Participation and people power are key ingredients for change
By Color Of Change staff
How do we create a more just world?
That was the central question posed to Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson and fellow panelists Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister for public theology and transformation with Middle Church, and Kai Newkirk, founder and president of For All, during an event surrounding the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday in January.
The three were part of the virtual, two-day Beloved Community Global Summit presented by the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Their panel, “What the World Faces Now: A Multi-faceted Crisis of Inhumanity,” was moderated by Karin Ryan, senior policy advisor on human rights at The Carter Center, and touched on the crisis of democracy and defending against racism, white supremacy and authoritarianism within the United States as well as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The panelists discussed some of the critical shifts needed in thinking, understanding and action in order to get closer to Dr. King’s vision of the beloved community.
Robinson stressed the need to disrupt the incentive structures that create and maintain systems in which injustice and inequality are profitable.
“How do we fight for an empathetic and compassionate justice system, health care system, voting and democracy system? How do we ensure at the heart that these systems actually produce and advance … the types of things we want to see in our society?” Robinson said. “None of that happens without participation and people power and people coming together.”
He said nothing changes unless those in power are “nervous about disappointing your community.”
So at the heart of change for Black and Brown communities, Robinson said, is the need for people to get together and build collective power — “to build the type of power that changes rules.”
To listen to the panel’s conversation, click here. The panel starts at the 1:58:30 mark.