Illustration by Ard Su
Reconciliation group heals terror of the past one relationship at a time
WEAKLEY COUNTY, TN – “Open your heart and fill it with empathy, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, civility. Let go of anything that is opposite of those feelings.”
As Joyce Washington begins a virtual call with six attendees from the Weakley County Reconciliation Project, they all close their eyes. They are about to dive into an hour-plus conversation on a chapter about police brutality and racism from the book “Biased” by Jennifer Eberhardt.
It’s an intense, emotional topic that merits a moment of meditation.
“Sit up straight….Lower your shoulders….Deep breaths,” Washington calmly instructs. During this meeting in June, she is the only Black attendee, the others are white; three members live in northwest Tennessee, two are from out of state.
Washington is one of the founders of a grassroots community organization that began in 2018 to encourage open dialogue about race and racism. She lives in Martin, a small town in rural northwest Tennessee.
Washington and other leaders of the Weakley County Reconciliation Project believe that community initiatives for racial healing are becoming increasingly urgent as rural areas become more diverse. In dominant narratives, “rural” has become synonymous with white America. But the share of people of color living in rural America has increased in the last decade from one-fifth to about one-fourth. Confronting past racial terror and building interracial understanding has always been needed in rural areas, they say, but it has become more acute as racial and ethnic diversity increases.
“Let’s return together to our shared space where we respect opinions that are different and seek understanding, not agreement,” Washington said. She concludes with a word from the Yoruba language of Nigeria that roughly translates to “may it be so”: Asé.
The monthly ritual before each book club meeting aims to set the tone for deep listening and accepting each other, even if participants disagree. The group ranges from those who have personal wounds from racism to those who only recently learned the severity of America’s racist past and how it echoes today.
“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. It’s not about pushing the pain down, it’s not about ignoring the pain,” Washington said in an interview. “It’s about being able to open your heart and accept what is and was, and then be willing to say, ‘OK, how do we move forward and be better?’”
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. It's not about pushing the pain down, it's not about ignoring the pain. It's about being able to open your heart and accept what is and was, and then be willing to say, ‘OK, how do we move forward and be better?’
Putting knowledge into action
Washington grew up in adjacent Obion County in the 1950s and ‘60s and was among the first group of students to integrate South Fulton High School.
“I remember ‘colored only’ water fountains, having to sit upstairs at the movie theater, and having to go across the street to the police station to use the bathroom if it was open,” she said. “One of the most painful instances was when I expressed my desire to be an archaeologist, and my science teacher immediately told me I should focus on doing something else.”
After high school, she applied to a local bank, where several of her white classmates got jobs without experience, but she never heard back.
“All these things impacted me, leaving unseen painful scars and driving me to be better, work harder, and commit to making a difference in the world,” she said.
After spending 40 years in northern California, she moved back to northwest Tennessee. A self-proclaimed country girl, Washington feels a deep sense of belonging there despite those hurtful experiences growing up. As she settled back into the region, she wondered what she could do to give back to the community that raised her.
The answer came in 2018 when the University of Tennessee at Martin hosted its annual Civil Rights Conference with Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale as the keynote. Throughout his address, Seale referenced W.E.B. Du Bois’ analysis of post-Civil War politics and the racial power dynamics in his landmark book, “Black Reconstruction.” Based on what friends told her of the speech, Washington was inspired to gather some acquaintances and start an interracial book club to dive deeper into the volume’s thousand-plus pages. They started with 20 people, mostly white, meeting monthly at University of Tennessee at Martin. It wasn’t necessary that everyone read the book; Washington wanted the in-person discussions to be the centerpiece.
“It took us over a year to get through that book,” Washington recalled with a laugh. “But we had great discussions and there was lots of growth for all of us.”
Around the same time, the Rev. Randy Cooper, a white Methodist minister, gathered a group of nine people (eight white, one Black), from in and outside his church in Martin to visit the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice after hearing about its opening in 2018. The museum and memorial in Montgomery, Alabama explores the nation’s history of racial terror lynching and how its legacy has affected the modern criminal justice system.
Cooper, now 71, had spent his entire career leading small-town churches throughout West Tennessee after growing up in nearby Gibson County. Going to the museum and memorial greatly expanded his knowledge about the enduring effect of racism on American life, he said.
Even more impactful were the conversations that followed. When the group returned, they met a few times over dinner at Cooper’s house to reflect. Robert Nunley, the sole Black member on the trip, said those dinners started to chip away at his view of the South, which, in his mind, was stuck in the 1960s when he was growing up in Martin and nearby Fulton County in Kentucky.
“My probably most profound and enduring part of this, as I reflect back, is that I was sitting around the table with people that I wouldn’t ordinarily be around,” he said.
