Road to One America: the Youngstown Business Incubator and Hill House in Pittsburgh

This is my third and final diary about the stops on John Edwards's Road to One America Tour that I visited on July 17, 2007. Previously, I've written about the Mount Pleasant neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, where residents are plagued by predatory lenders and home foreclosures, and also Beatitude House in Youngstown, Ohio, a transitional shelter for homeless women working to get back on their feet. Today's diary focuses on the last two stops on the tour that day: the Youngstown Business Incubator in Youngstown, Ohio and Hill House in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Youngstown Business Incubator was a very unusual stop on the Road to One America Tour. Youngstown used to be a big steel town with a lot of manufacturing jobs, but it has fallen on hard times. The Business Incubator is working to create partnerships between business, education, government, and the community to attract better jobs and high tech jobs to the area and train local workers to take those jobs. It is a model for how communities that have lost manufacturing jobs can transition to business models that will be more competitive in the new global economy.

John Edwards met with local business leaders in a roundtable discussion at the Youngstown Business Incubator. I was able to record some of the meeting on video before the battery died in my camera.

Here are some key points that were made during the discussion:

YBI links entrepreneurship and education, helping to keep kids in schools and help local businesses to create job opportunities. These job opportunities help local graduates stay in the Mahoning Valley.

Youngstown is making an effort to become the poster child for what needs to happen throughout the Great Lakes. This is a major transition, which requires local, state, and national help.

The key to the success of YBI is in creating partnerships on many levels. This includes private sector/public sector partnerships, profit/nonprofit partnerships, and business/government partnerships.

John Edwards called it a model for what can be done nationally.

Later that afternoon, Edwards visited Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he toured the facility at Hill House, then gave a rousing speech.

Hill House is a community organization which has multiple programs for education of youth at different ages, as well as Senior services and other community services. Prior to Edwards's speech, three graduates of various Hill House programs spoke about how those programs have helped them.

The first success story was a young woman who had participated in their Mission Discovery science education program, become a counselor in the program, and is now about to enter college on a full scholarship.

The second success story was that of a young man who, although once a gang member and drug dealer, learned parenting skills and life skills through their fathers program, and now coordinates that program.

The third success story was a woman who had at one time been addicted to drugs, homeless, and had her children taken away from her. The Hill House helped her to get clean, get her life back on track, get housing and get her children back.

After the speeches by the graduates of Hill House, John Edwards spoke about some of the problems facing working people in this country, some of the things he had witnessed on the Road to One America tour, and the programs he would propose to help solve these problems.

We've got 37 million people in this country who live in poverty. 15 million live in deep poverty. I mean intractable, deep poverty. It is not OK. The work that Dr. King began in Marks, Mississippi - that work has to continue today, and he has left this legacy in our hands. He has left this responsibility to us.

Here's an excerpt from his description of his visit to Cleveland earlier that same day:

In a one block radius - 38 homes in foreclosure. 38 homes. And this is not a poor neighborhood. These are working, middle-class people. The one thing that we've got to make sure everybody in this country understands and knows in their gut is that this cause, this march that we're on to end poverty and give opportunity, real opportunity to everybody, is not just about the poor. Everybody's at risk. Everybody is vulnerable.

One new thing I want to say a word about tonight is what we need to be doing about our schools. I'm sure some of you followed this U.S. Supreme Court ruling that turned Brown vs. Board of Education on its head. Taking away the power of schools to voluntarily desegregate - huge mistake. Huge mistake. But we don't just have racial segregation in our schools in America. We have huge economic segregation, and everybody knows it. [inaudible due to applause] ...it's not true that we have one public school system in America - oh, no we don't. We've got two public school systems in America. We've got one for those who live in wealthy suburban areas and then one for everybody else. One for kids who go to inner city schools and poor rural schools and one for everybody else. We have got to build one public school system.

His proposed solutions for economically segregated schools include bonuses to good schools that take in kids from the inner city and creating magnet schools in the inner city that will attract kids from all over.

Toward the end of his speech, Edwards called on all of us to help in the fight to end poverty.

