Race Forward

Formation	1981
Type	501(c)(3)
Purpose	Racial justice, civil rights
Director	Glenn Harris (2017 - present) Rinku Sen (2006-2017) Gary Delgado (1981-2006)
Website	www.raceforward.org
Formerly called	The Applied Research Center

Race Forward is a nonprofit racial justice organization with offices in Oakland, California, and New York City.^[1] It defines its mission as "[helping] people take effective action toward racial equity."^[2]

Race Forward was founded by Gary Delgado in 1981, and was known as the Applied Research Center until 2013.^[3][4] Delgado remained in leadership until 2006, after which point Rinku Sen became executive director.^[5] In 2017, Race Forward merged with the Center for Social Inclusion and is now under the leadership of Glenn Harris, former President of the Center for Social Inclusion.^[6] Rinku Sen remained with the organization as a Senior Strategist.^[5]

Race Forward describes itself as advancing the advance of racial justice through research, media, and leadership development.^[7] Speaking to NBC in 2015, Executive Director Rinku Sen further characterized Race Forward as focusing on finding ways to re-articulate racism to draw attention to systemic racism.^[8] According to Gary Deglado, its work is based on an intersectional understanding of race and the impact of racism alongside other social issues.^[3]

In 2015, Race Forward explained its three principles as the use of specific and plain talk to say what you mean about race issues; the focus on impact rather than intention; and the use of strategic terms as well as moral arguments.^[7] The organization has published research reports and editorials on issues such as millennials and their attitudes towards race, environmental issues and grassroots organizing, race and religion, and police accountability.^[9][10][11] John Sullivan, a research associate with Race Forward, has described the organization's research on community demographics and shifting populations of Black communities as a tool to understand and support community organizing efforts.^[12]

Race Forward has endorsed the Movement for Black Lives.^[13]

Publications from Race Forward include:

• Beyond the Politics of Place: New Directions in Community Organizing in the 1990s (1994)^[14]
• Deliberate Disadvantage: A Case Study of Race Relations in the San Francisco Bay Area (1996)^[15]
• Education and Race (1998)^[16]
• Crisis: How California Teaching Policies Aggravate Racial Inequality in Public Schools (1999)^[17]
• Facing the consequences: An examination of racial discrimination in U.S. public schools (2000)^[18]
• Racial profiling and punishment in U.S. public schools: How zero tolerance policies and high stakes testing subvert academic excellence and racial equity (2001)^[19]
• "Cruel and Usual: How Welfare 'Reform' Punishes Poor People (2001)^[20]
• Welfare Reality (2001)^[21]
• Mapping the Immigrant Infrastructure (2002)^[20]
• Profiled and punished: How San Diego schools undermine Latino and African American student achievement (2002)^[22]
• Multiracial Formations (2003)^[23]
• Race and Recession (May 2009)^[24]
• Don’t call them “Post-Racial”: Millennials’’ attitudes on race, racism, and key systems in our society. (2011)^[25]
• Shattered families: The perilous intersection of immigration enforcement and the child welfare system (2011)^[26]
• Racial Equity Impact Assessment Toolkit

Race Forward publishes the daily news site Colorlines, published by Executive Director Rinku Sen. Colorlines was initially a magazine, and it transformed into a website in 2010.^[8]

In 2015, Race Forward launched an interactive multimedia tool called "Clocking-In," designed to highlight race and gender inequality in service industries.^[27]