Welcome to SOUL ISSUE I'm Nick Williams.

With important elections on the way and a community in need.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done to make sure that our voters are making the best choices for representation, and that our representatives are making the best choices for our voters.

I spoke with local community organizer Jeffrey Boles, president of the Saginaw CAP organization, about making progress and some of the tensions that come with doing that work.

I'm here with Jeffrey Bowles of Saginaw CAP Jeffrey, first things first.

Just let everybody know what CAP does and what you do as the president of CAP.

So Saginaw CAP, Community Alliance for the Peopl We call it a Saginaw CAP, for sure.

As a community advocacy organization.

We represent the community in a number of ways.

Environmental issues, social justice issues, criminal justice issues and the like.

Anything that the community, is, is, you know, about.

We're about.

Okay.

What are the issues that you think are kind of at the forefront, facing Saginaw currently?

What what what do you think we we might need to work on the most?

I think the biggest thing, and that's where we come in is there's a large segment of the population that is mostly ignored when it comes to policy discussions and, and other, discussions like economic, empowerment.

You know, business, the business community.

You know, a lot of those those conversations leave a large swath of the community out of those conversations, and we try to bring the community back into the, How what's the first step for your average, everyday person?

And, you know, people are, busy.

They've got all kinds of, distractions.

You got your everyday life, you got your kids to take care of.

How do we get people back into advocating for themselves politically and understanding the importance of, of that aspect of their community?

I think, first of all, you have to make civics tangible.

You have to connect the people to the issues.

A lot of times you know, we're we're working, we're taking care of our family.

And that doesn't leave a lot of time to focus on, you know, kitchen table issues.

Like policy down at City Hall.

You know, a lot of people are kind of disenchanted with the process as well.

And so, we make that connection to bring people back into to let them know that, politics and public policy does affect them and whether they care about it or not, it affects them.

Where do you think this disconnect started?

Because I do sense a growing disconnect, not just here, but in general of, communities.

And the people who are represent are supposed to represent them.

How do you think that that gap widens?

So much?

Well, because, you know, you we've you know, frankly, we put the wrong people in office.

And those long people have focused on business and interests and moneyed interests, wealthy interests rather than the issues with the people.

And so, the people have seen that for a number of years.

And, you know, after a while, you get a disenchanted with the process.

You feel like your your voice doesn't matter.

You know, especially if you're you constantly see, you know, your elected officials, give more credence to those who have money versus those who don't.

So this past week, Saginaw had its, yearly, community meeting, for Martin Luther King junior day.

It was about the state of, black Saginaw.

It looked like a very fruitful, meeting.

I was, unfortunately, I couldn't attend, but I watched the whole thing online.

But I did notice, not only at the meeting, but some of the responses I noticed are local CVS affiliate.

There are a lot of, negative comments.

How do we create understanding about the difference of need, in a white population versus a black population?

Because I was seeing a lot of misunderstanding about why, a meeting for the black population would be necessary and, maybe even some obfuscation over.

Well, let's make it about everybody or something like that.

I mean, how do we, how do we relieve those tensions without, forfeiting our our our our stance?

Well, I think understanding number one, you know, and, you know, I make the I often make the comparison.

You know, if if your church has a meeting, other churches don't feel, you know, left out because this church is meeting about that church's issues.

I'd even go a little bit farther and bringing it back to, race or ethnicity, other ethnicities, you know, Latinos and other entities, they meet all the time.

They they have their issues centered all the time.

It only seems to be, when black people meet, that it seems to be a tension.

And, you know, that's something that I'll probably never understand.

It doesn't really motivate me much because I just, you know, we have to focus on what we need to do.

And so, you know, although, you know, we do offer a, a a a olive branch.

You know, nobody's dis.

You know, they're not turned away from the meeting so anybody can show up.

You know, we just censor what's happening in the black community, and I think it's fair to do so.

What were the moments in your life that that led you to this place as a as a community organizer?

What what did you see, growing up in this community that, that made this your life's passion?

Man, like my grandfather, I grew up, in a in a very strong, male led, home and family.

And my grandfather was ahead of that.

And, and, you know, I just, I, you know, I had that example.

Someone who, led his family with a strong hand and also, you know, cared about his community, cared about his church, cared about his workplace.

He was a GM retiree.

And so, you know, having that that type of example of someone who not only cared about his community but actually put sweat equity into his community.

That's something that sticks with you.

When you see that example of somebody who cares, where the trash is picked up in his community, cares whether his neighbor, if somebody pulls up in his neighbor's yard, he has something to say about it.

