Seeds of racial collaboration in Jacksonville
Honoring Tommy Hazouri - Part II
Something new is growing in Jacksonville. Two new seeds of intention have been planted for two powerful citywide collaborations focused on racial equity. If nurtured with care, each seed has the potential of growing into a reality that will help transform race relations in our city.
The first of these new seed intentions was planted at the Nov. 6th meeting of an emerging consortium among organizations engaged in racial justice and racial healing. The gathering of 40 leaders, representing 17 collaborating organizations, was convened by 904WARD and its CEO, Dr. Kimberly Allen, at the Jessie Ball duPont Center.
The second new seed of intention involves the campaign to remove Confederate statues and monuments from public property across Jacksonville. An unanticipated coming together of normally disparate sectors appears to concur on a strategy for moving forward.
Decades of hard work
The convergence concerning the monuments involves:
1) The City Council led by Aaron Bowman and several other members
2) The Northside Coalition of Jacksonville and its President Ben Frazier and Take ‘Em Down Jax and its co-founder Wells Todd — leaders of a direct action campaign to remove the statues.
3) The Jacksonville Civic Council, 50 CEOs of nonprofit and private sector organizations, led by President & CEO Jeanne Miller.
The common idea is to move forward through a reflective process that includes facilitated small group conversations as a way to gather ideas for a strategy to remove and relocate the statues.
These two seedlings represent intentions to grow processes capable of transforming a century of racial betrayal into new levels of trusting relationships across the racial divide and, by extension, a more inclusive culture overall.
Optimism mixed with caution
Those of us who have been tilling this vineyard for years likely share my mixed feelings of hope and caution about these developments.
Optimism comes from the hope that Jacksonville will nourish these tender efforts by building on progressive attitudes that are growing in our city.
Caution comes from the reality that for nearly 150 years Jacksonville has been entrenched in a pattern of promises made and promises broken --- a history of neglect that eroded trust among many Black residents and communities. Promises were made following Emancipation and during Consolidation in the 60s; however, once whites got what they wanted the promises were not followed through.
Rebuilding this trust requires honesty about the past and depth of commitment to a shared vision of a racially equitable future.
The Gift
The passions on both sides of the Confederate monument issue make agreement appear difficult. (Council member Bowman’s proposal leaves open the possibility of retaining some Confederate symbols on public property. The conversations will be held while street-level protests continue.) Turned inward, however, this tension is a gift. It represents an opportunity for our city to look in the mirror to achieve important milestones of collective reflection and dialogue that take the process below the usual adversary and confrontation:
1. To use the small groups to dive below superficial, confrontational give-and-take into processes of deep listening and sacred witnessing with each other. Deep, respectful listening will allow us to discover together spaces that represent common values, a common vision and common ground for consensus on what to do with the monuments.
2. For neighbors across the city to rise to new levels of racial trust, honesty and caring that embody Dr. King’s belief that we are all interconnected, “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny … the inter-related structure of reality.”
The realm of spiritual meaning
Common ground between those who passionately advocate for removal of the Confederate monuments and those who passionately advocate for their retention may well be discovered in that realm of spiritual meaning. Dr. King believed this common ground flows like an underground current of love through all human beings and the communities they form.
While Dr. King marched and campaigned for justice, he held dear the human potential for moral reckoning, apology, redemption and forgiveness.
Discovering a Middle Path by way of open dialogue is possible when each side surrenders ego and political position in support of the common good --- that sweet spot of human engagement that emerges magically when the spirit is right and the conversation is mature and honest.
A True Thanksgiving event
A few years ago, around Thanksgiving actually, my wife and business partner, Shirley, and I mediated a situation with a group of workers at a natural gas compression station in the mountains of rural West Virginia. Racial conflict threatened the team’s survival, rising to a point where lives had been threatened and corporate management considered disbanding the team.
During three days of intense, often emotional conversation, the team went deep below the surface, listening to each other’s stories, feelings, values and dreams of the future. The connections strengthened; the tone softened.
On the third, after hours of personal sharing and honest conversation, one of the participants looked around the group, shaking his head, and asked innocently, “What the hell are we fighting about, actually?” The room went silent, as it became clear that higher levels of trust had entered. A new way of seeing each other and holding each other in respect had emerged —- a Middle Path through the conflict. That path was based on honest, respectful relationships and truth-telling to each other that deepened over the three days.
The following weekend, Shirley and I were asked to stay and were treated to our first deep-fried turkey dinner, where workers and their families convened and all contributed to create a Feast They broke bread together and shared more stories over the Thanksgiving weekend — in a transformed circle of respect, caring and true Thanks Giving.
The Middle Path
Middle Path solutions are always available.
Our racial history makes it clear that civil rights victories that fail to bring large numbers of whites along only serve to drive resistance underground. The yin yang model below portrays a delicate journey between opposites flowing through a unified field of energy.
Open dialogue in a space safe for the expression of all points of view creates opportunities for a Middle Path to emerge. “Oh, why didn’t we think of that before?” is a frequent expression.
The Zen koan associated with this dynamic of communication is: “A coin has two sides, in the center one.” Arriving at a Middle Path through intimacy, vulnerability and caring is a frequent outcome of well-facilitated open dialogue.
The two seeds of intention
The two initiatives are described more fully below. They deserve the time and space to grow into fully-supported citywide collaborations.
The Gathering of Racial Equity Leaders
On Nov. 6th, the aforementioned 40 leaders at the duPont Center engaged in a “Fireside Chat” with Dr. Eddie Glaude, Princeton University Professor and national television thought-leader on race. Above, Dr. Kimberly Allen, Executive Director of 904WARD introduces Dr. Glaude, seated right.
The group represented a wide spectrum, from street activists to large, well-funded agencies; from business leaders, educators and philanthropists to groups involved in racial healing circles.
