PolicyLink continues to explore the role of arts and culture to engage audiences, build community, and mobilize people to push for racial, economic, and social equity.

The documentary film American Casino reveals the insidiousness that fueled the housing crisis and the subprime mortgage debacle. Through the heart-aching personal losses of a high school teacher, a therapist, and a minister—the kind of people most of us wish we had as neighbors-- the seasoned filmmakers William and Leslie Cockburn decode the byzantine world of Wall Street securities and how it gambled away $12 trillion of other people’s money, their dreams and futures, like red and black chips at a Las Vegas poker table. Read more >

Trouble the Water -- a film that tells the story of a young New Orleans' couple, trapped by the deadly floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina, who courageously survive the storm and its calamitous aftermath -- helps to remind the world of the gross inequities in the Gulf Coast. (Producer Danny Glover, the filmmakers, and Kimberly and Scott, the NOLA couple, discussed the film and the issues it raised at the PolicyLink 2008 Regional Equity Summit.)

PolicyLink, and a number of other partners including Oxfam and Amnesty International, are participating in a public awareness campaign to push for additional financial support to plug the fnding gaps for housing recovery in the Gulf.

Get Involved. Be part of the solution to equitably rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Email Congress now and demand real change.

Other arts and culture initiatives include:

• Partnering with Active Voice, which focuses on the role of film and storytelling to help humanize pubic policy issues.
  
• Partnering with the William C. Velasquez Institute, as part of the National Black-Latino Summit, to produce a panel Arts, Culture, and Social Change - moderated by Tavis Smiley, which brought together some of the nation's leading Black and Latino artists to discuss the role culture plays in building ties between the two groups in order to advance social progress in America. This panel was broadcast as part of Smiley’s My America 2008 series.