Creating Positive Change

As we've noted elsewhere on this site, BWMT-DC is committed to fighting racism, sexism, homophobia, heterosexism, and classism. The focus of our activist efforts has varied over the years, from confronting racist door practices in some D.C. gay bars in the 1980s, to more recent efforts to give a forum and financial support to various community organizations that share our goals.

John Bush Gerald Mallon Institute for Social Justice

The National Association of Black and White Men Together (NABWMT), our parent organization, offers a series of workshops of its John Bush Gerald Mallon Institute for Social Justice. These acclaimed workshops have been offered all over the United States. The institue is designed to:

• Create an environment for dialogue and action that promotes honesty and trust-building across racial identities.
• Make the issue of racism less over-whelming and unwieldy to address.
• Promote healing: within individuals, the group and the local community.
• Enlarge the scope of action from issues of personal racism to issues of institutional racism.
• Have everyone participate in the discussion of racism, regardless of their viewpoint.
• Increase group cohesiveness and teamwork.
• Set the stage to outreach to, and collaborate with other community organizations.
• Promote follow-through when the group's mission statement contains a mandate toward creating a more just society.
• Tap some two decades of NABWMT experience in dealing with racial justice issues.