2024 Program:
Leadership for Racial Justice

From Atlanta to Palestine, organizers are facing unprecedented attacks on the right to protest, including repressive laws designed to silence dissent across issue areas. In this session, you’ll hear from:

- Kamau Franklin, the Founder and Executive Director of Community Movement Builders, which has been leading the fight to StopCopCity since its construction was announced.
-Julia Bacha, the director of the documentary "Boycott" and the Creative Director at Just Vision, an organization that fills s a media gap on Israel-Palestine through independent storytelling.

Presenters will share media clips and other compelling visual materials to illustrate this issue and efforts to push back. For years, lawfare tactics have been used to silence organizers for racial justice and Palestinian advocacy across the U.S. and beyond.

For Palestinian advocacy, the trend is especially sharp in local legislatures, where 36 states have laws on the books that aim to silence those boycotting Israel based on its human rights record. Similarly, StopCopCity organizers are facing legislation that penalizes essential organizing methods, criminalizing everything from the use of burner phones to charitable bail funds, impacting the ecosystem of who can protest, dissent, and organize for their communities.

With these laws spreading quickly across the US, the speakers will share about techniques used to push back and the importance of cross-movement / intersectional organizing in these efforts.

In 2014, the St. Louis region was thrust into the national spotlight, as long-term calls for change from activists and organizers reached a fever pitch following the murder of Michael Brown. Multiple commitments were made and new organizations founded to address the historic disparities and targeted disinvestment in communities of color throughout the region. Ten years later, how does the work look today?

This session will explore how grassroots organizers and other community leaders in St. Louis are partnering with funders to sustain the movement for racial and economic justice. We’ll discuss concrete strategies for funders looking to incorporate power-building into their work and highlight opportunities for funders to leverage their influence beyond the check to ensure community has a seat at the table.

We’ll also explore the story of one local family foundation that recently pivoted its strategy to support these efforts and what they’re learning along the way.

Charli Cooksey will share how her organization, WEPOWER, is partnering with local funders to build power in St. Louis and the kinds of effective funder relationships she’s cultivated over the years.

Erica Henderson, who leads Key Strategic Group, will share how her organization works to keep community voices centered at the region’s civic infrastructure and collaborative planning efforts. And Dr. Jason Purnell, President of the James S. McDonnell Foundation, will share how the foundation is honoring community wisdom and expertise as it pursues a new strategy to advance shared prosperity in the local region.

We will explore the critical role of psychological safety in enabling everyone – especially those most marginalized – to thrive. Through personal reflection and group discussion, we'll identify what psychological safety looks like and name institutional barriers to achieving it.

In particular, we'll discuss the influence of white supremacy culture as an impediment to psychological safety. We will define white supremacy culture and its implications. As Tema Okun tells us, “White supremacy culture trains us all to internalize attitudes and behaviors that do not serve any of us.”

We will explore these common attitudes and behaviors (e.g., perfectionism, either/or thinking, defensiveness) – how they show up in organizational culture and how we can interrupt them. Participants will leave with a greater understanding of these terms and will feel more empowered to build a more psychologically safe environment in their own institutional context.

Equity in education requires stepping out of the box and into the community. Block by block, up, down, and all around their neighborhoods, Neighborhood Reading Captains are fostering a love of literacy in St. Louis.

Systemic racism has negatively impacted trust in institutions and has erected barriers in accessing accurate information for communities of color. In an effort to revise the narrative, Reader Readers is striving to shift power back to community members who were already actively hitting the pavement, books in tow, reading and handing out books in clinic waiting rooms, laundry mats, and barber shops through the Reading Captains program, modeled from Free Library of Philadelphia’s initiative as a part of their Read by 4th Campaign.

As trained and compensated members of the community, Ready Readers Reading Captains have engaged with over 500 children and families and distributed over 2,400 books throughout two targeted neighborhoods in just the first six months of pilot programming.

Ready for expansion into our next neighborhood, we encourage conference participants to join us as we reflect on the journey and elevate the voices of our Reading Captains and their experiences promoting literacy. Join us for a joy-filled panel conversation about how to leverage the collective power of those working to improve their own communities.

