Americans on the front line of the Covid-19 pandemic — the medical staff, the grocery-store workers, the parents educating their kids at home — are rightly heralded every day for their heroic acts. As in so many earlier tragedies, ordinary people are stepping forward in extraordinary ways to support, even strengthen their communities.
But there is another group that also deserves our recognition. These are the community leaders and advocates who work in public libraries, arts and cultural organizations, local foundations, faith institutions, and school districts. These are the very same individuals we will need to rely on to respond to the pain and rage so many Americans are expressing about issues of race and justice.
When schools were forced to shut down in response to Covid-19, local museums stepped in to provide history lessons for students to learn from home. Cooperative extensions and 4-H groups offered children’s activities online. Local foundations organized community leaders and groups to collectively respond to Covid-19’s myriad challenges. Despite closing their doors, public libraries provided online story hours for children and served as critical information hubs for local residents.
None of those working in these organizations are the kind of national figures we see on TV. They are the individuals who get things done in the civic trenches.
I am in touch with many of them every day through my work. I recently held a two-hour online workshop with nearly 60 school superintendents from across Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, all of whom described the enormous stress they felt to come up with plans for properly finishing the school year. But there was also a sense of hope in our conversations. We discussed how school leaders can use Covid-19 to forge a fundamentally different network of relationships with community groups and residents.
We all recognized that a new, lasting culture of shared responsibility can emerge from the pandemic, but that it will require seizing this opportunity in two important ways. First, we need to recognize that many of the challenges faced by schools and other institutions require marshaling our collective resources. Second, the pandemic underscores just how much Americans have longed to be part of something larger than themselves — to step forward and reclaim a sense of agency in their own lives and the lives of their communities. We need to remember that and build on it after this health crisis ends.
Maintaining this outpouring of generosity and common purpose won’t be easy. After so many disasters — both natural (like the pandemic) and those produced by humans (like mass shootings) — we inevitably declare a new commitment to working differently, only to revert to where we were before the disaster.
This time, we can and must take another route.
Simply wanting to “return to normal” isn’t enough. “Normal” wasn’t all that good for many Americans. Growing economic, educational, and other disparities held people back and kept them down. Political polarization divided us and ripped at our civic fabric. Many people lost faith that they could achieve the American Dream.
Instead of going back to normal, let’s go back to better.
Here are the questions I’ll be asking local leaders across the country to figure out what makes most sense now, and I hope you will join me in adding ideas and asking players in your communities:
- What issues are they wrestling with in responding to the crisis and creating a sustainable path toward recovery and renewal?
- What role do they believe their organization can play to help their communities move forward? What other groups and individuals do they believe they must now work with to make progress?
- What are their biggest concerns about how their community might respond to this crisis as it seeks to recover and rebuild?
- What aspirations do they have for how their community can emerge from this crisis stronger?
- What will it take for us to create a new, lasting can-do spirit in America?
After my colleagues and I ask these questions, we will share what we learn so we can amplify the ideas we are hearing locally on a national scale.
I have worked in many communities that had to pivot from trauma and despair to healing and hope — from Flint, Mich., to Newtown, Conn. In these places, local leaders and advocates were instrumental in devising plans that helped their communities emerge from the pain. Today is no different. To take effective action, let’s listen to those frontline heroes who build community each and every day.
Richard C. Harwood is the president and founder of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation in Bethesda, Md., and author of the new book “Stepping Forward: A Positive Practical Path to Transform Our Communities and Our Lives.”