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| The Rev. Charlie Caswell and activist Christine Grandberry find common ground in a discussion about saving the community. (Photo by Wiley Henry) |
The Rev. Charlie Caswell Jr. loves his
community and advocates to restore the splendor that was diminished over the
years by rampant foreclosures, a dilapidated housing stock, failing schools,
wanton violence, insufficient business investments, blight, and poverty.
Frayser was once a
thriving community of the working class. Now the working poor comprises as many
of the 50,000 residents living in one of the highest crime-ridden areas in the
city of Memphis. Caswell, however, is not deterred by such dour statistics.
Instead, he’s determined to rectify the problem.
He is the senior
pastor of Union Grove Institutional Baptist Church in Frayser and regarded as its
quintessential community leader who is motivated by the partnerships and
collaborations he’s forged and nurtured to bring an end to Frayser’s economic
drought and grim outlook.
His love affair with
the community and never-say-die attitude prompted a move by members of the
Frayser Neighborhood Council (FNC), of which he is a member, to tap him to represent
Frayser in Washington D.C. and to discuss the Frayser 2020 Plan, the framework
of a revitalization effort.
Caswell is the
FNC’s go-to activist whose activism is spreading beyond the boundaries of
Memphis. He’d presented the group a proposal called “Unity in the Community,” and
it was a given that Caswell would be the flag-bearer and catalyst for change in
Frayser.
The proposal, said
Caswell, “basically addresses getting more people involved through training
Frayer’s ambassadors to work in the community, as well as becoming block
captains and working with the Neighborhood Watch coordinators in their
community.”
On June 8-10, Caswell
and a contingent of Memphis activists and community leaders trekked to the
nation’s capitol to take part in the Obama Administration’s Neighborhood
Revitalization Initiative (NRI), “a bold new
place-based approach to help neighborhoods in distress transform
themselves into neighborhoods of opportunity.”
Frayser was one of
eight communities in five cities chosen for the NRI’s Building Neighborhood
Capacity Program (BNCP), a hands-on, technical assistance initiative. This was
Caswell’s second trip to Washington. He was in the nation’s capitol earlier
during the year to address and seek solutions for Frayser’s wide-spread problems.
The BNCP program, he said, targets three communities in the Memphis area –
Frayser, Binghampton and Soulsville.
“It entails helping
residents to identify assets that are available to them in the community and
helping to build upon those assets, service providers, and other partners in
the community using basically the assets that they have in helping to make them
better to serve the community better,” said Caswell.
The Memphis
contingent worked with top officials from the White House-led interagency
collaborative that included the departments of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Education (ED), Justice (DOJ), Health and
Human Services (HHS) and the Treasury in support of local solutions
to revitalize and transform neighborhoods. Meetings were held
at The Department of Justice.
“What
we went back to Washington to tell them what the ‘7 P’s’ are about – Pastors,
Politicians, Parents, Police, Principals, Proprietors and Partners – and how
it’s going to help serve the residents in our community,” said Caswell, author
and founder of the 3V Leader program, which focuses
on creating a collaborative of parents, children and stakeholders in the
community.
“In this work, it
helps me to understand…we can do more together than separate. So I think the
big picture for us as a community is for those who don’t just look at the dollar
amount, but the human capital of us unifying, coming together and sharing the
resources that we have and the knowledge that we have,” he said.
“As a leader in the
community, that’s been my charge.”
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