Current social justice interests
When he returned to North Carolina, Baker became involved in community affairs again, though this time through his career. He describes the health initiatives he helps and the ways he sees his work helping his local community.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Quinton E. Baker, February 23, 2002. Interview K-0838. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
-
What do I do in North Carolina? Oh, god. Right at the moment I am an
independent consultant, I work with community based organizations,
academic institutions and health agencies, primarily helping to address
issues of health and well being particularly helping people understand
how to work in communities, how you build relationships and how you
partner in communities.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
-
You counsel people on how to network and how to network and build
coalitions.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
-
Particularly academic and health agencies that are interested in worked
in particular communities of color. I try to help them understand how to
work with the communities of colors the academic institutions and those.
But, my work has ventured out. I came here, I went back into the
community action agency, I, my—she is no longer alive, the
person who, when I first came here I worked in the community church as a
part of the administrative staff and then this person called me and she
said that she had a job that she thought I might be interested in, she
called me in to talk to me about it, and she said, "I am
looking for somebody who is not intimidated by people with PhDs and I
think you would fit this." [Laughter]
and so she brought me into a program called the
"Community Based Public Health Initiative." It was a
Kellogg funded initiative and that lasted for five years. In the course
of that time, I built quite a reputation, and credibility for myself as
a person understanding the work in communities and how. And so, Kellogg
and others have used me as a consultant, sending me to various places
across the country. I have had the privilege of being a part of a
faculty for the Salzburg Seminar, in Salzburg, Austria.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
-
Oh, wonderful.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
-
Yes, and so I have been really involved in trying to strengthen
particular communities of colors for more self reliance. If we look at
the civil rights movement and we look at other periods after and we look
at all of the programs that were supposed to radically change the
quality of life for people who are poor, we created some middle class
people who work in the area, and we left a lot of promises, but we
really haven't radically shifted the power relationship for
poor communities in the dominant society. And so, a lot of my work is
about shifting that relationship.