--by Melina Hill Walker

It’s an understatement to say that people are hungry for meaningful dialogue about race and equity. That hunger was evident three years ago when we held the Inaugural Symposium on Race and Equity in New Hampshire and had a waiting list of more than 100. Since then, the hunger for knowledge and understanding has grown exponentially. Our Symposium 2.0, held last April, grew to an attendee list of more than 400. The event featured the recommendations of six sector workgroups in service to the Race and Equity in New Hampshire Series’ overarching goals:

• To build relationships so we can partner together effectively;
• To create shared understanding of current social, economic and political considerations impacting race and equity in New Hampshire; and
• To identify shared work for an inclusive and equitable New Hampshire.

This is not a new endeavor for the Endowment, nor for many of our community partners. We’ve been working on health, race and equity for more than a decade. But the broad base of allies is growing to include people from all walks of life, including those who identify as people of color as well as white. They tell us how much they appreciate the structured opportunity for deep and difficult conversations and the chance to co-create a vision and action plan for racial justice and equity in our state.

There is no flagging of energy, curiosity or concern about racial injustice here in New Hampshire or in our country. Symposium participants care deeply about the need to identify and stamp out this injustice. To do it, we must acknowledge the generations before us who have worked toward this goal and the generations after us who will continue the work. Our allies understand the long-term nature of the work and fervently believe in their contribution toward the creation of an equitable society for everyone.

We cannot be healthy without a culture free from the lie of racial constructs. That is a researched and documented fact. Every one of us suffers from the societal setbacks of racism, no matter what our background or skin color.

Our state’s most respected demographers have repeatedly challenged the misconception that New Hampshire is only ‘a white state.’ Moreover, our respected economists underscore that our state’s growing diversity is essential to our economic vitality.

In this edition of Fresh Takes, you can watch a powerful video that explains our work and the growing movement towards racial justice and equity. I invite you to read the companion report which outlines the progress of the six sector workgroups, augmented by feedback from Symposium 2.0 participants. I am energized by the emerging roadmap in the spheres of civic engagement, economic development, education, government, health, and law enforcement/criminal justice.

Most of all, the Endowment team is grateful for your partnership. As Dr. Darnisa Amante emphasized in her keynote speech, we might not live to see the final achievement of our work. But we can make our mark on history’s timeline. The footsteps of many – our footsteps – are leading to a new wakefulness, a shifting paradigm and a powerful movement aimed at equity and opportunity for all who call New Hampshire home.