Kent Black Action Commission looks ahead and toward the community

Community organizations often start, evolve, sometimes end and other times resurrect into a different form.

The Kent Black Action Commission is a community organization that has roots reaching back more than a decade, and it is building into an organization emphasizing action.

The commission has numerous founders and folks who have put time and energy into the first events, including Melvin Tate, a former Kent School District teacher, administrator and diversity expert; community leader Rev. Jimmie James; and Gwen Allen, a former Kent City Council candidate.

Other founders of the group include Barbara Phillips, Joseph Jones, Ray Lee, Willie Wright and Brenda Fincher.

Tate described one of the top roots of KBAC was his work in the school district involving diversity issues in the late 1980s and early 90s.

After retiring from the district, he helped found the organization PAID, People Advocating Involvement in Democracy.

“We were partnering with the school district,” Tate said. “Most were black, some whites including Leslie (Hamada). There was also an Alaskan Indian, 14 all together.”

Tate said PAID first met in 1994-95 and reformed again in 2007. Out of that organization came the Kent School District Diversity Task Force and the Alliance for Diversity and Equity, which is still in existence.

After years working with PAID and other organization in the region, Tate said he decided it was time to back out of the frontline leadership role.

As the group and founders looked for a direction and leadership, KBAC was born with many of the members from PAID and other organizations coming together during the early summer months.

Allen said she became involved in July as the first group of founders gathered to discuss what KBAC should do as an organization.

“Everyone talks about the disunity in Kent,” Allen said. “We needed to do something rather than gather at our churches. We needed to come together as a group. Come together so people know there is a group and we can find out what everyone else is doing.”

The first event occurred Oct. 22 at the Kent Senior Center. It lasted from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with speakers, discussions and a call to action.

The next gathering was Nov. 12 called an “Action up orientation” at the Kent Commons. Folks came together and formed committees and signed up for future events.

James is an articulate speaker who gives voice to many of the KBAC issues at the meetings.

During an interview, James said the initial steps for KBAC has been to “inform and inspire the community” to take action. According to James, once people are inspired to take action, next will come the strategy of public service.

He said, “What we have to do with the black community is meet the real need of the community.”

James said he believes because of the rapid increase of population and diverse cultures in Kent, the city and community has not been able to keep up with the problems at times.

Some of the issues he underlined for KBAC was finding black mentors for black youths.

“Why is that a mother is not helping her son study at night,” James said. “There is a reason why. Let’s find out.”

He also noted the high numbers of blacks, Latinos and Native Americans in prisons as another symptom of the community problem.

“We love our kids like anyone else,” James said. “We have to build a sense of community in the black community.”

James noted that blacks, whites and everyone in the community must understand racism.

“Not just white people, (but) black people, we as people of color have to learn about racism,” James said.

He describes it as cultural competency training, stating that, “90 percent of the problem isn’t personal racism, it’s institutional racism.”

Tate said the key is connecting to the community.

“You have to have community member support,” Tate said. “That is the key. Institutions will go back to serving itself if there is no one to maintain it.”

While working on diversity issues for the school district, Tate said the majority of the problems involved helping the “community understand the school institution.”

He said it is important that the “institution and the people the institution are serving are working together and serving each other.”

Tate also noted there is a need for groups like KBAC to form that are outside of institutions and “totally independent.”

Over the next months or years KBAC will take form and defines its identity with leaders like Allen, James and Tate in the background.

“We are a voice in the south (King) county region,” Allen said. “We need to come together for ourselves.”

For James the essence of the philosophy of KBAC is at every meeting to have action at the end.

“This is the transformation of a community,” James said. “My view of God is to go address the people’s issues.”