Hey, you know, those people aren't home.

You know, that demonstrated, you know, care for your black, your neighborhood, your community.

Stuck with me.

And that's something that that has carried me.

It's it's frankly, you know, something that that I, I think about every day.

You know, and and you know, that that's what drives me.

It really does.

And, you know, and I'm really proud to have come from my village.

Someone who cared about this community.

And I hope that, you know, do that for my children as well.

What, what do you remember from your grandfather's era that you wish you saw in today's era, doing the work you do?

Being neighborly.

You know, and I still I still work in that in my community, the same community I grew up with.

And I work in.

I live in, you know, just being neighbors.

You know, caring about the person next to you, the door, you know, door down, two doors down, three doors down.

Caring about what happens.

And and not, you know, I think we're in a time now where more people are more individualistic.

You know, as long as nothing is happening in my house, you know, I could care less.

And I think we need to shift it back to the community model where we care about our neighbors.

Because, you know, whether we realize it or not, the moment your children leave your house, they're affected by the neighborhood that you're ignoring.

And so I think we do good to get back to that.

Do you think that that, rise of individualism and that loss of neighborly understanding might also be fitting some of these, racial misunderstandings?

Yeah.

I think so, because we're disjointed.

You know, in times past, I mean, even if you had disagreements, even if you, you had differences, you know, you you had opportunities to to co-mingle, you know, whether you work with these people or whether you went to church with them or whether you saw them at the corner store or at the gas station.

You know, again, a community, you know, people being neighborly.

You know, I'm sure, you know, in times past that everybody didn't get along.

You know, everybody didn't see eye to eye on the time.

But I think there's a common thread that, hey, you know, whether I like you or not, you're my neighbor.

And what happens to your house?

What happens in your yard?

It could spill over into what happens in my yard.

And so it's best that we look out for each other.

We have a primary election coming in February.

What would you like to see, Saginaw gain out of this upcoming election?

A true champion.

I think we've been missing that.

We've been missing representation period.

By that seat being empty.

But I think, you know, just having someone in that seat who's actually from this community, who actually cares about this community, who could actually bring resources from Lansing back to this community.

I think we've been missing that.

And that's one of the major things that I think that we need.

Once that seat gets filled, with limited resources, inside of the of the city itself.

And maybe not everything going, where it's most needed.

How do we know when and where to get help from the outside?

I, I think it's a balancing act.

I think, you know, there is, you know, and that's where civics comes into play.

You know, and knowing, you know, what's the local issue, knowing what's a county issue and knowing what's a state issue.

And having the representatives in place that can meet those needs.

I think everything's leads back to civics.

A lot of us don't know who does what and who has the responsibility of what.

And so I think just having these community conversations with each other, bringing each other together to have these conversations, I think that's how we, bridge the gap.

Especially the knowledge gap, the civics gap.

And once you know better, you can advocate better.

Can you tell me about a project, that you worked on maybe in the past year or so?

That that that gave you some, some, some pride in what you do in that in that regard?

Yes.

Actually, this one that, that we're doing right now.

You know, in these last few months and, we had, the, the federal government shut down, you know, politically.

You know, that that was a tough thing.

But, you know, in that decision, people were harmed.

People were without food, without Snap benefits, or without, wig benefits, so on and so forth.

And so that left a gap in our community where people were hungry.

They were, you know, a lot of people depend on, you know, those benefits to get food to their families.

And so with that gap, when our government shut down, we were able to bring together a city wide coalition, a full coalition of churches and nonprofits, and, and, it's been a beautiful thing.

You know, people stepped up and met the need.

And for the last three months, we've been able to, bring people together.

Bring volunteers together, bring money together from those churches, purchase food and give out free, boxes of food to the community.

And, it's just been a great example of community.

And it, it it's one of those things that that makes my heart proud.

What are your goals going into this year, especially, since we're also heading into a, midterm election, results?

I think, you know, we've talked about we've long talked about the problems that we have in the community.

We know what the issues are front, whether it's, you know, health effects, whether it's criminal justice, whether, you know, a lot of our community lives in poverty.

They live below the poverty line or their Alice population, where they're the working poor.

And so I think now in 2026, it has to be about results.

It has to be about a demand from the people.

A groundswell from, grassroots organizations like ours and other organizations to actually push to, get results from our elected officials and let them know that that we're in charge and not moneyed interests.

And so that's a goal of ours.

That's probably our biggest goal this year is, you know, really getting, the community back into the fold of public policy conversations and actually picking the right leader.

