African American Leadership Commission (AALC) - Bay Area

Please see our Mission & Context Statements at bottom.

The African American Leadership Commission (AALC) of the Bay Area has been proud to host a series of inaugural events from fall 2010 through summer 2011.

In September 2010, we hosted a public meeting with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright – a deliberate choice for the Bay Area to hear for ourselves, unimpeded by the “dominant narrative of controversy” surrounding him, his perspectives and insights.

Throughout late 2010 and early 2011, we convened several meetings to determine strategy, build infrastructure, and lay the foundations for leveraging transformative power – all in the context of creating a “Beloved Community.”

In May 2011, we held a large public event, “A Gathering of Leaders”, featuring several renowned leaders in many fields, engaging in conversational forums with our communities.

In June 2011, we hosted a series of new member meetings, and ongoing core AALC strategy sessions.

In July 2011, we supported the extremely successful “Get on the Bus” event, a transportation justice action hosted by Genesis, our umbrella organization – which builds on Genesis’s 2010 success of redirecting $70 million away from controversial projects of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, to transit services that better serve the needs of our communities.

Three Action Groups, or “hubs”, have emerged as focal areas of our efforts in the foreseeable future:


  • The “Transportation Justice” Group will engage African American communities in continued support of the highly multicultural transportation justice efforts of Genesis. Specifically, we will continue to play central roles in the Transit Equity and Youth Bus Pass campaigns.

  • “The New Jim Crow” Group (named after the ground-breaking work by scholar-activist Michelle Alexander about mass incarceration and racism) will help catalyze a cadre of institutions, groups and individuals working in this arena – in support of transformative action throughout the Bay Area.

  • The “African Connections: the Continent & the Diaspora” Group will deepen connections between Continental Africans and African Americans (and other Diasporic Africans) in the Bay Area.


Please bookmark and revisit this site for future updates – or contact Barbara Fuller, AALC Leadership Team Member: 510-663-9593 or renful@sbcglobal.net.

Mission of the AALC


The mission of the Bay Area AALC, as a part of the National Gamaliel Network, is to forge environmental, economic, political and spiritual leadership of the whole Bay Area; and to define a 21st century vision and program for the San Francisco Bay Area African American communities.

AALC will vigorously respond to the urgency of our most marginalized and overburdened communities still circumscribed by racial, social, economic, political and educational inequities. AALC will build associations and alliances in order to eliminate the challenges that produce community fragmentation.

Aware that the Bay Area is under pressure from the collapse of the local, national, and global economies – in addition to ecological, cultural, spiritual, social, and political challenges – AALC feels compelled to reframe our understanding, and engage our communities in the work of building solutions and power.

AALC unites all people of African descent living in the US, and our allies, especially across lines and issues that have at times divided us - such as class, education, gender, nationality, race and sexual orientation.

Bay Area AALC Context Statement


Today, the Bay Area African American community is in crisis. This crisis, paradoxically, is related in part to the success of the civil rights movement. Before the culmination of that movement, during the 1960s, African Americans lived is segregated rural communities in the South, or ghettos of the North and West. Our small group of professionals - doctors, lawyers, ministers, and teachers - lived “cheek by jowl” with the working class and the unemployed members of our community. Out of this concentration of energy, linking different geographies of the nation, we were able to forge a common consciousness, which, during the 1960s, transformed the nation.

In 2010, the African American community is fragmented economically and by social class. While some members of our community are doing very well, others suffer and struggle economic hardship. Some members of our community, having suffered the brunt of the mortgage foreclosure crisis, barely cling to middle class status. Other members of our community remain trapped in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, with poor schools, few economic opportunities, and a high proportion of our young men being shunted off to prison.

We are also fragmented by occupation and education. Many of us have attended the best colleges and universities in the nation. We have learned specialized disciplines, unique traditions, concepts, practices and procedures in fields as diverse as engineering, media, applied science, microbiology, architecture and urban planning. We can no longer communicate with each other with a sense of common needs and strategies in a way that mobilizes our efforts toward common solutions for our communities.

We are fragmented by geography. The most privileged members of our community can now live and work in any neighborhood, in any place in the world. In search of the American dream, many have moved out of the ghetto into older, desegregating suburbs. The remainder is left behind in abandoned inner cities – communities with poor schools, inadequate transportation, and reduced public services – while desperately trying to build new cultures of survival.

We are fragmented religiously and spiritually. We grapple with religious and spiritual diversity. We struggle to reclaim our moral authority handed down to us from previous generations. The resultant loss of moral vision has become not only a tragedy for African Americans, but also a tragic loss for the whole society.

We are fragmented in terms of our racial and cultural identity. The election of an African American President of the United States of America reminded us that race still matters. Further, it underscored the urgent need for a renewed vision of our role within our communities, and within society as a whole.

Over a hundred years ago, W.E.B. Dubois observed that African Americans are challenged by "double consciousness." Double consciousness is the simultaneous but distinct awareness of oneself, and of how one is perceived by another. There is a danger of surrendering what it means to be an African American to the oppression of the dominant culture. There are also benefits to be gained from African American values, perspectives, and culture. Unresolvable conflict between these dual modes of awareness can lead to paralysis. A successful integration or transcendence of these dual realities, with spiritual grounding, can lead to a new, healthier “common ground.”

We now know that African Americans are not the only group in society grappling with "double consciousness." It may well be that every group in society that finds itself outside of a homogenizing class- and gender-bound Eurocentric vision, is facing a similar challenge.

Beyond the hues of our skins, past pain and suffering, faith traditions, intra-cultural conflict, and other circumstances, we must transcend cultural identity issues which lead to paralysis, shame or negative self-concepts, in order to shape the minds of our children to the world we want them to inherit.

Just as there is no contradiction between building a strong family and vigorously engaging in leadership for the whole society, the AALC is committed to building more solidarity within the African American community, even as we are committed to building leadership in society as a whole.

Dubois noted that the war within the souls of black folk has often resulted in a kind of paralysis. During the 1960s, however, as the Civil Rights movement burst onto America's landscape, our communities had a momentary vision of providing leadership “and remedies” for the whole national – and international – communities. Then, toward the end of the 1960s, there was a new-found appreciation for our African Heritage, which led to a deeper sense of self-knowledge and understanding. It also helped us to see some of the limitations of the dominant cultural realities. In this context, our double vision may be an asset rather than a liability. Today, as the assault on our African-American personhood and communities re-escalates, it’s time for a re-awakening of our community's purpose.

We need new assessments and new strategies for addressing these complex sources of fragmentation.

"Let us march on," as James Weldon Johnson urged, 'til victory is won."


AALC National

The African American Leadership Commission is a major operating component of the Gamaliel Foundation www.gamaliel.org. It was established to create a unified voice for those whose lives are affected every day by racism and concentrated poverty. The objective is to build multi-racial, multi-religious and multi- institutional coalitions for change.

A national conference was held at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel, Atlanta, GA June 17 & 18, 2010, "Uniting Power, a Blueprint for Action." Speakers included: Bishop Vashti McKenzie, Othal Lakey, John Brittain, Randi Weingarten, Peter Groff and Drew Westen. Several AALC Bay Area members were in attendance. Further information TBA.