News and Commentary
This page displays timely announcements, news reports, and articles written by MOSES members previously published in our newsletters, yearbook, or venues. The main display shows all items with the most recent first. You can select particular topics, working groups, or types of information to see the articles of one type, with the most recent first. Also see the Publications & Resources page for links to whole newsletters and yearbooks as well as other resources for research.
MMSD Takes Important Steps for Student Literacy
MMSD Takes Important Steps for Student Literacy By Barbie Jackson and Shel Gross, Racial Justice for All Children Task Force (RJAC) Education Advocacy Group The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD)’s proposed budget for 2024-’25 contains a very significant statement: In MMSD, we believe reading is a moral imperative for all students. Rooted in our commitment to ensuring all students graduate ready for college, careers, and the community, all students in MMSD will receive high-quality,...
Organizer’s Corner
Greetings, MOSES! From Community Organizer James Morgan Many of my recent experiences in the larger community have caused me to reflect on organizational capacity, recruitment, and leadership. Our goals and mission to establish a platform for collective power-building dictates that, as your organizer, I must reflect on MOSES and its capacity to build externally, as well as internally. Most recently, when I was talking with someone from another organization, our conversation focused on power...
MOSES Reaches In to Visit Black Churches
MOSES Reaches In to Visit Black Churches By Saundra Brown, President of MOSES MOSES’s mission statement calls us to build collective power. This guiding principle, which comes directly from our national and statewide organizations, Gamaliel and WISDOM, is based on an understanding that we cannot achieve success without a broad, collaborative base. To achieve our goals, we must build collective power. This requires us to develop organized people and organized money. We cannot close the gaps of...
What’s Happening to Parole in Wisconsin?
What’s Happening to Parole in Wisconsin? By Sherry Reames The figures on the Parole Commission website show a huge recent drop in the number of paroles being granted. Between 2019 and 2022, an average of 167 individuals a year were released on parole. In 2023 the number plummeted to 37 (or 40, if we count those whose cases were heard in 2023 and added on the website in January and February 2024). The number so far in 2024 (as of April 20) is just one. That is a shocking development,...
Film Review: The 50
Film Review: The 50 Is Changing Lives By Margaret Irwin The 50 is the story – set in California – of a unique way to give incarcerated people a second chance: by training them to become addiction counselors. In March, EXPO sponsored a showing of this documentary at the Urban League’s handsome new Black Business Hub on South Park Street. In 2006, the federal government decreed that California must reduce its prison population by 50,000 to relieve overcrowding. At that time, more than...
Middleton Community Church UCC
Featuring a New MOSES Member: Middleton Community Church UCC By Margaret Irwin Middleton Community Church United Church of Christ (referred to hereafter as MCC) was founded in 1936 by 34 people who wanted a Sunday school for children in the area whose families were not members of the existing Lutheran or Catholic congregations. It has been known ever since as “a church home for those who do not have a home,” welcoming people from a variety of religious backgrounds. As the church grew in...
Life After Prison: JustDane’s Returning Prisoner Simulation
Life After Prison: A Few Hours with JustDane’s Returning Prisoner Simulation By Katie Mulligan Walk a mile in someone’s shoes before you render judgment. I had a chance to follow that familiar advice last December. The occasion was a simulation program of what it is like for a person leaving prison and trying to survive in the outside world. JustDane, a criminal-justice organization, offered this program, in which each attendee adopted the persona of a newly released prisoner who struggles to...
Meet MOSES President Saundra Brown
Meet MOSES President Saundra Brown By Pam Gates Saundra Brown became MOSES president at the beginning of 2024. She has a strong vision on how to strengthen MOSES and next steps to move it forward. She recently shared her visions and goals with the MOSES newsletter team. Frequent one-on-ones between MOSES members are important! “We’re not communicating with one another enough,” Saundra says. “I want to put an emphasis on one-on-ones. You can’t have too many. Even if you’ve done one with...
Review of Lyn McDonald Taking Action for Social Justice Through the FAST Program
Taking Action for Social Justice Through the FAST Program: A Memoir by a Social Worker By Dr. Lynn McDonald, Founder of FAST, 2023 Reviewed by Pam Gates Dr. Lynn McDonald is a Madison resident and social worker who in 1998 established a program called Families and Schools Together, or FAST. The purpose of FAST is to establish and strengthen bonds between schools and families, between parents and their children, and among the parents in the program. The long-term goal that gets most schools...
Criminal-Legal Reform Efforts in the Wisconsin Legislature, 2023-2024
Criminal-Legal Reform Efforts in the Wisconsin Legislature, 2023-2024 By Sherry Reames Looking through the detailed records of this session on the legislature’s official website (docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023), I found some notable setbacks for the cause of criminal-legal reform, but also many reasons to feel encouraged. First, the bad news. At least two regressive bills were passed and signed into law this spring, despite the efforts of WISDOM and its allies. 2023 Act...