April on Freedom Road
What happens when we all come together?
Dear Friends,
One of our podcast guests this month, Morgan Harper Nichols, recently posted a poem on her instagram that begins:
The wonderful thing about a river Is that even the smallest drops of water contribute to the flow. Even the smallest drops of rain, practically unseen and untouchable by the human eye and hand is a part of that river.
The whole thing is well worth clicking through to read and see the beautiful artwork that accompanies it. But let’s just sit with this idea for a moment that everyone contributes. This is such a vital thing to hold onto because injustice very often feels too big and we can feel so small in the face of it. But when each one of us comes together? All those little drops become a mighty flow that cannot be stopped.
Have you ever noticed around where you live that rivers and streams can be dammed, redirected, and put to various uses, but they cannot be stopped. The water will go somewhere. Humans have to work around water, plan around water. Water will not be ignored.
So it is with us when we commit to whatever actions we can manage in the struggle for equity. We add our drop to the river and together, one day, we shall overcome.
On the Freedom Road Substack
Podcast Episodes
“When I start to worry how to make the most of my time, and when I fear my dreams don't mean anything, I look back at how far I have come and I am reminded that I myself am the dream.”—Morgan Harper Nichols
Hear Morgan Harper Nichols read the rest of this powerful poem from her new book, You Are Only Just Beginning, on the Freedom Road Podcast available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you are a paid subscriber, click over to hear an exclusive behind the scenes conversation here:
“It takes courage to just simply say: I'm done. And to simply leave. You don't owe anybody. And it’s like they create this whole culture, like you owe people, like you owe explanations, like, you got to do this now.
And literally you don't have to go there anymore. You can just say this is harmful to me and I don't wanna be here.”—Ally Henny
Don’t miss the rest of this dynamic and timely conversation, available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts.
Subscriber only segment:
Freedom Road is excited to have been working with Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), which is a pillar church in the greater Philadelphia area. We just wrapped up the first two phases of our partnership, working on diversity, equity, belonging, and inclusion. They are celebrating their 150th anniversary and beginning the visioning process for the next 150 years serving and building the Beloved Community.
In February, we launched our work with The Carter Center to move institutions forward in the work of truth seeking, truth listening, and truth telling. We recently met in Montgomry, Alabama where we had the pleasure of talking with Bryan Stevenson from Equal Justice Initiative about truth telling and institutional change.
For more about what we do in consulting for organizations, visit our website.
Global Writer’s Group
Since April of 2020 as the world closed down, the Global Writer’s Group has been meeting via zoom every Saturday, with time off only for Christmas and New Years. Early in our time together, Lisa Sharon Harper charged the group with the task of “writing a new world into existence” and over time we have truly seen this in action. We have taken on the task of changing the world, and of course what changed first was ourselves. We as a group have become better writers over this time, but also better people, finding true community in the sacred sharing of ourselves with each other and the world.
We accept members on a rolling basis: it’s never too late to join the community. Prepare to find your life changed for the better as you sharpen your writing skills and prepare to bring your words to the world.
Collectively, we have published six books, have several writers who’ve recently become agented and/or are under contract for upcoming books, and many, many journal articles over the past three years with several more books in the works.
The Narrative Gap, as coined by Lisa Sharon Harper, is the distance between the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, including how we got here and what it will take to make things right. In our world today, competing narratives vie for our loyalty, dividing society and the church, therefore making justice impossible. Our mission is help communities shrink the narrative gap, by identifying core issues and building community capacity so they might work toward common solutions for a just world. Here on the Freedom Road Substack, we can converse together on ways to shrink that narrative gap and help ensure everyones’ stories are told.
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