Empowering You September 2018 Newsetter

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Advocating for the
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SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER

September 2018
NEWSLETTER
Know Your Ballot
Social Justice Lessons Gleaned From the Aug. 7 Primary
Election By Jeanette Mott Oxford p 4-5
Liberty and Justice for... the Wealthy and Well-
Connected By Nimrod “Rod” Chapel, Jr. p 6, 10
Vote Yes on Proposition B to Help Missouri Workers
and Families By Laura Barrett p 7
Policy Priorities
MO HIV Justice Coalition Strategic Planning Statewide
Meeting By Ashley Quinn p 5
Question One
Back to School Fairs Offer Assistance In Counties with
High Child Poverty Rates By Tracy Morrow p 10
Nicole D. Porter Shares Best Practices In Smart
Sentencing at Jefferson City Forum
By Jeanette Mott Oxford, p 11
Now Is the Time to Take Action to #ProtectSNAP:
September Is Crucial Time for Farm Bill Advocacy
By JMO, p 12
Special Events
Meet Tara Raghuveer, Our Conference Keynoter: Find
Out What the Buzz Is All About!
By Sarah Owsley Townsend p 8
Mary Kay McPhee Receives Lifetime Achievement
Award For Embodying Empower Missouri’s Mission
By JMO p 9
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Dr. Jason Purnell Headline
2018 Poverty Summit on Sept. 20 By JMO p 13
S E C T I O N S
14 Book Review
15 Calendar
15 Staff Contacts
Newsletter assembled
by Ashley Quinn

Empower Missouri’s staff, Board of Directors, and many
of our volunteers and leaders mourn the passing of
Peter De Simone, our longest-serving executive director
(1977-2002). Peter was an amazing advocate for justice
and not-for-profit director, as well as a fascinating
human being with many interests and a wide circle of
friends. He will be deeply missed, and we are so
thankful for the role he played in so many public policy
victories in our state.
Find Peter’s full obituary as printed in the Jefferson City
News-Tribune at this link. For those wishing to send
a consoling message to his life partner Mary or his
daughter Dena, both of whom have been active in
leadership of our organization, here are those
addresses:
A special “Weekly Perspective” column in honor of
Peter will be emailed to our distribution list during the
week of September 10th. Our website home page will
also be dedicated to his memory for several weeks.
I too have many memories of Peter from my time as
executive director at Reform Organization of Welfare
(ROWEL). We worked together on many issues
impacting Missourians with the lowest incomes. He and
I were in the same court rooms, hearing rooms, and
board rooms many times between 1991 and 2002,
always fighting on the same side. His righteous anger
about policies that punish those in poverty made quite
an impression on me and on my work since. A song by
Joyce Johnson says what I and so many feel about
Peter:
Mary Shantz
1928 Hayselton
Jefferson City, MO 65109
Dena De Simone-Sextro
1109 NW 73rd Terrace
Kansas City, Missouri 64118
I am standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before
me.
I am stronger for their courage; I am wiser for their words.
I am lifted by their longing for a fair and brighter future.
I am grateful for their vision, for their toiling on this earth.
Jeanette Mott Oxford
Executive Director, Empower Missouri

