National Day of Racial Healing
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
To mark the seventh annual National Day of Racial Healing (NDORH) on Tuesday, January 17, 2023, AAC&U calls on colleges and universities across the country to engage in activities, events, or strategies that promote healing and foster engagement around the issues of racism, bias, inequity, and injustice in our society. It is an opportunity for people and organizations to come together in their common humanity and take collective action to create a more just and equitable world. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has also created a set of NDORH action kits that include resources and programming ideas that may be useful when planning campus and community events.
In partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) effort—a national and community-based process to plan for and bring about transformational and sustainable change, and to address the historical and contemporary effects of racism, AAC&U works with higher education institutions across the country to develop self-sustaining, community-integrated TRHT Campus Centers. Organized around the five pillars of the TRHT framework—narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy—the centers seek to prepare the next generation of leaders to confront racism and to dismantle the false belief in a hierarchy of human value.
Rx Racial Healing Circles
The TRHT framework, while informed by the well-recognized Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRH) model, is a unique process designed to reflect, embrace, and address the unprecedented diversity and unparalleled racialized history of the United States. Racial healing circles are a key strategy to connect people from a wide variety of backgrounds through story sharing and deep listening. In this video, learn more about the design and practice of racial healing circles from Dr. Gail Christopher, the visionary and architect of the TRHT Framework, as well as leaders and racial healing circle co-facilitators from current TRHT Campus Centers.
Fostering racial and social justice is central to AAC&U’s mission of advancing liberal education, quality, and equity in service to democracy. All institutions of higher education must embrace the public purpose of higher education by addressing issues of moral and civic responsibility. Identifying the ways in which structural racism is perpetuated and eliminating the false belief in a hierarchy of human value are integral to the civic dimensions of liberal education as a force for public good.
2023 NDORH Events at Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Centers
Each year in recognition of the National Day of Racial Healing, TRHT Campus Centers across the country promote racial healing on their campuses and in their surrounding communities with events and activities unique to their institution's mission, context, and TRHT Campus Center vision. Discover how some of AAC&U's seventy-one TRHT Campus Centers will honor the seventh annual National Day of Racial Healing on January 17th and beyond.
On Wednesday, January 25th, the Alamo Colleges District will host author/activist/educator Dr. Cornel West to speak to the San Antonio community about the role of solidarity, racial healing, and narrative change in galvanizing social transformation. Through a moderated discussion, Dr. West will offer wisdom and poignant commentary rooted in concepts of peace building and racial justice. Featured performers: Tāp Pīlam Coahuiltecan Nation, San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea Vocab Sanderson and performer Tanesha Payne, and Tehuan Band of Mission Indians. The event is open to the public. Learn more and register via Eventbrite.
Andrews University will host an MLK Forum on Thursday, January 12, at 11:30 am Eastern in the Howard Performing Arts Center. The program will feature excerpts from “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Andrews University is also a sponsor of MLK Week 2023 hosted by Lake Michigan College. The Deliverance Mass Choir and The Watchmen will perform at Lake Michigan College’s Mendel Center on Saturday, January 14, at 3:00 pm Eastern. The annual MLK Breakfast resumes January 16, and an Expo, following the breakfast, has been added. Andrews University will have a table highlighting community resources, recruiting information, etc. There is also a Winter Warmth Drive – Help local residents stay warm this winter by donating new hats, gloves, socks and healthy individually packaged snacks. Bring to MLK Forum at HPAC on January 12 or to the James White Library before Monday, January 16. To learn more, visit the LMU MLK Week 2023 website.
In recognition of National Day of Racial Healing, Baldwin Wallace University's (BW) TRHT Campus Center is pleased to host Jacket Circles for BW community members on Monday, January 16th and Tuesday, January 17th, 2023. Jacket Circles will help foster community building by utilizing group dialogue to lift up what unites us rather than what divides us; while discovering, respecting, and honoring each other’s unique experiences here at BW. The purpose for these circles is to facilitate trust and build authentic relationships that bridge divides created by real and perceived differences for BW students, faculty, and staff.
