The idea for the PJN started after local peace activist Tom Berry organized a vigil by phone tree to oppose the first Gulf War. Several people who attended the vigil thought that our work as activists could be expanded if we utilized the new technology of email to alert a network of people to the various peace and justice activities in Guilford County.
Our first event was a potluck dinner in Nov. 1999 at the Glenwood Library to launch the project. Before the potluck, we wrote a letter describing our plans and dozens of community leaders endorsed it. The potluck was an exciting event with 35-40 in attendance, and from it we got volunteers to be on the PJN Committee and to be the “initiators,” who would take turns checking email daily for the announcements from community groups and then sending them to the PJN subscribers.
In the past seven years, PJN has given many things to the Triad progressive community, including:
- Sent out hundreds of email announcements from community groups about progressive events
- Built a network of about 250 subscribers to the PJN list serve
- Printed a brochure, including logo, mission statement, and list of 14 issue areas covered by PJN
- Created a website/blog with announcements, calendar of events, links to government and media, and a mechanism for subscribing to PJN emails through the blog
- Co-hosted with Guilford College “Weaving the Web: Peace and Justice Networking in Greensboro,” 2002
- Participated with the PJN banner in the 4th of July parade for the past several years
- Collected information, with the help of an intern from Guilford College, and compiled the first directory of local progressive groups, which is on the PJN website
COMMUNITY POTLUCKS
Hosted community potlucks, with attendance for the past several years at 60-70 people, at which people from diverse groups met, enjoyed a meal, mingled at display tables set up by organizations, and sometimes played a peace and justice trivia game!
At the potlucks, the programs have included:
- Discussion of what PJN could do for the community (2000)
- Dr. Millicent Brown, on lessons for today’s activists from the civil rights movement (2001)
- Social justice fair and letter-writing cafe, where representatives from community groups spoke about what their groups were doing and provided cards and letters for attenders to write in support (2002 and 2003)
- Panel of Spoma Jovanovic, David Portorti, and James Shields on strengthening the progressive community (Jan. 2005)
- Logie Meachum, singer, and the Greensboro Community Arts Collective on the arts and social change (Nov. 2005)
- Songs of peace and justice (2006)
March 2007
