Constitutional Reform Education Campaign

Constitutional Reform Education Campaign

“Alabamians Bringing Democracy Home”

Background: A constitution is a framework for governance intended to protect the rights of citizens. By that definition, Alabama’s 1901 Constitution is a failure because it removes power from citizens and centralizes it in Montgomery, it institutionalizes economic and racial inequalities, and its excessive length—it is the longest constitution in the world—deters the people of this state from reading and understanding their own governing document.

In 2003, Greater Birmingham Ministries (GBM) received grants from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation and the Ford Foundation for conducting grassroots constitutional reform education. In 2005, we renewed our Babcock Foundation grant and also received financial support from the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The main focus of our Constitutional Reform (CR) Education Campaign is to work with communities--faith-based and otherwise--throughout Alabama to analyze and discuss our severely outdated 1901 state constitution.

The Campaign: This campaign is raising the level of public discourse surrounding constitution reform by conducting a series of group meetings to allow people to discern not only the general issues surrounding constitutional reform, but also how the present constitution impacts their daily lives. The goal of this campaign is to make CR education informative, interesting, pertinent, and enjoyable. As such, we have developed curricular materials that meet those specifications and can be adapted to a wide range of audiences. Above all, these materials shift the discussion from an academic, abstract analysis of the constitution to a hands-on, personalized understanding of the issues. The Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform and GBM are working with each other to maximize our reform efforts.

The central objective of such a campaign is to raise public awareness of constitutional reform issues and to create momentum either for legislative reform of the constitution or for a citizen delegate convention. Desired outcomes of this campaign include:

	Generating a geographically dispersed, multi-ethnic grassroots constituency that supports constitutional reform, ensuring the passage of a constitution that values accountability, inclusivity, and citizen participation.
	Producing a multi-ethnic community-based leadership network focused on civic consensus building and problem solving of which minority and community-based perspectives would be essential components. Such a network would place issues of race and social justice on the table of comprehensive civic dialogue.

Creating new possibilities for civic imagination and citizen re-engagement in the process of producing, not just consuming, governance.

The following are some of the ways that you can help with the GBM CR campaign:

Ø Host a group discussion on constitutional reform at your place of worship, community center, local library or home.

Ø Become a CR group discussion leader.

Ø Help us broaden our geographical base of support by spreading the word about this campaign to fellow citizens across the state.

If you are interested in helping out call (205) 326-6821

2304 12th Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35234

(205) 326-6821 Fax: (205) 252-8458