Illustration by Ard Su
Agents of change: About the project
Teenagers in orange aprons, wrenches in hand, are doing their part to counter the inequity in transportation options for Baltimore’s residents, one bike repair at a time.
In Connecticut, a nurse and educator is changing the way Black mothers receive maternal care, dismantling practices that contribute to the high number of pregnancy-related deaths among Black women and women of color. In Tampa, the city government is working hand-in-hand with the community to provide advice and financial support for first-time homebuyers in neighborhoods vulnerable to gentrification, offering an opportunity for people who never thought they could afford their own home.
Each of these initiatives, in their own way, is contributing to create a more equitable society bv replacing practices rooted in institutional racism and opening doors for collaboration, conversation and ultimately, trust. Racial healing, as the broad concept is known, encompasses efforts to create more green spaces in underserved neighborhoods, the fight against food deserts, the increase in translation and language services for immigrant communities, and many other programs to overcome inequities rooted in the nation’s history, as well as the difficult conversations among multiple races as the name suggests.
“You have enough people doing this over time, and you can change the world,” said Joseph Williams, deputy managing director of Word in Black, in a conversation with Report for America corps members in July. Williams, who reported on dozens of racial healing initiatives over the past few decades, has seen their cumulative effect: “Across the nation there are small individual groups. There are larger groups, there are cities, there are clubs. There are even just people having coffee at a diner talking about stuff. And all of that leads towards the bigger picture of racial healing,” he said.
Looking to get a better view of the tapestry of racial healing in the country, Report for America asked several of its host newsrooms to identify the people and projects that are making a difference in their communities, taking a critical look at their operations and results to understand how they succeed, what we can learn from them and how they could serve as a model for other communities.
These questions brought us to southwest Georgia, where multiple generations of Black farmers have come together to preserve their ownership of the land and overcome the obstacles of a system that has historically discriminated against them, imposing multiple barriers in their path to sustainability. In 1910, up to 16 million acres of farmland in the U.S. were in the hands of Black families, about 1.8 percent of the available farmland at the time. By 2017, when the last agricultural census was published, Black farmers owned only 2.9 million acres, or 0.32 percent of all farmland in the country.
One strategy to reclaim the land was born in this part of southwest Georgia at the end of the Civil Rights era when New Communities, the first Black farming cooperative, bought 6,000 acres of land in Lee County and started growing produce and negotiating prices for supplies as a unit. The Albany Herald’s Lucille Lanningan reports that despite multiple setbacks over the years, the model has grown and evolved.
In addition to the benefits of expanding the knowledge of small farmers, helping them secure loans on equal terms and providing a network of peers and experts that support one another, the cooperative model offers something perhaps more valuable: independence.
“When you don’t have farmland, you don’t have the ability to grow food for yourself, you’ve lost a huge part of your culture,” said Erma Wilburn, one of the original members of New Communities. “Coming out of slavery and into the reconstruction period, that’s how we survived, being able to grow our own food.”
Biking for all
Independence is also what inspired the founders of the Baltimore Youth Kinetic Energy Collective (BYKE), a nonprofit that hires and teaches young people how to repair bikes at no cost to the customer. This is a key skill in a city where residents have been negatively impacted by decades of discriminatory urban planning policies that have left entire neighborhoods without transportation options and where biking provides people with a reliable way to get to school and work.
“We teach young people this skill so that they can have a safer bike moving forward,” said Executive Director Jasper Barnes. “And then within their community, they can do small repairs, be advocates for young people around them as well, and adults. So it really gives that autonomy, it really offsets the costs for the community,” Barnes told WYPR’s Bri Hatch.
Expanding the reach of biking culture comes with the added benefit of helping to counter stereotypes around biking and race.
“Racial disparities in biking culture exist nationwide – not just in Baltimore,” explains Hatch. A 2020 review of police data by Bicycling magazine found that Black and Brown cyclists were more likely than white riders to be stopped, searched and ticketed across the U.S.
By giving Black riders more support and visibility, the BYKE collective aims to push back against those disparities, but they are aware there are variables out of their control.
We teach young people this skill so that they can have a safer bike moving forward. And then within their community, they can do small repairs, be advocates for young people around them as well, and adults. So it really gives that autonomy, it really offsets the costs for the community.
Bridging the gap between policy and community
In some cases, local governments working hand-in-hand with boots-on-the-ground organizations to inform their policies can increase the reach and effectiveness of overcoming systemic barriers to equity. That’s the case in Tampa, FL, where four nonprofits are working with the City to implement a pair of initiatives to increase access to homeownership and address the lack of affordable housing in the city.
