Racial Healing, Justice and Reconciliation Commission
EDOD Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission led by Canon Carrie Headington
With God’s help, we will strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every humanbeing. (BCP, p. 305)
OVERVIEW
The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas’ Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation Initiative is an advocate of equal justice for all people, a balm of healing from the sins of systemic racism, and an agent of reconciliation within the diocese and wider community.
FORMATION
The EDOD Racial Healing, Justice and Reconciliation Commission is dedicated to equipping our parishes to be agents of healing, justice and reconciliation in their lives and wider communities. We seek to form our diocese theologically, historically, and sociologically on the issue of race. We live this through being formed by the example of Jesus and through prayer, discernment, education, relationships and action.
DIOCSEAN WIDE READING:
* Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited by
*Eduardo Bonilla Silva, Racism Without Racists
PRAY
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. – Prayer for the Human Family (Book of Common Prayer, p. 815)
DISCERN
From Becoming Beloved Community - The Episcopal Church
Telling the Truth about our Churches and Race
Proclaiming the Dream of Beloved Community
Practicing the Way of Love in the Pattern of Jesus
Repairing the Breach in Society and Institutions
Baptismal Promise: Strive for justice and peace among all people & respect the dignity of every human being. Core Questions: What institutions and systems bear the signs of racial injustice? How will we participate in the repair, restoration and healing of people, institutions and systems?
EDUCATE
-
Racial Reconciliation Clergy Days-September 2019 marked our first of s series of Racial Reconciliation Clergy Days. This day focused on framing the issue of racial reconciliation theologically, fostering dialogue, and hearing from a diversity of voices across our diocese. This day was an invitation to go deeper into the work, including diocesan reading groups, and city-wide action.
- Diocesan Webinars on Talking with Our Congregations about Race. This is an ongoing series via zoom which provides resources in how your parish can be agents of dismantling racism in your parishes and communities and be reconcilers, healers, and justice advocates.
- Racial Reconciliation Reading Groups- A select group of diocesan leaders (lay and clergy) read a book on race together monthly and discuss. The wider diocese is invited to be part of reading alongside and forming their own reading groups.
-
Diocesan Racial Reconciliation Facebook Page and Resource Platform- A Facebook page and resource platform dedicated to sharing stories, resources, reflections, and action.. Facebook Page @edodracetheology. EDOD Race and Theology Reading Group Page.
RESOURCES for EDUCATION
WEBSITES
The Episcopal Church Resource Page
*Bishop Curry’s Message
*Responding to Racist Violence as the People of God
*Becoming Beloved Community
The Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing http://www.centerforracialhealing.org/
National Museum of African American History and Culture https://nmaahc.si.edu/
Roadmap to Reconciliation by Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil https://www.roadmaptoreconciliation.com/
The Poor People’s Campaign https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/
Films
*PBS Miniseries: The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross – written and narrated by Harvard Scholar Henry Louis Gates and African American Lives 1 & 2 – also Henry Louis Gates
*Eyes on the Prize – 14 Hour series on the Civil Rights Movement. (1987)
*Sacred Ground: A Race Dialogue Series, produced by award-winning filmmaker and Becoming Beloved
Community Consultant Katrina Browne: www.episcopalchurch.org/sacredground
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuaefVqS910 Dr. Khalil Gibran Mahammad
* Episcopal Reconciliation Pilgrimage to Ghana: www.episcopalchurch.org/reconciliation-pilgrimage
*13th (2016)
*12 Years a Slave (2013)
*Selma (2014)
*Whose Streets (2017)
*Crime + Punishment (2018)
*Clemency (2019)
*Always in Season (2019)
*The Help (2011)
*Dear White People (2014)
*A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
*Boyz N the Hood (1991)
*Miss Juneteenth (2020)
*Self Made (2020)
*When They See Us (2019 – Netflix miniseries)
*I am Not Your Negro (2017)
*Malcom X (1991)
*Bamboozled (2000)
*King (1978 miniseries)
*Fruitvale Station (2013)
*In The Heat of the Night (1967)
*Let the Fire Burn (2014)
*Do the Right Thing (1989)
*Trouble the Water (2008)
*Blindspotting (2018)
*The Butler (2013)
Books
Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla Silva
Roadmap to Reconciliation by Brenda Salter McNeil
Living into God’s Dream: Dismantling Racism in America by Catherine Meeks
America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
How to be an Anti-racist by Ibram X. Kendi
Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Racism in America, by George Yancy
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston
Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women by Susan Burton & Cari Lynn
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflection on Race by Damon Tweedy
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria Jr
Dear White Christian: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation by Jennifer Harvey
Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in the United States History and Life by David Billings
God of the Oppressed by James Cone
If Beale Street Could Talkby James Baldwin
I'm Still Here -- Black Dignity in a World Made for Whitenessby Austin Channing Brown
Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, Michael Denzel Smith
Jesus Dub by Robert Beckford
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Brian Stevenson
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr
Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race Matters by Cornell West
Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin
The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America by Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey
Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalis tby Eli Saslow
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibrahim S. Kendi
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
The Price of the Ticket: Collection of Non-Fiction, 1948-1985 by James Baldwin
The Underground Railroad(fiction) by Colson Whitehead
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America by Vincent Harding
Three Narratives of Slavery(African American) by Soujourner Truth, et al
Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving
We were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Tanehisi Coates
White Fragility - Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
White Trash: The 400 Year History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
Pre-Post-Racial America: Spiritual Stories from the Front Lines by Sandhya Rani Jha
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White Americaby Michael Eric Dyson
White Rageby Carol Anderson
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Middle Grades
New Kid by Jerry Craft
A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramee
Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Blendedby Sharon Draper
Genesis Begins Again by Alicia Williams
Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks by Jason Reynolds
This Book is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell & Aurelia Durand
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds
Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Linda Blackmon Lowery
If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson
Counting Descent by Clint Smith
X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz & Keklah Magoon
High School
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance by Bethany Morrow
I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Angie Thomas
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Award-Winning Stamped from the Beginning by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X Kendi.
Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals
Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickels, America's First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone
The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America by D. Watkins
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow by Leon Litwack
RELATE – Form RELATIONSHIP
BELOVED COMMUNITY Story Sharing Practices. Share stories with one another in your congregation. Invite others from your wider community to share stories with you. See resources in how to do this. https://episcopalchurch.org/beloved-community-storysharing
Unity in the Gospel Project– Pastors from primarily African American South Dallas Churches and a diverse group of Episcopal priests meet monthly to study scripture, eat, and pray together.This group is dedicated to sharing personal stories and forming beloved community.
Diocesan-Wide South Dallas Awareness Pilgrimage led by Canon Carrie Headington and leaders of the Greater Dallas Coalition.
ACT
In addition to the formation initiatives detailed above, the Diocese of Dallas is dedicated to ensuring we have a diverse clergy, racially and ethnically. We also support and champion our Latino, Sudanese, Nigerian, Bhutanese, and Middle Eastern refugee congregations.
Our City-Wide Reconciliation Initiative is called PROJECT:US (Unite and Serve).
PROJECT US: Unite and Serve OVERVIEW
Project US: Unite and Serve is the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas’ Outreach and Reconciliation Initiative living out Jesus’ call to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be reconciled to one another, and to seek justice in the city as one body. This initiative, in its third year, implements aspects of Bishop Sumner’s Episcopal Diocese of Dallas Strategic Plan to foster ecumenical outreach, racial reconciliation, and diocesan unity through racial reconciliation, and common mission especially, serving those in need (focusing on the youth and poor in the Southern Sector of Dallas).
In previous years, outreach, racial justice, and care for the poor has been relegated almost entirely to service on the parish level. Each parish carries out its own outreach projects (both with parish volunteers and finances) to care for those in need in their respective communities. In 2016, Bishop George Sumner encouraged parishes to continue their own outreach projects AND to join diocesan wide projects which focus our entire diocese on specific outreach initiatives we can do together as a diocese and join the wider body of Christ in ecumenical outreach and racial justice. Bishop Sumner especially called on centrally located Dallas parishes to join together to be part of reconciliation in Dallas and to care for those in poverty and dismantle racism in South Dallas. The Southern sector of Dallas has the highest child poverty rate per capita in the US and the highest poverty rate of any city with a population over 1 million people. Over 90% of homes in South Dallas do not have a father figure and South Dallas youth are struggling emotionally, spiritually and physically with many going hungry and less than 10% being college ready. Furthermore, Dallas is the 4thmost divided city in America both racially and economically, with the Southern Sector comprised of almost entirely people of color. Often churches do not come together across denominations to address the need to dismantle racism and poverty in the city. In response to these needs (Matthew 25) and to the ecumenical imperative (John 17), knowing we cannot be the body of Christ without working as one body as a diocese and with our brothers and sisters from churches in the Southern sector, Project US commenced in 2017. This launch is due in large part to the Episcopal Foundation Grant and to the leadership team comprising of diocesan and parish volunteers.
