Community Engagement

Rev. George Battle served at CitySquare as one of our AmeriCorps members after his graduation from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. He has since gone on to direct the Zip Code Connection for the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church.

He is a great leader with a great understanding of his community.

I feel honored to call him friend.

What George shares in this interview in the aftermath of events of the last three weeks is important.

Dallas 1938

From Dallas Morning News:

This is what downtown Dallas and Fair Park looked like in 1938 ... in color movies

ROBERT WILONSKY / Staff Writer

Last fall Paula Bosse, curator of the indispensable Flashback Dallas, drew our attention to a long-forgotten film titled A Cavalcade of Texas shot in 1938 by movie-biz "empire-builder" (in the words of Cecil B. DeMille, at least) Karl Hoblitzelle. It's quite the in-color look-see at the entirety of the state way back when.

Two cities, divided

The map below depicts the segregated nature of the Dallas Metroplex.  

The teal/blue areas indicate high-income sections of the community.  The red represent the low-income portions of this urban area.  

While racial segregation does not play as negative a role in community life as it once did, still, it has been replaced by financial or economic segregation.  And, that segregation accompanies a sharply divided community in racial terms as well.  

Dallas is a divided, unequal, troubled community in terms of income distribution.  

I've long said that it is the richest poor town in the US.  In fact, Dallas is among the top 10 most income/resource divided cities in the nation.  This reality affects every aspect of our community life.  

You can read the entire report, including analysis of cities other than Dallas, here.

Spring interrupted!

Sunday morning, March 21, 2010, greeted Dallas, Texas with a message of beauty, hope and surprise! Sure, the cold weather created a few travel concerns, but the wonder of the snow seemed worth it.

One more time, lest we forget, before the arrival of another hot summer.

I love it!

New: South Dallas Blog

Sharon Grigsby serves The Dallas Morning News and our community as editor of Viewpoints and Letters to the Editor that appear on the editorial pages of the paper every day.

Sharon is a friend of the entire city and she cares about justice, equity, distressed communities, the huge gap between north and south in our city and all of the things that we care about here.

Monday, Sharon and others from the paper launched a new blog that may be of interest to readers in Dallas, but also in any urban center worldwide.

Check out the new product. Post to it. Share it with others.

To read it now, click here.

A New Mayor's "Prayer List"

There's a joke making the rounds in Dallas today that asks who is running for Mayor in May?

The punch line serving several variations on this theme goes something like this, "It would be a heck of a lot easier to list who isn't running!"

The last count I saw listed 20 candidates for the job.

Yesterday was the beginning of the filing period for candidates to get their names on the official ballot. By this time tomorrow no telling how many folks will be in the race!

The field was opened up when Mayor Laura Miller announced that she would not to seek another term. Ms. Miller has decided to step away from the chaos of running Dallas to spend more time with her family. Who could blame her?

As the field began filling up shortly after the Mayor's surprise announcement, we started wondering. . .

Who, if anyone, among the candidates had a vision for our low-income, inner-city neighborhoods?

Who among those hoping to guide our city for the next four years has a plan for attacking the challenges presented by persistent, almost intractable poverty here in Dallas?

Who has a valid vision for the Southern Sector in our city?

Is there anyone?

We decided to find out.

We will do so at our 12th Annual Urban Ministries Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, April 26 at the Hilton Anatole Hotel. Our meeting will begin at 7:15 a.m. Our program for the morning will be the top 7-8 mayoral candidates vying for the top position in Dallas city government. We have invited the top contenders. All have agreed to be present.

Each candidate will be given an opportunity to respond to prompts like these:

"When I pray for poor people in Dallas, my list includes. . . ."

"My vision for improving life for the residents of our lowest income neighborhoods includes. . . ."

"When it comes to the Southern Sector here in Dallas, I plan to. . . ."

After hearing from each candidate, we will open the meeting to questions from the floor.

It should be a great and informative morning.

We just felt like the campaign should not conclude without someone asking hard questions about the issues that matter most to us and our inner city neighbors.

If you are anywhere near Dallas on this special morning, I hope you'll join us. Information about tickets, tables and sponsorships will be up on our website in the near future (http://www.centraldallasministries.org/).