What is Racial Healing?
Racial healing is a process that restores individuals and communities to wholeness, repairs the damage caused by racism and transforms societal structures into ones that affirm the inherent value of all people. It makes it possible to acknowledge and speak the truth about past wrongs created by individual and systemic racism and to address present-day consequences for people, communities and institutions.
Racial healing can facilitate trust and build authentic relationships that bridge divides created by real and perceived differences. We believe it is essential to pursue racial healing prior to making change in a community. Because, before you can transform systems and structures, you must start with people first.
Click here to learn more about the Kellogg Foundation's annual National Day of Racial Healing.
2025 Events at The Ohio State University
Truth, Trust, and Transformation: The Path to Racial Healing
Tuesday, January 21st, 11:00-11:45AM ET (Zoom)
This interactive session will feature speaker, consultant, and workshop facilitator, Lakweshia Ewing, who will highlight the critical importance of racial healing in fostering equity and inclusion. Drawing on the frameworks of the Racial Equity Institute, research on vulnerability, and Dr. Anneliese Singh’s transformative racial healing process (from The Racial Healing Handbook), participants will explore how addressing systemic inequities and personal biases paves the way for authentic connections. Through truth-telling, reconciliation, and repair, this session empowers individuals and organizations to embrace the work of racial healing as an ongoing commitment to justice and belonging.
After attending this session participants will be able to:
- Understand the role of racial healing in addressing systemic inequities.
- Harness vulnerability as a leadership tool to build trust and inclusion.
- Utilize truth-telling and reconciliation as pathways to equity and transformation.
About the facilitator:
Lakweshia Ewing is a dynamic force in education, leadership development, and racial equity. With over 20 years of experience, she has become a catalyst for change in diverse sectors. As a trainer for the Racial Equity Institute and CEO of Unlearn Everything and Live, LLC, a social impact consulting firm, Ewing drives social change through innovative consulting and speaking. Ewing’s commitment to excellence has earned her numerous accolades, including the Harvard Business School Young American Leader Award and recognition as one of the "Top 20 Under 40" leaders by the city of Chattanooga, TN, where she resides. As an Internationally certified Human Rights Consultant, David Kessler Grief educator trainer, and Brene Brown Dare to Lead educator, Ewing facilitates social change by empowering individuals and organizations to break barriers, build bridges, and embrace a future of bold possibilities. You can learn more about Ewing and her services by visiting her website unlearneverythingandlive.com.
Click here to watch the replay
The Power of Storytelling in Racial Healing
Tuesday, January 21st, 1:00-2:30PM ET (Zoom)
Join the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University for an interactive 90-minute webinar that will change the way you think about racial healing and community building. In honor of the Kellogg Foundation's National Day of Racial Healing on January 21st, 2025, renowned facilitator Susan M. Glisson will share an overview of The Welcome Table™, a community building process she uses for racial healing, reckoning, and repair. Her innovative approach utilizes storytelling and deep listening to foster authentic relationships that create a safe space for acknowledging and reconciling past race-related wounds and facilitate effective collective efforts that transform communities. The session will utilize the Welcome Table Guideposts for Community Building to foster effective dialogue and participation. They will be addressed briefly at the beginning, however articipants are encouraged to review them in advance.
Glisson has completed reconciliation projects using The Welcome Table™ in communities with some of the most well-known histories of racial violence and in more than 25 states throughout the U.S. This webinar will introduce several Welcome Table best practices and participants will leave with an awareness of the powerful role storytelling can play in repairing the damage caused by racism and building more equitable communities.
Attendees are encouraged to read about some of Glisson’s impactful work using The Welcome Table™ in her 2019 article, Critical Connections: Trust-building as a Prerequisite to Systems Change.
Speaker bio:
As the founding executive director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, Susan M. Glisson guided multiracial groups in grappling with hard history to create a better, shared future in some of Mississippi's most notorious sites of racial violence. With lessons from that work, she assembled The Welcome Table™ community building process, and has used it in over twenty-five states, including most recently in the first reconciliation conversations between the enslaved and enslaver descendants at Arlington House, most well-known as the plantation of Robert E. Lee. Glisson now leads the Welcome Table Collaborative, a network of committed bridge-builders devoted to creating welcoming, equitable, and prosperous communities. In August, she began a partnership with the Carter Center to help build a movement for healing, reckoning, and repair in the former eleven Confederate states. She is based at The BIG We, a non-profit in Memphis, TN.
Racial Healing Book Discussion Group
In addition to the above events, The College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences in collaboration with University Libraries is hosting a 10-week book discussion group using Dr. Anneliesse Singh's The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism & Engage in Collective Healing and the discussion guide provided by the author. The book club will meet on Fridays, 12-1pm ET via Zoom from January 31st to April 11. Please note: the book club is open to The Ohio State University community only.
Click here to learn more and register for the book club
A note about accessiblity
These events will be presented with automated closed captions. If you require traditional CART services or have other accessibility needs, please contact Laura Akgerman at akgerman.4@osu.edu or 614-292-0622. Requests submitted two weeks in advance will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet every request.