The Montgomery County Dialogue on Race is in its seventh year of operation. Because we have had some successes in our work, several community groups in this region are considering such a project for their County and have solicited information about our process.
The Montgomery County Dialogue on Race (DOR) began as a call to action. Our goal is “ending racial injustice against African Americans in Montgomery County,” and our objectives are to change specific racially discriminatory policies and practices in the County.
We were not established to have discussions that might lead to action. Rather, we wanted to have conversations about what steps to take and how we should take them. Thus the Dialogue on Race in Montgomery County is actually a misnomer. We are not primarily “talk” as our name might suggest. But it is our name and “brand.” So we retain the title.
Many community dialogues/conversations about racial issues are precipitated by a racial event, like for example, police shooting an unarmed black person. We had no such incident, just a desire to address several ongoing racial problems.
Since we wanted to deal with specific issues and we wanted these issues to be representative of the views of African Americans in the County we conducted a series of focus group sessions with a cross-section of blacks in the County.
The focus groups addressed two questions: (1) What is it like to be an African American in Montgomery County? (2) What would you like to tell white residents of the County?
From the focus group sessions, we gathered a set of racial issues that we organized into five Issue Groups—Education, Law Enforcement, Income and Employment, White Privilege, and Limited Presence (of African Americans on boards and committees in the County). Each Issue Group is led by a one of the seven members of the Interracial Steering Committee for the project.
Because of space constraints, I will mention selected results of the work of two Issue Groups—Education and Law Enforcement. Three of the objectives of the Education Issue Group as established by the focus groups are to decrease the achievement gap, reduce differential disciplinary treatment, and recruit African American teachers and administrators.
The education Issue Group works with the school system with emphasis on the issues. Some results so far: The achievement gap has not been eliminated, but it has been reduced. Last year no African American student was given an out of school suspension, where previously African Americans were several times more likely to be suspended. And the numbers of minority teachers and administrators have been increased substantially.
Critical issues for the Law Enforcement Issue Group are racial profiling and hiring African American police officers. To determine if racial profiling is behind the fact that black motorists are stopped at a much higher rate than whites, the two police chiefs and the Sheriff agreed to collect data on all traffic stops. These data include race, gender, age, reason for the stop, time of day, and the result of the stop. We are currently analyzing data from the past three years.
Several states, including our neighbors, Maryland and North Carolina, collect such data on all traffic stops. Virginia does not. Hence, it is significant that these police departments agreed to collect this data.
To enhance the possibility of steering black youth into police work, we decided to “grow our own.” First we raised funds and started the Books to Badges Program scholarship program at New River Community College (NRCC). Next, we proposed and the Board of Supervisors for the County approved our plan to provide two free years of education at NRCC for all high school graduates who meet the criteria. Each student gives 80 hours of community service. We also raise funds to help support this county-wide program.
While our objective was to create a means of assisting local youth, especially black youth, to attend college, we ended up creating a means for all eligible students in the County to attend junior college. While much work remains to accomplish our objectives, we have already had some success as these examples illustrate.