The Reclaiming Democracy conference on Dec. 2 started out with a bang – literally – as Cakalak Thunder, a local percussion-based band, opened the conference up with an explosion of sound. As more people began filling up the Bryan Jr. Auditorium, the band opened into a unified chant: “Stop the escalation!” – a resounding criticism of the recent escalation of the war in Afghanistan. This strong political statement invoked an enthusiastic sense of social justice that would set the stage for what was to follow.

The conference, coordinated by Associate Professor of Justice and Policy Studies Sherry Giles, was broken into three 30-minute segments and featured 10 presentations by students from Guilford College, Elon University, UNCG, and Greensboro College. The presentations focused on various issues dealing with reclaiming democracy, specifically in the Greensboro area.

“A lot of our class has been about telling stories that aren’t usually told,” said Guilford sophomore Maia Buess, one of the students who took the class Reclaiming Democracy with Giles.

Buess and a group of students from Elon and UNCG presented on the ethnography of the Morningside Community. They sought to derail the distorted, negative images that the Greensboro government and media have attributed to Morningside.

“Morningside is where the Greensboro Massacre occurred, and it’s best known for this fact,” said Buess. “But that’s not the whole story.”

Their presentation was geared towards telling a more complete story about the community – a story of abused democracy and oppression, of a community that has endured suffering at the hands of our government, which initiated the gentrification of the neighborhood with the help of a housing development called Willow Oaks.

Another group, consisting of students from UNCG and Elon University, tackled the controversial topic of the White Street Landfill in their presentation. They revealed the case of the landfill to be a modern instance of blatant disregard for the democratic principles our country was founded upon.

In this case, the Greensboro government voted to reopen the landfill, a decision that would have extremely detrimental effects, both economic and health-related, on the primarily low-income community that lives in the area. Many of the people living in the area weren’t even informed about the initiative – despite the large negative impact it could have on their lives.

“The democratic process must be inclusive as well as humane,” said UNCG student Crystal Cornine. “People were not even aware that this was going on.”

The group’s goal was to inform people of the situation and create change.

“There is a need to mobilize to bring together the public community,” Cornine said.

Members of the group have already taken several steps; they have been attending and speaking at Greensboro City council meetings, created a Web site about the landfill, and spent time talking to people in the community, specifically those living in the White Street area. To learn more about their presentation, check it out at http://get2knowwhitestlandfill.wordpress.com.

“The recurrent theme of the presentation was knowledge and education,” said UNCG student Kevin McIntosh. “If you’re not knowledgeable and don’t know what’s going on, it’s impossible to create change.”

Another presentation, delivered by Guilford sophomores Yahya Alazarak and Erica Bailey and UNCG student Stephanie Skinner, examined racial inequality within Greensboro. The group offered a multi-media presentation, including song, spoken-word poetry, and photographs to get their message across.

“What we really wanted to attack in this presentation was white privilege,” said Bailey. “Our goal with this was to make you guys think, ‘I’m so used to this, why am I used to this?'”

The presentation touched on racial stereotypes and the general injustices that were present in Greensboro and called for a greater solidarity in the community.

“We must recognize the range of possibilities exhibited by every person,” said UNCG professor and community activist, Ed Whitfield, who attended the presentation. “We need to realize that you can look at the race of a person and still know absolutely nothing about them.”

Each issue presented at the conference primarily focused on evoking change in the community by engaging and informing people.

Groups presented on the issues of the justice system, media bias, and the preservation of community in the face of expanding development. Many presentations focused on the struggles of individual communities with Greensboro, including the refugee community, the LGBTQ community, the deaf community, and the homeless community.

“Our overall goal was for students to present the results of their inquiry … in ways that would inform and inspire their audience to learn more, and perhaps even become involved,” said Giles in an e-mail interview after the conference. “Judging from the lively discussions that followed the presentations I attended, and the fact that the projects initiated by some of the groups are actually continuing beyond the course, I would say that the forum accomplished our goals quite well.