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"Distrust is being driven by a growing sense of inequity and unfairness in the system." These numbers will frighten you, and in the midst of COVID-19, you cannot help but hear an urgent call for action. Together we can make a meaningful course correction. 

https://www.edelman.com/trustbarometer

A third group of women traveled with me in November to visit Selma and Montgomery. Their personal reflections are both sobering and inspiring. Our photo above on the last evening in Montgomery includes our guests at dinner, each of whom is a leader and a change agent.

From Chris Cheesman

This was my first time to the "deep south". I have traveled to many cities in the US, Asia, Europe, Australia, etc., but I have never been to the deep south in the US. A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning and knowledge about one's self, others, the world, through the experience. It can lead to deeper understanding and personal transformation. This was certainly a pilgrimage for me.

The journey to Selma and Montgomery Alabama was powerful and overwhelming. Why, many ponder, are the remnants of slavery and racial oppression and discrimination still very much woven into the fabric of America? Why can't black people just rise above the past? The Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice  help to answer these questions - centuries of white supremacy, systemic brutality, terror and oppression inflicted on black people and the decimation of black families have yielded generations of a people with severe economic, educational, and health deficits, and racial discrimination and bias that affect their opportunity to progress.   

The museum and the memorial are two places that are a must visit for anyone desiring to understand and change things, heal and reconcile.  I used to be of the mindset that you start where you are, move forward, don't look back - certainly in this case my perspective has changed - the way forward calls for us to look back no matter how painful, to reflect, to acknowledge, to change, to reconcile, to heal, to progress, to overcome.

The images I saw and the location I was in amplified the stories my parents and grandparents and other elders had shared with me growing up. I'm embarrassed to admit, that I have taken for granted the enormity of my ancestors’ sacrifice. I grew up sitting in front of the bus; sitting next to white kids in school; eating and shopping at any store or restaurant my family wanted to; going to university; owning property. I stand in the blood and on the shoulders of those who gave their lives so that I could do so. This is my call to action.  

From Mali Locke 

I feel incredibly privileged to have had the experience I had last week in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, with the Principle Quest Foundation.

I agreed to go on the trip immediately. I had wanted to participate in other Principle Quest gatherings in the past and, for one reason or another, they didn’t work out. Two nights and three days away seemed doable – even as the single mother of a four-year-old.

As the days approached and deadlines loomed at work, I wondered if I was being selfish and irresponsible. I was going to be fully offline for three days and leaving my son in the care of my 80-year-old mother and my very pregnant sister. (He would be fine with them; they might be worn ragged by him, however!) I wasn’t quite sure what to expect or feel or experience. But it was an adventure and I was intrigued.

As we drove from Atlanta to Selma and began telling our stories, I felt myself letting go of work and worry. I was encouraged to stay present. Mr. Williams – tour guide, historian, gentleman – narrated part of the journey with his personal experience of the Selma-Montgomery March. Occasionally, he would point out the window to an old field or house or tree and a part of history would come alive. 

The literal and figurative distance I feel about the Civil Rights Movement kept closing. At the Pettus Bridge, I looked over the water and thought about those men and women and children marching into danger and thought, “They saw this view, too.” I remember taking classes in middle and high school on the movement and watching “Eyes on the Prize” every Black History Month with my family. I was moved by it but it was the past… right?

My own awakening to anti-racism is only recent. I was lying on my bed, pregnant, sobbing. It was the day after my birthday and Tamir Rice – a baby – had been killed. Michael Brown has been killed a few months earlier. The baby I was carrying was, like them, a black boy. It has mattered before. But, now, I was terrified. I could not be passively engaged in anti-racism. There is no such thing actually. Anti-racism is a verb and I am not an anti-racist automatically just because I’m a black woman.

The Legacy Museum was exactly as it should be. It was small but sharp and pointed. I had barely entered the museum before I began crying. One of the holograms was an enslaved woman, begging to be sold with her child. I felt it viscerally. My baby being taken from me. How would I ever breathe again? I sat and listened to Anthony Ray Hinson ask how I would feel if I served 30 years on death row for a crime I did not commit? My answer: I couldn’t live. You can only enslave others if you believe they are sub-human. Deep within my country’s core is a denial of my humanity.

The Memorial, ironically, was beautiful in a harrowing way. As a memorial, as art itself, it’s breathtaking. Pillar after pillar after pillar. Full families lynched in a single day. Over and over. How did I not see the parallel to police brutality before? We are living in an age of racial terror right now. It did not end then, it just transformed.

I sat on a stone bench at one point and meditated. The peace and quiet was so centering. It was warm sitting in the sun. I know what I need to do.

From Abbi Robinson-Hobson

The women I traveled to Alabama with were amazing.  Amazing in regard to their spirits and energy.  Each woman had a spirit of positivity and care and they each inspired.  These ladies inspired me in a variety of ways, to follow my passion in caring and working more in my community, to follow my passion in living through my professional dreams and goals and knowing that we can change society for the better together little by little.

Meeting the women in Alabama confirmed for me that women are a powerful force, and we often lead with passion and integrity.  It was apparent to me that each woman in their roles whether it be at the Selma Chamber of Commerce, the  Coffee Shop, leading a not-for-profit or otherwise, they each were passionate about their work, the betterment of their community, leading, teaching, and making a change in society to make a lasting mark on our overall community.  This inspired me to want to help them with their challenges as I was emotionally elevated by their passion. Their integrity was prevalent in how they spoke and what they spoke about and in how they received each of us who were visiting. 

My trip to Selma and Montgomery made it clear to me that the time is now more so than ever for me to pursue my goal of having an organization that focuses on formerly incarcerated men empowering them with business skills, entrepreneurship skills and life skills while I currently consult. 

My own reflections three months later:

The women I traveled with to Alabama and those we met  on each of the three trips in 2019 gave me hope, inspiration and courage – by example. Thank you, and now we move forward to meet challenges of a new decade. Let's go!