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
SOCIAL JUSTICE LESSONS GLEANED
FROM THE AUG. 7 PRIMARY ELECTION
By Jeanette Mott Oxford, Executive Director
There were many encouraging
signs for social justice
advocates when the votes
were tallied for the August 7 th
Primary Election. Since our
Board of Directors had
endorsed “No on Prop B” in
order to repeal the so-called
Right to Work (RTW)
legislation passed by the
Missouri General
Assembly, we were
delighted to see that
position prevail with a
strong 64.466% majority.
Here are some additional
thoughts prompted by
the election returns:
1) Don’t take it lying
down: When the MO
General Assembly
attacked workers’ rights
by passing RTW,
organized labor quickly
prepared a citizens’
referendum to repeal the
newly passed law.
Petitions were circulated
and more than 300,000
signatures collected. This put
Proposition A on the ballot,
and we thank each of you who
gathered signatures to achieve
the chance to repeal the law.
2) Protect direct democracy:
Each year some bills are filed
that try to make it much harder
to circulate petitions and put
measures on the ballot. We must
be vigilant and protect our right
to continue to practice direct
democracy – taking vital
questions directly to the people
when the General Assembly acts
in a harmful way or refuses to
hear us.
3) Justice-oriented messages
can effectively reach voters all
over Missouri. Proposition A
passed in 100 of 114 counties.
4) Justice-oriented messages
can also be effectively used to
address local issues. We
endorsed Yes on Question 1 in
Kansas City which passed with
56% of the vote.
5) Black Lives Matter. Many
people of good will joined in
the Ferguson Uprising
following the death of Michael
Brown Jr. in 2014. Wesley
Bell’s decisive victory against
Prosecuting Attorney Bob
McCulloch was the product of
years of sustained
organizing, led by
African Americans, with
support by allies of
many ethnicities.
Intersectional
organizing must
continue!
Note: We were not
surprised to learn that
Kayla Reed and Action
St. Louis played a key
role in leadership of the
campaign to oust Bob
McCulloch. Kayla
received an Emerging
Leader Award from our
St. Louis Chapter in
2017.
6) Missouri is ready to elect
women candidates. A sign
of this was the solid win by
Saundra McDowell in the
auditor’s GOP primary,
although she was vastly
outspent by one of her three
male opponents in particular.
Cont’d on p 5
EMPOWERING YOU | 04

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
MO HIV JUSTICE COALITION STRATEGIC
PLANNING STATEWIDE MEETING
By Ashley Quinn, Coalition Staffer
On Friday, August 31, the MO
HIV Justice Coalition met in Columbia
for a strategic planning
session. About 20 people living
with HIV (PLHIV) and advocates
from around the state,
representing nearly every major
region, including many new faces
not previously engaged with
our coalition, gathered in the
conference room at Spectrum
Health Care. (Thank you to Executive
Director Cale Mitchell
and Jessi Woodward for hosting
us.)
Our goals for the day included
orienting new coalition members,
drafting guiding principles,
and developing an effective organizing
structure. Thanks to
national partners like The
SERO Project, the Center for
HIV Law & Policy, and the Positive
Women’s Network - and the
networking they facilitate - we
were able to work off documents
developed by other state
coalitions as a starting point.
We wanted our guiding principles
to be direct to the point, yet
inclusive, and to have accessible
language, not insider jargon.
We discussed the two main avenues
in the movement, that is,
complete repeal of
harmful HIV-specific
laws vs. modernization
of existing statutes.
We are in need
of an organizing
structure that both
has room for a multitude
of voices, including
those most impacted,
and nimble enough to respond
quickly to unpredicted developments
in the legislative process.
We strive to keep PLHIV and
communities most impacted by
these laws like black men who
have sex with men, trans women,
sex workers, and drug users
at the center of the coalition.
Part of this work includes examining
anti-black attitudes, structural
racism, prejudice and stigma
of which some of us with
relative privilege may not be
aware.
Our coalition is always accepting
new members, and we’ll be
finalizing our principles and
committee structure over the
next two weeks in our google
group and on our next coalition
conference on September 14th
at 1pm. To join us, email
mohivjustice@empowermissouri.org.
Cont’d from p 4
McDowell will now square off
with Democrat Nicole Galloway,
the current auditor, so a woman
is likely to be our next Auditor
unless there’s a third party upset
win.
Note: Missouri has never had
a woman governor. Will there be
women candidates in 2020?
Despite all this good news from
August 7, we still must face the
reality that only 33.5% of
Missouri’s 4.1 million registered
voters bothered to vote on
Primary Election Day, about one
out of three. Informed and active
citizens are a key to a healthy
democracy, so apparently our
democracy is not very healthy
currently.
The number one take-away for
Empower Missouri members
and supporters is: We must
mobilize from now until
November 6 if we want to secure
a higher minimum wage and
passage of the CLEAN Initiative.
EMPOWERING YOU | 05

