Blog Archives - PACG - Progressive Action for the Common Good

Illinois Gov announces expungements-Drug Policy Reform Forum

12/31/2020

Illinois Governor Announces Half A Million Marijuana Expungements And Pardons

Drug Policy Forum

December 31, 2020

The governor of Illinois on Thursday announced more than 500,000 expungements and pardons for people with low-level marijuana offenses on their records.
The massive clemency and records clearing sweep comes about one year after the state’s legal cannabis market launched. Prior to its implementation, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) granted an earlier round of more than 11,000 pardons for marijuana-related convictions. Read the article here.

No Hate In Our States - Sculptor Edmonia Lewis

12/29/2020

Edmonia Lewis and Finding Cleopatra

No Hate In Our States

Edmonia Lewis was the first American woman of color to achieve international fame as a sculptor. Listen to an engaging story about how this gifted artist, born in 1844, navigated her life and perfected her art.

This podcast from the Smithsonian is less than 30 minutes long. (Note: it may not be approved for a younger audience. There is a disclaimer at the beginning.)

www.si.edu/sidedoor/ep-14-finding-cleopatra

Julie Ross

Announcing the Inauguration 2021 Virtual Parade and Dance Party!

12/29/2020

Save the Date!
Inauguration 2021 - Virtual Parade and Dance Party
Wednesday, January 20th from 7:00 - 8:30 pm

A Message from the President

Hello Progressives!

Plans are already underway for our PACG Inauguration 2021 event! This virtual Parade and Dance party will be lots of fun, so mark your calendars now! Join us as we celebrate with music, posters, games, prizes and more!

If you would like to help in planning, please let me know! Young people, we could really use your perspectives! We always have a lot of fun organizing and hosting events, so please JOIN US!

Allison Ambrose

After Action Report - Webinar with Dr. Kathleen Belew

12/29/2020

What is the white power movement and why should you care? - After Action Report

Civil Rights Forum

PACG co-sponsored this very successful virtual event where Dr. Kathleen Belew, assistant professor of U.S. History at the University of Chicago and author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America discussed white power activism in the U.S. today. Over 270 people were in attendance. Dr. Belew talked for about thirty minutes and then took questions from a very engaged audience. Our members were instrumental in helping put on this event, being involved in publicity, the flow of questions, and technology. The event received quite a bit of publicity in the local media:

KWQC News reported the on the event here (including a nice video).
And the QCTimes wrote a terrific review.

PACG was honored to have collaborated with other like-minded organizations in advancing knowledge on this very important issue.

Allison Ambrose

PACG Book Club for January and February 2021

12/27/2020

PACG Book Club for January and February 2021
Mondays, January 18th and February 15th at 5:30 pm via Zoom

We have decided to include some books in 2021 on environmental justice, the intersection of racial justice with environmental issues. After consultation with leaders of the PACG Environmental Forum, we chose our January book. Our February book was suggested by one of our PACG Book Club members. It furthers our interest in learning more about Africa and pairs nicely with our January selection.

Monday, January 18th at 5:30 pm via Zoom - Unbowed by Wangari Maathai
From Goodreads: "Hugely charismatic, humble, and possessed of preternatural luminosity of spirit, Wangari Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a single mother of three, recounts her extraordinary life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya.

Born in a rural village in 1940, Wangari Maathai was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her studying with Catholic missionaries, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the United States, and becoming the first woman both to earn a PhD in East and Central Africa and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government. She makes clear the political and personal reasons that compelled her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages. We see how Maathai’s extraordinary courage and determination helped transform Kenya’s government into the democracy in which she now serves as assistant minister for the environment and as a member of Parliament. And we are with her as she accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in recognition of her “contribution to sustainable development, human rights, and peace.”

In Unbowed, Wangari Maathai offers an inspiring message of hope and prosperity through self-sufficiency."

Monday, February 15th at 5:30 pm via Zoom - How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
From Penguin Random House: "In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica’s most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People’s Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated.

In his magnum opus, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney incisively argues that grasping “the great divergence” between the west and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the abiding repercussions of European colonialism on the continent of Africa has not only informed decades of scholarship and activism, it remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today."

Contact Alta Price for a Zoom link to either PACG Book Group discussion; specify which month you want to attend.

Happy reading!

Alta Price

Sharing Our 2020 Holiday Card

12/26/2020

Happy Holidays from PACG!

We summed up our year with this fun card that went out to our members. We are reprinting here because the image may be a bit hard to read. We also have an extensive blog post detailing all of our events from December of 2019 through mid-December of 2020.

This has been a challenging year for us all. Thanks to our dedicated volunteers, our generous donors and a little creative thinking, PACG has adapted well to organizing and working for social justice during the pandemic. We share this new version of a traditional seasonal song as our wishes for blessings in the New Year to all of our friends.

