La June Montgomery Tabron, president of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, has gotten a lot of calls in the past week from mayors and governors. The reason: In the wake of the Charlottesville violence and the debate over Confederate monuments, city and state leaders across the country hope to borrow Kellogg’s much-praised approach to helping New Orleans battle racism.
Several years ago, the foundation provided a grant to the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. The institute, based at the University of Mississippi, brought New Orleans residents of different backgrounds together for a series of structured talks, called “story circles” or “truth circles” Participants were encouraged to candidly voice their ideas and experiences involving race and asked to listen deeply and suspend judgment about what others said.
The talks, which began without a set agenda, contributed to city officials’ decision to take down New Orleans’s Confederate memorials.
Kellogg used that work to build a larger grant-making program for curbing racism, called Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation. In July, the foundation committed $24 million to organizations in 14 cities. The recipients will tackle symptoms of racism, including economic disparity, unequal treatment under the law, and damaging stereotypes based on race.
Grantees will apply the approach that worked in New Orleans, gathering a broad array of participants — including elected officials, faith leaders, philanthropists, young people, grass-roots activists, and business leaders — for conversations Ms. Tabron says will be grounded in the belief that “truth-telling” and the power of sharing stories can pave the way to deeper understanding and empathy among people on different sides of an issue.
Following the events in Charlottesville, Ms. Tabron spoke to The Chronicle about how Kellogg’s approach can help bind racial wounds and, she hopes, prevent more violence. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How did Kellogg help the effort to remove Civil War monuments in New Orleans succeed?
A: We supported [the Winter Institute’s] development and facilitation of what is called the Welcome Table, which is a manifestation of a truth circle.
We supported the Winter Institute in taking that concept from Mississippi to New Orleans with the same vision of healing through stories and truth-telling. There’s never an agenda as part of this process other than bringing people together, discussing commonalities, sharing stories and narratives, and understanding how we can live together in respectful relationships.
The New Orleans agenda came as a result of people understanding the impact of narratives and wanting to create a new narrative for the city that would embrace everyone.
Q: How can something like this soften the hearts of people bitterly opposed to one another?
A: We brought people into that conversation who would not have by themselves chosen to be part of a healing circle.
The first thing we did was share Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns. If you’ve read that book, you might think it is about the northern migration of African-Americans. But it was about immigration as well as northern migration. People in the room of many backgrounds resonated with that story.
The rest of the process was much easier because it brought people together and brought a level of commonality and shared experience into the room instead of a vibe that was defensive, judgmental, or prescriptive.
Q: But isn’t economic equality needed first in any effort to address race?
A: Truth and racial healing are prerequisites. That is a starting point.
The truth-telling and healing creates a stronger bond and human connection and the relationship that’s needed to tackle issues of the law, segregation, and the economy. Tough work requires relationships. You can’t just dive in to these polarized opinions without uncovering ... how our views are biased by structures of racism.
Q: So are you pushing for truth-telling sessions across the country as communities struggle with whether to take down Confederate statues?
A: When it gets equated to just the movement of monuments, that’s limiting and too narrow for the potential of this work. A simple movement of a monument without changing the hearts and minds of people is not enduring as far as jettisoning racism from this society. Unfortunately, the monuments have become a lightning rod.
The goal is to create a society where all people are valued and respected. Through story and truth-telling, we want to get to the point where we’re not addressing physical symbols but we’re addressing practices perpetuated by people. Hopefully, as they change their hearts and minds, their decisions about structural racism and opportunity will change.
Q: President Trump said both sides were to blame in Charlottesville. By not taking a stronger stand against white supremacists, did the president’s response hinder your work?
A: We believe this change is going to happen at the local level. We believe there can be an echo chamber across the nation by local communities choosing to be different. Our approach is one that is on the ground.
Q: Will you now expand into new cities?
A: We’ve gotten calls this week from several cities’ mayors, and from governors. We want to learn from the 14 places we’ve funded. We want those places to gain traction. Our vision, of course, is that there will be many other places.
If we see an opportunity, we may broaden our support, and we hope others step in and support this work as well. We’ve created an implementation guide. The goal is to get as much how-to material in the hands of as many people possible. This is a moment in this nation where this work is desperately needed. As we can see, the alternative does not bode well. I don’t think we should tolerate another death. We should change the approach.
Q: What gives you reason to hope that solving America’s racial problems rests on our ability to share stories?
A: The media likes to promote the more compelling stories of fight. I believe there is a different narrative out there. When I see people who have not been part of the long journey but attend a healing moment and say that their life has been transformed forever, I know that this is going to make a difference.
I gave a commencement speech at Ithaca College this year. The entire commencement was focused on truth and healing. [Before the speech,] one of the trustees of the college, a white male, stood up, crossed his arms and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was ready for a fight. At the end of the dialogue, as I was walking to the stage, he pulled me aside and said, “You’ve changed my mind. ... I’m a different person now.”
