UNTITLED. Please Read. LEGACY TRIPS.

*Please, out of respect for this material and our shared history, I ask that you slow down to read this. Get a warm drink, cozy up, click on the links provided. Stay a while. Take Notes, Follow some new folks and sites, and pause, breathe and integrate to truly take this in. Let it land. *

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin

Here are the take aways and stories in pictures from a recent trip to Alabama. This trip was created by Tina Strawn, facilitated by Corey Leak, and Nandi Kay.

I am forever changed.

Biggest take aways:

1.How distraction is used to keep us away from the true issues that continue to harm Black Americans today and keep systems in place.

2. How the Slave trade is part of the whole US shared history NOT just Southern. Growing up in New England, there is a lot of “ othering” the South. I expanded my awareness of actual historical facts of how the North particpated.

3. The map from enslavement to incarceration around labor, power, privelege and GREED is REAL. This is the TRUTH. When you see it in numbers/data, when you see the narrative and how it has unfolded, you SEE it. You can not UNSEE this. I “knew” and belived this before and know I KNOW.

4. Leverage the Assets. Nandi helped me see how to focus and hone the assets in the work and grow out from there. I have a tendency to focus on what’s missing, what’s wrong, what’s not working- they helped me see how to shift that lens to assets so we can follow and listen to Black leaders from a grounded, centered place for clear, aligned action.

5. I learned a ton more, but you’ll have to schedule your own trip to get the workbook Tina put together that’s an incredible resource and guide.

“What has been seen cannot be unseen, what has been learned cannot be unknown. You cannot change the past, but you can learn from it. You can grow from it. You can be made stronger. You can use that strength to change your life, to change your future.”― CW

I put together this post in pictures and words so you can get a feel for this land, and have it inspire you to take action.

May all Americans find their way to Alabama to walk and pray and cry on this land, to hear these stories and pay respects to those who have been murdered.

Our history is painful, and we must face it.

SELMA

This is the song we listened to from Selma to Montgomery and here is another live version. Another version of it also played in the Legacy Museum. Thank you, Koach Baruch Frazier.

These are the trees next to the bridge. I wondered what they have seen.

They have a story to tell.

Will we listen?

And then we headed to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, supported by the EJI, founded by Bryan Stevenson ( Just Mercy).

Counties and names that are known. There are so many more unknown. How can a person be unknown?

Not what? Take Action, here.

https://eji.org/projects/community-remembrance-project/

Soil from Alabama Counties honoring named and unknown lynching murders.

Turning towards the Museum

No pictures allowed in the Museum. You have to go and experience this for yourself. Please do.

After the Legacy Museum, a few of us went to see the MLK House that was bombed. And the house he lived in during the bus boycott.

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” — Audre Lorde

Nandi shared about how the many ways in which we can be doing this work, ways in which we can all be heading towards collective liberation, justice.

We can take different paths and routes but we must be willing to engage, to see the vision, to clarify our actions, to DO.

Corey encouraged us to work with our compassion and our inner work, THIS is where change can be made, inside of us- healing us inward so that it radiates outward, and we can find our way through the pain of our shared history. Keep doing your inner work, keep clearing those patterns and channels of harm and the wounds, Whiteness has harmed us all.

“Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.” — John Lewis

After the Legacy Trip ended, we went to Birmingham to honor the 4 girls who were killed at the 16th St. Baptist Church.

The trees across the stress from the church. This is the site where dogs and water hoses were used on children.

Mama Moon with the girls.

Sign up for a Legacy Trip: https://www.wetravel.com/profiles/legacy-trips