Dominican University Celebrates the 7th National Day of Racial Healing on Tuesday, January 17, 2023 with a keynote address by Megan Red Shirt-Shaw (Oglala Lakota), Director of Native Student Services at the University of South Dakota. She is the author of the powerful policy paper, Beyond the Land Acknowledgement: College “LAND BACK” or Free Tuition for Native students. Sponsored by the Rebecca Crown Library, the Office for Justice, Equity, and Inclusion, the Siena Center, the Center for Cultural Liberation, and Dominican’s Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Center. Limited space is available for in-person attendance Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 6:00 pm Eastern for a Racial Healing Circle. The event is free and open to the public, RSVP for in-person or virtual attendance register via Google Form.
Please join the Duke Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation for a lunchtime virtual screening of the recorded December 8, 2022 event at Duke University: “Racial Healing, Hope, and ‘The Solidarity Dividend.’” The video recording features renowned mother-daughter duo Dr. Gail C. Christopher, TRHT Movement leader and Heather McGhee, New York Times bestselling author of The Sum of Us in conversation with Dr. Charmaine Royal, Duke TRHT Center Director. Following our screening of the recorded December 8th event will be a Q&A and panel discussion involving members of the Duke TRHT Center Team, including students, staff, faculty, alum, and community partners. The event is free and open to the public, register via the Duke University website.
Franklin & Marshall will begin its TRHT launch week with Rx Racial Healing Circle training for student House Advisors as a framework for the college's social justice work. Through this training, which will include over 60 student leaders, Franklin & Marshall will share the vision for the TRHT Campus Center and the campus' Strategic Plan, then discuss how to use circles to build community with emotional safety as a priority through modeling key components of the circle process.
In observance of the 2023 National Day of Racial Healing the Hope College Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Center will host a Racial Healing Circle that will bring together members of the local community to engage in the sharing of stories, relationship building, and continue to work toward narrative change in our community. Additionally, there will be a screening of the film Selma, Lord, Selma followed by a panel discussion with author and activist Sheyann Webb-Christburg , also known as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Smallest Freedom Fighter.” The screening is free and open to the public. Learn more on the Hope College website.
Marymount University will partner with Volunteer Arlington and Plot Against Hunger to host a session on equitable food access for the MLK Day of Service on January 15, 2023. Marymount University will also host a film screening and discussion of “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” on January 31, 2023 and an interfaith, antiracism discussion entitled "Healing Mind, Body, and Soul: An Interfaith Conversation" on February 1, 2023. View the virtual events flyer via Google.
Marywood University will be hosting a speaker series dedicated to Racial Healing including community racial healing circles, as well as guest speakers.
The MCC Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation is excited to host a National Day of Racial Healing Program on Tuesday, January 17th, 2023 beginning at 2:00 pm Eastern and including a celebratory ribbon cutting for the Center and a racial healing circle. These events will work to build our collective capacity toward racial equity and justice. Learn more and RSVP by Thursday, January 12, 2023 on the MCC website.
Millsaps TRHT will host conversations with local social justice activist and organizer, Maisie Brown on Tuesday, January 17, 2023. Ms. Brown was the lead organizer for Black Lives Matter protests in Jackson, MS in the aftermath of George Floyd's death. Her current focus is on health, education, and criminal justice inequities. On Thursday, January 19, 2023, the TRHT Center will facilitate a screening of The Evers, a film documenting conversations with family members discussing the life and legacy of civil right leader, Medgar Evers, followed by in-person conversation with Mr. Evers' daughter and director of the Myrlie and Medgar Evers Institute, Reena Evers-Everette, and acclaimed investigative reporter, Jerry Mitchell, who was instrumental in bringing Mr. Evers' murderer to trial and conviction
MOCAN will be hosting a book discussion for the network on Heather McGee's The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. Our goal is to review the key points from the book and begin the groundwork for a statewide project to address literacy on the history of the inequities in higher education in Missouri.
