Video and remarks from our merger gala

BELOW ARE MOST OF ALEX’S REMARKS, as he prepared them. You can check out Dixon’s remarks starting seven minutes into the video above.

Good evening. My name is Alex Goldenberg. I’m the current and outgoing executive director of Southside Together Organizing for Power. I am so honored and grateful to be here with you all today, celebrating an amazing moment in our organization’s history.

You all look amazing. I wanna start by recognizing the gala committee, which put this event on could. You all please raise your hand as I call your name: Terry Rudd, Tree Tendaji, Jacquie Scott, Maple Howard, Muriel Jones Handy, Pat Tatum, Pat Hightower, Haroon Garel, Marcus Gill, Teri Fitzpatrick, Anthony Haugabook, Christiana Powell, Delaine Powerful, Luke Willis, and Dominic Surya.

Dominic is the fundraising manager at STOP. I wanna also take a moment to recognize the other staff of STOP: Cheryl Miller, our health-justice organizer; Savannah Brown, housing organizer; and Anna Durr, our youth organizer and restorative-justice coordinator.

Today we will be sharing a little about our organization — the historical foundation we have built and what’s in store for our future.

The foundation of our work is in housing. STOP began 20 years ago. We grew out of fight to stop a 500-unit complex from being demolished and displaced by the University of Chicago. We won that fight, and the tenant union we built (which won that fight) still exists today. Leaders from that fight who stood in their dignity, and said we are not going anywhere, are in this room today. What a blessing. Let’s give it up for folks like Stephanie Campbell and Cynthia Ashley. Tenants unions, mostly in subsidized housing, has been the base of our power, and we have built real power.

And we have won some real things.

We forced the University of Chicago to open a $48M per year trauma center. Let’s give it up for that work, led by our young people.

We’ve also won a Woodlawn Community Benefits Agreement Ordinance that paid for working class homeowners to make much-needed repairs, and set aside 52 vacant lots for real affordable housing. Today there are working-class people living in new affordable apartments on 63rd and Maryland, instead of luxury apartments, thanks to this work.

And while we have won significant victories, we know that we are not winning enough. And that sometimes we have setbacks and losses. The rich are not paying their fair share in taxes. This year we lost Bring Chicago Home. This past year we have watched as women and children are being killed in Gaza and Lebanon. And come Tuesday, this country may elect a fascist as president.

And this year, we fought hard to stop Christina Powell from being evicted, but we lost that battle. Now that fight isn’t over; we are still working to get her home back. But we know that it’s not just her. People are being pushed out of our City. People are still dying here in Chicago for lack of healthcare. And Amilcar Cabral said we must “tell no lies, claim no easy victories.” We have work to do, you all.

This is part of why we first considered merging with our neighbors from Not Me We. We know that we need to build more power if we are serious about developing a strategy to win what our community wants and deserves. It means we have to build beyond just our neighborhood. It means we have to go from moving hundreds to thousands, and from moving one or two aldermen to a whole block in the City Council. This merger puts us on a path towards doing that, and that’s why I’m so excited about it.

Oh and in case you haven’t heard: We are merging with Not Me We, a fierce community organizing organization right here in South Shore. And we have a new name: Southside Together. And Dixon Romeo will become the new director. 

And after almost 20 years, I’m stepping down. Lemme just take a moment to say that this isn’t my good bye party; there will be one in November, I will get my flowers, and you will definitely be invited, so stay tuned. But tonight really is about celebrating our collective accomplishments — honoring the foundations we have built and together looking to the future.

Speaking of honoring foundations, I did want to take moment and just honor four women who have been on the STOP board for 6 to over 15 years. I just wanna recognize their contribution and commitment, not only to serving on the board but to leading the work. They are Ms. Linda Tinsley, Badonna Reingold, Diane Adams, and Sharon Payne. Marcus Gill is giving them their flowers. Let’s give it up for Marcus too. Marcus is the current president of the STOP board, and will co-chair of the new board of Southside Together.

I wanna close by sharing that this past summer, STOP and Not Me We led the organizing for a CBA Summit about our campaign to stop displacement from South Shore and Woodlawn. We held the summit in the auditorium at Hyde Park Academy. Five years ago, we did a similar event and we hired a staging company to hide half of the auditorium because we knew we couldn’t fill it. Days before the summit this year, I was blowing up Maira’s phone asking her to help create three 20- by 30-foot banners to cover a third of the auditorium, because I was panicking about turnout. We packed that auditorium, you all — we had to tear off all three of those banners. We had over 600 people at that summit. Afterwards Dixon described that as the foundation, the floor of what’s possible. I’m so excited for the future of Southside Together and grateful to pass the mic now to the inaugural executive director of Southside Together, Dixon Romeo. Thank you.

[To hear Dixon’s remarks and awards presented by him, see the video above.]

[Later Alex took the microphone again and said:]

We’re giving a Foundation Award to STOP’s Mental Health Movement. Earlier I talked about how we have won some things thanks to the power that we have built, thanks to that base and foundation of leadership. Just this morning — this morning! — we stood with the mayor to celebrate the opening of a mental-health clinic. This represents about-face in the neo-liberal march towards privatization, changing the common sense such that the City should be providing mental health clinics.