BLACK LIVES MATTER. Period.

This original artwork was created by IofC USA’s Arts Alchemist, Amanda Barnes, following the death of George Floyd and growing global protests around #BlackLivesMatter.

Initiatives of Change USA has long centered trust as a guidepost for its work. In recent months, however, our team has felt challenged to understand and define trust in our current context. We are heartened by this week’s announcements about the removal of confederate monuments in Richmond and about new accountability measures in the Richmond Police Department, but we await proof that our trust in these developments is not misplaced. We see this thin trust in Richmond, where most of the IofC USA team lives, as police still take no accountability for the 2018 death of Marcus David Peters.

Trust is certainly nowhere to be found near the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many Black persons whose names are spoken including Anderson Arboleda (Colombia), Adama Traoré (France,) Tina Ezekwe (Nigeria), João Pedro Matos Pinto (Brazil) and Sarah Reed (UK) and countless more whose names are not spoken publicly. We call out anti-Black, state-sanctioned violence in the U.S. and abroad and how related measures are used against Indigenous communities and People of Color who have been murdered and oppressed by our broken systems over the centuries and across the globe. 

We express solidarity with all who are seeking justice and accountability in Richmond, the United States, and around the world. We acknowledge the incalculable cost of generational and contemporary traumas, including those of the last days and weeks, to our BIPOC colleagues and partners in the United States and globally; we also acknowledge that white silence and inaction in the name of “neutrality” is a position we at IofC USA cannot justify. We commit to uprooting false notions of white supremacy that lurk in our own organization and we invite our staff, partners and supporters to hold us accountable through that process. We extend gratitude to friends around the globe who are bearing witness, standing in solidarity with us, and working in your communities for the liberation of your own people. 

Black Lives Matter. To our staff, partners, and supporters who are hurting right now: we see you, we love you, and we hope to be fully worthy of your trust and partnership one day. 

In Solidarity, 

The Initiatives of Change USA team