Witnessing History and Equity Immersion – Don’t Go It Alone
It’s more than a week out from the inaugural CultureValue Juneteenth Equity Immersion Trip and I’m still “full up” with the richness of the experience. Traveling from Atlanta to Montgomery to Selma and witnessing history directly through the voices of regular people who were there or are directly connected to the stories we’ve heard was so… moving. And the sites we visited were powerful! Perhaps the most impactful piece of the trip, however, was having all of those experiences in community with others.
The move toward equity, whether it’s an individual or organizational endeavor, has to be done in community. Change has to happen for and within an individual (and that is an ongoing process), as well as among individuals and individual organizations. A mistake I see many organizations make is taking an approach to DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) that is just about the organization. How will we make our organization more diverse? What will we say in our equity statement or in response to the latest incident?