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Liberty and Justice for... the
Wealthy and Well-Connected
Guest Column By Nimrod “Rod” Chapel, Jr., President Missouri State Conference, NAACP
When politicians get in trouble, they
exhaust every legal option at their
disposal.
And yet, many of these same politicians
have no problem taking rights
away from you or me, if that's
what's demanded by the big donors
who drive the legislative agenda in
Jefferson City.
Last year, our legislature effectively
legalized discrimination in Missouri,
making it nearly impossible to sue
companies who discriminate based
on age, sex, race, and more. They
also made it harder for brave whistleblowers
to stand up to protect
taxpayers and to fight against discrimination.
Time after time, big donors get their
way, as politicians put their wish
lists ahead of the needs of their
constituents.
Some might say the system is broken.
I say it's working exactly as it
was designed — for the wealthy
and well-connected, and not for
you and me.
Why do you think they pushed a
law that disenfranchises 220,000
voting-age Missourians who lack a
state-issued photo ID? They don’t
want us voting them out when we
realize they’ve trampled our rights
even more.
How will you feel when you are
fired from your job because you
object to racist jokes? Or because
you refuse sexual advances?
How will you feel when you buy a
defective product for thousands of
dollars, and you have no way to get
your money back?
How will you feel when you find
your employer breaking the law
and are fired for speaking up?
How will you feel when the legislature’s
perpetual tax cuts to interests
represented by a stable of lobbyists
create budget deficits that are then
used to slash funding for vital services
for persons with disabilities,
elders, and workers with low wages?
This is what happens when big
money drowns out the people back
home.
But it doesn't have to be this
way.
That's why I'm proud to support
Amendment 1 as a big step forward
for Missouri to restore balance, fairness,
and integrity to state government.
Here are the facts about Amendment
1; it would:
Eliminate almost all lobbyist
gifts by banning any gift worth more
than $5
Lower contribution limits to
state legislative candidates to ensure
our legislature is not for sale
to big money donors
Require legislators wait to two
years to become lobbyists after
leaving office so they focus on public
service, not doing the bidding of
big companies
Require legislative records be
open to the public so we know why
decisions are made
Ensure that neither political party
is given an unfair advantage
when new maps are drawn after
the next census, and protect the
political power of minority communities
against vote dilution
With the way our current political
system is set up, it's no wonder our
legislators sell us out when they get
inside the Capitol.
This will take a lot of work and we
will have to be persistent. But together,
we will secure the yetunrealized
promise of U.S. democracy:
liberty and justice for all.
Join us in the fight. Our democracy
Cont’d on p 10
EMPOWERING YOU | 06

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Vote Yes on Proposition B
to Help Missouri Workers and Families
Guest Column By Laura Barrett, Coalition Director, Raise Up Missouri
No one who works full time
should have to live in poverty
and struggle to make ends meet
for their family. Unfortunately,
there are hundreds of
thousands of our fellow
Missourians doing just that right
now.
Stated simply: Missouri’s
minimum wage is just too low.
The cost of groceries, housing,
and other basics has gone up
for years, but wages haven’t
kept pace. In fact, someone in
Missouri working full-time for
minimum wage ($7.85 an hour)
only earns $314 per week, or
just over $16,000 a year. That’s
nowhere near enough to raise a
family or care for a parent or
family member.
This is a problem that affects
every part of our state. In St.
Louis County, the state’s largest
community, the average cost of
living for a family of three is
$54,405 a year. In Worth
County, the state’s most rural
area, the average cost of living
for a family of three is $50,150 a
year. That means that,
regardless of where in Missouri
the live, even a household with
two adults earning minimum
wage is still falling far short of
what they need to support their
families.
Low and minimum wage workers
can’t pay rent, bills, and put food
on the table. That’s just not right.
When we discuss low and
minimum wage workers, whom
exactly are we talking about?
The vast majority of directly
affected workers (76 percent)
are over the age of 20
About one-in-three are at least
40 years old
Over 100,000 are senior
citizens
Almost half (47 percent) work
full-time
About two-thirds are women
We want to honor and reward their
hard work, and are working to get
Missouri voters to help them by
raising the minimum wage to $12
an hour by 2023.
Raising the minimum wage will
help Missouri workers take care of
their families and reward their hard
work. It will also help Missouri
businesses by providing an
injection of dollars into small,
local businesses as low-wage
workers – those most likely to
spend their funds in their
communities – will be able to
spend more for food, clothing,
and other necessities.
Proposition B is very
straightforward. It will raise
the minimum wage to $8.60
next year, and then increase
the minimum wage annually
until it reaches $12 in 2023. It
will then adjust for inflation
each year.
It is estimated that when it is
fully implemented, the
minimum wage increase
included in Proposition B will
result in over $1 billion in new
consumer buying power
across the state as it
increases the earnings of
people who right now are
working hard for too little pay.
You can help raise the wage
by volunteering for Yes on
Proposition B. To volunteer,
please contact Will Krueger at
will@raiseupmo.org.
EMPOWERING YOU | 07

