Lansing - The Unity in CommUnity Forum met Sunday and welcomed new members from Grand Ledge, DeWitt and Haslett.
For four hours, more than 50 people divided themselves into different rooms of the Union Missionary Baptist Church, 500 S. Martin Luther King Blvd.
The forum was created in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but the group has since widened its scope to all concerns surrounding issues of racism.
The forum, consisting of area residents who differ in race and religion, is organized by Genice Rhodes-Reed, director of the Human Relations and Community Services Department for the city of Lansing.
“We need to work pro-actively for acceptance, we cannot wait until there is a crisis to act,” Reed said.
The forum has five departments that are each developing plans to educate sectors of the public about sensitivity.
Community education, education in the schools, media relations, policy and services each developed a calendar of activities, financial resources for their programs and materials to publicize awareness of the forum.
Area schools have been contacted and many have school board members or superintendents in the group, Reed said.
“We are going to promote understanding and bring about true change,” she said.
Lansing School board member, Guillermo Lopez, said he feels the forum is a good activity to bring in different people from area communities.
Issues of racism, not just from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but also problems in the tri-county schools, will be tackled, he said.
Issues surrounding the media were also discussed by Lansing City Councilmember Geneva Smith and East Lansing resident Amin Tejani.
The group hopes to contact different media outlets to offer the chance to participate in the work of the coalition and hold press conferences for the Lansing area.
“We are doing it to bring harmony into the community,” Tejani said.
Having different members of the community from different professional backgrounds will help in accomplishing the forum’s tasks, he said.
Smith serves as chairwoman for the media relations group of the forum.
“The way they report the news needs to be more sensitive, you hear all the bad things, but you don’t hear the positive ones,” she said.
