Color of Change
Encyclopedia
Color of Change is a Web-based grassroots organization that aims to strengthen the political voice of Black America. It was formed after the events of Hurricane Katrina
, a powerful storm that devastated much of the north-central Gulf Coast. Color of Change is a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation that engages in lobbying and public education, and Color Of Change PAC is a Political Action Committee registered with the Federal Elections Commission.
and Van Jones
. Rucker had previously been Director of Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn
.org Political Action and MoveOn.org Civic Action (2003–2005). Van Jones is the founder and executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
. Van Jones left the organization several years later to move on to other pursuits, such as Green For All
. Color of Change emerged in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
, and was a leading advocate of the Jena Six
, helping that cause gain increased media, national, and international attention. Color of Change is still working on issues associated with the aftermath of Katrina, particularly the availability of housing to those whose homes were lost or damaged. One of COC's current campaigns is garnering support for Senate bill S.1668, which would repair and open thousands of minimally damaged public housing units.
, and specifically e-mail
, as its main conduit for communicating with its members. Web 2.0
developments such as social networking sites also contributed to the organization's scope and public impact, particularly in the case of the Jena Six
. Rucker attributes the viral-nature of e-communications with helping promote the case of the Jena Six, and sees the Internet a powerful resource for activists looking to garner attention for causes. The Democratic Strategist also noted that major blogs and supposedly liberal media outlets were largely silent on the case of the Jena Six, while The Cornell Daily Sun
wrote that web-savvy organizations like Color of Change have been able to adopt new Internet technologies for causes of civic protest, but indicated that these new technologies should not be thought of as a total replacement for concrete grassroots work.
are a group of six black
teenagers who were charged with the beating of Justin Barker, a white
teenager at Jena High School
in Jena
, Louisiana
, United States
, on December 4, 2006. The beating followed a number of incidents in the town; the earliest reported was that of three white students hanging painted nooses from a tree at Jena High School in August, after a black student asked permission from a school administrator to sit under it. The Jena Six case sparked protests by those viewing the arrests and subsequent charges as excessive and racially discriminatory.
Before advocacy and grassroots groups began circulating information about the Jena Six case, it received little press of any kind. Advocacy groups such as Color of Change heard about the case from dedicated bloggers and activists who were following it closely.
The Jena campaign was such a galvanizing force that it tripled Color of Change's membership. According to the Chicago Tribune
, COC raised over $200,000 for the Jena Six defense. A petition created by Color Of Change called for District Attorney Walters to drop all charges and for Governor Kathleen Blanco
to investigate his conduct. The Color of Change petition had received 318,420 signatures as of March 25, 2008.
In the months following the Jena Six rally, controversy arose about accounting and dispersal of the legal defense funds. Questions about the money were first sparked by photos posted on Robert Bailey's former MySpace
account, which show him with quantities of hundred dollar bills stuffed in his mouth, an episode reported by the Town Talk.
In his November 10 report, the Chicago Tribune's Howard Witt noted that they were the only national civil rights group to be fully transparent with their use of the funds. Witt also raised broader questions about the funds, which totaled more than half a million dollars, reporting that attorneys for Bell claimed that they have yet to receive any money from him, and that the families had refused to publicly account for the donations.
(CBC) in 2007 to not host a Democratic presidential debate with the Fox network, which it argued "consistently marginalizes...Black leaders and the Black community.". Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
eventually decided to shun the Congressional Black Caucus/Fox debate. James Rucker
, one of the founders of Color of Change, argued that Fox was using its partnership with the CBC as part of an image building campaign to make itself appear more "Black-friendly."
In 2008, Color of Change began a e-mail campaign to urge members of the CBC (those who are superdelegates) to endorse candidates according to how their districts voted. In February, 2008, Representative John Lewis
, a senior member in Congress and the CBC, declared that he would switch his allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama because his district overwhelmingly supported Obama in its primary.
In 2009 Color of Change launched a campaign urging advertisers on Glenn Beck
's Fox News show to pull their ads, in response to comments by Beck in which he "called President Obama a racist who has a 'deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.'" So far, affected advertisers have switched their ads to different Fox programs.http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_43/b4200066170117_page_5.htm.
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, a powerful storm that devastated much of the north-central Gulf Coast. Color of Change is a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation that engages in lobbying and public education, and Color Of Change PAC is a Political Action Committee registered with the Federal Elections Commission.
Background
Color of Change was co-founded in 2005 by James RuckerJames Rucker
James Rucker is an American social entrepreneur and co-founder of Color of Change.Rucker currently runs Color of Change, an online activist organization that claims to strengthen the voice of African Americans in the United States...
and Van Jones
Van Jones
Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones is an American environmental advocate, civil rights activist, and attorney. Jones is a co-founder of three non-profit organizations. In 1996, he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a California non-governmental organization working for alternatives to violence...
. Rucker had previously been Director of Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn
MoveOn
MoveOn is an American non-profit, progressive or liberal public policy advocacy group and political action committee, which has raised millions of dollars for candidates it identifies as "moderates" or "progressives" in the United States. It was formed in 1998 in response to the impeachment of...
.org Political Action and MoveOn.org Civic Action (2003–2005). Van Jones is the founder and executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is a non-profit strategy and action center based in Oakland, CA. The stated aim of the center is to work for justice, opportunity and peace in urban America....
. Van Jones left the organization several years later to move on to other pursuits, such as Green For All
Green For All
Green for All is an NGO in the United States "working to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." Based in Oakland, California, Green For All advocates for a clean energy economy as a solution to both environmental and economic problems. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins...