Although the Dare to Own the Dream (DARE) program and the infill housing initiative are not limited to any racial group, they are having a noticeable impact for Black and Latino residents, as Gabriella Paul reports for WUSF. Beneficiaries of the program receive down payment assistance and are required to complete a homebuying education course with one of the partnering nonprofits. This not only assists them in navigating a process that can be daunting for many, but it also helps them compete with corporate investors that are behind the waves of gentrification in many neighborhoods.
“Black homeownership, for the longest [time], in our minds has not been achievable,” Tampa realtor Kristin Washington said. “I have seen this program bridge the gap. I’ve seen the success stories. And that’s why I’m so [in]vested.”
Despite the progress achieved by the program, its reach in helping a larger share of Tampa’s residents remains to be seen. Experts point out that while help with down payment and closing costs is a great relief, buying a home requires other expenses, like insurance and property taxes. In addition, buyers themselves need to clear other barriers like credit scores and sustainable income to qualify.
Black homeownership, for the longest [time], in our minds has not been achievable. I have seen this program bridge the gap. I've seen the success stories. And that's why I'm so [in]vested.”
The effect of care and empathy
Even small, personalized, initiatives can have a large impact. Lucinda Canty, a midwife of 30 years, and Associate Professor and Director of the Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Elaine Marieb College of Nursing has made the difference between life and death for dozens of women in Connecticut through Lucinda’s House. The nonprofit addresses maternal mortality health risks among Black women through preventative and postpartum consultation, including one-on-ones, educational events and community baby showers.
According to data from the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee, 90% percent of the 31 pregnancy-related deaths registered between 2015 and 2020 were preventable with more than half occurring a week or up to a year after giving birth. Black women represented about 19% percent of the total, a disproportionately high number considering that only 10.7% of Connecticut’s population is Black.
The review committee’s findings, as well as Canty’s and other researchers’ work point at discrimination as the biggest contributor to maternal deaths among women of color. “This can include negative patient-provider interactions, lack of care coordination, feeling dismissed and cultural incompetence,” reports Cris Villalonga for the Record-Journal.
“What came out of my research is that race does matter, but also realizing how that shows up in our care,” said Canty. “It shows up in how we care for ourselves.”
In Canty’s practice, racial healing takes on a literal meaning, as she works with women and their partners to answer their questions, prepare them for the doctor’s visits, connect them with other resources and perhaps, most importantly, help them feel heard and understood during a process in which doctors tend to dictate the terms.
What came out of my research is that race does matter, but also realizing how that shows up in our care. It shows up in how we care for ourselves.
Finding common ground
Although most of these racial healing efforts are geared towards institutional barriers, not all of them engage directly with systemic discrimination. When community members are willing to face uncomfortable interpersonal legacies and learn from them, the results can be illuminating.
In the last decade the number of people of color living in rural areas has increased from one-fifth to about one-fourth, bringing new dynamics and a more urgent need for interracial understanding to places like Weakley County.
The history of racial division in northwest Tennessee runs deep, including several lynchings during the early 20th Century.
“The only way we break these chains is for all of us to be uncomfortable and to work through that. You see, it’s about working through the pain,” said Joyce Washington, one of the founders of the Weakley County Reconciliation Project, a grassroots group that meets monthly to discuss racial healing and America’s racist history in an effort to bind the community together, as Laura Kebede-Twumasi reports for the Institute for Public Service Reporting. The initiative also has a Facebook group and a newsletter, and makes annual trips to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.
The conversations have led to a greater awareness of the life and experiences of the both Black and white residents of the area, and it has expanded to include nearby counties. It was also the catalyst for the creation of a Juneteenth festival in 2020, which has become an annual celebration.
Despite these inroads, the group’s members recognize that it has been hard to increase their numbers. They continue their labor, understanding that change doesn’t happen overnight and that their efforts are not in vain. That might be the biggest lesson for these and other racial healing initiatives across the country, as well for those who will follow in their footsteps.
“This work is not for the faint of heart. And you should not expect big numbers, especially in rural communities and small towns. It’s OK not to have big numbers,” said Washington. “I think what’s important is to remain visible and consistent. And you have to not get discouraged. And it’s easy to do that in this work.”
This work is not for the faint of heart. And you should not expect big numbers, especially in rural communities and small towns. It's OK not to have big numbers. I think what's important is to remain visible and consistent. And you have to not get discouraged. And it's easy to do that in this work.
Wilson Liévano
This story is part of Agents of change: Community efforts to overcome racial inequities, an editorial series created in collaboration with Report for America, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, that highlights how local initiatives address racial inequalities through grassroots approaches.
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