At the end, walk away with a community asset mapping tool, ready and confident to jumpstart your own community initiative—block by block!

Together, we will expand our knowledge and accountability to the experiences of Black trans people. Between examples from our history, real-time examples and issues, engaging conversations, and self-reflection activities, we will re-establish our role(s) in movements for racial and gender justice.

This session is about the protection, support, and thriving of people who are immeasurably impacted by historic and systemic violence. "Aliveness" is the category for this space, and we will collectively re-imagine what is needed to create holistic care for Black trans people. This session is not a naïve utopian dream nor a space for hollow performativism; it is a praxis of Radical Imagination and an intentional space for us to live into a better, safer world. All participants are welcome—regardless of their identities, scope of work, or prerequisite knowledge—as long as they are invested in fostering a community where Black trans people are liberated.

Session Objectives:
-Participants will learn about eight dimensions of aliveness and relate those dimensions to Black trans communities.
-Participants will engage in activities to set one goal for Black trans aliveness.
-Participants will develop an accountability system to sustain their role(s) in Black trans aliveness.

The California Endowment plays an influential role within the field of philanthropy, taking bold stances to advance health and racial justice through grassroots power building of those most impacted. In the spring of 2018, foundation staff brought to executive leadership’s attention the need to activate its leadership by becoming explicit about the direct connection between U.S. structural racism, racial capitalism, and persistent poor health and life outcomes, particularly for Black, Native, and other people of color. Doing so would address the historical harms and power imbalances inherent in philanthropy and negatively impacting grantee partners and their communities. This call was especially true for grantees who were on the frontlines of movement work organizing those most impacted to advance meaningful change.

In 2018, the Endowment began its journey to build organizational anti-racist culture. The first phase of Advancing Racial Equity (A.R.E.) ushered in organization-wide commitment and learnings and increasing staff understanding of anti-Blackness and systemic racism as the driver of poor health and life outcomes. In 2020 the foundation recruited the inaugural director who led the development of "The Five Elements to a Thriving Anti-Racist Health Foundation," a set of mutually reinforcing, interdependent capacities for transforming culture and operationalizing ant-racist practice.

Presenters will share the foundation’s journey and how it has embodied democratic participation by directly engaging staff at all levels of the organization. Core to this plan is the development of a Somatic Abolitionism practice to build embodied fortitude to metabolize the historical and deeply oppressive system of white body supremacy. The work to become an anti-racist health foundation is hard but necessary. We must become the transformation we need to see in the sector and share power and truly walk in trust with our partners in the broader movement building ecosystem. This interrogation is active, constant, and necessary to fully live into values and have clarity about the foundation’s proper role as a philanthropic leader.

Communities working with municipal agencies to advance a project are likely to encounter inequitable processes that can stunt the success of these projects. Equitable Cities has worked with government agencies from the federal to the local level and across sectors. Over time, we have developed a framework that centers equity in all our work.

Providing an opportunity to practice this approach, Equitable Cities will facilitate a role-playing activity to simulate a community planning process involving a local government agency. Prior to the activity, EC will briefly introduce their equity approach and framework.

Groups of no more than eight participants will choose between 3–4 scenarios, then attempt to reach a resolution on a community project plan using self-selected roles associated with their chosen scenario. Each role will also be assigned its own values, goals, and limitations to create a realistic discourse, with one of the required roles being a local municipal representative.

Following the activity, participants will share their resolutions with the full group, highlighting their process and how they overcame limitations.

The goal is for participants to navigate their scenario by applying aspects of the equity framework while allowing them to see their issue through some additional perspectives they are likely to encounter. Many participants have likely taken part in this process already and will be able to share past experiences with their group. Those who have not had this opportunity will be able to use this space to practice approaches that center equity in community projects.

Advancing racial justice is challenging, particularly in the midst of attacks on DEI, antagonistic Supreme Court decisions, and intensifying political divisions. This session is an opportunity to share experiences with other capacity builders and use the Systems Thinking Iceberg to explore factors that enable progress, even in this climate. We will explore:

A) Visions for racial justice work: what are you and the people you work with trying to achieve? We begin here because if we don’t know where we're going, any road will get us there! We will create space for you to share your dreams and goals with other participants.