. Color of Change emerged in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, and was a leading advocate of the Jena Six
Jena Six
The Jena Six were six black teenagers convicted in the beating of Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, on December 4, 2006. Barker was injured in the assault by the members of the Jena Six, and received treatment for his injuries at an emergency room...
, helping that cause gain increased media, national, and international attention. Color of Change is still working on issues associated with the aftermath of Katrina, particularly the availability of housing to those whose homes were lost or damaged. One of COC's current campaigns is garnering support for Senate bill S.1668, which would repair and open thousands of minimally damaged public housing units.
Organizing methodology
Color of Change utilizes the InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, and specifically e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, as its main conduit for communicating with its members. Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
developments such as social networking sites also contributed to the organization's scope and public impact, particularly in the case of the Jena Six
Jena Six
The Jena Six were six black teenagers convicted in the beating of Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, on December 4, 2006. Barker was injured in the assault by the members of the Jena Six, and received treatment for his injuries at an emergency room...
. Rucker attributes the viral-nature of e-communications with helping promote the case of the Jena Six, and sees the Internet a powerful resource for activists looking to garner attention for causes. The Democratic Strategist also noted that major blogs and supposedly liberal media outlets were largely silent on the case of the Jena Six, while The Cornell Daily Sun
The Cornell Daily Sun
The Cornell Daily Sun is an independent daily newspaper published in Ithaca, New York by students at Cornell University. It is the oldest independent college daily in the United States....
wrote that web-savvy organizations like Color of Change have been able to adopt new Internet technologies for causes of civic protest, but indicated that these new technologies should not be thought of as a total replacement for concrete grassroots work.
Jena Six
The Jena SixJena Six
The Jena Six were six black teenagers convicted in the beating of Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, on December 4, 2006. Barker was injured in the assault by the members of the Jena Six, and received treatment for his injuries at an emergency room...
are a group of six black
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
teenagers who were charged with the beating of Justin Barker, a white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
teenager at Jena High School
Jena High School
Jena High School is a secondary school located in Jena, Louisiana, United States. The school, serving grades 9 through 12, is a part of the La Salle Parish School Board...
in Jena
Jena, Louisiana
Jena is a town in and the parish seat of La Salle Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,971 at the 2000 census.In September 2006, Jena became the focus of national news stories in the United States for a racial controversy involving its school system and a group of students known...
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, on December 4, 2006. The beating followed a number of incidents in the town; the earliest reported was that of three white students hanging painted nooses from a tree at Jena High School in August, after a black student asked permission from a school administrator to sit under it. The Jena Six case sparked protests by those viewing the arrests and subsequent charges as excessive and racially discriminatory.
Before advocacy and grassroots groups began circulating information about the Jena Six case, it received little press of any kind. Advocacy groups such as Color of Change heard about the case from dedicated bloggers and activists who were following it closely.
The Jena campaign was such a galvanizing force that it tripled Color of Change's membership. According to the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, COC raised over $200,000 for the Jena Six defense. A petition created by Color Of Change called for District Attorney Walters to drop all charges and for Governor Kathleen Blanco
Kathleen Blanco
Kathleen Babineaux Blanco was the 54th Governor of Louisiana, having served from January 2004 until January 2008. She was the first woman to be elected to the office of governor of Louisiana....
to investigate his conduct. The Color of Change petition had received 318,420 signatures as of March 25, 2008.
In the months following the Jena Six rally, controversy arose about accounting and dispersal of the legal defense funds. Questions about the money were first sparked by photos posted on Robert Bailey's former MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
account, which show him with quantities of hundred dollar bills stuffed in his mouth, an episode reported by the Town Talk.
In his November 10 report, the Chicago Tribune's Howard Witt noted that they were the only national civil rights group to be fully transparent with their use of the funds. Witt also raised broader questions about the funds, which totaled more than half a million dollars, reporting that attorneys for Bell claimed that they have yet to receive any money from him, and that the families had refused to publicly account for the donations.
Other campaigns
The organization also heavily lobbied the Congressional Black CaucusCongressional Black Caucus
The Congressional Black Caucus is an organization representing the black members of the United States Congress. Membership is exclusive to blacks, and its chair in the 112th Congress is Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.-Aims:...
(CBC) in 2007 to not host a Democratic presidential debate with the Fox network, which it argued "consistently marginalizes...Black leaders and the Black community.". Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
eventually decided to shun the Congressional Black Caucus/Fox debate. James Rucker
James Rucker
James Rucker is an American social entrepreneur and co-founder of Color of Change.Rucker currently runs Color of Change, an online activist organization that claims to strengthen the voice of African Americans in the United States...
, one of the founders of Color of Change, argued that Fox was using its partnership with the CBC as part of an image building campaign to make itself appear more "Black-friendly."
In 2008, Color of Change began a e-mail campaign to urge members of the CBC (those who are superdelegates) to endorse candidates according to how their districts voted. In February, 2008, Representative John Lewis
John Lewis (politician)
John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation...
, a senior member in Congress and the CBC, declared that he would switch his allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama because his district overwhelmingly supported Obama in its primary.
In 2009 Color of Change launched a campaign urging advertisers on Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck
Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
's Fox News show to pull their ads, in response to comments by Beck in which he "called President Obama a racist who has a 'deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.'" So far, affected advertisers have switched their ads to different Fox programs.http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_43/b4200066170117_page_5.htm.