Category: PACG Events - PACG - Progressive Action for the Common Good

Pride Month Kick Off - starting Friday, June 2nd

5/23/2023

QC Pride Fest - Pride Month Kick Off Update
Friday, June 2nd from 5:00 pm to midnight and
Saturday, June 3rd from noon to midnight

Schwiebert Riverfront Park
101 17th St
Rock Island, IL 61201 (map)Civil Rights and Gender Equity Forums

Quad Cities Pride Alliance, Elle on Main, Rock Island Parks and Recreation and other groups are sponsoring QC Pride Fest this year at Schwiebert Riverfront Park in Rock Island. Read more info here as it becomes available.

PACG is staffing a table on Saturday from noon until 8:00 pm. Volunteers are needed! Please contact Gender Equity Forum facilitator, Carolyn Martin, to volunteer.

We are also staffing a table on Saturday, June 17th at the QC Unity Pride Parade and need volunteers then as well. Look for a future post on volunteering for that one.

PACG Webmaster

Walk for River Rights - PACG Event

4/29/2023

Walk for River Rights
Saturday, May 13th at 11:30 am

Schwiebert Riverfront Park
101 17th ST
Rock Island, IL (map)

Great Plains Action Society and Cosponsored by PACG and others

PACG has agreed to cosponsor this event organized by Great Plains Action Society, the only active indigenous-led organization in Iowa. This walk across Centennial Bridge is in solidarity with BIPOC leaders who are working to reclaim Rights of Nature for the Mississippi River.

The event Facebook page link is here and repeated below in italics for those not on Facebook.

On Saturday, May 13th, the Walk for River Rights begins at Schwiebert Park (101 17th St, Rock Island, IL 61201) at 11:30AM and closes at 12:30PM at LeClaire Park (400 Beiderbecke Dr, Davenport, IA 52802).

Join leading BIPOC organizers who have converged in the Quad Cities to begin working towards reclaiming Rights of Nature for the Mississippi River. We will walk across the Centennial Bridge in solidarity as one River community advocating for the Rights of the Mississippi River, from the headwaters to the Gulf, and for the rights of all communities whose lives are supported by the waters. All are welcomed and encouraged to attend! A brief introduction and explanation of our convergence will begin at 11:30AM at Schwiebert Park.

The Walk for River Rights is part of The Mississippi River Summit (May 11th-14th, 2023, Quad Cities, IA-IL), a summit centering and advancing the leadership of 40 organizers of historically racially marginalized communities working to protect water, natural places, and sacred spaces. The goal is to build an Indigenous-led coalition from the Mississippi Headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico, and eventually claim the rights of nature for the entire river system and develop an organized frontline group working to protect the Mississippi watershed and all living beings that rely on it as their home.
Organized by Great Plains Action Society. For questions contact@greatplainsaction.org

*In case the water has not receded by the time of this event, we will adjust our route and end at the Figge plaza

Other sponsors include Sage Sisters of Solidarity, QC Native American Coalition, One Human Family, Nahant Marsh, Partners of Scott County Watersheds, Sierra Club Eagle VIew Group, and Young Lions Roar.

We have included a picture of the route map below. Please join us as we support this important work.

Glenda Guster

PACG Book Club - "The Round House" June, 2023

4/28/2023

PACG Book Club - The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Monday, June 19th at 5 pm - hybrid meeting

Edwards Congregational UCC
3420 Jersey Ridge Rd
Davenport, IA (map)

PACG Book Club

Our next PACG Book Club discussion will be a hybrid in-person and Zoom meeting at Edwards Congregational UCC. If you want to come in person, the address is above. If you want to join by Zoom, contact our Office Manager or me for the link. Also, since the church has after-school tutoring until 5 pm, we will be meeting at 5 pm instead of 4:30 pm.

The book is The Round House by Louise Erdrich. Here is a quote from Goodreads about the book:

"One of the most revered novelists of our time - a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life - Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.

Riveting and suspenseful, arguably the most accessible novel to date from the creator of Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich’s The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction - at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture."