What we need - what we need, brothers and sister, is we need a movement. We need a movement to end poverty in this country. We need a movement to lift up all those people that I've seen in the last day and a half. I carry them around inside me. I do. When I say this cause is the cause of my life - as long as I'm alive and breathing, I'm going to speak for them. I'm going to fight for them, and I'm going to stand up for them, but I need you. I need you in this cause. They need you. They need your courage. They need your strength. They need your voice to be heard, because it is the only way that they're going to have the chance that they're entitled to. It is the only way that they're going to have the dignity that every human being in this country ought to have. You know, if I can paraphrase Gandhi, you've got to be the change that you believe in. You can't stay home and help somebody else is going to do this for you.

After his speech, Edwards stayed around to answer some questions. I had a hard time getting close enough to him for my camera to pick up the audio, but here's a short clip where I think you can hear him OK. In this video, he's talking about football, affordable housing, and magnet schools.

Video pick of the day: John Edwards in Whitesburg, KY

This is a video from part of the Road to One America Tour that I missed. The story about a man named James that John Edwards met on the tour, which he tells in this video, is amazing.

I have more video of my own, but I didn't get any more writing about it done today.

It seems like the tour had a positive impact on the media. There have been several nice articles in the mainstream press about John's poverty work, including one in Time. Also, both the Wall Street Journal and The Economist recently noted that John Edwards is setting the agenda for all of the other Democratic candidates, which Edwards supporters like me have known for a long time.

From Time:

Whatever else happens to Edwards this year, whatever his candidacy becomes, it matters that he spent three days talking about the problems of people like James Lowe. Maybe Edwards succeeds in linking those problems to the concerns of the middle class and ignites his candidacy. And maybe he doesn't. Either way, he did some good this week and won at least one vote. "It means the world to me that he come down here," said James Lowe. "He's talking about helping working people? He's listening to people like me? To me, that means everything."

From The Economist:

Mr Edwards is a man of big plans. No other presidential candidate, of either party, can match the sheer quantity, let alone the ambition, of his policy ideas. He has grand, progressive, goals—to end the war in Iraq (obviously), provide universal health care, address global warming, eliminate poverty in America within 30 years—and detailed blueprints of how to do it all.

From the Wall Street Journal:

NEW ORLEANS -- John Edwards may be stuck in third place in the polls and fund raising in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. But the populist seems to be playing an outsized role in driving the terms of the party's debate -- generally to the left -- on everything from Iraq to health care.

This week, the former North Carolina senator has made his most prominent bid yet to place the oft-ignored issue of poverty prominently on the 2008 agenda, with a four-day tour of some of the most run-down parts of the South and Midwest, beginning with his sixth trip this campaign to this city, devastated by Hurricane Katrina. He has talked about the issue more than any of his rivals, and was the first to craft a "poverty" plank in his platform.

About the time Mr. Edwards announced plans for his tour, one of his better-positioned rivals, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, posted a poverty plan on his Website. Mr. Edwards ended his tour -- wending through a poultry plant and an industrial neighborhood hit by factory closing -- Wednesday in Kentucky. On that day, Mr. Obama delivered a major speech on the subject in Washington, D.C.

An Obama campaign official dismissed as "absurd" the notion that Mr. Edwards drove the debate on poverty or any other issues. But some voters feel otherwise. "I appreciate Edwards because he's at least talking about poverty," said Scott Myers-Lipton, a San Jose State University professor who caught Mr. Edwards speaking in New Orleans. "He's the only one talking about it."

What's absurd is the way Obama copies everything John Edwards does, but never gives him any credit. He's been doing it throughout this campaign, but it started way back in 2004, when Obama co-opted Edwards's familiar theme of Hope for his now famous speech at the Democratic convention.

John Edwards visits the women of Beatitude House

This is the second in my series of diaries about traveling along with the Road to One America Tour. The series started with yesterday's diary about John Edwards visiting a neighborhood struggling with home foreclosures in Cleveland.

On Tuesday, I was following the Edwards campaign as John Edwards visited the women of Beatitude House, a shelter for homeless women seeking to reclaim their lives, in Youngstown, Ohio. To quote the Beatitude House website:

Beatitude House, sponsored by the Ursuline Sisters, is committed to disadvantaged women and children in the Mahoning Valley. In an atmosphere of care and compassion, the programs focus on counseling to promote self development and education to obtain needed skills.

