Last Friday we hosted a convening of our partners from our racial equity grant program at the 2 Mississippi Museums. The idea was to bring together those organizations from around Mississippi who received racial equity grants from the MHC over the past two years to discuss their work, share information, and help us think of ways we can use the tools of the humanities to address the lingering impact of racism in our state. We originally conceived of this gathering as we were applying to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to 

support this racial equity grant program. In effect, it served 

as the culmination of this two-year WKKF-funded initiative.

The day began with a presentation by Dr. Rhea Williams-Bishop, WKKF's director of Mississippi and New Orleans Programs, about the foundation's TRHT (truth, racial healing & transformation) initiative. She shared the initiative's rich, deeply researched framework that illuminates how to address structural racism. As a final exercise of the convening, we broke the participants into small groups to discuss how the humanities can be used to address each part of the framework. Some were obvious: using history to help change the narrative about our state's past, highlighting those aspects that have been overlooked or purposefully forgotten. The incredible success of the 2 Mississippi Museums illustrates how a full and honest retelling of our history-including its darker aspects-can unite us in our shared narrative. For other aspects of the framework, like economic and legal discrimination, a humanities-based approach can be effective in cutting across differences and addressing the underlying human causes and effects of inequities.

During the convening, we explained the "tools of the humanities." In addition to historical research and analysis, these tools include the deep, critical thinking of philosophy as well as civil discourse and dialogue. Being able to communicate civilly across racial and political divides is crucial to transcending our differences and solving the deeply rooted problems we still face in Mississippi.

We are divided not just physically, but also in our understanding of our past, our assessment of our situation today, and in our vision for the future.

During the convening, one of the small groups was particularly inspired by an exhibit we funded about young black men in the Delta. The "R.O.O.T.S. of Sunflower County" project trained the young men to tell their own story and to collect the stories and experiences of others in their community which they then used as a basis for an exhibit. One exhibit panel included a statement from one of the young men about the train tracks that bisected his town, and how growing up on one side of the tracks, he always felt uncomfortable and unwelcome on the other side. The group saw these physical tracks as a powerful symbol of the mental divide that still plagues many of our communities. We are divided not just physically, but also in our understanding of our past, our assessment of our situation today, and in our vision for the future. They concluded that any progress on race must be rooted in overcoming these mental "train tracks" to create a united community.

As exhausting as the convening was for myself and the MHC staff, who did a great job in planning and carrying out the meeting, we left that day energized and inspired. Inspired by the incredible people and organizations who are committed to improving Mississippi by bridging these racial divides, and inspired by the realization that the humanities have a central role to play in this difficult work. We are grateful to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for supporting this initiative and to our partners for the extraordinary work they do.