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Find Out What the Buzz Is All About!
By Sarah Owsley Townsend, Kansas City Regional Organizer
It happened again last week. In
fact, it has been happening a lot
to me lately. I walked into a
meeting, and someone said to
me, “Have you heard of Tara
Raghuveer? We met with her.
She’s amazing!”
In fact, I have heard of Tara.
I’ve had the pleasure of
knowing her, learning from her,
and working alongside her for
over a year now. Tara grew up
in the suburbs of Kansas City,
graduating from a
predominately white, wealthy
high school. From there, she
went to Harvard University
where she studied sociology
and urban policy. She became
interested in housing and
evictions while learning under
Matthew Desmond, author of
the Pulitzer Prize winning book,
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in
the America City.
that 47% of Kansas City rents, and
many of these renters or People of
Color and/or folks with low income.
A lack of truly affordable housing in
our city pushes residents to pay
more than they can afford for
housing, resulting in an average of
42 evictions filed per day in
Jackson County.
Tara knows we can and must do
better. She constantly brings the
focus back to our neighbors, back
to our community, and the ways
we can re-distribute power. As the
Director of the Kansas City
Eviction Project and the Housing
Campaign Director at People’s
Action, she is working to advance
evidence-based housing policy to
end the housing crisis across our
nation. She believes we must use
public policy to address the issue
of housing and is leading the
campaign for re-investment in
public housing across the country.
Catch the buzz by following
Tara on Twitter at https://
twitter.com/taraghuveer.
Register for the conference
and become part of the
solution to the housing crisis in
Missouri.
That interest in housing policy
brought her back to Kansas City
with an entirely new view of her
hometown. Really
understanding the role of power
and privilege for the first time,
she has collected one of the
richest datasets on eviction in
the country. She and a team of
researchers combined 18 years
of court records with individual
stories and demographic
information to help paint a
picture of our community.
Thanks to that data, we know
I am thrilled that Tara will be
keynote speaker at our 2018
conference, Housing Empowers,
November 17 th in Columbia,
Missouri. Those attending will
have the opportunity to hear her at
lunch that Saturday and also can
interact with her informally at our
Meet and Greet at Holiday Inn
Executive Center on Friday
evening, November 16 (where a
block of rooms are available to
Empower Missouri conference
attendees for $109, plus tax on
Friday night). Find details at:
EMPOWERING YOU | 08

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Mary Kay McPhee Receives Lifetime Achievement
Award For Embodying Empower Missouri s Mission
’
By Jeanette Mott Oxford,
JMO reads award for Mary Kay McPhee. Click for more photos.
On August 15, more than sixty
guests gathered at the Diastole
Scholars’ Center at the
University of Missouri-Kansas
City to celebrate decades of
public service by Mary Kay
McPhee. McPhee, a longtime
Empower Missouri advocate,
philanthropist, teacher, and
community volunteer who has
offered service on boards of
directors for more than ninety
organizations, received a
Lifetime Achievement Award
from our organization. The
award read:
With appreciation for your civic
leadership as an educator,
philanthropist, and advocate
for evidence-based public policy
that promotes social justice,
health and wellness
Recognizing the rare
opportunity to gather a rich
historical perspective from
McPhee, a woman now in her
nineties,
Empower
Missouri
commissioned a
series of
interviews that
resulted in this
book and this
video. McPhee
was mentored
by Dorothy and
Herman
Johnson, civil
rights leaders
who played significant roles in
Empower Missouri for decades,
beginning in the 1940’s. (The
Herman and Dorothy Johnson
Local Advocate Award was created
by the Empower Missouri Board of
Directors in 2004 to honor their
memory.) McPhee has since “paid
it forward” by mentoring many
other advocates and scholars,
some of whom offered tributes
during the August 15 program.
We are thankful for the hospitality
of Nancy Hill, executive director, of
the Diastole Scholars’ Center, a
perfect venue for an awards
presentation. After a welcome from
Hill, UMKC Chancellor Mauli
Agrawal addressed the gathering,
stating how important McPhee has
been to the campus and its
programming.
Alice Kitchen, a previous recipient
of the Herman and Dorothy
Johnson Local Advocate Award,
offered a tribute to McPhee and
shared a five-minute excerpt
from the video. Barb
Friedmann and Lee Rathbone
-McCuan offered remarks
about McPhee’s contributions
to the creation of the School
of Social Work at UMKC.
Several guests came forward
to offer words of thanks for
various ways McPhee had
assisted them in vocational
choices or achieving
organizational goals. Many
hugs, laughs, tears, and
smiles were shared. McPhee
also spoke, offering her
thanks for the award and to
all gathered. She encouraged
the audience to “Empower
Missouri” through
participation in organizations
such as ours.
When we invited McPhee to
receive the award, she
surprised us by offering a
matching gift of $25,000 for
all donations made to either
our Endowment Fund or
General Operating Fund by
November 30. To date,
$15,000 has been received or
pledged. We are very thankful
for McPhee’s many
contributions to our
organization, including this
big-hearted gesture, and we
hope you will make a gift at
this time in McPhee’s honor.
EMPOWERING YOU | 09

