Racial Equity - The View from 30,000 Feet — Blog #6
What can Jacksonville and the country learn?
Sometimes, the view can be much clearer from 30,000 feet than from street level.
This is especially true for issues that involve race. These issues carry the burden of high emotion --- from resentment and resistance to grief and rage --- making it difficult to see clearly a future free of conflict and discord.
In that regard, five events in the coming months will bring to Jacksonville a group of thought-leaders from out of town, each of whom can offer us a view from 30,000 feet that challenges our current thinking with fresh ideas about race and racial equity.
This opportunity to engage with expansive thinkers could also stimulate deep reflection and engage us in a collective spirit, elevating our city to a more expansive view of what’s possible regarding race.
Here’s what’s on the agenda.
Oct. 6th - 7th - Dr. Brian Van Brunt
Dr. Van Brunt, based in New Hampshire, leads a group of presenters at the Racial Healing & Reconciliation Conference sponsored by the Jacksonville Racial Healing Collaborative comprised of All Things Diverse, 904WARD, OneJax and the Jacksonville Urban League. Dr. Van Brunt is a nationally-known authority on diversity, equity and inclusion; behavioral intervention; threat assessment and suicide prevention. He will be one of a group of highly respected presenters and facilitators gathered by ATD President Dr. Tammy Hodo to engage participants in the work of racial reconciliation. For information:
https://allthingsdiverse.com
Oct. 17th --- The Jacksonville Community Remembrance Project Historical Marker This ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery is a community project based on the work of Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, AL. It will commemorate John Morine and Bowman Cook, two of the eight men lynched in Jacksonville during the period of racial terror violence following Reconstruction. The Historical Marker, trips by Jacksonville residents to the EJI Legacy lynching memorial and other efforts to educate people and to memorialize those lynched are led by 904WARD and Executive Director Kimberly Allen. Co-Chairs of the JCRP project are Lynn Sherman and Melanie Patz. For information: JCRP@904WARD.org.
Oct. 21st --- Dr. Eddie Glaude
The nationally-recognized author, speaker and thought leader from Princeton University will be featured at the ED Talk of the Jacksonville Public Education Fund. “A conversation with Dr. Eddie Glaude” will be held at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront Hotel. Dr. Glaude is a professor at Princeton and a bestselling author who often appears on television talk shows interpreting race-related news and events. Dr. Glaude is, to my mind, one of the most insightful critical thinkers on race on the scene today. This event is led by Rachael Tutwiler Fortune, Executive Director of JPEF. Information at: https://www.jaxpef.org/get-involved/join-us-at-edtalks
Nov. 9th --- Stacey Abrams at the Florida Theater
Ms. Abrams is leader of FairFight, a former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, voting rights activist-leader, entrepreneur and best-selling author. The event will be moderated by Melissa Ross, host of First Coast Connect on WJCT. Ms. Abrams’ appearance is being promoted as “a candid conversation and insights on politics, leadership, entrepreneurship, social justice, and being a true voice for change.” Questions from the audience and community will follow. The event is designed “to inform and empower.”
Feb. 6th -7th Dr. Michael Eric Dyson
Another nationally-recognized thought-leader on race, Dr. Dyson will be a featured speaker at The Jacksonville Civil Rights Conference sponsored by United Way of Northeast Florida, Leadership is for Everyone (LIFE), Yellow House and Miller Electric. This two-day conference at the Southbank Marriott will include other featured speakers; a panel discussion on civil rights history with Rodney Hurst, Chuck Cobb and others; community arts and culture segments organized by Hope McMath of Yellow House; multigenerational sessions involving youth; an official commemoration of Axe Handle Saturday; workshops; and “Compassionate Circles” for racial reconciliation facilitated by experienced group facilitators. A keystone of the Conference will be plans for creating a Civil Rights Museum in Jacksonville. Its organizers are Dr. Rudy Jamison, Dr. Chris Janson and Rodney Hurst. For information:
https://unitedwaynefl.org/jacksonville-civil-rights-conference/
Collective Learning and Reflection
Taken collectively, these presenters, and their sponsors, offer an opportunity for leaders of racial equity organizations to participate in each other’s events and to see our increasingly multicultural city from different perspectives --- to fly above their individual programs and projects and envision the collective future we might create together based on our spirit of proactive cooperation.
We have an abundance of local talent right here in Jacksonville --- thoughtful, creative leaders who are running a variety of initiatives --- more than 34 such projects supported by millions of dollars and hundreds of dedicated workers.
However strong the individual projects may be, the overall effort for racial equity will be all the more effective when these organizations work together to discover grounds for collective action.
