Twenty-five years ago, Richmond took its first steps toward publicly acknowledging its traumatic history of slavery and racial oppression. On June 18, 1993, area residents of all backgrounds supported by representatives of 50 other cities and 20 countries walked together  (video in two parts) to mark sites previously too painful or shameful to remember.  In organizing the walk as part […]

We need a new approach to dialogue about race in this country, according to David Campt, one of the nation’s most experienced and innovative practitioners who once advised the White House. I first met him when we were working together on a dialogue guide for President Clinton’s One America race initiative. Over the past decade, in Campt’s view, the role […]

1968 was a momentous and turbulent year. In April, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Riots broke out in cities across America. In June, Robert Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles.  Despite the gains of the Civil Rights movement, resistance to change was fierce, nowhere more so than in the housing market where real estate agents, banks and newspapers […]

When I first met Rev. Bill Wigmore he was running the largest recovery center in Texas based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  In recent years, Wigmore, who is an Episcopal priest, has been researching the movement’s early methodology to rediscover the lost of forgotten process followed by Dr. Bob and the A.A. pioneers. Foremost among these is what […]

Over the past two years I have been part of a History and Reconciliation Initiative at St Paul’s Episcopal Church. A deep dive into the archives reveals the extent of the congregation’s involvement in Richmond’s slave economy, its promotion of the Lost Cause mythology and racial hierarchy, as well as significant work in recent decades to promote dialogue and to […]

Some years ago, my colleague Audrey Brown Burton, a founder of Richmond’s racial healing movement, made this statement about hope: “Hope is spiritual and social. It is not just futuristic. It is a powerful word and concept. The more we say it, the more we become it. This is an identity for us. We become hopeful in a spiritual sense, […]

In 1908 a socially conscious and ambitious young pastor from Allentown, PA, overcame deep resentment against his colleagues and decided to lay aside his ego by admitting his own wrong.  The simple but difficult decision to ask forgiveness and start the change process in his own life was the spark that led to a movement that today undergirds reconciliation and […]

I often get ideas for blogs while working in the yard. This morning, battling some particularly stubborn wiregrass, I thought about Steve Bassett, one of Virginia’s beloved singer-songwriters.  In 1993, as our Hope in the Cities team was preparing a national conference in Richmond, we had the idea to ask Steve to write a theme song. My colleague Rev. Paige […]