TRHT Organizations Honor National Day of Racial Healing with Activities Around the Country on Tuesday, January 18

NDORH Provides an Important Platform “To Tell the Truth” about America's Past and Current Violations of Human Dignity and the Rights of so Many People of Color

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, January 14, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- As the National Day of Racial Healing (NDORH) approaches on Tuesday, local and national organizations implementing strategies and approaches from the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) framework are honoring NDORH with a variety of events in communities across the country.

“Racial Healing is a centerpiece of TRHT,” said Dr. Gail C. Christopher, who was instrumental in launching TRHT and the NDORH six years ago as a Senior Advisor and Vice President of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The TRHT framework is a comprehensive, national, and community-based process to bring transformational and sustainable change, while addressing historic and contemporary effects of racism. TRHT’s five guiding pillars are: Narrative Change, Racial Healing and Relationship Building, Separation, Law and the Economy.

“The National Day of Racial Healing was created as part of TRHT,” said Dr. Christopher, who is now executive director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity (NCHE). “It was created to remind us of the work that remains to actualize Dr. King’s dream of a beloved community. It falls each year on the day after the annual MLK Day national holiday.”

Dr. Christopher asserted that NDORH provides a platform “to tell the truth” about our nation’s past and current violations of human dignity and the rights of so many. “We need to recognize the harms caused by the belief in a racial hierarchy,” she said. “Individuals, and our entire society, suffer from the racism that it fuels. America must commit to jettisoning racism and ending the false belief in a hierarchy of human value that continues to create and sustain inequities throughout our communities. “

She noted that while TRHT principles are taking hold on the community level, a key component is also engaging major sectors of American society, such as the education, health and legal sectors. Dr. Christopher applauded their support for TRHT and NDORH.

“Racial healing has always been important, and the events of the past five years have emphasized this need,” said Doug Linkhart, President of the National Civic League, which has supported TRHT and NDORH. “The All-America Cities and others in our network are working steadily on healing and equity. While this work does not generate national headlines, rest-assured that progress is being made at the local level all across the nation.”

Dr. Tia Brown McNair, Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for TRHT Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges & Universities, said, “AAC&U is humbled to mark the 6th annual National Day of Racial Healing with 55 higher education partner institutions, as part of the national TRHT effort. Our shared goals are to eliminate racism and racialized practices within our institutions and communities and to prepare the next generation of strategic leaders and thinkers to dismantle the false belief in the hierarchy of human value. To achieve these goals, truth-telling and healing must be centered as part of the transformation process."

The National Community Action Partnership (CAP), a non-profit providing technical assistance, training, and other resources to community action agencies, has encouraged its network of racial healing facilitators to host local healing circles in connection with the National Day of Racial Healing. "We must ground ourselves in the truth of how racism has limited all of us from achieving our fullest potential. Racial Healing Circles provide compassionate spaces for us to face the truth together, begin to heal, and then imagine a world that works for all of us," said Denise Harlow, CAP’s CEO.

Noting that CAP is hosting healing circles in a number of locations on January 31, Tiffney Marley, their Sr. Vice President for Practice Transformation, said, “The Racial Healing process is an incubator for the renewed collective love and audacity that is needed to transform lives, attitudes, policies and systems. The ultimate goal is for ALL of us to illumine as a human family where everybody belongs and radiates."

The healing circles are scheduled to be in Detroit, Michigan facilitated by Wayne Metro Community Action; Marshalltown, Iowa facilitated by Mid-Iowa Community Action; Charleston, South Carolina facilitated by Palmetto Community Action; Santa Rosa, California facilitated by Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County and Federal Way, Washington facilitated by the Multi-Service Center.

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(To schedule a print or broadcast interview with Dr. Christopher, please contact Michael K. Frisby 202-625-4328/mike@frisbyassociates.com.)

About NCHE
Founded in 2014, NCHE promotes health equity through action, leadership, inclusion and collaboration. We work to create environments that foster the best possible health outcomes for all populations, regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status or nativity. NCHE also works to improve conditions for health and well-being, including those related to housing, education, income and wealth and the physical and social environment. Further, it is imperative that we address historic and contemporary structural, institutional and interpersonal racism, which fuels inequities in our society.

Michael K Frisby
Frisby & Associates
+1 202-625-4328
mike@frisbyassociates.com
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Dr. Gail C. Christopher urges individuals, organizations and the private sector to participate in the 6th Annual National Day of Racial Healing on Tuesday