One of the group members was Nunley’s doctor. They had a professional relationship, but traveling together and talking deeply about their experiences with race led to a friendship outside the group. They made a standing commitment to meet every Friday.
“And we weren’t talking about race necessarily. It may come up, but we were talking about our life experiences as fathers, as grandfathers, as husbands,” Nunley said. “There’s no racial kind of deal in that, but you cannot get to that unless there’s been some investment in spending time with people.”
For Nunley, continuing to talk about what they learned and building relationships was part of putting their knowledge into action.
“And if it’s not facilitated and you don’t have people being intentional in small communities and larger communities, there’s a price to pay for that,” he said. “There’s a price to pay for that indifference.”
The group quickly realized they had come to a crossroads: they could become “containers” or “conduits” of the information they learned, Cooper said.
“We chose the latter,” he said.
“The Montgomery Nine,” as the group called themselves, presented their learnings at the local library and invited the community. Several of the attendees were in Washington’s book club.
“It was at that point: How do we offer this to the community? And how do we have those conversations with one another and simply, as much as anything, spend time with each other both Black and white?” Cooper said.
Realizing their similar goals, the two groups decided to combine and form the Weakley County Reconciliation Project, Washington said.
“This is not a topic that people want to talk about in the best of times,” she said. “But especially in the political and social climate that we find ourselves in today.”
And we weren't talking about race necessarily. It may come up, but we were talking about our life experiences as fathers, as grandfathers, as husbands. There's no racial kind of deal in that, but you cannot get to that unless there's been some investment in spending time with people.”
A region peppered by racial division
About 33,000 people call Weakley County home and around 85% are white, according to the 2022 American Community Survey. The next largest racial demographic is Black with 8%. Other races and ethnicities each make up 3% or less.
Despite the name, the Weakley County Reconciliation Project operates beyond county borders. It is situated in the heart of Northwest Tennessee, an area hugging the Mississippi River opposite the bootheel of Missouri and bordering southwestern Kentucky.
The county has five towns with an average population of less than 3,700. Martin is the largest, where the University of Tennessee has a campus of about 7,000 students, more than three-quarters of whom are white. Just west is Obion County, with a similar population size and demographic as Weakley County.
The region’s history is peppered with racial division. Race and labor historian Melinda Meador has researched the area’s racial violence in newspaper archives and other historical collections. Meador found that 41 lynchings with a total of 57 victims occurred between 1869 and 1931 across northwest Tennessee and southwest Kentucky, which border each other.
While some lynchings in the South can be attributed to white mobs intending to impede Black economic progress, she said northwest Tennessee featured more widespread violence.
“People seemed to simply believe they had the right to take the law into their own hands, period,” she said. “And they did it freely.”
Inspired by the Equal Justice Initiative’s effort to memorialize lynching victims, the Weakley County Reconciliation Project first sought to highlight the 1915 lynching of Mallie Wilson, a Black man in his early 20s who was lynched for an alleged break-in of a white woman’s home in the small town of Greenfield.
In September of 2020, the group held a commemoration for Wilson at the site of his lynching, with Mayor Cindy McAdams’ approval. They dug soil for a memorial to be held at a later date, and will send some of that soil to the Legacy Museum to be displayed as part of the Equal Justice Initiative’s Community Remembrance Project. But efforts to gather community support for a historical marker in Greenfield were unsuccessful. Washington said that Black residents were reluctant to dredge up the past because their livelihoods depend on the majority white residents.
“And they are not willing to push back because pushing back creates problems that most of them don’t want to have to deal with,” Washington said.
Meador attributes the unwillingness to a social divide. Life in the town and life in the country have little in common, she said. For outreach to be meaningful, Meador said there has to be a grassroots effort led by locals from within the various towns — not from people in other towns like Martin coming in.
“There is a social class structure here that people don’t acknowledge,” she said. “And a lot of that division is between town people and rural people. People still look down on farmers.”
Other groups in Tennessee’s major cities have successfully erected historical markers acknowledging lynching victims. The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, for example, has established four markers since 2015, with two on the way, by partnering with multiple community organizations, schools, and the local historical commission. The Memphis group also hosts monthly meetings with guest speakers and a book club for members to talk about racism and healing.
Partnering encourages participation
To encourage regional participation in 2020, the Weakley County Reconciliation Project hosted its first Juneteenth event in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. The fair was in the parking lot of Martin’s city hall, attracting about 100 people. Since then, the group partnered with the Discovery Park of America, a museum in Obion County, to host the annual festival, which drew nearly 300 this year. Nunley said partnering with a community staple like Discovery Park of America was a turning point for the group.
“What really captivated me, and I felt really a little special about this, is that there was a certain kind of affirmation and legitimacy,” he said.
