It has been more than 12 years since Stephen Covey coined the phrase "change happens at the speed of trust." These words have been the foundation of my work for years and have helped me understand how communities can work through difficult times. Trust allows people to see each other as human beings first. The lingering impacts of distrust in the form of racial tensions has divided people from all walks of life. The humanities are deeply rooted in the idea that we all share a common humanity and thus can help us bridge the divides between people.

With this idea in mind, the Mississippi Humanities Council launched our racial equity grants program in April 2016 with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to address civil rights, implicit bias, preconceived notions, and systemic issues hindering communities across our state. Since then, the program has funded 40 projects totaling more than $140,000 in grants to support local humanities-based public programming.

Delta State University is using one of our racial equity grants to add a high school leadership forum to its annual Winning the Race Conference in March. High school students will work together prior to the conference to develop a social media campaign addressing issues related to racial equity, targeted at youths. The aim of these pre-conference conversations is to engage area youths more deeply in the conference and the local dialogue on race. The University of Southern Mississippi's Freedom50 Research Group used a racial equity grant to present critical perspectives on racial progress at their university through the lens of the Clyde Kennard case, whose failed attempts to enroll at the all-white institution in the 1950s were a crucial forerunner of desegregation of the school. In Indianola, the Mississippi Center for Justice received a racial equity grant to train 20 young black men in storytelling, public speaking and oral history methodologies to empower them to reframe the narrative of young black lives from one of negativity to a more honest portrayal of the hopes, dreams, visions and brilliance these young people possess.