which we created an engaging space focused on helping participants to examine their own class stories, to place their stories in a national and historical context, and to gain a foundation in the history of the racial wealth divide in the United States. We partnered with Class Action, a nonprofit dedicated to challenging classism in organizations and communities, to facilitate and develop the content of the workshop. Approximately

“Created Equal” workshop attendees share reflections from the breakout groups activity.
We focused the content and the publicity for the workshop to ensure it would be a
The workshop was free, and we provided
Two amazing Class Action trainers, Shane Lloyd, from Brown University’s Center for Students of Color, and Theo Yang Copley, an RG alum, facilitated the workshop. We collaborated closely with Theo and Shane on the content, to ensure that the workshop would reflect the needs of our chapter as well as the needs of the community. The workshop included three parts: an exercise exploring the distribution of wealth in the U.S. across time and its connections to the racial wealth divide; a personal storytelling activity where participants shared their class story in

Workshop attendees act as quintiles in a “human graph” of the distribution of wealth in the U.S. today.
Throughout the workshop, we presented
In our follow up emails, sent to all attendees, we provided people with a list of local organizations that do economic and racial justice work, as well as information about RG. On the sign-in sheet,
The two events cost us a total of $3,000. This included paying for the trainers, film rights, pizza for all attendees at both events, and posters. We used the $500 allotted to each RG chapter, but obviously needed more than that. Instead of seeing this as a
In reflection, our chapter felt as though it accomplished the two goals of starting a community conversation around class and of building our base. Several attendees talked about how liberating it was to talk openly about their class experience. Many conversations in the room demonstrated new and deep thinking around class and race. Our chapter gained a new understanding of what we’re capable of and saw at least one way we can leverage our resources for social change. In terms of recruiting, we’re still unsure of how successful it will be. Though we sent many emails out, we have had a low response rate to date, but we plan to keep engaging participants with events like the Open House.
Our chapter still has a lot of growing to do. We want to show up more as a chapter – to stand in solidarity with others working for racial and economic justice. We are currently in the process of identifying a local organization to partner with, a process we hope to complete by early 2016. Still, as a first step, the screening and workshop did wonders to push our chapter, and to move us along a journey towards bold action in our community as individuals and as a group.
Inspiring! Thanks for sharing this experience. It’s helpful to read the details of money and relationships it takes to do events like this. Wishing you continued courage and connection!