In the 12 Months of 2020 PACG Gave to Me…
(sung or read to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”)

12 (even more!) Platform Resolutions Written
During this election year, the Board encouraged members to submit platform resolution planks for the Iowa Caucuses. We also co-sponsored nonpartisan caucus trainings with the AAUW, QCAIR, and Alliance for Retired Americans.

11 Board Members Boarding
We continue to add qualified members to our Board of Directors and are grateful for their continued leadership.

10 Book Club Books Read
The PACG Book Club continues to meet every month. Its focus is on racial justice and will be expanding to include books on how the environment and health care play a role. The Book Club has gone international with one member Zooming in from Canada!

9 Zoom Licenses Given
In February, with the pandemic looming large elsewhere in the US, we had the foresight to purchase Zoom licenses for our forum and book club leaders. We also gave licenses to other organizations in the community with whom we coordinate on issues.

8th Annual Picnic
PACG held its 8th Annual Picnic and Pie Auction virtually this year. Maria at Catalyst Kitchen provided enchilada dinners. We were able to have a feast and support a minority-owned small business!

7 Bakers Baking
As part of our 8th Annual Picnic we held our Pie Auction on Zoom. Seven incredible cooks baked a total of 13 desserts that we auctioned off, raising $500.

6 Months of Rallies
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement, PACG began holding weekly “Racial Equality Now” rallies at John Deere Rd. and 16th St. in Moline. Each Saturday morning since then, supporters stand at this busy intersection holding BLM signs and encouraging drivers to honk their support.

Y-15-K! (read this like 5 Golden Rings!)
To celebrate our 15th Anniversary, PACG began a campaign to collect funds for our Y15K Initiative. PACG matched pledges up to $7,500. Our members helped us raise another $12,500.

4 Earth Month Proclamations
In honor of the 50thAnniversary of Earth Day in April, the Environmental Forum worked to convince the cities of Bettendorf, Davenport, Rock Island and East Moline to declare April Earth Month!

3 Informed Voters Town Halls
We helped organize and host three virtual Informed Voter Town Halls. After the election PACG also co-sponsored a “Count Every Vote” virtual rally.

2 Y15K Funds Distributions
In two separate events we distributed over $20,000 to four organizations that serve those in our community especially negatively impacted by the pandemic.

1 New WEU Category
The “No Hate In Our States” category was added to our Weekly Email Update. Every week we give our readers an action that they can take to educate themselves on the issues of equality.

We missed you all during the year but are confident that the New Year will bring us all together again. Regardless, we will tirelessly continue to do good work into 2021!

Holiday Greetings for 2020 from PACG

12/26/2020

Holiday Greetings from PACG

A Message from the President

PACG wishes all of its many members a Happy Holiday and Peace in the New Year!

Our Board of Directors took the time to share a personal message to each of you. View that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82wmSk7vLfQ

Our next Weekly Email Update (WEU) will be coming out next Tuesday, December 29th. Thanks.

Allison Ambrose

Green Drinks for January, 2021

12/16/2020

January Green Drinks via Zoom
Tuesday, January 5th at 5:00 pm

Environmental Forum

Join us at the first Green Drinks of 2021 on Tuesday, January 5th from 5 to 7 pm. Our speaker is Ed Fallon, Director of Bold Iowa.

In February we will hear from the Illinois Citizens Utility Board about energy issues in Illinois, and in March we are scheduled to learn about urban, sustainable landscaping from Kathy Brynes from Birds and Bees Urban Farm in Des Moines.

Links will be available in the WEU (Weekly Email Update) and our PACG Environmental Forum Facebook page each month.

Register here for the January meeting: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/greendrinks

Susan Leuthauser

Read Wilkerson's Book on Racial History - No Hate In Our States

12/16/2020

Author Isabel Wilkerson Releases Second Powerful Book On Racial History

No Hate In Our States

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson has written two important books on the history, analysis, and impact of racial divisions. Her first book, The Warmth of Other Suns documents the migration of African-Americans from the US South to the North and West, from the end of World War I through the 1970s.

Her newest book, Caste, compares racial division to caste systems in India and in Nazi Germany.

Both books are fascinating reads and are also available as audio books. Wilkerson is the first woman of African-American descent to receive the Pulitzer Prize.

Julie Ross

2020 Year-End Summary

12/9/2020

PACG 2020 Year-End Summary

A Message from the President

PACG wishes all of its many members a Happy Holiday and Peace in the New Year!

Our Board of Directors took the time to share a personal message to each of you. View that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82wmSk7vLfQ.

