An Open Letter to the Community

Words Fail. History echoes.

This is a day when I would rather not write anything. This is a moment when words are clearly inadequate to the task. Yesterday was the most mournful Monday in America that I can personally remember.

I was born in the 1960’s. Racial and social unrest were tearing through the country. We were at war. Our government was found to be corrupt, and our country was divided. Young people were protesting, mothers were weeping, our foundational ideals were quaking.

Written on the heart of that decade is also the founding of my organization, N Street Village. The 14th Street corridor where our main building sits was burned and looted in the riots after the murder of Dr. King. The mentally disabled were newly homelessness and a vicious drug epidemic was emerging. A new poverty was ravaging us, and its claws were scratching a line right down the racial diamond of our city.

The thunderous echo of history is unmistakable.

As I watched events unfold this weekend I kept recalling the Langston Hughes poem I memorized in high school — “what happens to a dream deferred?” We are proving out the answer. No — it doesn’t shrivel. Yes — it does explode.

I am a white leader of an organization that serves mostly Black women. That’s because we serve people in…