Community Economic Development Group

05/18/2026

05/18/2026

Thank you to our sponsors, speakers, panelists, partners, and attendees for making the 2026 Building Alabama Reinvestment Conference, Advancing Leadership, Strengthening Communities, so impactful. Together, we are building stronger communities across Alabama. Growth Homes Birmingham

Thank you to our sponsors, speakers, panelists, partners, and attendees for making the 2026 Building Alabama Reinvestment Conference, Advancing Leadership, Strengthening Communities, so impactful. Together, we are building stronger communities across Alabama.

05/06/2026

6 days until we come together to advance leadership and strengthen communities across Alabama.

Join Building Alabama Reinvestment (BAR) and the Community Action Agencies of Alabama (CAAA) for a powerful four-day conference focused on collaboration, strategy, and impact.

This is where nonprofit leaders, advocates, and decision-makers connect, learn, and build solutions that matter.

📍 May 12–15, 2026
🎟️ Register now: https://bit.ly/4mtoj8e

05/06/2026

08/29/2023

Sixty Years Later: Do We Still Have King’s Dream

I watched 1963 on a black and white television in our living room. I remember the March on Washington and recall how some feared the brutality somebody might inflict on the participants, even in the nation’s capital. That was who America was in the eyes of many. We saw the dogs and water hoses used on junior high and high school students just months earlier. The smells and elements of dynamite from bombings here in Birmingham are etched in our memories, so any undertaking to advance our rights took courage.

King’s speech, one of many that day, has been chronicled throughout the past six decades as he dreamed of an America where freedom, justice, and equality were the norm, regardless of color, gender, place, or birth status. The March, the speech, and the activism helped birth civil rights and voting rights laws. Black progress seemed to ensue. George Wallace stood in the “schoolhouse door” at the University of Alabama, but James Meredith and Vivian Malone were enrolled anyway. Shopping, eating, and integration would become the new way of life in the South, in states like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Arkansas.

Every year about this time, when we think about the speech, someone asks, where are we now? Has the Dream been achieved? Are we closer? Further away? Well, we do enjoy some “freedoms.”

Free to eat and shop anywhere, but black businesses struggle. Free to vote, but only 30% show up. Free to speak, think, and advocate, but where is our unity? We are free to be judged by our character, but we are killing each other at an alarming rate. Justice? Our economic, criminal, and social systems are anything but just. Equality? The average family wealth of Blacks is less than 10% of that of whites.

I’m done except for this. Let’s remember the day and the speech, but most of all, let’s reflect on the work ahead. The work to see Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech on August 28, 1963, continues!!

08/06/2023

August is National Black Business Month! Celebrate with me by shopping with your favorite Black-owned businesses. When we support Black-owned businesses, we are supporting black communities.

TAG A BLACK-OWNED BUSINESS IN THE COMMENTS ⬇️

05/08/2023

We want to thank all of our amazing sponsors for supporting the 13th Annual Building Alabama Reinvestment Conference. BAR is committed to fostering dialogue and partnerships between community and economic development organizations. We are honored to have the support of our partners.

You still have time to register for the conference.
➡️ Visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/13th-annual-building-alabama-reinvestment-bar-conference-2023-tickets-607900535867?fbclid=PAAaYkROt5CVH2nxXvH2zG7T9yb0m7EGqm3Pq0NMXuyzQXNkfo0fazayjuS8M

05/01/2023

Janet Jackson got a private tour of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute hours before she took the stage on April 22 at the BJCC for the “Together Again” tour.

05/01/2023

This week's Birmingham Times print edition on the newsstands features Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin as the city welcomes visitors next week to the 2023 International Peace Conference. www.birminghamtimes.com

05/01/2023

https://bhamnow.com/2023/04/21/former-att-skyscraper-birminghams-3rd-tallest-building-to-reopen-with-luxury-apartments-this-summer/

🚨All within walking distance to City Walk, The BJCC, Uptown, Civil Rights District