Envision[ing] a world where people honestly engage in their history in order to live more truthfully in the present; where the inequities of the past no longer dictate the possibilities of the future. We envision a world where people of all identities are treated equally; where equality of and access to opportunity are available and valued by all; where healing and reconciliation are commonplace and social justice is upheld and honored. We acknowledge and recognize that it is not enough for us to be intentional, but we must be purposeful in making this vision a reality—not only for Mississippi, but for all people.5
The Welcome Table, a community-building program of the institute, is part of that purposeful action.
The idea for the Welcome Table can be traced back to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 2004, when the fortieth anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 was approaching. In June 1964, three civil rights workers were murdered—James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner—one Black Mississippian and two White students from the North. Though a local Klan leader bragged about ordering the killings, no one was ever charged with the crime. With that historical backdrop, the community was in disagreement about how to commemorate the town’s role in the struggle for civil rights. Two community leaders, the NAACP president, who was Black, and the newspaper editor, who was White, joined together and reached out to the Winter Institute for help. The executive director, Dr. Susan Glisson, responded by helping to facilitate community storytelling sessions where participants were able to build trust among each other and to create an oral history project for the town. Importantly, they decided to work together to lobby local officials to prosecute the Klan leader, who after forty years was eventually brought to justice. The institute did similar reconciliation work in McComb, Mississippi, known as “the bombing capital of the world” because of the anti–civil rights violence perpetrated there during that era.6
The lessons learned from those experiences led to the Welcome Table framework in use today. The three phases include: (1) a period of trust building across racial lines, accomplished through a series of monthly meetings and a weekend retreat built around a curriculum of structured storytelling activities; (2) a period of planning and implementing a community-building group project, such as an oral history, after-school mentoring program, or community garden, while monthly workshops still continue; and (3) developing an equity action plan, specifically focused on addressing a structural issue (a policy or practice) that is perpetuating inequity in the community. Participants say that the face-to-face nature of the interaction is a welcome antidote to the disconnection many people feel in our digitally driven society, and connection offers hope for action. “When you have a group that has some commitment to each other, the group becomes aware of so much in our culture that needs to be worked on. It’s like, ‘I was blind to all of this and now I see it.’ It compels people to action.”7 Dr. Glisson, the executive director, believes that “Mississippi is going to lead the nation in dealing with race. We want to be a part of providing the tools for people to be able to do that.”8
William F. Winter, a former governor of Mississippi (1980–1984), for whom the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation is named, and Deval Patrick, former governor of Massachusetts (2007–2015), now serve together as honorary cochairs of the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Enterprise of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, one of the most hopeful and ambitious projects I have learned about during my book-writing process.
The Kellogg Foundation is one of the nation’s largest private foundations, and between 2007 and 2016 it has invested more than $200 million in organizations working to heal racial divisions in the United States. Drawing upon the lessons learned from those investments, in 2016 the foundation launched its Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Enterprise, described on its website as “a multi-year, national and community-based effort to engage communities, organizations and individuals from multiple sectors across the United States in racial healing and addressing present-day inequities linked to historic and contemporary beliefs in a hierarchy of human value.”9 Partnering with more than a hundred national and local organizations, diverse and broad in scope, ranging from the American Library Association and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to the Council of State Governments, the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice, Sundance Institute, and the YWCA USA, to name just a few, the THRT will bring together “the intellectual power and resources of foundations, communities, government, nonprofits, and corporations in efforts to dismantle racism.”10
At the core of their mission is the recognition that it will be necessary to rid ourselves of the belief in a racial hierarchy of human value and replace it with the belief in a shared common humanity, a task much easier said than done.
Jettisoning belief in a hierarchy of human value—a belief that has been well established in America for four centuries—will require a multipronged, strategic effort to heal the racial wounds of the past and to transform our socioeconomic institutions. These two goals are intimately connected, because belief in racial hierarchy translates into values and principles that influence public, personal, and corporate practices and, thereby, perpetuate biases and inequities based on race and ethnicity.11
The TRHT effort is based on lessons learned from the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) that have been effective in resolving deeply rooted conflicts around the world, but the US model emphasizes transformation rather than reconciliation, because the root cause of racial hierarchy is not the result of conflict between groups; rather, it is built into the foundational governance structures of the nation. It has always been there, and it must be rooted out for lasting progress to take place. Gail Christopher, the vice president for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation and senior adviser at the Kellogg Foundation, delineates seven guiding principles that have been developed to undergird this transformational work:
1. There must be an accurate recounting of history, both local and national. Truth-telling requires that there be an atmosphere of forgiveness and people of all racial, ethnic and ancestral backgrounds have the opportunity “to tell their stories without fear of recrimination, but with a sense that justice will be served.”
