The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Volume 2 Number 6

The primary goal of the technology leadership forums is to promote a more favorable technology culture within the leadership of the national civil rights community.

The Forums were developed to create opportunities for civil rights leaders and others within the foundation community and the high-tech community to discuss a wide variety of technology-related issues. The Forums will help assist civil rights leaders to develop collaborative strategies that utilize technology to educate, recruit, and mobilize individuals interested in civil rights. In November 1999, LCCR begins a collaborative dialogue among different constituency groups about improving technological access for under-served communities by co-convening a Technology Forum with IBM Corporate Community Relations. The event represented the first time principals of the nation's leading civil and human rights organizations discussed the barriers their organizations face in integrating advanced technologies into their operations.

As a follow-up to the meeting, IBM publishes, Technology: For Use By Us All, a report outlining the barriers that many non-profits face and announces a Request for Proposal (RFP) that ends up assisting many civil rights organizations.

In May 1999, the Leadership Conference invited Steve Case, Chairman and CEO of America Online (now AOL Time Warner), to deliver a keynote address at the Leadership Conference's annual civil rights policy conference, "Working Towards One America."

The address, "Using the New Medium to Build One America in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities," focuses on the future of telecommunications in the new millennium, with a particular emphasis on bringing under-served communities into the information age.

Referring to the likely convergence of the Internet and civil rights in the future, Mr. Case said, "...access to this powerful and enabling technology may well be the civil rights issue of the 21st century." He also challenges the civil rights community to take action to "...ensure that we become part of the solution, not part of the problem."

In March 2000, Steve Case and the America Online Foundation extend an invitation for the LCCR Executive Committee to visit the AOL Campus in Dulles, Virginia. The meeting provides Executive Committee members the opportunity to learn first-hand how their organizations can put the power of the Internet to work for them, or expand their efforts.

In September, 2000, the Leadership Conference sponsored a day-long Forum to engage civil rights leaders, and the foundation and technology communities in conversations about the civil rights movement's communications and Internet policy agenda at the dawn of the new millennium.

Entitled, "Working Towards A Comprehensive Civil Rights E-Agenda," the meeting begins with a review of the results of the Leadership Conference's internal survey that measured the coalition's use of information technology and their understanding and involvement in communications and information technology issues.

The Forum continues when Federal Communications Commissioner Gloria Tristani shares her thoughts about the opportunities the new medium presents for the civil rights community during a luncheon keynote address.

Following lunch, the Forum hosts back-to-back panel discussions, moderated by Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree. The first panel of academics, communications policy advocates, and representatives from both industry and foundations respond to and build upon Commissioner Tristani's remarks.

The second panel is comprised of civil rights advocates who review the day's events and begin discussing what a "civil rights agenda for the digital age" might include.

The Leadership Conference hopes to continue this conversation with a conference in the Fall of 2001.