Alta Price

The new version of "I Am the Future" at the MLK Center - After Action Report

3/5/2023

**WQPT PBS viewing of I Am the Future - After Action Report**

Civil Rights Forum

One year after the creation of I am the Future: Standing on the Shoulders of the Past, PACG’s 2022 Black History Month film project, was updated with the help of local PBS affiliate, WQPT. As a small nonprofit organization, PACG could not have done this on our own. Lora Adams, WQPT Director of Marketing and Local Content, worked with her team for two months to make this possible.

In celebration of the updated version of the film and Black History Month 2023, PACG
held a special showing at Friends of MLK Interpretive Center in Davenport, on Thursday, February 23rd, for an audience of 20 people. Three of the interviewees were present to watch the video with community members: Rev. Gabriel Barber III, Dr. Henry Brockington, Attorney Catherine (Kitty) Alexander, along with film moderator, AbdurRahmaan Howard. Unable to attend the event was interviewee Mayor Bill Gluba.

In 1963, some residents of the Quad Cities attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The film highlights their first hand accounts and how their connection with Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired each of them to become civil rights leaders in our community. As young men and women in the 1960s and beyond, Gabe, Bill, Henry and Kitty would have thought of themselves as the future. This is their story. We are grateful to them in so many ways.

As PACG President and I am the Future creator, Glenda Guster says, "I am benefiting now from these past acts of courage and sacrifice. I made sure my children knew this, and my grandchildren know now they are standing on bent down backs that were not broken by racism. I believe this video gives local civil rights activists an opportunity to tell their story about their involvement in the March on
Washington and meeting Dr. King. We hope this updated version proves to be both educational and inspirational, not only for Black History month, but throughout the year
and for years to come.”

Our project title came from a phrase that Glenda's church often uses when speaking of their children: "I Am the Future." (This phrase is from the Whiney Houston song The Greatest Love Of All.)

We would like to thank our panelists, Gabriel, Henry, Bill, and Kitty, Moderator, Abdur, PACG President and film creator, Glenda Guster, WQPT’s Lora Adams, the PACG Civil Rights Forum, Friends of MLK Interpretive Center, and everyone else who has supported this project.

You may view our updated video here. For those of you who attended our viewing, Lora Adams shared this version of We Shall Overcome sung by Cordova High School Concert Singers from Memphis, Tennessee. This music is used in our video.

Maggie Davis, Office Manager

P.S. Have you donated to PBS this year? Do it now.

View the updated version of "I Am the Future" - A Message from the Board

3/2/2023

It's here! View I Am the Future online

A Message from the Board

PACG Board of Directors

We are honored that WQPT offered to update our Black History Month video from 2022! As a small nonprofit organization, PACG could not have done this on our own. Lora Adams, WQPT Director of Marketing and Local Content, worked with her team for two months to make this possible. Please enjoy it here. We hope to get it on our PACG YouTube channel as well.

For those of you who attended our group viewing at the Friends of MLK Center in Davenport on February, 23rd, here is the link to the video recording of We Shall Overcome. Part of this performance by high school students is featured in our video.

(P.S. Have you donated to your local PBS station? Do it here!)

Glenda Guster

Holiday Party 2022 - After Action Report

12/11/2022

2022 PACG Holiday Party - After Action Report

Holiday Party Committee

Over 85 people sat down to a wonderful dinner catered by Maria Lopez of Tamales for Hope on Saturday, December 3rd at the Progressive Action for the Common Good (PACG) Holiday Party at The German American Heritage Center in downtown Davenport. We were delighted to hold this annual event for the first time in two years. And more than 40 guests committed to our initiative to get involved with PACG in 2023!

The PACG Holiday Party is also the platform to announce The Dick Fallow Endowment for Social Justice annual grant award. The Dick Fallow Endowment was established in 2013 to carry on the life work of the former PACG member, activist and union member. local activist and union member. Each year, the endowment issues grants to organizations that fulfill his mission by working in the areas of labor/economic justice, environment/sustainability and/or democracy/human rights.