So that's that's our big goal for us.

How how are we going or how are you plan on attracting, everyday people?

And I get, as an add on to that question, do you want, is it also an age based thing?

Because I know, a lot of people are trying to get, you know, younger and younger people to, to get involved and become a part of these movements.

Very, very focused on getting young people.

I think they've been left out of the conversation.

You know, frankly, you know, us as adults, we've brought, you know, we haven't brought their interest into the conversation or we'll we'll bring them instead of listening to them and bringing them to the conversation.

I think, that's something that we've sorely missed out on.

And I think historically, we've just we've we've dropped the ball.

When you think back, in, in the 50s and 60s, the Freedom Riders and, they were young people.

They weren't people that are, you know, older like me.

You know, I'm almost 50.

You know, we need to bring our young people in.

We need, you know, and that's a way that we show them, you know, how to take over.

They're going to take over, you know?

You know, we you know, myself, I don't plan on doing a lot of this for long.

And I think, you know, we have to get to a place where we can, hand our children and our grandchildren a better, America than we found.

And I hope that you know, because we haven't done a good job of that.

We've we've held on to leadership, you know, way too long as older people.

And and that's something that I've, I've, you know, gotten criticism for, you know, speaking on, you know, because, you know, a lot of our people, you know, we we've not we have, we haven't had leadership long.

And so a lot of people feel like they need to hold on to it a lot because I just I just got it.

And so but we have to transition, you know, a lot of what we need to do in this community, a lot of what we need to do in organizing.

And I'm I'm an organizer to my heart.

A lot of organizing is young people's work.

You know, they have the energy, they have the new ideas.

They know the technology.

We, you know, a lot of us don't know the technology.

And so I think there's a transition that has to happen and bringing our young people in.

But our movement is everybody is young people is older people, because we can't discount the elders either.

You know, they have a lot of experience.

They've seen a lot of of this, this country and a lot of the things that we're dealing with now, they've seen before.

And so they know how to deal with it.

And so we can't discount them either.

But I think, you know, with what we do with Saginaw, we bring all of those entities together in a room and we talk about it.

One really interesting thing that was brought up, at the organization or I mean, at the meeting was, somebody mentioned that, I mean, the disparities in the, in the African-American community, are such that you can read them in a way that, anything that is, negative is overrepresented in the black community and things that are, you know, seemingly positive are underrepresented.

And that, that's the essentially what we're trying to change.

At the same time, America's getting a little strange.

Things are obviously changing around here.

In a way that is making a lot of people uncomfortable and maybe even worried about how things might trickle down, you know, into our smaller communities, into, into smaller cities like Saginaw.

I know this is a big question, but how do we keep the fight up while trying to keep all this other stuff at bay?

You know, we're we're we're trying to advance something while there's, a, you know, a big, scary animal chasing us down.

I guess the statement I would give is to stay focused.

You know, some fights, our our our some aren't.

You know, and that may be controversial to some because some people feel like, you know, black people, you know, we fought for everything.

And so why not be in these fights, too?

Every fight isn't ours.

You know, at some point, we have to take care of home.

At some point, we have to look out for ourselves.

And that's something that's that's really near and dear to me.

You know, I'm an independent voter.

I don't do parties.

And, you know, and that's a whole nother show, probably.

But for for the reason, it the reason for me is that, you know, I believe in, you know, really looking out for yourself.

We haven't looked out for.

So, you know, party politics doesn't lend itself to looking out for our own community.

You know, oftentimes with a chance to put party over community.

And that's something that I just don't fundamentally believe in.

I believe that, you know, we have to take charge of our communities in more ways than one.

And one of those things is leaving party politics behind.

You know, and focusing on ourselves and what we need to do finally looking out for ourselves.

Number one.

Do you have any upcoming events or initiatives that, you'd like to let the people know about or that you're just excited about yourself to let, everyone know about?

Well, our our food giveaways are going to continue.

You know, we've we've been fortunate to, get a lot of donations from our local churches.

And so all of 2026 is funding.

And so we're excited to continue to, you know, you know, we have a huge issue with food insecurity in our community.

And so, we're excited to continue to help our community however we can, and hopefully we can pick up the amount of, giveaways that we do.

And also just continuing to, you know, our biggest staple, we call them cat talks.

They're, monthly meetings that we have with the community.

And so that's probably one of the biggest things that I'm excited about.

I'm always excited about meeting with the community, because I feel like the more that we come together and talk about issues, you know, and not be siloed because that's a that's a huge issue.

And I get it.