Mount Holyoke will host a series of events including a city-wide visit entitled,"Bridging the Divide: Racial Healing and the Latinx History of Holyoke" led by Maria Salgado Cartagena, Director of Community-Based Learning, who is known as the “Latinx People’s Historian and Storyteller” of Holyoke. We are also hosting a racial healing community circle facilitated by Tomiko Jenkins, LCSW as well as our full week of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King Series on Racial Justice and Reconciliation with Heather McGhee and Beverly Daniel Tatum which is a virtual webinar open to the public. Learn more and register on the Mount Holyoke website.
In honor of the National Day of Racial Healing, Northeastern Illinois University will host Afro-Indigenous (Saginaw Chippewa) writer and scholar Dr. Kyle Mays who will deliver the 2023 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Keynote Lecture at at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom (Passcode: 994736). Titled "Reparations and LandBack: Fugitive Possibilities and the Quest for Our Collective Freedom,” Mays’s keynote lecture will explore the contradictions and possibilities embedded in Black freedom and Indigenous sovereignty, why it matters, and dreams about the potential of collective resistance. All are welcome to join by logging on to the webinar link at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday January 17th and, when prompted, entering the passcode 994736. Mays is an Associate Professor of African American Studies, American Indian Studies, and History at the University of California, Los Angeles and the author of several books, including An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2021) and City of Dispossessions: Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, and the Creation of Modern Detroit (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022).
Please contact Dr. Shireen Roshanravan, Executive Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, at [email protected] or 773-442-5404 with any questions you may have.
NOVA is hosting a Food For Thought Webinar for members of the college community that will explore the importance of the National Day of Racial Healing and the college's ongoing pursuit of narrative change, racial healing, relationship building, and societal transformation through inclusive excellence and TRHT efforts.
Otterbein University will host a viewing of the Courageous Conversation discussion entitled “The Healing Power of Story Telling” at 2:00 pm Eastern on campus, on January 17th at the university’s chapel. The Otterbein TRHT Campus Center will host multiple online Rx Racial Healing Circles that day for members of the Otterbein University community, our partners at Antioch University, as well as other community members.
https://go.citadel.edu/trht/ev...In collaboration with the Social Justice Racial Equity Collaborative of Charleston, SC, the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Centers of The Citadel and Pepperdine University are collaborating to co-facilitate a VIRTUAL Coast-to-Coast Racial Healing Circle.The event will be held on Zoom 6-7:30pm Eastern/3-4:30pm Pacific time. Learn more and register.
The Prince George's Community College TRHT Campus Center will sponsor a program "Truth + Healing = Transformation" with guest speaker Dr. Gail C. Christopher on Tuesday, January 17, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. This virtual program will include a presentation by Dr. Christopher as well as a Q and A. Dr. Christopher was the driving force behind the American Healing initiative and the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation effort.
In recognition of the 7th Annual National Day of Racial Healing, the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Center at Rutgers University – Newark theme is “Redefining and Rebuilding Community.” In collaboration with the Creating Change Network, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and TRHT Center @ RU-N will host and promote in-person and virtual community organized events, workshops, class and panel discussions, arts performances/exhibitions, and racial healing circles to discuss, reflect, experience, and imagine a society of community and belonging. Events are scheduled from January 16 – 24, 2023 throughout the state of New Jersey spotlighting the diverse community collaborations of healing. More information is available on the New Jersey Performing Arts Center website and the RU-N TRHT Campus Center website. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s PSEG True Diversity film series is available to the public on YouTube.
The Rutgers University-Camden Truth Racial Healing & Transformation Center invites you to a free special campus film screening and conversation with TILL film producer, Keith Beauchamp as he discusses using the art of film making as a form of advocacy and racial healing for anti-racism work. The event is free and open to the public. Learn more and register on the Rutgers University - Camden website.
In recognition of the National Day of Racial Healing, the Seton Hall University TRHT Team will be hosting a virtual event on Friday, January 27, 2023. Pastor Willie Francois III of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Pleasantville, NJ and author of Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race will be the keynote speaker. Rev. Dr. Forrest Pritchett, professor of Seton Hall’s and one of his students will discuss the significance of the Black Church and people of faith as vehicles in the advancement of civil rights, and moral and social justice movements.