This year, the $2,500 grant was awarded to the team from Cafe on Vine to support their work in the QC Community. Waunita Sullivan, Executive Director of Cafe on Vine, accepted the award. Cafe on Vine is operated by an independent Board of Directors with members from across the Quad City area and receives daily support and help from volunteers from throughout the community. Cafe on Vine will use this endowment to continue to provide free, nutritious meals to the needy of the community 365 days each year. They serve two meals per day, Monday through Friday (breakfast and lunch), a luncheon service on Saturdays, and an evening meal on Sundays. It is the only meal site in the Quad Cities to do so.

Forum leaders also spoke about each of our current 4 forums: Civil Rights, Environmental, Gender Equity, and Health Care Reform and their community organizing work and accomplishments during the past year.

The PACG Holiday Committee thanks you for coming and for celebrating another busy year:
Allison Ambrose, Alta Price, Ann McCluskey, Caryn Unsicker, Ed Broders, Glenda Guster, Susan Leuthauser, and Maggie Davis.

If you have not done so already please sign up here for the PACG Progressive Action Update, our weekly email, to keep on top of our activities for 2023.

Happy Holidays and thank you all for fighting for social justice throughout our community.

Learn about carbon dioxide pipe lines - What You Can Do Now

11/26/2022

Learn about carbon dioxide pipe lines
Thursday, December 1st from 6:00 to 7:30 pm

Bettendorf Public Library
Gilbert Room
2950 Learning Campus Drive
Bettendorf, Iowa (map)

Environmental Forum and Iowa CCI

The PACG Environmental Forum and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) invite you to this informational meeting about carbon dioxide pipe lines.

Please register for this event here: https://iowacci.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/event/info?id=2981&reset=1

Susan Leuthauser

"I Am the Future" Showing - After Action Report

11/10/2022

Black History Video of I Am the Future: Standing on the Shoulders of the Past - After Action Report

Rock Island Library
Rock Island, IL

PACG Board

On Tuesday, October 25th we gathered together to watch the PACG Black History Video I Am the Future: Standing on the Shoulders of the Past. Despite the rainy day, over 35 people were in attendance! Gabriel Barber spoke as one of several interviewees that were featured in the video. And this was his 95th Birthday! Many of his family and church members joined us for this event.

The following interviewees were in attendance: Bill Gluba, Dr. Henry Brockington, Catherine Alexander, and AbdurRahmaan "Abdur" Howard. There was a lot of positive feedback from the audience. There were questions from several young people that attended in support of Abdur Howard.

The Rock Island Library requested the link so it can be included in their reference video collection. Several attendees requested a link to the video which is on our PACG YouTube Channel (link above).

The video will be shown again in 2023 at the Davenport Library, Fairmount St. Branch on Saturday, February 11th from 2:00 to 3:30 pm. We will be asking the Moline and Bettendorf Libraries to host viewings of the video for Black History month.

Glenda Guster

Book Club November 21st at 4:30 pm - " This Is How It Always Is"

10/30/2022

PACG Book Club - This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Monday, November 21st at 4:30 pm (in person)

Davenport Public Library
Fairmount Street Branch
3000 N Fairmount St, Davenport, IA (map)

Book Club

We have decided to meet in person in November and go back to Zoom for the winter months. We will skip December since it is too close to the holidays.

Our November book will be This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. We will meet on Monday, November 21st at 4:30 pm at the Fairmount Street branch of the Davenport Public Library.

Here is some information about the book from Goodreads:

This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.

This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.

This is how children change…and then change the world.

This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.

When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.

Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.

This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever.

You can RSVP at our Facebook Event (not required). Contact me with any questions.

Alta Price

People's Forum - After Action Report

10/16/2022

People's Forum - Iowa House of Representatives - After Action Report

PACG Board of Directors, Forums and AAUW and ISEA

PACG cosponsored this event with the AAUW (American Association of University Women) and ISEA (Iowa State Education Association).

Seven of the twelve candidates for the Iowa House participated in a candidate forum on Saturday morning, October 15th, at the Bettendorf Library. About 30 citizens attended this event, which was moderated by Daniel Salazar, a Senior at St. Ambrose University and a member of the Muscatine LULAC and Latinos Unidos.

Thank you to all who helped coordinate this event.

Lori McCollum