We ‘CAP’ off Black History Month and kick off Women’s History Month with our Communications Director, Cheryl Alethia Phelps!
Name, title, and primary areas of focus.
Cheryl Alethia Phelps, Communications Director for the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties.
I lead a talented, hardworking team of professionals and together we serve as the ACLU SDIC’s strategic storytellers. We amplify the impact of our colleagues’ efforts, using traditional and digital media, copywriting and editing, graphic design, videography, press events and more to raise public awareness and mobilize public opinion. We work collaboratively with every department in this affiliate, with our counterparts in other affiliates, with our national organization, and with our community partners to cultivate and advance relationships with a broad range of external audiences. Above all, we protect and propagate the ACLU brand to defend the civil rights and freedoms of all who live in our region.
What drives you to do the work you do?
I despise unfairness. I’m driven to fight abuse of power. What’s interesting is that my most deeply-rooted memory in this regard is connected to one of our affiliate’s most significant cases.
I was born and raised in segregated San Diego to parents who were local civil rights trailblazers. In 1966, the Board of Education appointed my physician mother as vice chairman of the Citizens Committee on Equal Educational Opportunities to determine the effects of San Diego’s racially imbalanced schools on its children. (Not good, they concluded.) The BOE failed to implement any of the committee’s 39 recommendations.
In 1967, the committee’s secretary joined with several parents to file a class action lawsuit to compel the BOE to end de facto segregation in San Diego City Schools. This ACLU argued the suit and among its interim outcomes was the school district’s voluntary busing program. Today, we list Carlin v. Board of Education on our timeline of historic legal cases.
In 1968, my brothers and I were among the first to be bused to a ‘white’ elementary school outside our Valencia Park neighborhood. In 1970, I went alone to integrate the fourth-grade class of another elementary school. On my second day, a sixth-grade boy called me ‘nigger.’ (I’d never heard the word before, didn’t know what it meant, and actually put out my hand and said “no, my name is Cheri.”) On the playground the following day, I was surrounded by a pack of boys chanting ‘nigger, nigger, nigger’ until I pushed the ringleader into the fence and shouted “I told you that my name is Cheri!”
I’ve been pushing back ever since. I know how it feels to be isolated, humiliated, unwelcome, and personally terrorized for being different. I know how it is to be physically sickened by feelings of powerlessness, betrayal, and fury in the face of injustice. I would never wish these feelings on anyone. I fight back. Words are my weapon of choice.
What do you think San Diego & Imperial Counties will look like if/when you are effective with your work?
If I’m effective in my work, San Diego County and the Imperial Valley will be characterized by an informed, strategically-networked populace actively carrying forward the struggle to achieve equity and inclusion for all people. We will be unafraid of diverse perspectives and welcome liberating voices into public discourse. We will create and control our own narratives and respect others’ right to create and control theirs too. We will be a more compassionate and more just region.
How can others support the work you do to help get us closer to a more equitable San Diego & Imperial Counties and maybe the world?
Others can support the work I do by sharing news and information that deepen understanding and connection between our diverse populations. They can contribute to the marketplace of ideas in deliberate, meaningful ways to accelerate social progress. They can employ an array of multimedia communications skills, tools and platforms to confront lies, bigotry and hate with truth, acceptance and trust….and inspire those in their spheres of influence to do the same.
Do you have a favorite quote?
Ha! I’m in communications. I got quotes:
· “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.” ~ Frederick Douglass
· “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.” ~ Shirley Chisholm
· “I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.” ~ Winston Churchill
· “I am, was, and always will be a catalyst for change.” ~ Shirley Chisholm
What’s your favorite amendment?
The First Amendment is my favorite because it protects individuals’ right to speak truth to power.