Nominee Bio - Maxine A. Nelson

Nominee Maxine A. Nelson, Pine Bluff

Contact: 870-535-3570 (home)

Nominated by ACORN’s Board of Directors

ACORN Director Neil Sealy says of Maxine…

“Maxine Nelson has been an ACORN leader since 1985. She has been active in ACORN’s campaign for fair representation in government, community reinvestment, improved city services in low-income neighborhoods and living wage. Ms. Nelson lives in a neighborhood west of Blake Street in Pine Bluff, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. She serves on the Watson Chapel School Board. Ms. Nelson is president of Project Vote, a non-partisan organization dedicated to voter registration, education and protection. In 2004, Project Vote registered 1.2 million new voters nationwide and, in partnership with ACORN, more than 34,000 new voters in Central Arkansas and the Delta. Ms. Nelson also serves on ACORN’s national association board as secretary. She is also on the Board of the Arkansas Broadcasting Foundation, which oversees the operation of community radio station KABF.

Currently, Maxine is involved in a long-term campaign to win a living wage for Pine Bluff city workers and employees of city contractors as well as a campaign to increase the state minimum wage.”

(ACORN is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It is the nation’s largest community organization of low-and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. Since 1970, ACORN has grown to more than 175,000 member families, organized in 850 neighborhood chapters in 75 cities across the US and in cities in Canada, the Dominican Republic and Peru.
ACORN’s accomplishments include successful campaigns for better housing, schools, neighborhood safety, health care, job conditions, and more.
ACORN members participate in local meetings and actively work on campaigns, elect leadership from the neighborhood level up, and pay the organization’s core expenses through membership dues and grassroots fundraisers.
ACORN has constantly challenged the traditional notions of what a community organization is, and its family of organizations includes two radio stations, a voter registration network, a housing corporation, and several publications.) (From ACORN website) ACORN was founded in Arkansas and has spread widely.

MAXINE A. NELSON
4308 West 9th Ave. Pine Bluff, AR 71603

Birthplace: Selma Arkansas
Parents: Irene Powell and the late Nathaniel Powell
Marital status: Divorced
Children: Kelvin, Cynthia, Michael, Raymond and Amos, 17 grandchildren
Employment: Jefferson Regional Medical Center, Pine Bluff, since 1972.
Registered Nurse, Coronary Care Unit

Educational Background: Reno High School, Reno Nevada
Pines Vocational School, 1970-92
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, 1975-78
Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing
Additional Studies UALR and UAM

Hobbies: Reading and traveling

Organizations: ACORN member (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) since 1986.
Offices held: Chair of ACORN Political Action Committee; Secretary; Asst. State Chair; Chair, Jefferson County ACORN; Delegate to ACORN Associate Board since 1999, also served as Southern Regional Representative.
PROJECT VOTE President since 1998
WATSON CHAPEL SCHOOL BOARD 1st selected 1989, have served as Secretary, Vice President and President. Currently serving as Vice President.
ARKANSAS SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION, served on Board of Directors 1994-2000.
Member of College Heights Church of Christ
Past member of NAACP
COALITIONS: Partners for a Better Pine Bluff, Jefferson County Jobs Initiative, Jefferson County Electoral Coalition.
HOSPITAL COMMITTEES: recruitment-Retention Committee, Nurse-Physician Liaison committee, Nurse/Staff Council

Awards: Gamma Psi Sigma Chapter, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., Social Action Award, 1993
Outstanding School Board Member, 1993
Master School Board Member 1995,
Featured in Pine Bluff Commercial’s “UPCLOSE,” 1996
Pinnacle School Board Member, 2000

What has ACORN Accomplished?
This is a sampling of things ACORN has accomplished thus far.

Community Reinvestment

Negotiated landmark agreements with banks in St. Louis, Baton Rouge, Boston, Bridgeport, New York City, Jersey City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Denver, Little Rock, New Orleans, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Brooklyn, Des Moines, Dallas and Washington, D.C., making over a billion dollars available for loans in low-income neighborhoods. Blocked the gutting of the federal Community Reinvestment Act. Forced Fannie Mae to establish a precedent-setting program to buy community reinvestment mortgages.

