Historical Winter 2006 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Bridges Across Racial Polarization was designed to facilitate interracial communication and understanding, and create opportunities for friendships. Bridges was created in 1993 by the late Greg Freeman and myself.
It has been sponsored since 1994 by Focus St. Louis.
If you are interested in participating in a Bridges group, please fill out the form on the Bridges/Focus web site, or call Focus and ask them to mail one to you (contact info at bottom). Focus will assign people to the new Bridges groups which are formed. Your participation (or not), will not be shared with the SDCC.
There are two options: some may want to be in a group made up of Skinker-DeBaliviere residents, others in a group with people anywhere in the St. Louis area.
Please express that preference to Focus when you apply. Greg Freeman, the late PostDispatch columnist, and his family were longtime neighborhood residents, and he was a SDCC member and vicepresident. Because Bridges is especially relevant for our highly diverse neighborhood, after I became SDCC president in 2000, we’d discussed bringing it to your attention.
But other things intervened, and Greg died, far too young, in 2002.
We observed that even in Skinker-DeBaliviere, where most residents made a conscious decision to live in a diverse neighborhood, some residents’ social circles are racially diverse, and others’ homogenous.
But Bridges is NOT being suggested as something we think you “ought to” do. Bridges is voluntary; intended for people who independently decide they’d like to have more diversity in their social circles. Since it is sometimes hard to reach out to people if you don’t know they will be receptive, Bridges connects those, who by signing up, have indicated their interest in adding to the diversity of their networks and/or friendships. Groups of 1014 people, balanced among black and white participants (some are Hispanic and AsianAmerican) get together for about 3 hours in their homes every couple of months for potluck dinners. Groups spend: part of the time socializing, talking about themselves, their families, careers, etc., and in listening to others, usually discover the many things we have in common, and part of the time talking about something they decided to read or share together which touches on race relations, an article, book, movie, play, etc..
The crucial component is to talk about these shared experiences, not abstractly or about ‘other people’ involved in current events, but in terms of how these things relate to our own experiences and feelings. Since 1993, about 700 people in the St. Louis area have participated in Bridges groups, and over 300 are currently in 29 groups, including a few from Skinker-DeBaliviere who heard about it via Focus.
Some groups go on for many years, including two original pilot groups from 1993 (we’ve become friends). Others do not last past the initial year’s commitment made when signing up, though many of those participants ask to be assigned to another Bridges group. Note: Bridges is not the only way, there are other approaches to interracial conversation, such as those of the NCCJ.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call or write me, and/or Reggie Williams, the director of the Bridges project at Focus.
If this leads some in Skinker-DeBaliviere to decide to try Bridges, it will fulfill a dream of Greg and myself for our community.
If you do try Bridges, at some point in the future I would appreciate your feedback. Daniel Schesch, President, Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council scheschd@worldnet.att.net 314/7261891 Reggie Williams,Community Policy Director/Bridges Director,FOCUS St. Louis, 1910 Pine Street, Suite 200, St. Louis, MO 63103 (314) 6221250 (314) 6221279 Fax reggiew@focusstl.org www.focusstl.org
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, Winter 2006.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Source prints groups of 1014 people without separator; no range punctuation inferred.
Original source: SD_Times2006_11.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
