CROSSROADS FUND

change, not charity

ANNUAL REPORT

2005

“

Four decades later I am still uncomfortable withthe credit given to me for starting the bus boycott. I would like [people] to know I was not the only person involved. I was just one of many who fought for freedom…As I look back on those days, it’s just like a dream. The only thing that bothered me was that we waited so long to make this protest and to let it be known wherever we go that all of us should be free and equal and have all opportunities that others should have.

Rosa Parks

ANNUAL REPORT

Page 1

WE DEDICATE THIS ANNUAL REPORT TO ROSA PARKS.

In school we learned Rosa Parks was too tired to give up her seat to a white rider,that her long day working as a seamstress left her too exhausted to move, thatweariness is what motivated her defiance of the law in segregated Montgomery,Alabama, 1955.Our schoolbooks obscured the real story, the real Rosa Parks. Ms. Parks was anevolving community activist. She served as Secretary of the Montgomery NAACPfrom 1943 to 1957 and attended the Highlander Folk School, an education centerfor workers’ rights and racial equality in Tennessee only six months before she sat onthat particular bus.She was not the first black bus rider to have been arrested in Montgomery forrefusing to move. Rather, she became central to a campaign organized by blackactivists, including herself, to create fundamental change on the local level, changethat would have a catalytic effect on the civil rights movement in our country.

Rosa Parks was tired, not only because of a long day at work. She was tired of racism and discrimination. She was tired of being treated as less than a full citizen. Her ever deepening experience — as a black woman in Montgomery, as acivil rights activist — led her to join with others in her community and work tirelessly to change the racist system of segregation.

Our work at Crossroads Fund is about supporting the development and vision of people very much like Rosa Parks. They are people who, as individuals, are tired of the injustice that exists in their lives. They join with others in strategizing, building,and acting to change the conditions for all in communities throughout the city.The past year saw some big accomplishments at Crossroads Fund. We successfullycompleted the first year of our strategic plan. Our goal of initiating a Donor AdvisedProgram was realized. We nearly doubled the amount of grants given out from theprevious year. Crossroads Fund is solidly moving forward to strengthen our stabilityas a resource for developing movements in and around Chicago.In the year ahead you will be hearing morefrom us about some new programsencouraging increased engagement in political participation right here in Chicago.Historytells us that the action of one woman on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery,Alabama sparked 50,000 others to join together over a 381 day boycott that helpedto ignite the civil rights movement.

Experience tells us that we need all of us —Rosa Parks and more — to build movements. Our work at Crossroads Fund is topool resources to help develop and build movements. We can only do it withhelp and support from each other.