Open Society Institute Fellowship

Sojourner Douglass College Street View, 2021. Photographed by Mary McKinley.

After participating in Bridges Not Walls and the Citizens' Planning and Housing Association, Betty incorporated her interests in history and community organizer training into an application for an Open Society Institute Fellowship, which she received in 2003. Using this fellowship, Robinson developed a curriciulum for a course at Sojourner Douglass College, just down Broadway Avenue from the Johns Hopkins medical campus, entitled "History and Vision of Social Justice Organizing in Baltimore." 

In describing the need for her course project, Robinson wrote: "Social change does not happen by itself, although we seldom teach individuals and communities the process by which the change actually happens, how to achieve it and provide support for those active in the struggle for change. For example, some young people will learn that there was a civil rights movement while others will only learn that President Johnson signed a civil rights bill in 1965. Fewer still will discover what it took in the way of organizing to bring about this legislation. In fact, many of the things we take for granted in Baltimore today-- our housing court, stable home-owning, integrated neighborhoods in the NECO area or the absence of a highway through Fells Point-- were victories won by someone figuring out a strategy for winning the results they desired." 

In her application, Robinson indicated that while popularizing the history of social justice organizing in Baltimore was a large portion of her purpose, she also intended this fellowship program to be an opportunity to create a network among active community organizers in Baltimore. Fostering such a network was a position she was uniquely situated to fill, as she estimated in her application that even before the fellowship she knew 60-70% of the community organizers active in Baltimore in 2003 [OSI fellowship final report]. In her final report, Robinson indicates that she had built up a contact list of 132 active community organizers in the Baltimore Metropolitan area, and that the best relationships developed among organizers were developed in the course. Each participant in the course would have received a letter of congratulations, as seen here, with a course completion certificate. 

In addition to the community building Robinson fostered among the organizers, her papers show that the course participants gained many and varied benefits from the course. Here, Robinson has aggregated participants' responses about what they have taken from the course, with responses including "an openness to different styles of organizing," "greater sense of Baltimore history," and even "hope for Baltimore."

Even after the course was completed, Robinson continued to be in contact with the networks she had built, participating in a wide variety of community organizing efforts and distributing Baltimore news and needs to the 130+ members of her Baltimore community organizing network. Issues she brought to the attention of the network ranged from supporting school students' organizing efforts in the Youth Empowerment Movement and continuing involvement with urban renewal and development issues in Baltimore's Port Covington district.