“Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble,” - John Lewis
Internship: The Fifty Fund
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During my internship with The Fifty Fund, I served as the project manager for the Mary R. McInnis project. This project is an extension of the nonprofit’s larger project, Prime, which aims to honor unsung heroes in the state of Alabama. Mrs. McInnis is the whistleblower of the landmark civil rights class action suit Pigford v. Glickman, which addressed discrimination by the Farm Service Agency. As the project manager, I worked as the lead of a team of five members. My role as project manager required me to discern and apply managerial tools that included: time management skills, conflict resolution skills, networking, facilitating team meetings, developing team assessment tools, to name a few.
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I also found it necessary to analyze the policies, in order to gain a public policy perspective, that governed those public administrators between 1981 and 1996, the timeline that was designated for the class, and compare them to the current USDA policies of today. Mrs. McInnis recounts her day-to-day interactions with the farmers in need and administrators who were improperly administering policy. She discussed the proper HR policies that she followed and kept documentation of- which ultimately created an opportunity for suit. Her stories assisted in providing me the full context of the policy arena and how it contributed to the formulation and adoption of new practices within the FSA. From this research, I was able to derive a plan to preserve Mrs. McInnis’ story in the proper context.
Our main partner for the preservation of her story was with the Alabama Department of Archives. I served as the representative of Mrs. McInnis’ interest, ensuring that her artifacts would be archived and presented in a manner that was authentic to her experience. Because the nonprofit had an existing relationship with the ADA, I was able to analyze, think critically, and decide what the nonprofits plan of engagement with ADA would be in regard to Mrs. McInnis project. In an effort to create a comprehensive and informative narrative about the story of Mrs. McInnis I worked with the internship team to create an oral history video that outlines Mrs. McInnis' life and contribution to public policy.
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My specific involvement in creating the artifact linked below (YouTube oral history video) was production and editing team. Before recording this video, I met with Mrs. McInnis to ensure that she was comfortable with the style and aim of the video. We brainstormed personal experiences that would be featured in the video and discussed the order in which these stories need to be presented. During the editing phase- I assisted with the editing and served to ensure that the original goals were maintained.
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Another aspect of my internship responsibilities was to network and plan public events for Mrs. McInnis. Our goal was to not just passively interact with the public but to actively include them in the process of telling the story of Mrs. McInnis and gain their perspective on the work that we can do now as practitioners to further serve the public and combat the residual issues from Pigford v. Glickman. The Fifty Fund was able to host her on Auburn’s campus for the Agriculture Peer Mentors, Women’s Leadership group, a Community and Civic Engagement Capstone course, and more. Linked below is the artifact/infographic that I created to promote this event. During this meeting, Mrs. McInnis was able to provide her perspective, and then collaborate with all of the campus partners on some of their personal experiences in the agricultural and policy fields. The photo pictured to the left is from this event at the Auburn College of Agriculture.
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As a result of this meeting with students and faculty from diverse disciplines and perspectives, we decided to, in an attempt to further engage with diverse grounds of farmers and individual directly affected by current agricultural policies for farm subsidies, host workshops to inform and inspire current land-owning farmers. I believe that having Mrs. McInnis will prove to be a valuable asset as she will be able to provide information about specific programs and grants and can recommend, they apply for- based on the status and amounts of land that they have. These workshops are in the process of being planned and we hope to begin them in the summer of 2022.