Bob Woodson, an American civil rights activist and community development leader, detailed some of the principles he’s gleaned from decades of work to help heal and uplift America’s hurting communities, in an interview with The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders.”
Woodson is the founder and president of the Woodson Center, which works to bring training and funding to community-based leaders and organizations, to support efforts to improve neighborhoods.
He said that a core takeaway from his work is the importance of recognizing that “in America, those ‘bourgeois’ values of faith [and] family are still the most important foundation upon which we should build our lives and our nation.”
He said one of the biggest barriers to addressing poverty in the most distressed communities in America—those plagued by poverty, crime, and widespread drug use—is elitism.
“When I look at how society has attempted to render assistance to this group—and that is a top-down approach that we parachute into these low-income communities because we don’t believe there’s any strengths or assets that are indigenous to the community—we administer the moral equivalent of a transplant,” Woodson said.
“No matter how well-intended, transplants tend to be rejected by the body,” he said, adding that he believes the answer is to look within afflicted communities for capacity and leadership in effecting change, people he calls “healing agents” or “community antibodies.”
“I have seen some of the most miraculous transformation and acts of redemption. I have met people who are resilient, people who have overcome great odds. And I was blessed enough to walk beside them, with them, and I chronicled everything that I'd learned from them.”
He has compiled his experiences in a new book, “Lessons From the Least of These: The Woodson Principles.”
Bob Woodson, founder and president of the Woodson Center, in Washington on Feb. 18, 2020. Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times
Woodson said some of the principles by which the market economy operates can be usefully applied to the social economy.
“As you know, in our market economy, only 3 percent of the people are entrepreneurs, but they generate 70 percent of the jobs,” he said, noting that “we don’t look for credentialed people in our market economy, we look for people who are effective.” But in the social economy, “we don’t apply the same principles” of relying on entrepreneurial agents of change.
“I think we need to cultivate the social entrepreneurs in our social economy, the way we cherish, support, and cultivate entrepreneurs in our market economy.”
Even though these so-called social entrepreneurs may be small in number, “if we properly harness what they are doing, then we can invest in it the way you do in an entrepreneur, then you can bring about large scale reform in those communities.”
He said his struggle “is to convince America that the way to help these communities is to support those that know how to promote reform and recovery from within the communities.”
Woodson said that, from his experience, well-intentioned help that comes from outside the community can fail to make meaningful change if it doesn’t harness the power of a grassroots initiative and doesn’t activate the personal responsibility of those living in the communities in need.
“The worst thing that you can do is to bring all these celebrities out here, and you’re going to clean up,” he said, which he argued interferes with the process of community-led efforts to restore communities, through which members “gain a sense of ownership of that neighborhood.”
Woodson also decried the model of helping needy communities through outside funding alone, rather than identifying assets within them and working with those individuals to effect lasting change. He said around 70 percent of the $22 trillion funneled into impoverished communities over the past 50 years has gone not to the poor, but to middlemen, who operate chiefly on the premise of asking “which problems are fundable, not ones which are solvable.”
“So we’ve created a commodity out of [poverty],” he said. “If your job depends upon having dependent people to serve, what proprietary interest do you have in promoting their independence?
“It doesn’t matter how compassionate you are. The game is rigged against the poor and favorable to you.
“The real solutions could be found by investing in these grassroots leaders.”
Other principles Woodson noted in his book include emphasizing perseverance, resilience, trust, and faith.
Watch Bob Woodson’s previous interview with Jan Jekielek here:
Tom Ozimek is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times. He has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education.
Faith and Family Are ‘Values Upon Which We Should Build Our Lives and Our Nation’: Bob Woodson
Friends Read Free
Woodson is the founder and president of the Woodson Center, which works to bring training and funding to community-based leaders and organizations, to support efforts to improve neighborhoods.
He said that a core takeaway from his work is the importance of recognizing that “in America, those ‘bourgeois’ values of faith [and] family are still the most important foundation upon which we should build our lives and our nation.”
He said one of the biggest barriers to addressing poverty in the most distressed communities in America—those plagued by poverty, crime, and widespread drug use—is elitism.
“When I look at how society has attempted to render assistance to this group—and that is a top-down approach that we parachute into these low-income communities because we don’t believe there’s any strengths or assets that are indigenous to the community—we administer the moral equivalent of a transplant,” Woodson said.
“No matter how well-intended, transplants tend to be rejected by the body,” he said, adding that he believes the answer is to look within afflicted communities for capacity and leadership in effecting change, people he calls “healing agents” or “community antibodies.”
“I have seen some of the most miraculous transformation and acts of redemption. I have met people who are resilient, people who have overcome great odds. And I was blessed enough to walk beside them, with them, and I chronicled everything that I'd learned from them.”
He has compiled his experiences in a new book, “Lessons From the Least of These: The Woodson Principles.”
Woodson said some of the principles by which the market economy operates can be usefully applied to the social economy.
“As you know, in our market economy, only 3 percent of the people are entrepreneurs, but they generate 70 percent of the jobs,” he said, noting that “we don’t look for credentialed people in our market economy, we look for people who are effective.” But in the social economy, “we don’t apply the same principles” of relying on entrepreneurial agents of change.
“I think we need to cultivate the social entrepreneurs in our social economy, the way we cherish, support, and cultivate entrepreneurs in our market economy.”
Even though these so-called social entrepreneurs may be small in number, “if we properly harness what they are doing, then we can invest in it the way you do in an entrepreneur, then you can bring about large scale reform in those communities.”
He said his struggle “is to convince America that the way to help these communities is to support those that know how to promote reform and recovery from within the communities.”
Woodson said that, from his experience, well-intentioned help that comes from outside the community can fail to make meaningful change if it doesn’t harness the power of a grassroots initiative and doesn’t activate the personal responsibility of those living in the communities in need.
“The worst thing that you can do is to bring all these celebrities out here, and you’re going to clean up,” he said, which he argued interferes with the process of community-led efforts to restore communities, through which members “gain a sense of ownership of that neighborhood.”
Woodson also decried the model of helping needy communities through outside funding alone, rather than identifying assets within them and working with those individuals to effect lasting change. He said around 70 percent of the $22 trillion funneled into impoverished communities over the past 50 years has gone not to the poor, but to middlemen, who operate chiefly on the premise of asking “which problems are fundable, not ones which are solvable.”
“So we’ve created a commodity out of [poverty],” he said. “If your job depends upon having dependent people to serve, what proprietary interest do you have in promoting their independence?
“It doesn’t matter how compassionate you are. The game is rigged against the poor and favorable to you.
“The real solutions could be found by investing in these grassroots leaders.”
Other principles Woodson noted in his book include emphasizing perseverance, resilience, trust, and faith.
Watch Bob Woodson’s previous interview with Jan Jekielek here:
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