Through this holistic approach, both women and children are empowered with the work habits and motivation to realize their full potential.

At Beatitude House, Edwards sat down at a picnic table with two women who are currently residents of Beatitude House, two women who are graduates of the program, and a woman who works there. He didn't give a speech. He didn't pontificate about anything, in fact. He just sat down with these women and asked them detailed, caring questions about how they came to be at Beatitude House and how Beatitude House had helped them.

Two things impressed me about this visit. First, the strength of these women who had been faced with challenges that many of us can't even imagine and who had somehow come out even stronger. Second, John Edwards's compassion.

I don't think this was an unusual visit for Edwards, except for the fact that media was there. I remember once hearing a high-level person in the Edwards campaign talk about how, before he was running for president, Edwards would go around to shelters like this one and go into a room with the residents, with no media present, and just ask them about their problems so that he could learn.

I know that as I watched his interaction with the women at Beatitude House, I saw in his face and heard in his voice a gentleness of spirit, a deep pride in what these women had accomplished, and a tough determination to fight for people like them.

I think that's all that I need to say. The videos speak for themselves.

John Edwards Announces Three-Point Plan to Rebuild New Orleans

Tonight, John Edwards kicks off his Road to One America tour with a walking tour of the devastated ninth ward of New Orleans. Tomorrow, he starts off the day with a town hall on Good Morning America from New Orleans. Today, he announced his three-point plan to rebuild the city.

"We are not the country of the Superdome in New Orleans after Katrina. We can prove it by fulfilling our moral responsibility to get New Orleans back on its feet."
– John Edwards

His plan includes ideas to rebuild infrastructure, create jobs, and make the city safe, including fixing the levees. He expands each of these ideas into some detail in the fact sheet.

Edwards is the only candidate for president who has a plan to end poverty in the United States in the next 30 years and combat poverty worldwide. He is even willing to raise his own taxes, and those of other wealthy people, to do so, which seems to me to be a clear example of his integrity.

In the next few days, he will be touring impoverished areas of the United States to shine a light on the problems and solutions. He spoke recently at the NAACP presidential forum about the upcoming tour.



I will have much more on the Road to One America Tour in the next few days.

Edwards to Launch Road to One America Tour in New Orleans

The Edwards campaign announced today that it will launch a three day tour of poverty-stricken areas in the United States that it is calling the Road to One America tour, on July 16.

“Everyday, one in eight Americans wakes up in poverty,” said Senator Edwards. “That’s not okay. Today, we have Two Americas in our country – one America that has everything it needs and another that is struggling to get by. Our next president needs not only to understand the struggles facing the 37 million Americans living in poverty, but also have a plan to lift them up out of poverty. That is what this tour and my campaign are about – giving them a voice so that we can build One America, where every person has the opportunity to work hard and get ahead.”

In a conference call with Edwards campaign manager David Bonior today, Bonior talked to reporters about the tour.

The Road to One America tour is designed to highlight Edwards's goals of raising 12 million Americans out of poverty in 10 years, and eradicating poverty in the United States in 30 years.

It will be a three day tour starting on Monday, and hitting eight states.

The tour will highlight the face of poverty by showing the human face of the poor, because as John Edwards says in his book, statistics do not struggle.

It starts on Sunday night with a walking tour of the ninth Ward of New Orleans. This is a pre-tour event. The real tour starts on Monday in New Orleans. The first day will also include visits to Canton, Mississippi, Marks, Mississippi, where MLK started his Poor People’s March to Washington, D.C. in 1968, then Marianna, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee. At the end of the first day, they will fly to Cleveland, Ohio.

On the second day they will visit Cleveland, Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This leg of the tour highlights urban areas that are trying to rejuvenate.

On the third day they will start in Wise, Virginia (having flown there the night before), then on to Norton, Virginia, Whitesburg, Kentucky, and Prestonberg, Kentucky, where RFK ended his tour of impoverished parts of Kentucky in 1968.

From the press release:

Along the way, Edwards will meet with residents devastated and displaced by Hurricane Katrina and with people who have experienced persistent poverty in the Deep South, the Mississippi Delta and rural Appalachia. Edwards will also visit communities in the Rust Belt region that have suffered from the loss of American manufacturing jobs and cities that are struggling to cope with both urban poverty and the rising problem of poverty.

