Community Change was born out of the Civil Rights Movement and in response to the Kerner Commission which named racism, not merely as an individual bias, but as an institutional problem that White people had a moral obligation to grapple with.
Since 1968, CCI has done what few organizations are willing to do: shine a spotlight on the roots of racism, while specializing in educating and organizing White people for antiracist action.
Today, CCI accomplishes its mission through education, advocacy and working in solidarity with others to organize for change.
We believe that racism occurs when one group has the systemic power to institutionalize its prejudice in the forms of laws, policies, and ideologies that exclude and oppress other groups.
Historically, and presently in the United States, white men of wealth and property have had this power to create and control the institutions that govern the lives of all who live here.
This has produced a system of advantage for white people who benefit from unearned privilege at the expense of people of color.
We believe that this systemic or institutional racism is largely invisible to the white community.
To counteract some of the devastating effects of systemic racism, many organizations provide essential human services to those in need. While we wholeheartedly support this work, our approach is different. We address the systems that create those needs in the first place.
CCI works with a multi-racial constituency to equip people with the knowledge and skills necessary to take effective action, to support movement building tied to an action agenda, and to educate policy makers on institutional racism and its public policy implications.