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Back-to-School Fairs Offer Assistance
In Counties with High Child Poverty Rates
Empower Missouri Educates on SNAP Program Too
By Tracy Morrow, SEMO Organizer
The Southeast Chapter of
Empower Missouri cosponsored
back-to-school fairs
with the New Madrid County
Family Resource Center in New
Madrid County, Missouri. A total
of 350 students were served
during these fairs.
The first location was at the
New Madrid County Family
Resource Center. The New
Madrid Public School District
has 1,457 students enrolled Pre
-k through 12 th grade, and
74.9% of these students qualify
for free and reduced lunch. The
second event was held at Risco
Elementary School. Risco
Public School has a total of 157
students enrolled Pre-K through
12 th grade, and 58.1% of the
students qualify for free or
reduced lunch. By providing the
participants with basic school
supplies and screenings, the
participants are better able to
start the school year prepared.
Considering the demographics
of New Madrid County, it was
an ideal location to promote the
Senate’s bipartisan and strong
version of the Farm bill by
comparing it with the very harsh
and partisan House version.
About eighty percent of the
funding in the Farm Bill goes to
crucial nutrition programs, with
the biggest portion directed to
the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP,
commonly known as food
stamps), Missouri’s first line of
defense against hunger.
The House’s harsh cuts and
stringent work-hour-tracking
requirements would set up a
new documentation-heavy
bureaucracy instead of focusing
on putting food on the table.
The Senate’s version protects
SNAP with no harmful cuts and no
expanding work-hour-tracking
requirements. It also strengthens
the relationship between
employers and SNAP employment
and training and improves program
integrity.
SNAP is crucial to New Madrid
County and Southeast Missouri. If
the House version becomes law, it
would be detrimental to families
who already struggle with
transportation, literacy and
reduced work opportunities due to
high unemployment or other
factors. We are thankful that both
Sen. Blunt and Sen. McCaskill
voted for the Senate version of the
bill, and we are hopeful that they
and all of Missouri’s U.S.
Representatives will urge Rep.
Vicky Hartzler, the only Missourian
on the conference committee,
to work toward a final version
that holds closely to the
Senate version of the Farm
Bill.
Won’t you send a message in
support of the strong Senate
version of the bill to your
federal elected officials
today? Find a template at
www.FoodforMO.org.
Cont’d from p 6
depends on it. To get involved,
visit
www.cleanmissouri.org/
volunteer.
Note: Mr. Chapel adapted
this article from a guest column
originally published in
the Springfield News-
Leader on July 14.
EMPOWERING YOU | 10