PROJECT US: Unite and Serve includes the following Initiatives:
EDOD/ Greater Dallas Coalition Connection and Mobilization Initiative– The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas partners with the Greater Dallas Coalition in fostering ways to engage in serving the underserved in South Dallas together. The Greater Dallas Coalition is a gathering of South Dallas churches and ministries/churches across DFW dedicated to serving those in need in South Dallas. For more information on this ministry go to greaterdallascoalition.org. Through PROJECT US, the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas partners with the Greater Dallas Coalition in the following initiatives:
COVID Hunger Alleviation Initiative: The impact of the Corona Virus has disproportionately hit the Southern Sector of Dallas in both in health and in unemployment. As a result many families have great need of help with food assistance. The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas is partnering with local South Dallas Churches to provide meals and groceries to our partners who are in great need. To support this effort go to greaterdallascoalition.org.
BE A CHAMPION CHURCH – offer child sponsorship for local Dallas children of color living in poverty at $30/month.
The Dallas Champions Academy– A summer camp and year-round academy in the underserved Southern sector of Dallas for 200 boys and girls (ages 8-18) with 16 NFL and University coaches, 4 award winning teachers, and ministers/volunteers from Episcopal parishes and ecumenical partners. The Dallas Champions Academy has a 21-point curriculum using sport to teach the life skills of discipline, respect, trust and hard work. Also emphasized are Christian character formation, nutrition, anti-bullying and tools to succeed in the classroom including goal setting, time management, study skills and college preparation.
The Dallas Champions Academy occurs throughout the year after the summer camp, which includes year-round mentoring, college visits, and assistance for all high school seniors in the college application process.
It also includes a college retention specialist once the young adult attends college. Thus far 64 young adults have received scholarships to college- all first in their family to attend college. All people of color.
In 2017, due to the leadership of Stephanie Hodgkins (EDOD) and Cathy Judd (St. Anne’s, DeSoto) a Champions Summer Camp was held at the Lew Sterrett jail for 55 (17 year-old) young men. In 2018, the Dallas Champions Academy expanded to the Gainesville State School, where over 70% of young men will be released and return to the DFW region. The Dallas Champions Academy works will all newly released young men and helps them in achieving their dreams. www.dallaschampionsacademy.net.
Open Table– Open Table is a ministry that seeks to help people out of poverty (and/or post incarceration) through intellectual and social capital of personal relationships around a table. Nine volunteers commit to support an individual (called brother or sister) for one year around a table. Each table member has a focus such as finance, occupation and educator, housing, healthcare, youth, children and family, transportation and insurance, accelerator, director. The Table works together as a team of specialists, encouragers, and advocates. Over the course of a year, the Table works together to set goals, foster accountability and implement a plan to create change for the brother or sister.
Open Table provides training, technical support, and structure and process consulting.
Pulpit Swaps – Pastors from the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas swap with African American South Dallas churches.
Ecumenical Racial Reconciliation Meals. These are ecumenical gatherings which include worship, meals, and prayer.
Thanksgiving Food Drive– This is an EDOD food drive at the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas Convention as well as diocesan turkey drive supporting families in need at Thanksgiving. The food is distributed by the Greater Dallas Coalition (with EDOD volunteers) at Thanksgiving to families in need. This diocesan wide project partners with South Dallas Churches feeding over 20,000 people at Thanksgiving.
RECONCILE DALLAS – A dedicated group of ecumenical partners and Episcopal clergy dedicated to works of racial reconciliation. Thus far projects have included: Unity in the Gospel gatherings, Samaritans Feet (the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas parishes in the DFW metro-plex joined ecumenical partners across racial, ethnic and denominational lines to wash the feet of children in South Dallas and provided over 2,000 shoes to children), MLK parade Reconcile Dallas float and march. The Rev. Dr. Kwesi Kamua of Impact Church and Bishop George Sumner led all volunteers in a night of worship at St. Matthew’s Cathedral and prayed for our city for reconciliation and transformation. The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas will continue this involvement in 2020.
ADVOCATE – https://episcopalchurch.org/OGR/general-advocacy-resources
*For Local Advocacy contact Canon Carrie Headington
For more Information Contact Canon Evangelist Carrie Headington 214-826-8310
Commission Members:
Canon Carrie Headington
The Very Rev. Rob Price
The Rev. John Sundara
Stephanie Hodgkins
The Rev. Victoria Heard
The Rt. Rev. Michael Smith
The Rev. Noe Mendez