Facing Race 2016: 'We Have to Earn Respect of Future Generations'
Just two days after the election Race Forward convened over 2,000 justice organizers, scholars, journalists, funders, and artists in Atlanta for their Facing Race conference. As speakers and attendees processed the current political and media landscape, renewed calls for radical imagination emerged as a central theme to meet the urgency of the moment.
"We have to earn the respect of future generations. We have to work for it … We may not have all the solutions or the perfect strategy [yet, but] what we need is people who are willing to be transformed, to stand next to somebody and build with unlikely players."
— Mary Hooks, Southerners on New Ground
"This election cycle revealed the depth of the backlash against the progress of all our social justice movements…. Backlash only exists when we are making progress"
— Rinku Sen, Race Forward
“We have been learning about how to build social movements that have a lasting impact on not only policies, but the hearts and minds of people, because you cannot separate system change from changing the hearts and minds of the people.”
— Judith LeBlanc, Native Organizers Alliance