2. A clear and compelling vision, accompanied by a set of ambitious but achievable goals, both long term and short term, must be developed, and progress must be regularly assessed.
3. The process must be expansive and inclusive in all respects, and there must be a deep and unyielding commitment to a) understanding the different cultures, experiences, and perspectives that coexist in a community; b) recognizing and acknowledging the interdependence of the variety of approaches to seeking enduring racial equity; c) reaching out to nontraditional allies in order to broaden support for meaningful change; and d) giving every participant an opportunity to tell his or her story in a respectful and supportive setting.
4. The process of healing requires a building of trust and must be viewed as a “win-win” process. Ultimately we all share a common fate. Substantial and enduring progress toward racial equity and healing benefits all of us.
5. There must be a commitment to some form of reparative or restorative justice and to policies that can effectively foster systemic change.
6. A thoughtful and comprehensive communications strategy must be designed to keep the entire community informed, even those who are neither involved in, nor supportive of, the process.
7. There must be a broadly understood way of dealing with the tensions that inevitably will arise. If organizations can anticipate “teachable moments,” it is possible to keep moving forward and not become derailed by the tensions of the moment.12
One of the institutional partners for the TRHT initiative is the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). AAC&U president Lynn Pasquerella has articulated the role of higher education in advancing these principles, especially the first one, not only in making the telling of American history more complete b
ut also in developing the capacity of students to listen deeply to another person’s perspective.
It is the cultivation of the capacity to listen that is central to the practice of dialogue. It is on the campuses of colleges and universities that are taking full advantage of their diverse learning environments to create communities of dialogue that I see sites of progress. For example, in October 2016 I visited Franklin and Marshall College, a small liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, increasingly known for its commitment to expanding access for student talent from all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. President Dan Porterfield invited me to join him in a conversation about the importance of dialogue as the kickoff event for “A Day of Dialogue” on the campus. He explained that after the college had spent the previous school year “participating in a national conversation about inclusiveness and discrimination, about identity and community, about who we are and who we hope to become,” the faculty had suggested that classes be canceled for a day to allow time for the community to “center ourselves… and listen to one another, where we set a goal to be able to go forward as a community in diversity—not have one day of dialogue but catalyze deeper inquiry together as a part of who we are, our very core.”13
The schedule for the day was full, and students were actively engaged in the conversations offered on various topics. Every session room I saw was full, and students were listening to each other intently. At lunchtime, students were randomly assigned to eat lunch with other students in student spaces that they might not otherwise enter. I joined a group of students having lunch in one of the fraternity houses. Many of the students had never been in it before, and the young White man who served as one of the hosts acknowledged that he too had avoided spaces on campus that felt unfamiliar to him. For example, he had never entered the Black Cultural Center, though he had been invited to programs there, or attended a Hillel event, though he had a number of Jewish friends, or made the time to attend the weekly International Student Coffee Hour. Student enthusiasm for the opportunity to connect was genuine. Building on the day’s momentum for sustained engagement is their challenge now.
The University of Michigan is widely acknowledged as the intellectual home of intergroup dialogue programs on college campuses, an initiative that has been in place at Michigan since 1988. In October 2016 the university was the site of the Second Biennial Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education Conference, a project of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center (DDNRC). Founded in 2011, the goal of the DDNRC is to ensure that college and university campuses remain places where freedom of expression is protected, academic freedom is sustained, pluralism is promoted, and opportunities for constructive communication across different perspectives are expanded.14 The diverse gathering of faculty and administrative leaders from across the country to share best practices for engaging both faculty and students in dialogue about challenging social-justice issues in and out of classrooms was in itself a hopeful sign.
But what was most encouraging to me was the time I spent with David Schoem, the founding faculty director of the Michigan Community Scholars Program (MCSP), and a group of his students. In October 2016, the country was immersed in the negativity of the presidential election season, and the toxicity of campaign rhetoric was being felt on college campuses across the country. My visit with the Michigan Community Scholars Program (MCSP), a model undergraduate residential learning community at the University of Michigan, was a source of hope during that bleak month. It is definitely a site of progress.