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Nicole D. Porter Shares Best
Practices In Smart Sentencing
at Jefferson City Forum
By Jeanette Mott Oxford
On Wednesday, August 29,
about fifty persons gathered at
Page Library on the Lincoln
University campus to hear
Nicole D. Porter, Director of
Advocacy for The Sentencing
Project, share actions that other
states have taken to reduce
their prison populations while
still protecting public safety. The
forum was co-sponsored by
ACLU of Missouri, Missouri
Faith Voices, and the Missouri
State Conference of NAACP.
Coalition” that will pursue policies
to reduce the prison population in
Missouri. Her participation, as well
as that of Molly Gill from Families
Against Mandatory Minimums (via
phone), was invaluable. If you
would like to work with the
coalition, please email Christine
Woody, our St. Louis Regional
Organizer who
heads up our
Criminal Justice
Team’s
campaigns.
reformed sentencing laws,
reducing incarceration, to
Missouri to try their stories.
Those are the legislators that
she suggests would like a pat
on the back (and don’t we all
really like a pat on the back
when we do a good thing?).
From 1925 until about 1975, the
incarceration rate in the U.S.
was essentially flat (top graph at
this link), but laws and policies
like “three strikes and you’re
out” and mandatory minimum
sentencing have caused a
500% increase since that time.
This has caused the
Department of Corrections’
budget to rise, hampering our
ability to meet other state
needs.
We are thankful that Porter also
spent the day with Empower
Missouri and other advocates
on Thursday, August 30, as we
convened the first meeting of
the “Smart Sentencing
Click here for
very good article
from the
Jefferson City
News Tribune
covering the
content of
Porter’s
presentation. Do
be aware there is
one inaccuracy
in the article. In
the concluding
paragraph,
Porter was
suggesting we
bring champions
from other states
that have
successfully
EMPOWERING YOU | 11

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Now Is the Time to Take Action to #ProtectSNAP:
September Is Crucial Time for Farm Bill Advocacy
By Jeanette Mott Oxford
The Conference Committee on
the Farm Bill holds its first
meeting on September 5, so
this is a very important time to
take the following actions:
1) Contact Sen. Blunt and Sen.
McCaskill with a message of
gratitude for their yes votes on
the strong, bipartisan Farm Bill
(S. 3042) that protects the
Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP,
commonly known as food
stamps). Ask them to stand firm
for a conference report that
mirrors the Senate provisions
and urge them to carry this
message to Congresswoman
Vicky Hartzler, the only
Missourian serving on the
Conference Committee.
2) Contact your U.S.
Representative to let him/her know
that the House version (H.R. 2)
would be harmful for Missouri. It is
an unfunded mandate that would
require our state to greatly
increase our staffing at the Family
Support Division offices and to
invest in Education and Training
programs in the many Missouri
counties that currently do not have
such programs. Given the Missouri
budget situation, that would divert
funds from K-12 and higher
education, mental health, public
safety, programs for seniors,
veterans and persons with
disabilities, and many other areas
that are already drastically
underfunded. Urge your U.S.
House member to support the
Senate version instead and to
carry that message to
Congresswoman Hartzler.
3) Write letters to the editor or
guest columns to your local
newspapers in support of the
strong, bipartisan Senate
version of the bill and
thanking Senators Blunt and
McCaskill for their yes votes.
For more information, see
slides 7-14 at this link.
Or use the resources at
www.FoodforMO.org. It is
especially helpful if your
organization adds its name to
the sign-on letter that may be
found there.
EMPOWERING YOU | 12

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Dr. Jason Purnell
Headline 2018 Poverty Summit on Sept. 20
Several years ago, Empower
Missouri helped to found the
Missourians to End Poverty
(MEP) coalition and continues to
play a leadership role in their
quarterly meetings. MEP
produces the State of Poverty
Report and hosts a Poverty
Summit at two year intervals.
That summit is coming up on
September 20, and you are
invited!
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis,
Director of the Kairos Center,
and co-chair of the Poor
People’s Campaign: A National
Call for Moral Revival, is the
morning keynote speaker. In the
afternoon, Dr. Jason Purnell,
Associate Professor of the
Brown School at Washington
University in St. Louis and
Director of Health Equity Works,
will offer the keynote address.
Empower Missouri will be in
leadership at the summit, with
Jeanette Mott Oxford, our
executive director, moderating
the panel on “Community-Based
Solutions.” Christine Woody, our
St. Louis Regional Organizer,
will speak on Food and Nutrition
issues on that panel.
This year’s theme is “Together
We Can: Building Resilient
Communities.” When
communities are dedicated to
helping local people — walking
alongside those who struggle
and equipping them along the
way — people can persevere
through hard times. Resilient
communities are a key part of
ending poverty. Please come to
learn and to share your thoughts
on building resiliency and
alleviating poverty.
The Capitol Plaza Hotel in
Jefferson City is the location for
the Poverty Summit which
begins at 9 a.m. and concludes
at 4 p.m. on September 20. For
more details or to register,
please go to:
http://www.moendpoverty.org/
poverty-summit.html
Scholarship Assistance: In
order to help Empower Missouri
members with low incomes
attend the conference, we will
make five scholarship tickets
available. To apply for the
tickets, email
Jeanette@EmpowerMissouri.or
g with a brief message
explaining your need and
offering your street address,
email, and phone number.
EMPOWERING YOU | 13