B) Examples of where you’re making progress, holding ground, or losing ground as you work toward those visions. We know that progress toward racial justice isn’t a straight, upward-trending line. Even in the best of times, progress is uneven, and ground can be lost if we aren’t proactive in protecting our gains. We will create space for you to share highlights from how you are making progress, holding ground, and/or losing ground in your work.

C) Systems thinking tools to identify leverage points for enabling progress. We will introduce the Systems Thinking Iceberg and use it to explore examples of progress and determine where we can strengthen our approaches.

A powerful strategic communication tool is the opinion editorial. Opinion editorials run opposite the editorial page in printed publications, and in the opinion section on online platforms. These pieces inform local, state, and federal officials on a host of topics and can influence how policymakers and the public view a given issue.

Opinion pieces are also a phenomenal way to advance one's message and change the narrative on a host of topics. To build capacity, organizers and advocates should know how to write and publish their thought leadership, and this workshop will show you how.

Learn from experts who write, edit, and pitch opinion essays regularly. In 2023, Spotlight PR LLC edited, wrote, and pitched for publication more than 55 opinion essays. We know what works and can show you how to write in your own voice and share that voice with the world.

Neighborhood Leadership Fellows (NLF) is an advanced 9-month fellowship aimed at increasing and amplifying the voices of residents from the St. Louis Promise Zone (North St. Louis City and parts of North County) in civic decision-making spaces in order to produce more equitable regional policies for strong neighborhoods.

Developed by the University of Missouri—St. Louis, University of Missouri Extension, and the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership in collaboration with community leaders, NLF supports current and future leadership in the STL Promise Zone region—an area that is 88.8% Black according to the 2020 census—for those who want to make change at the systems level.

By equipping individuals to access the halls of power via seats on boards, commissions, and elected office, NLF addresses policy inequities and pushes towards systemic change, ultimately building a more racially just future. Fellows work together during and after the program to create policy opportunities and planning documents that address regional inequities.

Panelists will be NLF Alumni and will speak to measurable outcomes achieved locally and statewide as a result of their collaboration with other alumni and the role of lived experiences in leadership and community voice that led to their individual and collective success.

For the interactive portion of the session, presenters will lead small group dialogues on increasing resident leadership in audience communities to achieve a more equitable and racially just future. Groups will have the opportunity to share key takeaways.

In this moment, the rise of authoritarianism and increased attacks on democracy call for Black-led movements to have sustainable long-term strategies that include defensive tactics that protect Black communities, and offensive strategies that address the root causes of economic disparities. The urgency in confronting criminalization, gentrification and exploitation of Black communities often leads funders to focus on supporting short-term, “winnable” reformist campaigns, which limits grassroots organizing and community power building.

This session will offer a deep dive into the power of investing in transformative community-led organizations working at the intersection of racial and economic justice in Detroit, Michigan. In this session, you will hear from Black community organizers and their philanthropic partner on effective ways to fund community organizations to win, and how to prioritize the needs of Black movements while centering impacted voices in strategy and solutions.

Housing, employment, criminalization, land rights, and racial justice are just a few areas that make up this crucial intersectional work. This session will highlight recent successes in Detroit, home to the nation’s largest Black-majority city, as a case study for this discussion.

Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, Detroit Justice Center and Detroit Peoples Platform will discuss with attendees innovative ways to support and implement successful campaigns for economic security and stability in Black communities. This session is open to funders and organizations who support or want to engage in organizing, power building, and supporting strategic campaigns in Black communities.

Isolation is an unseen and under-discussed tool of control used to perpetuate mass incarceration. For the 1 in 2 Black women with an incarcerated loved one, that isolation has widespread political impact.

Learn how Essie Justice Group is using the power of isolation-breaking as part of a Black Feminist organizing model to drive social change. This workshop will bring attendees in on the disproportionate harms of incarceration to Black women, uncover the radical power of connection, and uplift key insights, tactics, and strategies attendees can leverage in movement-building work.

You will hear from Essie Justice Group organizers about how women with incarcerated loved ones are caregivers and the strategic backbones of their families, rooted in lived experience, ancestral strategies, and the leadership development that results from graduating from Essie Justice Group’s Healing to Advocacy Program: advocating for self, advocating for family, and advocating for community.