It was exciting for such an influential group of diverse organizational leaders to be in the room together for the specific purpose of building a citywide coalition focused on racial equity.
The collaborative spirit was beautiful to see and experience. People were active and participative. The room buzzed with ideas and energy. The event, and a follow-up Zoom call four days later, was infused with a spirit of deep listening and lively engagement.
A prophetic presence
Dr. Glaude was a prophetic presence. His presentation offered an intellectual roadmap for such a consortium. He focused on the need for a “convergence of interests” moving forward.
“We all come with to the table with interests, and need to be mindful … searching for the convergence of interests,” he said.
The idea of a “convergence of interests” was created decades ago by Atty. Derrick Bell, the late Harvard University Law Professor. Dr. Bell wrote that Black people historically achieve civil rights victories only when white and Black interests converge. He suggested that, to have a lasting effect, legislative and policy changes require such a convergence. Interests converge, he suggested, when there’s a true “coming together” of people involved.
This new consortium has the potential to create such a convergence.
The City Council --- Honoring Tommy Hazouri – Part II -
Those on the City Council seeking to honor the memory of the late Council member Tommy Hazouri might do so by advancing the wide-ranging package of racial equity legislation he proposed.
Two issues that Hazouri supported seemed to have been abandoned by the Council. The “Safer Together” Committee he created to advocate reform of relations between the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Black communities was ended. And the Council voted to defer a decision on the removal of Confederate monuments.
Things changed on the monuments issue when a convergence of interests unexpectedly arose involving the City Council, the Northside Coalition and the Jacksonville Civic Council.
On Nov. 18, Council member Aaron Bowman proposed starting over. “The process should start with a clean sheet of paper,” Bowman wrote in an email to his fellow members.
He said a series of “facilitated community conversations” open to all ideas and structured for honest conversation would prove more fruitful than the adversarial structure of the prior City Council sessions.
These new meetings will begin in the first half of 2022 to develop a “roadmap plan” for the removal or relocation of all Confederate monuments on city property. Funding for the plan will be included in next year’s city budget, and be completed by June 2023.
That idea became concrete at the Council’s strategic planning session last week when the Council as a whole affirmed the monument issue as a priority for the coming year.
Support for Bowman’s idea of community conversations arrived quickly.
Ben Frazier, President of one of the activist coalitions that has been leading a highly-visible direct action campaign to remove the monuments, proposed the “charette circles” to move the discussion forward.
As with Bowman, these would be “structured conversations” with people from across the city sitting together in circles for an open exchange of ideas. They would be run by “impartial facilitators” who would “keep the discussion focused” while airing different views and asking “difficult questions on both sides,” Frazier said.
The Jacksonville Civic Council, which previously played a key role in support of the ordinance to protect LGBTQ citizens, made its position known with a proposal for all parties to take a step back and devise an overall strategy for removing the statues.
This influential leadership organization brings significant leverage supporting removal. Jeanne Miller, President and CEO of the Civic Council, committed the organization to providing private resources and to helping the City Council to develop the plan to resolve the controversy.
"It requires some time, but it is not insurmountable. And we believe it can be accomplished in the next year," she said.
Of significance is the fact that Council Member Bowman’s daytime job is Senior Vice president of Busines Development for JaxUSA, an arm of the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is usually aligned politically and philosophically with the Civic Council. It appears that the weight of Jacksonville’s business community is now behind the effort.
“So [the Council] is to take control of the monument issue, establish a plan and put this one behind us," Bowman said.
Slow Down - Do it Right
Putting the Confederate monuments issue behind may not be possible in one year, or two or three. A more important outcome of the small groups will be the process itself, of consciousness-raising and honest conversation about our city’s racial history and current disparities.
Years ago, in our consulting practice, we adopted the motto: “Slow Down, We’re in a Hurry.” Ben Frazier’s “charette circles,” and Aaron Bowman’s “facilitated community conversations,” might best be structured to ensure long-term engagement leading to depth of common understanding that creates a shift in the city’s racial culture.
A delicacy of this initiative is heightened by the fact that the conversations will take place while protests for removal continue. Wells Todd, a founder of Take ‘Em Down Jax, which has organized many of the street protests, said he and others will participate in the public conversations and also continue with public pressure, including protests.
“We at at Take ‘Em Down value the importance of public dialogue as an educational vehicle, but we’re are not convinced dialogue alone will resolve this issue,” he said. “And don’t think these conversations will be easy. They may get very messy.”
His comments make it important that the planned conversations build a strong foundation of trust and honesty based on empathetic communication with deep listening rather than rushing into solution-formation based on superficial engagement.
Wells’ comments also heighten the need for a cadre of caring, dispassionate, skilled facilitators who create a space that is welcoming to disparate points of view, safe for expression of those views, and capable of helping groups discover that Middle Path. A successful strategy also requires creation of a coherent design and process of engagement.
A spiritual reckoning
Hopefully, the Council’s facilitated discussions and the new consortium pulled together by 904WARD will take the time to allow these new efforts to grow from intention to reality by engaging the deeper issues of heart and mind and not simply press through changes.
The roots of race-based disparities go far deeper than policies and programs. They represent moral failure and an abandonment of spiritual values such as loving one’s enemy, atoning for one’s sins, forgiving transgressions, and being our neighbor’s keeper.
At its best, this will be a deep dive into our moral firmament --- what we stand for as a community.
As Ben Frazier has often said. “This is about the soul of our city.”
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Link to article: City Council priorities include monument removal
For more reflections on these topics see the Archives section of this site.
“The illusion of Racial Progress” (April 21, 2021)
“The Power of the Circle” (June 12, 2021)
“An Appeal for Racial Collaboration” (Aug. 2, 2021)
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