Established in 1999, MCSP has an inspiring mission statement:
The Michigan Community Scholars Program is a residential learning community emphasizing deep learning, engaged community, meaningful civic engagement/community service learning, and intercultural understanding and dialogue. Students, faculty, community partners and staff think critically about issues of community, seek to model a just, diverse, and democratic community, and wish to make a difference throughout their lives as participants and leaders involved in local, national and global communities.15
The learning community is made up of 120 first-year students and their resident advisers, as well as ten to fifteen faculty members linked to the program. An intentionally diverse community, MCSP interrupts the experience of segregated residential communities from which the students typically come. MCSP uniquely brings together service-learning, diversity, and dialogue in a powerful way. David Schoem explains, “Groups of students across different backgrounds are brought together from their first day on campus to build bonds and begin the process of engaging one another in substantive issues.”16 Unlike the typical residence hall experience where students from different backgrounds might pass each other in the hallway without really engaging one another, at the core of the MCSP experience is the opportunity, indeed the requirement, for intergroup dialogue. As part of the residential experience, the students take a seminar together and participate in various structured dialogues in the residence hall.
In the focus group conversation I had with participating students, past and present, I heard all speak eloquently about how much they had gained from the program, and also about how different their experience was from those of their classmates who are not part of such a program. The students are deeply engaged with each other, across lines of difference, and learning how to talk with one another about hard topics rather than talking past one another or avoiding interaction altogether.
The value of those cross-group connections was made more salient by racist acts on the campus during the fall 2016 semester. White supremacist posters with explicitly anti-Black content were posted around the Michigan campus, creating a hostile environment for Black students, who were feeling under attack. One young African American woman, still in her first year, said, “It’s hard to focus [on your schoolwork] when there’s so much hateful stuff.… It’s hard to know who to trust.… It takes energy to reach out to Whites without knowing if they are ‘safe.’ MCSP helps with that.” A White woman in her cohort was quick to second that sentiment, even though as a White student she is not the target of hateful rhetoric. She said, “MCSP is the only place where I’ve constantly felt supported, listened to, and understood.”
In a study of the impact of the MCSP on students’ growth relative to social-justice outcomes, Rebecca Christensen found that nineteen out of twenty-two participants exhibited greater cognitive, affective, and behavioral empathy toward others and were actively engaged in educating others and speaking out against injustice. They had heightened motivation to “create small-scale change in their everyday lives” and to “incorporate social justice into their future careers.” Of the various curricular, cocurricular, and informal MCSP-affiliated activities that facilitated their growth, students identified the dialogues both in and outside of the classroom as the most influential.17
Though only a small number of students (relative to the thousands who attend the University of Michigan) will participate in the residential MCSP program, it serves as an excellent model that could be expanded at Michigan and certainly replicated on other campuses. Alternatively, Michigan students have the opportunity to register for one of the dialogue courses offered by the Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR).
The first program of its kind in the nation, the Program on Intergroup Relations is a social-justice education program founded in 1988. Unique in its partnership between Student Life and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, IGR blends theory and experiential learning to facilitate students’ learning about social group identity, social inequality, and intergroup relations. It is intentional in its effort to prepare students to live and work in a diverse world and educate them in making choices that advance equity, justice, and peace.18 What exactly are the dialogues? Defined by Zúñiga, Nagda, Chesler, and Cytron, an intergroup dialogue is a facilitated face-to-face encounter that seeks to foster meaningful engagement between members of two or more social identity groups that have a history of conflict (e.g. Whites an
d people of color, Arabs and Jews).19 According to the Michigan website,
Intergroup Dialogues are three-credit courses carefully structured to explore social group identity, conflict, community, and social justice. Each dialogue involves identity groups defined by race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation, (dis)ability status, or national origin.
Each identity group is represented in the dialogue by a balanced number of student participants, usually five to seven participants from each group. We also offer dialogues where only participants from the same identity groups are placed in the dialogues. These are called intragroup dialogues.20
The course structure emphasizes both process and content, using a four-stage model that provides a developmental sequence for the dialogue. “The stages are: creating a shared meaning of dialogue; identity, social relations, and conflict; issues of social justice; and alliances and empowerment.”21
Opportunities for this kind of engagement are life-changing and hope-producing as we consider the impact on the next generation. Here’s what students have to say about their experience, as quoted on the Michigan website:22
Vishnu: I think that IGR gave me the ability to speak about a great deal of issues that I had been dealing with for a long time and taught me how progress can be made if we are able to talk about those issues in intra and inter group settings. The program gave me the ability to have conversations across differences about the things that are causing those differences, which to me is incredibly important. IGR gave me that. And for it, I am eternally grateful.
Ariel: I have been involved with IGR since my freshman year, and it is by far the best thing I’ve done while at college. From my first dialogue class onward, all I wanted was to study Intergroup Relations, and to devote my time at school to learning about diversity and social justice. I am delighted to declare an IGR minor, so that I can continue learning about dialogue, communication, and social change!
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Page 39
