Description

One of CIC's primary activities was to hold biweekly meetings called "community dialogues" to discuss broad issues such as racism, police sensitivity, education, and employment discrimination within the city of San Diego. The number of attendees at any given meeting was usually quite high--perhaps as many as 30 or more persons--representing an extremely wide variety of backgrounds, including city officials, educators, administrators, religious leaders, law enforcement, journalists, and minority community spokespersons. In this meeting The Urban Coalition's Task Force on Communications gave an overview of some projects they had successfully assisted, such as publicizing the summer jobs program, by involving large and small businesses, the League of Women Voters, and local churches. They also assisted Mexican American groups on housing problems, senior citizens, and Logan Heights' Industrial Enterprises. The Task Force and also members of the media invited suggestions for other ways they might help improve the representation of minorities. Some suggestions included assisting students to change the name of their school to Martin Luther King School, to publicize San Diego Gas and Electric Company's failure to follow through on issues raised by a Mexican American community, and finally to form a Media Group to raise awareness and commit to improving media reporting of minority interests. The meetings were moderated by CIC Executive Director Carroll Waymon, and his voice is often the first one heard in the audio recordings of the meetings. The meeting minutes are handwritten on stenographic-notebook paper and in some instances give a name only with no information except consecutive numbers, probably from the tape recorder's counter. The notes occasionally lapse into Gregg shorthand, which is translated above the symbols.