Housing

Created or upgraded homesteading programs that turn over vacant houses to low-income residents in Philadelphia, Detroit, Brooklyn Bridgeport, Chicago, Phoenix, St. Louis, and Little Rock. Won passage of a national homesteading bill. Forced HUD to reform policies and procedures to make it easier for low and moderate-income people to purchase HUD-owned properties.

Schools

Won establishment of alternative public schools in ACORN® neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City, and St. Paul. Improved school facilities and governance in Chicago, New York, San Jose, Little Rock and Bridgeport. Stopped school closings in Des Moines, won free transportation to schools in Little Rock, upgraded school safety in New Orleans and Detroit.

Taken a leadership role in more than a dozen jobs and living wage campaigns, including victories in Chicago, Cook County, Boston, Oakland, Detroit, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. To help build the growing living wage movement, ACORN has established the Living Wage Resource Center to provide assistance to living wage campaigns wherever they arise.

Jobs

Secured "First Source" ordinances or agreements requiring developers to hire low-income unemployed residents in Miami, Washington, D.C., Bridgeport, Pittsburgh, Dallas, St. Louis, Little Rock and Des Moines.

Voter Participation

Registered over 1.1 million new voters in 2004. Struck down barriers to voter registration in Bridgeport, Pine Bluff, Little Rock, Atlanta, Grand Rapids and Pittsburgh. Replaced at-large City Council elections with a district election system in Pine Bluff and Pittsburgh. Recruited and trained ACORN® members to run for public office in Little Rock, Pine Bluff, Philadelphia, Bridgeport, New York, San Jose, Chicago, Tulsa, St. Louis and Des Moines.

Health and Environmental Justice

Forced companies to clean up, move, or cancel plans for toxic chemical plants, dumps, discharges, or waste incinerators in Memphis, Ft. Worth, Philadelphia, Des Moines, New Orleans, Dallas, Minneapolis, Jacksonville, St. Paul, Chicago, and St. Louis. Improved hospital care in Little Rock, Dallas and New York. Expanded childhood immunization in New Orleans. Organized parents of lead poisoning victims to pressure local governments for improved screening and treatment in New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Neighborhood Safety

Forced police and city officials to respond more effectively to rapes in low-income neighborhoods and to establish rape-prevention programs in St. Louis, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans and Des Moines. Won programs to fight drugs, ranging from more police foot patrols to better recreation facilities in New Orleans, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Boston, and Detroit.

ACORN People’s Platform

We stand for a People's Platform, as old as our country, and as young as our dreams. We come before our nation, not to petition with hat in hand, but to rise as one people and demand.

We have waited and watched. We have hoped and helped. We have sweated and suffered. We have often believed. We have frequently followed.

But we have nothing to show for the work of our hand, the tax of our labor. Our patience has been abused; our experience misused. Our silence has been seen as support. Our struggle has been ignored.

Enough is enough. We will wait no longer for the crumbs at America's door. We will not be meek, but mighty. We will not starve on past promises, but feast on future dreams.

We are an uncommon people. We are the majority, forged from all minorities. We are the masses of many, not the forces of few. We will continue our fight until the American way is just one way, until we have shared the wealth, until we have won our freedom.

This is not a simple vision, but a detailed plan.

Our plan is to build an American reality from the American rhetoric, to deliver a piece of the present and the fruits of the future to every man, to every woman, to every family.

We demand our birthright: the chance to be rich, the right to be free.

Our riches shall be the blooming of our communities, the bounty of a sure livelihood, the beauty of homes for our families with sickness driven from the door, the benefit of our taxes rather than their burden, and the best of our energy, land, and natural resources for all people.

Our freedom is the force of democracy, not the farce of federal fat and personal profit. In our freedom, only the people shall rule. Corporations shall have their role; producing jobs, providing products, paying taxes. No more, no less. They shall obey our wishes, respond to our needs, serve our communities. Our country shall be the citizens' wealth and our wealth shall build our country.

Government shall have its role: public servant to our good, fast follower to our sure steps. No more, no less. Our government shall shout with the public voice and no longer to a private whisper. In our government, the common concerns shall be the collective cause.
We represent a people's platform, not a politician's promise.

We demand the changes outlined in our platform and plan. We will work to win. We will have our birthright. We will live in richness and freedom. We will live in one country as one people.

