Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries Inc

Alice E. Kidder: A Fighter for Social and Racial Justice

This GoFundMe effort is in memory of Dr.Alice Kidder, who died on March 10, 2024, in Boston.

Throughout her life, Alice Kidder worked tirelessly to end homelessness, defeat the scourge of white supremacy and repair the social and economic damages created by racism.

After earning her PhD in economics at MIT, Dr. Kidder began a 20-year career in academia (with teaching and research positions at Spelman College, Atlanta University, North Carolina A & T State University, Syracuse University, Babson College and UMass Boston) and social services (Executive Director of WHEAT Community Services in Clinton, MA).

In 2011, at the invitation of Executive Director Alexander Levering Kern, Dr. Kidder joined the Board of Directors of Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries (CMM), a 501-3C non-profit organization founded in 1966 to promote racial and economic justice, interfaith understanding, and dignity for all. Over the next decade¸ she served CMM as Member and Board Clerk. Alice was an enthusiastic participant in CMM’s programs. Following her commitment to affordable housing, Alice helped organize Clergy and Laity for Affordable Housing (CLAH), which repaired and renovated homes in low-income neighborhoods of Boston. (On any given Saturday, she could be found with a crew of volunteers painting walls in CLAH’s most recent renovation project).

Alice worked tirelessly for CMM’s VALUES OVER VIOLENCE (VoV) program. VoV will be the recipient of this GoFundMe effort. Please give generously.

VALUES OVER VIOLENCE

Values over Violence is a program to foster dignity through a civic culture based on forgiveness and reconciliation. It trains youth and adults to examine their emotions, learn to identify events which trigger anger and revenge, and look at choices about how to handle these events. VoV focuses on the need to address the emotional issues stemming from violence, felt by victims, perpetrators, and the community. With emotional and spiritual healing, it becomes possible to step beyond violence and chart a new direction. Participants are trained to help move persons from the onset of violence through possibilities of forgiveness and degrees of reconciliation toward constructive civil engagement.

Values over Violence is based onan innovative approach first pioneered by ESPERE with Fundación para la Reconciliación in the gang-ravaged ghettos of Bogotá, Colombia, and has since spread to more than 15 Latin American countries. Through our partnership with Forgiveness International, we seek to bring this work to anglophone North America. The ESPERE materials have received a UNESCO prize and other international honors for their proven track record in reducing violence. The premise of this approach is based on the well-founded belief that social violence is a result of many factors found in under-served communities, including poverty, unemployment, and a general sense of helplessness.

“Against the irrationality of violence, we promote the irrationality of reconciliation.”

For more information about Values over Violence, please go to https://coopmet.org/vov/