During this Black History Month, I am reminded of the year 1993 (the year the Rodney King case came into view), when as the President of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, we honored nine Black women running some of the top organizations in Boston. We were young, we were gifted, and we were Black; we were committed to the community in which we worked, and our organizations were improving the quality of lives for our children and families served. We made the commitment in 1993 to create a movement in support of the development of Black and Brown children and to mobilize the resources of our organizations to do so. We were successful on several fronts.
Fast forward to the year 2022 and our nation is challenged in so many ways to fulfill the promises we made to our children and to communities of color. We are fighting our way back-police violence against Black and Brown Americans, the elimination of voting rights, gerrymandering, white supremacy, racial discrimination, the attack on reproductive rights, threats to affirmative action, have all again come flooding back into our lives in aggressive and dangerous ways; and on January 6, 2022, we experienced an insurrection and attempted destruction of our Democracy.
All of us in the video are much older now and most of us are retired and living our best lives. But as I relived the fond memories of that time, the video brought tears to my eyes, it gave me hope, and confidence. Although it will not be us this next time, I believe that if we did it once, the young people of the future can do it again.