RACIST BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT NASHVILLE
PEACE & JUSTICE CENTER FIRES LORENZO KOMBOA ERVIN

Dear Friend:

Veteran black activist Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, Coordinator of the
Nashville Peace and Justice Center (NPJC), was fired at the NPJC Board
of Directors meeting on December 4. Subjected to a hostile work
environment since he was hired in June, 2006, Lorenzo was be fired for
doing what he was hired to do—speaking out against racism in the NPJC.
Throughout its 15-year history, the NPJC, a coalition of some 26
liberal-left groups, has been an almost all-white organization. In
recent years, it has started to slowly bring in people of color through
the Leadership Training Institute. Lorenzo was the first person of
color to be the coordinator of the NPJC. His hiring in June, 2006, was
considered a real breakthrough as he has a real activist history in the
anti-racist, Black Liberation, anti-war and other protest movements
going back to the 1960's.

The NPJC’s Strategic Plan calls for the group to be an anti-racist
organization by 2008. At the time of his interview, Lorenzo told the
NPJC Board of Directors that if he was hired, he would not be a “black
face in a high place,” that he would speak out against racism within
the organization, which the board encouraged him to do. However, after
taking the job, Lorenzo was impeded and harassed at every turn. These
are the facts:

**On July 28, just six weeks after Lorenzo had been on the job, board
member Jane Hussain, who heads the all-white Mid-East Peace Coalition,
left a telephone message in which she threatened to fire Lorenzo for
contacting board members who are people of color about supporting
Melissa DaSilva for board chair in the upcoming board elections. Then,
at the September 11 board meeting, Hussain grabbed a proposal to expand
the board (to bring in more people of color) out of Lorenzo's hands and
threw it in the trash. She then screamed at Lorenzo during the entire
meeting whenever he tried to speak in favor of the proposal.

**As the result of Hussain’s actions at the September 11 board meeting,
Lorenzo filed an employee grievance against her with the NPJC Personnel
Committee. NPJC’s personnel policies call for a mediator to be brought
in when an employee files a grievance. After Lorenzo filed his
grievance, board member Eric Lewis, a member of the Cumberland Greens
and an ally of Hussain, sent an email to Lorenzo and the Personnel
Committee, indicating that the board would fire Lorenzo at his upcoming
six-month evaluation. Chris Lugo, board vice chair and an ally of
Hussain, threatened that his group, the all-white Peace Coalition,
would leave the NPJC and form another group if Lorenzo didn’t drop his
grievance against Hussain or he be fired.

**When the NPJC Personnel Committee failed to act on his grievance
against Hussain in a timely matter, Lorenzo filed an employee
discrimination complaint with the Nashville Metro Human Relations
Commission (MHRC). (The MHRC later informed Lorenzo that it could not
investigate his complaint because the NPJC only has three employees.
There must be at least thirteen employees in an organization in order
for the MHRC to conduct an investigation.)

**Retaliation against Lorenzo began the very next day after he filed
his complaint with the MHRC. Board chair Melissa DaSilva (whom Lorenzo
had supported for chair), called Lorenzo to berate him for his
“stupidity” in not filling out legal papers required for the NPJC to
maintain its status as a Tennessee non-profit organization. Soon after
he was hired, Lorenzo informed the board’s Executive Committee that for
thirteen years, the NPJC had failed to pay its annual state non-profit
fees. Lorenzo told DaSilva that he would not be the scapegoat for the
board’s failure to carry out its state fiduciary responsibilities.

**As a result of DaSilva’s harassment of Lorenzo, he filed a grievance
against her. She retaliated the next day by calling an “emergency”
meeting with Lorenzo and his two fellow staff members. At the meeting,
DaSilva literally cried about how her reputation would be ruined and
she could be sued because of Lorenzo’s complaint to the Human Relations
Commission. DaSilva staged this drama to create a split between Lorenzo
and his fellow staff members.

**On November 6, at its monthly meeting, the board agreed to the
following: 1. That the problems Lorenzo was having in his job were not
“personality” differences with Hussain and others but were problems
with the entire board. 2. The entire board would participate in
mediation with Lorenzo and a mediator of color would be hired. 3.
Lorenzo’s six-month evaluation, scheduled for December, would be
postponed until February, 2007. 4. A decision on whether Lorenzo would
remain as NPJC coordinator would be made in March, 2007. Also at this
meeting, board chair DaSilva resigned from the NPJC.

