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Children need equitable communities to learn and grow. They need adults who shape their life experiences to have strong, effective relationships that build community and encourage innovation in addressing challenges. Racial healing creates the conditions and human relationships needed to achieve racial equity.
Racial healing is both communal and personal. Nearly everyone, regardless of skin color, ethnic background, economic standing or language, can recall a personal story involving race or racism. Racism affects individuals in diverse ways. Everyone can benefit from the opportunity to heal within the context of their personal experiences. Racial healing can make us stronger individually, while creating or strengthening relationships with the people around us. It is an approach where people of different backgrounds can learn from one another and strangers become friends.
Racial healing is a process that restores individuals and communities to wholeness, repairs the damage caused by racism. It transforms the way we live, learn and work in society so that all people are valued equally.
This healing experience includes self-care, personal reflection and community support, embracing one’s cultural identity and building empathy both within and across different groups of people. . It’s a path of self-discovery and moral clarity. Through racial healing, individuals understand themselves better and recognize their connections to others more deeply. On a collective level, it creates space for community power-building and engagement to foster new visions and collaborate in achieving shared goals. Racial healing repairs us – mind, heart, conscience and connection – so we can pave the path to a bright future for generations to come.
Learn more about one community’s work to achieve racial equity in a region that has long experienced deep economic inequality and racial segregation. (CTA button “Learn more” links to Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo story on ECT)
The National Day of Racial Healing is a day for people of all identities and backgrounds to come together, reflect, and begin or continue their journey of healing from the effects of racism. It takes place each year the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The observance is about creating space for people to talk openly about their personal and collective experiences and begin to build trust. The day also serves to remind us that healing is an ongoing experience, not just a one-day event, and offers a chance to better understand the essential role of racial healing in achieving racial equity.
Common Ground: A Space for Racial Healing (Common Ground) is a year-round campaign dedicated to advancing the work of racial healing in communities across the United States.
It encourages people to reflect on their personal experiences with race and racism, fostering open, honest conversations and story-sharing to help us recognize our shared values and heal from the effects of racism as individuals and communities. The National Day of Racial Healing is the heart of Common Ground. While the annual observance offers us a moment in time to pause reflect and share, Common Ground seeks to keep the momentum going, by offering opportunities for people to learn, build trust, collaborate and move from conversation to action in their daily lives.
La June Montgomery Tabron, WKKF’s President and CEO, has authored two books chronicling her life’s journey of racial healing and learning how to bridge divides and create powerful connections that lead to change. Discover her story in How We Heal, intended for adult readers, and Our Differences Make Us Stronger, for readers ages 5-9.