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools
Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor
By Virginia Eubanks
A Book Review By Alice Kitchen of the KC Chapter
St. Martin’s Press, New York
ISBN 978-1-250-07431-7
This is a must read for social
justice activists; there is a
message here for all of us.
The take away is this:
designating systems to
reach large numbers of
vulnerable people to
connect or eliminate them
from services can do
enormous harm. Virginia
Eubanks is an investigative
reporter with a keen ear for
injustice created seemingly
with good intentions.
She starts out with the
history of the Poor Houses,
which were designed
ostensibly to provide shelter
for down and out people.
We know the end of this
story: we hid them, and, in
our minds, they ceased to
exist.
Eubanks then takes a close
up look at the database for
public assistance (TANF
and Medicaid) in Indiana,
and then on to the homeless
population in Los Angeles,
followed by the algorithm used
for sorting child protection
services in Allegheny County,
Pennsylvania. Her findings will
likely enrage you and will make
you want to act to stop the misuse
of technology that does harm
under the guise of efficiency and
accountability.
The author concludes by
describing ways we need to
dismantle the digital poorhouse.
Martin Luther King Jr. said
incisively in his last Sunday
Sermon, Remaining Awake
through a Great Revolution,
“Through our scientific and
technological genius, we have
made of this world a
neighborhood and yet we
have not had the ethical
commitment to make of it a
brotherhood….we are tied
together in the single
garment of destiny, caught
in an inescapable network of
mutuality.”
Our work is cut out for us.
This book is not for the faint
of heart or the cowardly.
One idea Eubanks offers is
that we can adopt her Oath
of Non-Harm for an Age of
Big Data. As our
technological evolutions
continue to expand for the
purpose of identifying and
tracking, we need to be ever
vigilant to walk the Oath of
Non-Harm. By ethical
reflection through the whole
structure, we can sift out
potential harm in the
outcomes and potential
unintended uses of the
information. If we care about
vulnerable populations in our
midst, then this challenge is
for us to embrace.
EMPOWERING YOU | 14

SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWSLETTER
CALENDAR
Sept 3 - Labor Day. Offices Closed but you may have found staff at local parades
or events.
Sept 7 - KC Chapter Forum: Standing with Immigrants KC Public Library,
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Sept 14 - MO HIV Justice Coalition Regular Conference Call Secondary Conference
Line, 1:00 - 2:00 PM
Sept 21 - STL Chapter Forum: November Ballot Initiatives: Path to Victory,
Paraquad Auditorium, 12:00 -1:30 PM
Sept 27 - Under the Dome & Around the State Briefing Call, Main Conference
Line, 4:30-6:00 PM
Sept 29 - MO HIV Justice Coalition at the 25th Annual APO AIDS Walk
Conference Call Line (515) 603-3103; 167856
Save the Date: Housing Empowers, Annual Conference, One-Day, November
17, 2018, Hickman High School, Columbia, MO
Advocating for justice | Empowering Change
Headquarters’ Address
308 E. High St., Suite 100
Jefferson City, MO 65101
(573) 634-2901
(888) 634-2901
@EmpowerMissouri
www.EmpowerMissouri.org
Executive Director, Jeanette Mott Oxford
Jeanette@empowermissouri.org
Assistant Director, AJ Bockelman
AJ@empowermissouri.org
St. Louis, Christine Woody
Christine@empowermissouri.org
Southeast MO, Tracy Morrow
Tracy@empowermissouri.org
Springfield, Ashley Quinn
Ashley@empowermissouri.org
Kansas City, Sarah Owsley Townsend
SarahOT@empowermissouri.org
EMPOWERING YOU | 15