Do you fund or build organizational capacity for racial justice? If you facilitate or fund learning, strategy development, healing, team building, coaching, organizational change, and more to advance racial justice, this session is for you.

In this generative peer exchange, we’ll build community and share ideas about engaging tough issues, including:

*Embodying racial justice in organizational operations and programming
*Countering the attacks on equity and inclusion, and retrenchment on racial justice commitments
*Power dynamics between BIPOC groups
*Accountable whiteness
*Building and redistributing power to develop a racially just and liberatory culture

This session will include community building, peer exchanges, and space for emerging ideas. We will reflect on power and break into peer-exchange groups to explore specific questions, including: what does accountability look like? How can we be advocates for capacity building work that embodies racial justice? What is our responsibility in this post-election time to contribute to the movement for racial justice?

Facilitators are from the Deep Equity Practitioners Network (DEPn), a network focused on creating spaces for learning and strengthening the racial justice capacity building field. Founded at Facing Race 2018, when Race Forward organized a pre-conference session for capacity builders where participants lifted up shared values, a vision of liberated organizations and communities, DEPn is working to build a space to explore different approaches to building organizational capacity, ways to build power that advances racial justice in and through organizations, and ways to influence the ecosystem that supports capacity building work.

Help shape the future of California’s new Racial Equity Commission. In this interactive session, participants will learn about this new body and share wisdom and experience to help advance racial equity in government.

Participants will learn about the multi-year advocacy efforts to establish the Commission, get an update on progress so far, and provide guidance as the Commission seeks to develop a racial equity framework for the state. As this work is underway, we seek guidance from you—racial equity practitioners across the nation—so we can capture the best ideas, tools, strategies, and resources and bring them back as we move this work forward.

In 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom established the state’s first Racial Equity Commission via Executive Order N-16-22, after two years of tireless advocacy from the independent Coalition for the California Racial Equity Coalition (C-REC)—consisting of grassroots organizations, racial justice and equity-focused nonprofits, and community advocates.

The Executive Order outlines the Commission’s roles and responsibilities, which include developing a framework, best practices, technical assistance, and resources to address the legacy of institutional and systemic racism in California’s government policies and programs.

Presenters include:
1) Dr. Larissa Estes, inaugural Executive Director of the Commission
2) Julia Caplan, Executive Director of State of Equity, which has provided racial equity capacity building to over 50 California state government entities through the Capitol Collaborative on Race and Equity
3) Maria Barakat of the Greenlining Institute, who co-leads the grassroots coalition C-REC

Centering equity in public policy is critical to the economic growth and development of healthy, welcoming, resilient communities, where all residents can thrive. This workshop will support public administrators with key takeaways on social equity as a core value of service and alignment in day-to-day operations, policies, budgets, and other essential decision-making processes. Using Dallas’ first comprehensive Racial Equity Plan as a case study, this session will:

Outline big-picture approaches of leading equity in local government; describe practical ways to support understanding around the collective positive impact and need for equity in city government; identify key components to drive equity in your organization; offer real applications on how to use a variety of tools and strategies to advance social equity. Join us to learn more about how to advance equity through policies, procedures and practices as we highlight successes, lessons learned, and next steps to close disparities in Dallas, Texas.

Antisemitism has become an increasingly prevalent force in American society, where it is regularly weaponized to further social division, isolation, intolerance, and hatred and frequently succeeds at undermining progressive movements for equality. Generally perceived as a "Jewish problem," many Americans fail to take antisemitism seriously as a threat to both American democracy and racial justice efforts.

This hands-on, interactive workshop—facilitated by two veteran racial justice organizers—will guide participants through an exploration of what’s missing from our public discourse on antisemitism, anti-racism, and inclusive democracy, what’s changed in the organizing landscape since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, and what the moment now requires of us.

Participants will be given tools to help identify when antisemitism is being weaponized against progressive movements. We will also workshop strategies for sustaining multiracial, multifaith coalitions and for more effective justice-oriented advocacy and organizing in the face of targeted attacks. This session is intentionally designed to help participants—both Jewish and non-Jewish—thoughtfully navigate these very challenging waters.