Meaningful and Lasting Change
Martin Luther King once wrote: “All meaningful and lasting change begins on the inside.”
Change is always a personal choice. I believe this work begins with our spiritual values. This is because racial reconciliation is sacred work. It leads us to what Dr. King called “The Beloved Community.”
For months I’ve been advocating the creation of a consortium of leaders of these 34 or so organizations --- to figure out together how to surrender personal and institutional ego in pursuit of a larger, more expansive, citywide agenda. This can happen in ways that protect organizational autonomy, goals and structures while creating mutual trust and structural interconnections that will strengthen the effort as a whole.
A model structure for such a collaboration is the Flower of Life.
A Personal Note
I have personal connections to all of the events listed above. This connection continues to inspire me, a nominally retired man of 83 who has devoted most of my adult life to social justice.
Dr. Glaude’s latest book, “Begin Again,” is a remarkable exposition based on the life and writings of author-activist James Baldwin.
I met Jimmy Baldwin in 1963. I was 25 years old and assigned by my editors at The Boston Globe, where I worked as a political columnist, to write an eight-part series of articles on his life and writings.
In addition my extensive research and interviews with family and friends, Jimmy and I met twice for in-person interviews. He had just returned from France to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement; he was on his way to Little Rock to support the school desegregation efforts there. My final interview with him, in his apartment in Greenwich Village, along with his brother David, changed my life.
Jimmy Baldwin was a lightning bolt of energy and intellect. He sat opposite me in his small apartment and, in rapid-fire, poured forth a waterfall of critical analysis of American racism laced with loving compassion for its beleaguered citizens.
Halfway through the interview, Jimmy gently turned the tables and began to ask me questions about my racial identity. His penetrating eyes, quick mind and incisive questions were undeniable. As we talked, I had to look deep inside. I discovered within me a group of unacknowledged attitudes that were deeply disturbing to him … and to me—- evidence of my internalized racism. Details of that interaction are in my forthcoming memoir. For now, leave it to say, I left that interview a changed person.
Another event in which I have a personal stake is the JCRP Historical Marker event on Oct. 17th. I’ve written in previous blogs about my connection with Jacksonville through my great grandfather, Noah Rollins, born a slave in Tallahassee. Noah came to Jacksonville to work, then left for Boston, where I was born. He left Jacksonville during the climate of racial terror that was pervasive following Reconstruction. Years later, I was born in Boston because Noah had migrated there to live away from the environment of terror lynchings that included John Morine and Bowman Cook.
My personal story plays into an affinity for Dr. Hodo’s Conference and the Civil Rights Conference as well.
In facilitating racial reconciliation groups for many years, I’ve learned that, like me, everyone has a racial story to tell, with profound effects on individual lives. In telling these stories to each other in a safe space, leaders of racial reconciliation efforts in Jacksonville will discover and uncover those common values and their energy to collaborate.
The siloed, sometimes competitive, strategy of the past 40 years has produced individual victories in racial justice, but these victories are specious and fragile. The collective condition of Black Americans continues. Otherwise voting rights, economic rights, health care rights, civil rights and other successes would not be in such danger today. (See my prior blog: “The Illusion of Racial Progress” April 17, 2021).
I hope Jacksonville’s racial equity leaders will use these upcoming events to engage in introspection around their own stories, their own values, their own visions, their own practices and consider operating together collaboratively, for the best interest of the citizens of Jacksonville --- especially those in Black neighborhoods who continue to pay the highest price for racial disparities.
A look in our collective mirror
Inspired by the words of Stacey Abrams, Dr. Glaude, Dr. Van Brunt, Dr. Dyson and others at these upcoming events, our leaders may develop strategies that are more coordinated and connected. This will contribute to the spirit of collective enterprise to help transform our city.
Here’s some of what they may hear, taken from “Begin Again.”
“A moral reckoning is upon us, and we have to decide, once and for all, whether or not we will truly be a multicultural democracy.”
Reflecting on the ”Value Gap” in which white lives seem to be of more value than Black lives: “These are the narrative assumptions that support the everyday order of American life, which means: We breathe them like air. We count them as truths. We absorb them into our character.”
“He [Baldwin] urged Americans, as he always did, to plunge beneath the surface of the race problem and examine our interior agreement with ways of thinking that trapped us in that lie {of white superiority].”
What if a consortium existed? Its members could gather next March --- following the Civil Rights Conference --- sit in a circle of commonality and compassion and share what they learned from these events, and what they felt. Sharing from a space of “not knowing” and “sacred witnessing” will inevitably open creative pathways of working together —- both on the ground and as seen from the elevated view of 30,000 feet.
Next Blog: Friday, Oct. 15th
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