Scott Williams, president and CEO of Discovery Park of America, said he had attended a Weakley County Reconciliation Project event before, so when the opportunity came to host the Juneteenth celebration, “It was a no-brainer,” he said.
“Sometimes smaller communities lack opportunity for events that generate what could be some uncomfortable discussions or focus,” Williams said. “And so I thought it was really great for people of all colors and sexes and ages to come together and have these conversations about race and what it means in America today.”
This year the Tennessee Arts Commission and some local businesses sponsored the event. Booths for vendors and community organizations flanked the museum’s outdoor stage and children filled a bounce house. A DJ led line dances while other attendees opted to watch from benches in the shade. Yancy Freeman, the first Black chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Martin, gave the keynote, highlighting the importance of the community coming together for progress while maintaining authentic connections to their roots. Music was constant, with one performer noting it was rare to see Black life celebrated in the broader northwest Tennessee community.
Williams said they have tweaked the Juneteenth festival since it came to the museum in 2022, including starting later in the day to beat the heat. But he mostly attributes the event’s growth to a natural progression of more people learning about it. Now in its third year there, the fete is considered a permanent fixture for the museum.
“I think the key is to just don’t be afraid and don’t be nervous and just jump in and do it,” Williams said. “Don’t try to wait for things to be perfect. Don’t worry, [thinking] ‘Is anybody going to come?’”
Sometimes smaller communities lack opportunity for events that generate what could be some uncomfortable discussions or focus. And so I thought it was really great for people of all colors and sexes and ages to come together and have these conversations about race and what it means in America today.
Building lasting community
The Weakley County Reconciliation Project now meets monthly to hear presentations about racial healing and America’s racist history in an effort to bind the community together. There’s a Facebook group of 375 people who share resources with each other and reflect. About 250 people subscribe to the newsletter, and more than 150 others have signed up for updates about the book group.
Despite the success of the Juneteenth festivities, several group members said they haven’t been able to fully recover their monthly attendance numbers since the pandemic discouraged in-person gatherings. Even with strong online interest, the meetings now generally have 10 to 15 people.
Linda Ramsey, a 74-year-old retired health and fitness professor at the University of Tennessee at Martin who grew up in Obion County, said it’s been hard to increase attendance at the group’s monthly gatherings.
“That’s the biggest challenge, I think, right now, is trying to get people to be willing to make a change and to step out and take a chance, take a risk and to learn,” she said.
One of the first chances Ramsey took when she joined the group was sharing a story from her childhood in the 1960s. Her mother hired a Black woman whose granddaughter became friends with Ramsey. They played together almost daily for years. But then when Ramsey was 11 years old, her grandmother abruptly picked her up from her friend’s house saying, “you’re too old to play over here anymore.”
“And I never got to be with Juanita again and it just broke my heart,” she said. “I still to this day get emotional about it. I did not understand at the time.” None of her family members explained to Ramsey why she lost her playmate and they never talked about the Civil Rights Movement unfolding all around them at the time.
“I don’t think today even folks realized how people of my age were uneducated about so many things,” she said.
As an adult, Ramsey said she intentionally made sure her children knew that any of their friends were welcome into their home, regardless of race. But seeking adult interracial friendships has been harder. As Ramsey shared about her personal relationships with Black people, Washington asked her if she had ever considered Washington when deciding who to go to the movies with or grab dinner. They had been attending meetings together, but never really connected outside of that.
“It had not hit me. And I think that’s part of it — is we have been used to doing things with friends that look like us and we don’t think about it,” she said.
Washington said while children tend to befriend anyone, it’s hard for adults to recognize how insular their friendships are without intentional examination. And even then, adults can face pressures from their own racial and ethnic groups to stay insular.
“And while you see me out in public and we speak, does that really classify me as a friend?” Washington said. Now, Ramsey and Washington regularly schedule lunches to catch up outside of the Weakley County Reconciliation Project.
It had not hit me. And I think that's part of it — is we have been used to doing things with friends that look like us and we don't think about it.
“Remain visible and consistent”
By the time the group made a return visit to Montgomery, Alabama in the fall of 2023, the ratio of travelers flipped to mostly Black people and included students from the University of Tennessee at Martin.
Madison Jones, a 19-year-old sophomore, said the group’s trip to the Equal Justice Initiative sites cemented her desire to become a lawyer and to fight the racial discrimination she has faced.
“This is all about the history of racism and how I can be an impact on the justice system,” she said.
For Washington, everyone presenting themselves authentically and being accepted and understood without pressure to change is the core of racial healing — whether that impacts 100 people or 10.
“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,” she said. “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.
Laura Kebede-Twumasi
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.
The post Reconciliation group heals terror of the past one relationship at a time appeared first on The GroundTruth Project.
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