This has been a challenging year for us all. Thanks to dedicated volunteers, our generous donors and a little creative thinking, PACG has adapted to organizing and working for social justice during the pandemic. Our PACG Board and Forums have met via Zoom throughout these last 9 months. PACG bought a corporate Zoom license and we decided to share it with other social action agencies in the Quad Cities area. This new format has taught us a lot about how to set up successful and secure Zoom meetings. We made our voice stronger and were able to reach a broader progressive audience. We collaborated with partner agencies: Quad Cities Interfaith, Sisters of St. Francis (in Clinton), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), One Human Family, Catalyst Kitchen, United Way, Augustana College, St. Ambrose University, Wapsi River Center, Western Illinois University, Iowa Interfaith Power and Light, Our Lady of the Prairie and Quad Cities Interfaith.

The PACG Board and our groups have continued to be active. The Civil Rights Forum, Environmental Forum, and Health Care Reform Forum and Book Club have met with regularity during a very unusual time.

The PACG Civil Rights Forum began the year working for restorative justice by meeting with those involved with the anti-immigration rally at the Pleasant Valley Baptist Church. Members also met with Iowa US Senate candidate, Theresa Greenfield, to deliver the message, “Children do not belong in detention camps.” In May PACG signed on to a Protect Iowa Workers statement and joined a broad coalition of Iowans to protect the safety of Iowa’s workers during the global pandemic. The Forum is also active in the Juvenile Justice Coalition of the Quad Cities.

The PACG Environmental Forum screened the film, From Paris to Pittsburgh, at Augustana College in Rock Island. In March they promoted the “Plant 1000 Trees” event. They co-sponsored a virtual screening of the film The Story of Plastics at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the QC. The forum assembled a panel of sponsors including Rock Island Soil and Conservation District and Niabi Zoo to discuss the film after the showing.

Because of the pandemic, the forum reconfigured its Earth Day Celebrations.

In May, they set up a voter information table each Saturday at the Freight House Farmer’s Market.
They prompted the cities of Davenport, Bettendorf, Rock Island and East Moline to proclaim July as “Earth Month.”
They celebrated Earth Day at the Farmer’s Market. Many vendors participated in this physically distant, outdoor event.

They hosted the Citizen’s Climate Lobby via Zoom. Donald Addu presented a discussion, “The Environmental Voter: A Path to a Just and Stable Climate.” Over 40 people attended this virtual event.

Throughout the year, the PACG Health Care Reform Forum members have been writing letters to the editor that have been published in the Quad City Times. They also continued to promote Affordable Care Act education and enrollment.

The PACG Book Club continues to meet monthly with a focus on racial justice. Topics for 2021 will be expanding to include books on how the environment and health care play a role in racial inequality. The Book Club has gone international with one member zooming in from Canada!

The Dick Fallow Endowment continued its association with PACG. At the Holiday Party in December of 2019, PACG awarded the Dick Fallow Social Justice Endowment Grant to Project Renew. In February of 2020 one of our founding members, Kriss Wells passed away. PACG made a donation to the Endowment to honor him.

The PACG Board ended 2019 with a Holiday Party. Over 70 PACG members gathered in person at the German American Heritage Museum to award the Dick Fallow Award, review 2019 and eat food catered by Maria from Catalyst Kitchen.

During this election year of 2020, the Board encouraged members to submit platform planks for the Iowa Caucuses and also co-sponsored nonpartisan caucus trainings with the AAUW, QCAIR, and Alliance for Retired Americans. We also co-sponsored three virtual Informed Voter Town Halls. After the election PACG also co-sponsored a “Count Every Vote” virtual rally.

In commemoration of Black History Month in February, PACG members donated $2,200 to purchase an information kiosk at the Friends of Martin Luther King Interpretive Center in Davenport.

In May PACG co-hosted the Covid-19 Victims Remembrance Day.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement, PACG began holding weekly “Racial Equality Now” demonstrations at John Deere Rd and 16th St. in Moline at 11:30 am. Each Saturday since then, supporters stand at this busy intersection holding BLM signs and encouraging drivers to honk in support.

To celebrate our 15th Anniversary, PACG began a fundraiser to collect funds for our Y15K Initiative. PACG matched pledges up to $7500. Our members helped us raise another $12500. We distributed over $20,000 to specially chosen organizations that serve those in our community especially hard hit by the pandemic:

QCAIR (for immigrants)
Heart of Hope Ministries (food distribution in Rock Island)
Cobblestone Place (low-income housing which gives PACG very affordable office space)
Catalyst Kitchen (in conjunction with Black Hawk College to provide food service certification).

PACG celebrated its 15th Anniversary with a Virtual Picnic and Pie Auction. We raised over $500 from our pie auction! Maria at Catalyst Kitchen provided Enchilada dinners. We were able to have a feast and support a minority-owned small business.

In December we have been busy helping to co-sponsor the “What is the White Power Movement and Why Should You Care?” webinar organized by our friends at One Human Family Quad Cities.

We are forgoing our annual holiday party due to the pandemic, but we will continue our work undaunted! We have composed a little summary of our activities over this past year and I’d like to share it with you below.

Allison Ambrose