Making Madison Uncomfortable: YGB Earns Eugene Parks Disruption Award

Back in the day, Eugene Parks used to make white people uncomfortable by openly talking about the uncomfortable truths that existed in the city of Madison. For the past year and a half, the Young Gifted & Black (YGB) Coalition in Madison have been doing the very same thing and in the process they have opened the eyes of white Madison to many things they have never seen before. So it only made sense that YGB would be the recipient of the first annual Madison365 Eugene Parks Disruption Award.

“For us to be honored and associated with Mr. Parks is huge,” YGB co-founder Brandi Grayson tells Madison365. “What we do know is that most people’s works and thoughts and knowledge aren’t appreciated until after their death. And I still don’t think people really appreciate what he gave to Madison in terms of not conforming to what was politically acceptable. And that really is the platform of YGB.

“He was not afraid to say what everybody was thinking,” she adds. “A disrupter or agitator is someone who causes trouble. Those are things that people in Madison don’t want to be associated with … and Mr. Parks embraced those words. I have to say that YGB has done the same thing.”

The Young Gifted and Black Coalition — Grayson, Matthew Braunginn, Alix Shabazz, A’tira Banks, Eric S. Upchurch, and M. Adams — is a circle of young leaders determined to raise the voice of communities of color and to end state violence. They are grassroots coalition of black women, queer folks, straight folks and feminist men who loudly and proudly fight for Black Liberation. Their focus is on the low-income black communities that their core members call home.

“To get an award named after Eugene Parks means a lot. It’s a great honor. He tried to change the energy in Madison and that’s exactly what we are trying to do with YGB,” Braunginn tells Madison365.

“We are looking to carry on his legacy and do the brave thing. Well, I don’t want to say ‘brave’ because, really, it’s simply the ‘right’ thing to do. It’s our obligation, Brunginn adds. “We see the injustices and we have the capabilities to do something about it so we are obligated to do something about it. For black people, it’s our lives. Beyond just our dignity, it’s our humanity that we are talking about.”

Parks spent a lifetime vigorously fighting against racial segregation and discrimination and was one of the first Madisonians who made its white residents look past the Farmers Markets, its Concerts on the Square, and its numerous nationwide accolades to the harsh realities that existed for people of color in Madison. Parks died on Feb. 28, 2005. He was only 57 years old.

“I think Madison probably looks back at Eugene Parks as ‘one of ours’ but I’m sure back in the day he was ostracized and he had a lot of struggles,” Braunginn says. “There’s something that Madison does to people who push against the grain … who aren’t the go-along, get-along black leaders … and that fight destroys their mental and physical health. It’s an incredible amount of stress.”

Grayson agrees.

“That’s kind of why YGB has been pretty quiet the last few months,” she says. “It takes an emotional, mental and physical toll on you and at the same time you are attempting to balance your life. Some of us have family and children and relatives who are sick or who have died. It’s been tough.”

Braunginn had no idea YGB would become such a big force in Madison when it first launched.

“Personally, it started for me in August [of 2014]. Some of the members were organizing and doing different things around Madison before that,” Braunginn remembers. “I really saw a void in what was being done by our self-appointed leaders, so I decided to reach out and find some other like-minded individuals.”

Soon everything really began to come together around the non-indictment of Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. “We were expecting it. We had no idea how many people would turn out for a response and I think about 600 people showed up to that rally,” Braunginn remembers. “It could have ended that day, but we turned that mobilizing effort into an organizing effort.”

As YGB gained notoriety, its members soon found out just how significant of a movement they started but also what a gigantic task they had ahead of them.

“It’s like standing face-to-face with a massive mountain and not really being able to see how tall it is,” Braunginn says. “In Madison, it’s overwhelming because I think we created and opened up a space that wasn’t there before … or hadn’t been there for a while.”

All at once, people turned to YGB to be that voice for all of these causes that had been neglected for years. “That put a big burden on us. That was a lot. I almost felt like people wanted us to take up every single issue that came up,” Braunginn remembers. “And people were like: ‘Why aren’t you talking about this … why aren’t you talking about that?’ But we were not an organization. We don’t have a massive staff. We’re not getting paid for this. It was absolutely a lot for us.”

Grayson admits that Madison and its racial issues sometimes creates a feeling of hopelessness that can be overwhelming.

“Tony Robinson died almost a year ago and there has been no real, impactful changes in Madison,” Grayson says. “There hasn’t been any changes in terms of other leaders being willing to take a different kind of stance. As far as our leaders, everybody since Eugene Parks have been kind of repeating the same history of ‘Let’s sit at the table with Madison Police [Department]’ and ‘Let’s sit at the table with Mayor [Paul] Soglin … and figure out what they want’ … instead of coming to the table with a long list of demands and not backing down.

“What we’ve seen since Tony Robinson’s death is that a lot of people have profited in major ways from these [racial] disparities,” she adds. “They’ve created their own agenda and are using racial disparities and the mass incarceration of our people as a way to gain titles and move up on the power structure. They are perpetuating white supremacy instead of uprooting it and really challenging it.”

Grayson says that there is plenty of white guilt in this city because of the data and the statistics from the Race to Equity report and stories proclaiming Madison having the worst racial disparities in the nation. But not much action. “The non-profit industry in Madison is blowing up and they are profiting 10-fold right now because of the conversations on race that are taking place,” she says. “But it’s not really helping our people. Our people are still poor and struggling; we still have a housing and job crisis. We still have a lack of resources.

“All of the people with power and money are just sitting around the table and singing, ‘Kumbaya – look at what we’re doing!’” she adds. “But, what are you really doing? And that was always Mr. Parks’ struggle. He would be saying, ‘Damn it. You really aren’t doing anything. Let’s get things done!’”

That’s YGB, in a nutshell. Speaking the truths that everybody else in this city refuses to publically speak. Were you feeling too comfortable? Now you’re getting uncomfortable.

“We need to have local leadership that is willing to be bold and, historically, that’s not what this city produces,” Braunginn says. “This city produces comfortability.

“When it comes to [addressing] comfortability, you saw that in YGB’s tactics in being disruptive in general. Something as simple as blocking a street,” Braunginn adds. “People will be like: ‘What are you doing?’ We’re disrupting your way of life. It’s a legacy tactic. I laugh at so-called liberals who say, ‘Well, you could just stay on the side of the road and do that. Why are you being so disruptive?’”

And Rosa Parks probably could have probably written a letter to the bus station when she got home that night, too, instead of inconveniencing everybody’s daily commute.

“Riiiiight,” laughs Braunginn. “They love Rosa Parks like crazy, yet they’re upset that we’re blocking traffic for 30 minutes. You can’t have both. But, in the end, it comes down to our criticism of Madison as a city of white moderates that are way too comfortable in their city.”

Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that YGB has made an impression on the city of Madison that has never been seen before. Who knew that they would be able to make such an incredible impact in such a short period of time? And what’s next?

“At this juncture in our path and journey, we don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Grayson says. “But we didn’t know back then when we started, either.

“We were just some folks who came together and were upset that the same conversations were happening over and over and over and over with little impact,” Grayson adds. “All of these conversations people were having and we were like, ‘Wait a minute! This isn’t what the poor people need to get up out of their situation.’”

“I’ve grown ridiculous amounts this last year and a half and I see things in a very different way,” adds Braunginn. “There’s a huge task ahead of us not just in Madison but in the United States and globally. You have to think locally, but you just can’t only think locally – especially when the systems are all so intertwined.”

For thinking locally, for making Madison uncomfortable, Madison365 proudly honors the Young, Gifted & Black Coalition with the first-ever Eugene Parks Disruption Award.