In celebration and honor of the National Day of Racial Healing, Sewanee: The University of the South will launch its Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Center at a special event from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. Central time, with remarks at 4:15 pm. The new co-directors of the Sewanee's TRHT Center, David Stark and Tiffany Momon, will be formally announced. The event will be available to watch online via Zoom.
Spelman College will host a virtual Difficult Dialogues and Racial Healing program with students from the AUC Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective (including students from Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Clark Atlanta University), Berry College, and the University of the South (Sewanee).
Join the SPHERE Consortium for an immersive, in-person healing experience on Tuesday, January 17th at 4:00 pm Eastern featuring dynamic panelists, engaging healing dialogues, creative expressions and a call to action. The event is free and open to the public. Register via Eventbrite.
Join The Well and community partners on Tuesday, January 17, 2023 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm Eastern for an immersive healing experience celebrating belonging featuring live entertainment and healing conversations around our collective well-being, safety, recovery, and liberation. This National Day of Racial Healing event is one of many community conversation and celebration spaces hosted in support of the St. Petersburg Center for Trauma Recovery and Healing Justice. Learn more and register on The Well's website.
In collaboration with the Social Justice Racial Equity Collaborative of Charleston, SC, the Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation Centers of The Citadel and Pepperdine University are collaborating to co-facilitate a VIRTUAL Coast-to-Coast Racial Healing Circle. Learn more and register at https://go.citadel.edu/trht/events/.
The Student Diversity and Inclusion Office will be hosting a TU Racial Day of Healing on Tuesday, January 17th. Join the SDIO in the Fiesta Room to learn more about our recent designation as an AAC&U Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Center and what the National Racial Day of Healing means for our community.
On Tuesday, January 17th, the University of Arkansas will host "What Does Healing Mean?", a panel discussion on the topic of racial healing and what that means for the different racial communities represented on the panel. Panelists will provide expertise and experience on their identities the intersectionality among the other communities discussed. As a guest in this space, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and reflect on this topic as well. Spanish Interpretation will be provided. Learn more and register on the University of Arkansas website.
“From Ally to Activist: the 3rd Annual Cincinnati National Day of Racial Healing” is an all-day hybrid event offering a diversity of speakers and panels providing insights into how to deepen our commitment to Racial Healing in our Communities. The morning and afternoon sessions will be held online, offering diverse panels and highlighted by a talk from acclaimed Civil Rights leader Angela Davis. The evening, in person session includes a networking hour, an opportunity to participate in racial healing circles and a speech from Anna Giftey Opoku-Agyeman. Please join us in whatever way you can! Learn more and register on the Cincinnati's National Day of Racial Healing website.
“Counternarratives on the Racial Realities of Working in Predominantly White Spaces: A Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Event” will feature UConn Faculty and Staff sharing counternarratives on their individual and collective lived experiences both in and outside of the classroom related to the impact of race in higher education.
“Hawai‘i Ku‘u Home Aloha (Hawai‘i Our Beloved Home)”: As a Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Center and a campus committed to becoming a Native Hawaiian Place of Learning, we intentionally pause on January 17, 2023 to mark 130 years since the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the 7th annual National Day of Racial Healing. We will also honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. With all this to guide us, we will collectively explore what it has meant, continues to mean, and could mean in the future to experience Hawai‘i as our home aloha, our beloved home. Learn more on the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa's website.
On Tuesday, January 17th, the University of Mount Union will hold a Unity Walk at 11:00 am Eastern starting at the UMU Lakes. Rev. Gregory Kendrick will be providing the Chapel message at 11:30 am which will focus on racial justice.
Rx Racial Healing: A Guide to Embracing Our Humanity
Written by Dr. Gail C. Christopher
Published by AAC&U on the sixth annual National Day of Racial Healing in 2022, Rx Racial Healing: A Guide to Embracing Our Humanity by Dr. Gail C. Christopher is an excellent resource for institutions interested in exploring the Rx Racial Healing approach for transformational change in colleges, organizations, and communities as well as institutions seeking to deepen their racial healing circle practice.