FIAEB leader Ernestine J. Wilson celebrates her influences (including some past and present FIAEB staff) and puts her faith into action by working toward a cleaner and safer Oakland.
When did you first get involved with Faith in Action East Bay (FIAEB)? What inspired you to become involved?
I first got involved with FIAEB during the summer of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. My pastor, Servant Brian K. Woodson, Sr., invited the congregation to attend a virtual FIAEB Regional Leadership Meeting. My daughter, Ms. Cherie A. Woods was a new leader with FIAEB. I accepted the invitation to attend the meeting, learn more about FIAEB, and become more involved in the work they were doing in the community. I had already collected signatures of registered voters and did telephone canvassing on behalf of FIAEB.
Where are you from? Who are some of your important influences and inspirations for community work?
I am a native Californian, born and raised in the City of Oakland. I attended Oakland Public Schools up until high school. We moved to Emeryville during the summer after my ninth-grade promotion. I graduated from Emery High School. I left the Bay Area to attend Howard University and graduate school at American University in Washington, D.C., got married, got divorced, and returned to Oakland–in that order–20 years later.
Before sharing with you my most important influences and aspirations for community work, I would like so tell you a little about my earlier volunteer/community work:
- As a child I walked the streets of Oakland with my mother handing out Democratic campaign literature and pamphlets.
- In high school my friends and I walked door-to-door giving out Civil Defense emergency leaflets and public notifications to Emeryville residents to come to the high school for free polio shot vaccines.
- As a campaign worker for Berkeley City Councilmember Ronald V. Dellums’ first election to the U.S. House of Representatives, I registered voters, handed out literature at campaign rallies, answered office calls, and picked up voters on election day and drove them to and from the polls.
- In Washington, D.C., I chaired a successful political campaign to elect an at-large candidate to the District of Columbic Board of Education. The late David H. Eaton, pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church, was elected School Board President immediately after taking office.
- I belong to several nonprofit fraternal organizations whose community work and involvement includes providing food baskets, clothing, winter coats, school supplies for families in need and OUSD elementary schools. I also engage with annual fundraising activities for the National Diabetes Association, National Alzheimer’s Association, and donate newborn baby clothing and supplies to the pediatric ward of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.
- In my church, the Bay Area Christian Connection, a foundational principles is “Minister to Our Community” and to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. We do this by creating strong relationships within the congregation–which, in essence, is our church family. Our community is built on love, faith, and hope in Christ Jesus. We practice these teachings through a welcome-door policy to all who enter regardless of race, identity, financial status, or need. Jesus’ teachings encourage us to offer benevolent relief to families and individuals in need of food, shelter, clothing, job assistance, social service referrals, and/or financial support to anyone suffering the hardships and emotional stress of living day-to-day and lacking basic needs of survival.
A healthy community of strong believers drives our faith and often extends the community far beyond the church sanctuary.
My important influences and inspirations for community work nationally and locally are the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the late social activist Cesar Chavez, Mrs. Emma Paulino (FIAEB Director of Organizing and Leadership Formation), and Servant Brian K. Woodson, Sr. (former FIAEB Director of Clergy Organizing).
Dr. King’s nonviolent approach to civil and social equality helped change the landscape of America. “Jim Crow” laws and race discrimination disallowed basic rights and freedoms to black America while during the “Jim Crow” era and today,white America has and continues to enjoy all rights and privileges under the laws
written within the U.S. Constitution. Dr. King, his peers, church congregations, and the larger community of college students, local citizens (both young and old) engaged in nonviolent protests–standing up for the right to vote, fair housing, employment, and access to public accommodations. This was the genesis of the Civil Rights Movement. The quiet power and dignity of nonviolence led to the eventual passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Cesar Chavez–son, husband, father, migrant farmworker, labor leader, union activist, and founder of the United Farm Workers Union–fought tirelessly for civil rights, dignity, and humane treatment of farmworkers harvesting the food that goes to market. Years of farmworker strikes and mass boycotts of California grapes and lettuce crops as well as hunger strikes led Chavez and others to exercise their collective community power to fight the agricultural giants and demand higher wages and improved living and working conditions.
