Posted on April 12, 2007
Three years ago alumnus Wesli Spencer (’06) was inspired during a national conference. Today he is considered the founder of a national movement.
Spencer and a group of JMU students were inspired to start the Neo-Underground Railroad Conductors at the 2004 Carol F.S. Hardy National Student Black Leadership & Development conference. NURC is a group dedicated to learning about social injustice and taking action to stop it.
“It’s not a black organization; our members are very diverse,” Spencer said. “We started with issues that affect the black community, but then we realized that these issues affect all people.”
Spencer said NURC is working to break stereotypes.
“The stereotype is that our generation is complacent and apathetic,” he said. “That’s one of the things the Neo-Underground Railroad is doing differently. I think we recognize that as a young person it is our social responsibility to be actively engaged in society as we stand and change society for the better.”
Junior conductor Kelly Greer said that, especially on the local level, NURC is very much a grass-roots campaign, focusing on issues of the moment.
“We try to be action oriented and make it a part of our lives,” Greer said.
The JMU chapter of NURC takes action regularly volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club in Harrisonburg.
Senior conductor Kayin Jeffers said he always knew he wanted to make an impact on the world, and NURC was the perfect opportunity.
“I would feel that passion deep down inside when I was growing up and not know what it meant or what to do with it,” he said. “When I heard Wesli talking about creating this movement, it all of a sudden made sense to me.”
The idea for NURC came about during a workshop called the “Neo-Underground Railroad.” Spencer said that participants were discussing hip-hop and how it’s affecting the identity and perceptions of the black community.
“Being a naïve sophomore I stood up and asked the presenters of the workshop, ‘Well, what are we supposed to do about it? We can sit here and talk about it, but can you tell us what we’re supposed to do?’” Spencer said.
The presenter told him that it was up to their generation to come up with the solution, not his. Spencer said that the response stuck with him.
“He empowered me, and all the other people in the room,” he said.
After the workshop Spencer met with the JMU group. He said that they were all so energized they decided that this was the time and place to act, at a conference with a thousand other student leaders.
“They call me the founder, “ Spencer said. “But in my mind I was just around the right people at the right time. I don’t consider myself the originator, I just consider myself someone who brings people together who share this same idea.”
After speaking with Dr. Hardy, the conference director, the JMU students were given a year to prepare. If they had everything in order she would grant them a session in the next conference.
Spencer and other JMU students spent a year researching and preparing their first issue of the Neo-Underground Railroad, which would address hip-hop. The following year, after gaining even more support at JMU during CMISS’s annual Martin Luther King Jr.
“Speak Out,” Spencer returned to the conference prepared to present their idea for a letter writing campaign to all the major conglomerates who backed the hip-hop industry.
“It was miraculous,” Spencer said. “Things happened that weekend that were beyond our control.”
There was so much interest in NURC’s session, even though it was scheduled during lunch time, that the group had to be moved to a bigger room. Spencer said that the audience was so passionate it gave him chills.
More than 50 schools and universities joined the letter-writing campaign. JMU alone sent 1,012 letters.
“We had big dreams,” Spencer said. “We thought that once we did this, Oprah was going to call us and Cosby was going to get on board. We sent letters everywhere.”
A lot of the letters were sent back to NURC with supporting messages, but the media never seized upon its campaign.
“We didn’t have the big response we expected,” Spencer said. “But it did show us we could coordinate ourselves and do work together intercollegiately. And that is something major.”
NURC grew nationally and in 2006 took on an even bigger issue, Hurricane Katrina.
“This is our generation’s chance to respond, and so far I think we have not done a good job of responding,” Greer said.
NURC’s “Katrina on the Ground,” was the first initiative that was completely student run that mobilized students of color from the South to volunteer in New Orleans over Sring Break, Spencer said. Newsweek published an article on their efforts during March 2006, earning NURC a lot of positive feedback.
“It was so empowering and eye opening and humbling to be around those kinds of survivors,” Spencer said.
Spencer and Greer agree that while the work individuals are doing is good, it’s not making enough of a difference.
“On the macro level, after talking to people down there, it still feels like nothing is happening,” Greer said.