**At the November 21 NPJC Executive Committee meeting, a motion to fire
Lorenzo was made by board member Karl Meyer, of the War Resisters
League. Meyer’s motion was an attempt to overturn the decisions of the
entire board two weeks earlier. Furthermore, Meyer falsely accused
Lorenzo of causing various groups to leave the NPJC board. The truth is
that none of the groups that are leaving the board have indicated they
were doing so over any displeasure with how Lorenzo is doing his job.
It is only the Peace Coalition, which is allied with Jane Hussain, that
has threatened to leave the NPJC because of disagreements with Lorenzo.
Meyer’s motion to fire Lorenzo was defeated.

In addition, Lorenzo told the Executive Committee that he objected to
one of the two people who had agreed to be a mediator. Mediators must
be neutral, and the person to whom Lorenzo objected is an attorney with
ties to the NPJC, and who also is a member of a law firm that Lorenzo
contacted early on for legal advice about his problems with the NPJC.
**At the Dec. 4 board meeting, board member Eric Lewis introduced the
motion to fire Lorenzo. His motion claimed that Lorenzo was not
qualified for the job. Lewis also accused Lorenzo of causing the NPJC
to lose its corporate name. The truth is that in July 2006, after
Lorenzo informed the NPJC Executive Committee that the organization’s
state non-profit fees had not been paid for thirteen years, the board
failed to fill out the legal papers in a timely manner necessary to
keep its state non-profit status. Consequently, the NPJC has lost its
corporate name, which now belongs to Jonathan K. Davis, a former
disgruntled member of the NPJC.

NPJC Personnel Committee member Bill Harkey told the board that that he
had received favorable and unfavorable comments about Lorenzo. However,
Harkey did not read any favorable comments. Instead, he read comments
written by Christina Vanregenmorter, the former NPJC Interim
Administrator, who was responsible for training Lorenzo. In her
comments, VanRegenmorter said that Lorenzo was “not qualified” for the
job, and that she should remain as the Coordinator instead. So Lorenzo
was fired strictly on this basis of this letter, when the NPJC’s own
personnel policy manual says that:
The NPJC has not followed its own Personnel Policies: (1). Totally
failed to talk to Lorenzo about any issues and allowing mediation. This
is in Lorenzo’s contract and that of all employee contracts.(2).For
failing to have the Personnel Committee to even evaluate his work after
the six month period, but just summarily firing him based on a letter
written when he first came to the NPJC by a person who had his job and
was angry to have to get it up; (3) never serving him a copy of said
“evaluation letter”, or allowing him to refute it.(4) The co-chairs of
the Personnel Committee, refused to recuse themselves from hearing his
case, even though one was a witness to the September 11th event with
Jane Hussain, and the other defended Hussain in a scathing letter to
Board members calling actions against her a “monkey trial”.
There have been six to seven coordinators of the NPJC in the 15 years
that the group has existed, all white except for Lorenzo. He has talked
with some of his predecessors, none of whom were fired or threatened
with firing or subjected to the kind of harassment and intimidation
that Lorenzo experienced. The actions against him are clearly a racist
double standard.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PROTEST LORENZO’S FIRING:

1. Write to NPJC BOARD MEMBERS: MATT LEBER (matt (at) homelesspower.org),
JANE HUSSAIN (janehussain2 (at) aol.com), CHRIS LUGO
(christopherlugo (at) aol.com), ERIC LEWIS (islandspring (at) cafes.net), KARL
MEYER (karlmeyerng (at) hotmail.com), and ELIZABETH BARGER
(loveliz77 (at) yahoo.com), the latter of whom is interim NPJC chair, and
complain about the racist kangaroo court nature of the December 4th
meeting where Lorenzo was fired.

2. Hit these racists in the pocket book. The Nashville Peace and
Justice Center is primarily funded by grants from foundations, several
of whom require that the organization engage in both internal
anti-racist training and external anti-racist organization. For years,
they have resisted such training, and would not cooperate with Lorenzo
when he sought to press forward such training. Please make a complaint
to their funders: Mary Reynolds Babcock foundation , (336) 748-9222,
email: info (at) mrbf.org ; Public Welfare Foundation, (202) 965-1800 c/o
Erica Taylor, Program Officer,etaylor (at) publicwelfare.org; and finally,
Ben & Jerry’s Foundation (802) 846-1543, ext. # 7485, or
webmaster (at) benjerry.com, or you can make your comments directly on their
website: www.benjerry.com/contact_us, (when you write them, tell
them you are part of a national boycott of B & J products because they
fund a racist organization like the NPJC).

Peace and love,

JoNina Abron-Ervin, Chiar
Ad Hoc Committee to Tell the Truth
About Racism at the NPJC