With this tour, Edwards hopes to focus attention not just on problems, but also on solutions and all of the good work that is being done across the nation to help lift people out of poverty. By meeting with these Americans and telling their stories to the rest of the nation, the campaign intends to show the diversity of the problem of poverty in America. The new faces of poverty in America come from a wide variety of racial, ethnic and regional backgrounds – from urban, suburban and rural areas. They range in age from the very young to the very old. Some are suffering from disabilities, which prevent them from finding work, and many are hardworking men and women with full-time jobs who are still struggling to make ends meet. All too often they don’t have access to the affordable health care, housing and education they need. And their numbers are growing. Edwards believes we all have a stake in doing something about our fellow Americans living in poverty and believes that working together we can help end poverty.

Edwards has made ending poverty in America a pillar of his campaign and laid out a plan to do so within 30 years. He has also outlined detailed plans to lift up working families by guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for every person in America, rewarding work by raising the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2012, protecting workers’ right to organize and making college more affordable. Born to working-class parents, Edwards understands the struggles facing working families and has dedicated his life to fighting for them. For the past two years, Edwards served as the Director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He joined with grassroots coalitions to help raise the minimum wage in six states in 2006 and has helped more than 20 national unions organize thousands of workers into unions.

Bonior mentioned a list of the kind of people they are trying to help, all kinds of people in poverty, but my ears perked up when I heard him talk about helping people with disabilities, because I have wanted Edwards to talk about that a bit more, now that I have a partial disability, and some of my friends have disabilities as well.

There will be no fundraising during this tour and none of the states they're visiting are early states, so this is purely to highlight the issue of poverty.

One of the questions was from Ann Kornblutt at the Washington Post, who asked if there was a political strategy as well as the substantive strategy.

David Bonior responded that you can't separate the issue of substance here, because this is what John Edwards is all about.

Bonior then went through an impressive list of John's antipoverty credentials, only a few of which I had time to write down. He has been involved in 180 separate union organizing events, including a hunger strike with Cuban immigrants. His college for everyone program has raised college participation in the county where it operates.

She asked a follow-up question about who they are trying to reach with this tour, and Bonior said something like "it's aimed at you and the others on this call." He said they want to force the issue into the debate. He said they want to challenge the other campaigns, the press, and the public to come to grips with this issue.

Someone asked about the references he had made to 1968, and this was one of the most intelligent questions I've ever heard from a press person on one of these calls. He asked why is it more difficult to raise the issue of poverty today?

David Bonior said that 1968 was one of the most significant years in the last 100 years in this country. He said the difference now is that many in the press are not focused in on this issue as much as they should be. He then added that also political leaders aren't focused on it.

I did my part today to try to focus the press on this issue. I e-mailed Chuck Todd, the political director at NBC news, and challenged him to report on the Road to One America tour fairly. Earlier, I had written to Todd, because he wrote a piece I saw on the MSNBC website that I thought was unfair to Edwards. I won't report the content of the earlier correspondence, because he didn't know I was a blogger when it started, and that wouldn't be quite fair, but he had been very responsive to my complaint, so I issued him the following challenge:

Mr. Todd:

Thank you for responding to my previous e-mails about Edwards. I have a challenge for you. I'd like to see either you or someone on your staff go on the Road to One America tour that Edwards will launch in New Orleans on Monday the 16th, and see if you can report about the substance of what he talks about. Don't talk about his hair, don't talk about how rich he is and call him a hypocrite, talk about the issue that he is making the focus of his campaign: poverty. For extra credit, you can even talk about his wealthy predecessors who have also cared about the poor, such as FDR and RFK. One more part to this challenge: if you decide to interview a bunch of Republicans or conservative pundits who say his proposals won't work, also speak to some people who have worked with him on poverty and who say that they will, such as ACORN members or union leaders, and give them equal time.

Let's see if your organization rises to this challenge. All I am asking for is equal time for him and his proposals, and fair coverage of them.

I have since heard from Mr. Todd that he was in the midst of making a pitch to his producers about sending a crew and correspondent on this trip. I will be interested in their coverage.