A Short Guide to Advancing High Road Policy
What is High Road Policy and through what means can it be advanced? Find tentative answers to these questions in the following short guide, which defines key concepts, outlines three interdependent strategies, and explores tactics for advancing the High Road. The guide also expands on the theory of change mentioned in the High Road-21 manifesto [PDF]:
The High Road-21 Policy Toolkit
The High Road-21 Policy Toolkit contains twoitems:
- A Policy Checklist with six questions for evaluating the extent to which a policy proposal is consistent with the 21st Century High Road.
- A Tally Sheet that can be used to summarize the aggregate results from inclusive, democratic processes in which each participant completes the Policy Checklist.
Download the PDF toolkit here:
An example of how to use this toolkit to evaluate policy proposals is available here. The example shows the results from an exercise where two participants completed the High Road Policy checklist for the same state policy proposal.
A second example is available here. In this example, the same two participants completed the High Road Policy checklist for a second state policy proposal.
Templates
- Sample local government resolution endorsing the 21st Century High Road (coming soon)
- Sample letter to a local elected official (coming soon)
- Sample letter to a state elected official (coming soon)
Recommended Reading
- Jackson Rising, by Kali Akuno and Ajamu Nangwaya
- “Our Strategy“, by BSA
- Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, by Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed [PDF], by Paulo Freire
- The Ecology of Freedom, by Murray Bookchin
- We Do this ‘Til We Free Us, by Mariame Kaba
- Insurrectionary Infrastructures, by Dr. Jeff Shantz
- Take Back the Economy, by J.K. Gibson-Graham
- American Society: How It Really Works, by Erik Olin Wright and Joel Rogers
- How Wealth Rules the World, by Ben Price
- Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows
- The Making of a Democratic Economy, by Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard
- How to be an Antiracist, by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
- Dismantling the Racism Machine: A Manual and Toolbox, by Dr. Karen Gaffney
- Erasing Red Lines series by the Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab:
- Part 1: Geographies of Discrimination (PDF)
- Part 2: Systems Thinking for Social and Community Change (PDF)
- Part 3: Building Community Wealth (PDF)
- Epilogue: Where do we go from here? (PDF)
Links
- High Road Policy
- Racial Equity Tools
- PolicyLink Equity Toolkit
- Systems Thinking Resources
- BSA Dual Power Map
Contact us to recommend readings and links to add to these expanding lists.