Now More Than Ever, It’s Time To Circle Up

Grace and Peace Changemakers,

I wrote to you earlier last week asking the question: "Where do we go from here?" 

Since then, we have witnessed the reelection of an individual who is responsible for some of the most extreme, hateful rhetoric directed at our families, friends, neighbors, and some of the most systematically marginalized communities. 

It would seem, then, that the inevitable answer to my question earlier is a simple one: backwards.

But I would like to offer another possibility. When addressing the next generation of organizers, Dr. King wrote:

"First, the line of progress is never straight. For a period, a movement may follow a straight line, and then it encounters obstacles, and the path bends. It is like curving around a mountain when you are approaching a city. Often it feels as though you were moving backwards, and you lose sight of your goal: but in fact you are moving ahead, and soon you will see the city again, closer by." 

Despite the challenging road before us, moving through difficulty is always a part of the climb. The moments that tire us and exhaust us that take our breath away and seem like so little has changed may simply be the cost of moving upwards.

And yet we can grow tired of living through what seems to be a never-ending cycle of progression and regression. So let us take solace in the fact that our multigenerational movement was built on a great tradition of seeing a way forward even in the most challenging of times. But the question remains: where do we go from here? Especially when, particularly in this moment, we feel betrayed, not by our enemies, but by our own neighbors.

The answer is not that we spiral down as a society, but that we circle up. Never alone, but instead accompanied and supported by our friends, our families, our allies, and our brothers,  sisters and siblings  in the movement.

In fact, we are called, by both history and community, to circle up; to bear witness to each other's grief, anguish, and disappointment, while also recognizing that the endless cycle that we feel has trapped us is just another one of the "obstacles" and "bends" Dr. King promised we would encounter on our collective journey towards progress.

Within our city and throughout the world, I have had the pleasure of joining change makers and healers who are engaged in collective, restorative healing circles. One of the statements that has resonated the most with me came from one such healing circle here in Richmond, where a brilliant sister said she had "lost faith in the system, but I found faith in the circle. I sincerely believe within the circle that we have everything we need to heal each other." 

There is certainly a difficult road ahead of us. But once we have grieved and are ready to begin again, perhaps we can reframe the work ahead, not as a decline we have suffered, but instead as an opportunity to circle up, to bring us together and build mutual strength to ascend the mountain of change, not in an effort to avoid the hard truths and values that were on display on Tuesday night, but in a way that challenges us to become the type of nation and neighbor that can transcend politics of profit motives and dehumanization and instead embrace a brighter, more inclusive, more just future.

When speaking about the importance of being "ready from within," Septima Clark says: 

"I found out that I needed to change my way of thinking, and in changing my way of thinking, I had to let people understand that their way of thinking was not the only way…I believe unconditionally in the ability of people to respond when they are told the truth. We need to be taught to study rather than believe, to inquire rather than to affirm...the only thing that's really worthwhile is change…. it's coming."

Now is the season for us to circle up and tell those truths to counteract the whirlpool of hate, fear, and control.

But for today, know that you are not alone in your grief, nor are you alone in your faith that another way is possible. There will be obstacles. There will be bends in the road. And we will go through them together, and one day we will emerge, and see the city again. While we face a political climate that may cause us to concede the probability of a more just future, may we never concede the possibility of a more just future if we work together in a beloved community.

Yours in the movement,

Initiatives of Change USA