Mrs. Emma Paulino, FIAEB’s Director of Organizing and Leadership Formation, is a compassionate and hardworking leader. She is a master at observing the individual skill sets of new leaders. Her strong faith and understanding of people and human behavior has been beneficial to me and other new leaders. She inspires us to stretch our personal gifts far beyond our comfort levels. We learn how to build community relations and partnerships, listen and share community concerns, identify workable solutions, and use our power and voice to take measured actions to help relieve the many undue hardships and inequities facing Oakland communities. I have been in awe of Ms. Emma since joining the Illegal Dumping Local Organizing Committee (LOC). She is smart, discerning and has a keen sense of the obvious. Not much gets past her. I am grateful to have learned so much and for the opportunity to be a part of FIAEB Illegal Dumping LOC.
Servant Brian K Woodson, Sr., pastor of the Bay Area Christian Connection Church is in alliance with FIAEB and is the organization’s former director of clergy organizing. For the past 25 years Pastor Woodson has poured into our congregation teachings about the fundamental principles of living in community and being part of something greater than all of us. Reverend Woodson has said on numerous occasions he has loved God all of his life and exhibits his fervent love of God in his teachings and advocacy for social justice and equality for otherized humanity regardless of gender, income, housed, unhoused, their politics, or who they love.
A healthy community of strong believers drives our faith and often extends the community far beyond the church sanctuary. Given the trajectory of where the country is headed, Reverend Woodson has said that churches, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and community and fraternal groups will have to step up and take care of our people by sharing food, shelter, providing rent vouchers, medical care, paying hospital bills, etc. The Gospel of Luke 12:48 says in part, “to whom much is given, much is required.” Which tells us, we are all responsible for the blessings we have been given and it is our spiritual and moral duty to share our blessings with those who are in need or have less.
What FIAEB issue are you most involved with now? How is it going?
The FIAEB issue I am most involved with is illegal dumping. For so long the streets of Oakland have been notoriously desecrated with varied discards of furniture, bedding, appliances, garbage, debris, and the like. Abandoned cars flood and hazardously abate our neighborhoods. As of now things are not going so well.
This deplorable assault on our beautiful city is out of control. Daily, more and more trash and abandoned and burned-out cars show up and nothing is done. The Oakland resource line 311 is not providing its intended service and job vacancies will not solve the problem. My friends who no longer live in Oakland talk about how dirty the city is now and that it did not look this way when they lived here. An ambitious goal of mine is for Oakland Public Works (OPW), Department of Transportation (DOT), the Beautification Council, Waste Management, Mayor’s Office, and City Council to join forces and hire more OPW and DOT staff to daily blitz every neighborhood and clean this city until the city is clean and remains clean! To do so will require more cameras to read license plates as well as legislation to approve drones to pinpoint dumping hotspots and abandoned cars. As a clarion call for action the City Council must be willing to shift the paradigm much further toward swift prosecution and full disclosure of any resident, business owner, or nonresident who erroneously believes it is okay to illegally dump their unwanted discards and abandoned cars on the streets of Oakland.
How does your faith inspire you to do this work?
The power of my faith, my voice, and my actions are aligned with God’s will and purpose for me as I give my full measure of duty, service, and commitment to the FIAEB Illegal Dumping LOC. The Bible says, “…Faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:17NIV)
I want my faith to show through my work and good deeds.
My value and purpose on this LOC have contributed to our shared passion for safe and clean streets. Committed service and full intention is how I want to represent my church and myself as a member of this LOC–by taking an active role in planning strategies, extending invites to friends and community members to attend the research meetings and actions, etc., and doing as much as I can to help restore my hometown city to the aesthetic beauty and safe surroundings it once had.