You know, a lot of us are, you know, you're focused on your family.

You focus on on working one, two, three jobs.

And, you know, it can get convoluted.

But any anytime that we can come together and, you know, talk about the issues in the community, I feel like, you know, the progressive community.

So I'm excited about that.

If anybody wants to get involved in Saginaw CAP, how would they, what would be the first steps that they should take?

First step is to go to our website.

It's, saginawcaporg.

You can follow us on our social media.

Facebook.

I still call it Twitter.

I think it's X now.

And Instagram.

It's all saginawcap.

And, man, we reach out to us, email us.

You know, a lot of people reach out to us for volunteer opportunities.

And so, we're willing to, to, you know, bring people in, young people especially.

I'm excited.

I'm always excited to bring young people in, to, you know, get a taste of, of public policy and, and how to, you know, really connect with their community.

I think it's important.

Where are your cat meetings held?

Is it always the same location, or do you, change it every time we move it around?

We have, a few different community partners.

We we try to, you know, live up to our name and be in Alliance, where we have partnerships with a number of, entities in the community.

You know, our state of black Saginaw.

Was that Saginaw?

CAC but we partner with the neighborhood house, first Ward and other places, and then we have our home office downtown at Spark Marketplace on the second floor.

That's where we have a lot of our meetings as well.

Where's the upcoming meeting?

Next month for February happening?

Should be at at our our home off this CRC downtown Saginaw.

Couldyou talk about some of the other staff members that you work with?

Is there anybody that you'd like to, to highlight, that you work with?

Who's doing, you know, exemplary work?

Man, I have a great team.

You know, it's six of us, and we're all on the, you know, we're all the executive board, so, of course, my my, secretary is Emani Clark.

You know, my my treasurer is Nisa Clark.

Bishop Harley Coleman is one of our founding members.

And, you know, he's one of my my biggest mentor, somebody that I really that that really means a lot to me.

You know, I actually, you know, I go to this church as well.

And so, you know, and then, Rosemary Duggan is another person that that is with us.

And so we have a really cool team, a really hard working team.

You know, not just capacity, which, you know, is typical of non-profits, but, you know, we we do everything that we want to do, and, we get it done.

These CAP talks that you do, monthly, do they have a guest speaker?

Like a, like a Ted talk?

It it varies.

Sometimes we have a panel.

Sometimes we have one guest speaker, sometimes we have none.

It depends on the topic.

You know, I'll give an example.

Our juvenile justice, camp talk.

We had three local judges there.

We had the Saginaw defender's office there.

We had, a few different people from the family court.

So a lot of court administrators came out because, you know, they wanted to talk to the community.

They don't get a chance to talk to the community.

And I think that that's what informs a lot of our work.

We try to be that conduit between the people and either the government or the system.

You know, depending on the, on the topic that we're talking about or the issue.

And so a lot of our people in the community, a lot of their kids are caught up in the criminal justice system or the juvenile justice system or the family court, which includes the parents as well.

And so there's a lot of issues, in those systems that need to be addressed.

And so for us to have those people, especially the judges, because they ultimately make a lot of the decisions.

And so to have the decision makers in the room with the community, it was very powerful.

We've had forums on housing.

We've had forums on, on, you know, criminal justice, juvenile justice, environmental issues, you know, that we're heavily environmental.

A lot of people don't know that we do a lot of environmental work.

Statewide.

We're partnering with the Sierra Club and other, environmental organizations because, you know, a lot of what we deal with in our community, is environmental, from, you know, the, the Saginaw River and the number of times that it's been polluted, you know, by big industry.

We're still dealing with the effects of that.

And then, of course, you know, with GM, having been in town and, and, you know, we have one I think we had at our heyday, in our heyday, we had, I think, 12 or 13 GM plants, and now we have one.

But, you know, those plants being gone, they left a lot behind.

And that's, something that we're a legacy that we're still dealing with, environmentally.

And so a lot of our work is rooted in environmental justice.

You know, it's hard.

It's hard for the average person to, to make that connection.

And I'm really glad that your, that you're trying to, to to lessen that gap, like I was talking about earlier, because there is, a lot of, a lot of miscommunication.

And I do feel like, some of it's too much for the average person.

And that is, that is why I think, like you were talking about we need community.

We need more people, speaking to each other.

It is a heavy load, but it's a lot lighter if we can all carry it together.

So I, deeply appreciate your contributions to, our community.

And, I deeply appreciate you, coming on this show.

Thank you so much, Jeffrey Bowles, for your time.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much.