The Growth of the Movement (1975-1980)

In 1975, ACORN became a multi-state organization with new branches in Texas and South Dakota. On December 13, sixty leaders from the three ACORN states elected the first associate Executive Board and the first ACORN president, Steve McDonald, to deal with matters beyond the scope of the individual city and state boards. Each year thereafter saw three or more states join ACORN with a total in 1980 of twenty states. The great expansion of the organization led to multi-state campaigns beginning with a mass meeting of 1,000 members in Memphis in 1978.

ACORN national conventions and actions in 1978, 1979 and 1980 led to an entry into national politics through participation in the 1980 Presidential campaign. ACORN used the campaign to apply pressure to presidential candidates during the nomination campaign when they were in most need of grassroots support - a specialty of ACORN's. They also created the opportunity for the members and leaders to develop their ideas on a national agenda for the organization.

In December, 1978, ACORN held its first national convention in Memphis, Tennessee to discuss and initiate a national platform for low- and moderate- income people. The convention was planned to coincide with the National Democratic Party conference or "miniconvention", which was conducting hearings to develop issues for the upcoming Democratic National Convention. At the end of the platform-drafting conference, ACORN convention delegates marched on the Democratic Party conference with the basics of a nine-point "People's Platform." They demanded a meeting with President Carter but were only allowed to demonstrate in the street. ACORN, however, had created a permanent presence in national politics, that reached the highest levels of power.

The following summer, July 1, 1979, ACORN's second National Convention and Platform Conference was held in St. Louis. The purpose of the action was to refine the People's Platform and to complete six-months of discussions in ACORN organizations around the country about their visions for the future of the nation. The planks included positions on energy, health care, taxes, housing, community development, banking, jobs and income, rural issues, and representation. The issues addressed in the planks were all issues that local and state chapters of ACORN had addressed at one time or another in their communities.

After the convention passed the People's Platform two hundred of the 1,500 ACORN delegates marched to the suburban home of S. Lee Kling, the chair of President Carter's campaign finance committee. They planted nine boards in Kling's lawn labeled with the categories of the planks in the platform. This was followed by repeated and often successful attempts to present the People's Platform to campaign aides and candidates from both parties, including Rosalynn Carter, Hamilton Jordan and Ted Kennedy. ACORN also presented their positions to the Republican Platform Committee in Detroit and to delegates individually and assembled in the state party conventions in ACORN states.

Roots of a Social Justice Movement (1970-75)

The Sixties were an important time in the history of American politics. The decade witnessed struggles for freedom for low-income people and minorities across the nation as well as a war that deeply divided all Americans. Amid the confusion and conflict, some important lessons were learned by those who cared deeply about America and her people - lessons that would endure and make a lasting impact on the nation.

One of the groups that took risks, explored new ideas and developed a unique formula for a politics of justice in America was the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), led by George Wiley. Wiley developed and led the National Welfare Rights Organization in the mid-sixties to become a national force for the needs and rights of low-income people. By 1966, the NWRO had 170 groups in sixty cities across the nation. Despite the very real needs of its members, the NWRO was destined to remain a small minority with limited power in American politics unless it could build a network of friends and allies. When this reality became clear, Wiley began an experiment that would explore the possibilities of a larger constituency for economic justice. He sent Wade Rathke, his young and highly talented organizer, to Little Rock, Arkansas to apply his creativity to the problem.

Rathke's task in Little Rock was monumental. He had to create a movement that would bring NWRO organizing to groups that should support it yet had little sympathy for its cause, such as conservative, low- and moderate-income Southern whites. Even worse, he had to do this in a state that was deeply racially divided, fundamentally conservative and run by a wealthy political elite.

But, because Wiley, Rathke and the NWRO took the cause of economic justice seriously and studied and respected the traditions of social justice movements in American history, they saw possibilities and opportunities where others did not. They founded a movement that would unite races, join neighborhoods and unify the interests and efforts of low- and moderate- income people wherever they lived or worked.

When Rathke arrived in Little Rock in 1970, he began a campaign to help welfare recipients attain their basic needs - clothing and furniture. This drive, inspired by a clause in the Arkansas welfare laws, began the effort to create and sustain a social justice movement that would grow to become the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now - ACORN.

The goal was to unite welfare recipients with working people in need around issues of free school lunches for schoolchildren, unemployed workers' concerns, Vietnam Veterans' rights and hospital emergency room care. Thus, an idea was born that would grow and adapt, thrive and flourish, and become a powerful movement from coast to coast.