Newsletter

Sankofa Impact Fall 2024

Posted on by sankofaimpact

“The caged bird sings   
with a fearful trill   
of things unknown   
but longed for still   
and his tune is heard   
on the distant hill   
for the caged bird   
sings of freedom.”
                     —Maya Angelou

My Beloved Community,

I could write my year-end letter to you, my community, and try to capture the past year. I could simply list the places we visited, the titles of the people we met with, the presentations we attended and those we facilitated. Each of our experiences were far more than just an agenda or a script or an itinerary—they were mirrors reflecting truths we needed to see and windows offering glimpses into new possibilities. Every single interaction felt like that. They were so meaningful and I will hold them with me forever. In many ways, 2024 has been wonderful. However…
Over the past few weeks, my soul has been cracked wide open. 

In late October, BIPOC ED Coalition invited me into the woods of Whidbey Island as part of a cohort retreat. My time there was beyond anything I might have expected. It was a challenging, messy, and a profoundly healing time with a lovely group of people. I have been seeking community with those whom I could be in deep knowing and understanding. It feels as though every conversation, every opportunity, was like a push toward somewhere beyond myself. I found this and more on Whidbey Island. The food, meditation, and dialogue was everything.

As November 5th drew closer, I felt hopeful. I share an identity with Kamala Harris and many of her policy plans aligned with my personal values. Conversely, the other candidate is not someone I would ever want to be in a room with, let alone choose to run the country. As the results became clear, I felt stunned, disappointed, and confused. Timing was not in my favor, as I needed to be on a flight at 5am the morning after the election. I spent that day traveling to Louisiana with a mixture of fatigue and suspicion. Utterly down.

I spent the next eight days in New Orleans, and truthfully, there is no other place I would have rather been. I was part of the facilitation team for Gathering By The River: A Relational Repair Convening held by the Compton Foundation. Every moment for me was about trying to make sense of it all—anticipating what would come next, but also wanting/needing to have a say in what would come next. And what that next would be. Every moment for me included a yearning to feel safe, needed, and whole.

I could have been doing this in our Sankofa Impact office in Seattle, but instead, I was with about 100 others, holding space for the possibilities of relational repair and various ways that reparations could look. New Orleans has always called to me. My ancestors speak to me there. I feel closer to them there. And we called on them many times throughout Gathering By The River. It only felt right that relational repair is also about repairing all that was wrong and harmful for them.

The other reality of this work is about being in relationship—with all of you. It’s about witnessing moments of pain and joy, exhaustion and resilience, questions and answers, anger and hope. I see you, I value your dignity and worth. Because you are, I am.

The “work” is not just ongoing but evolving, spiraling back onto itself, beginning again in a way that feels different, with a new kind of energy. When I think about my time at the retreat, the election, my time in New Orleans, I can’t help but feel hopeful. My healing is your healing. Mary J Blige said, “Life can be only what you make it.” As our ancestors before us, let us pick ourselves up and make this life extraordinary. 

Felicia 

Shout Outs

  • Dr. Beloved ’24 for receiving the Community Healing award from the Community Healing Network
  • Erika Samson ’14 for receiving the UW Department of Communication Early Career Award
  • Emmett Till Interpretive Center for their inspiring work, including the new Emmett Till Memory Project website
  • Stephanie Johnson-Toliver for being a 2024 Champions of Unity Awardee
  • CHOOSE180 for hosting another great Evening of Choice event and for their tireless work on behalf of our youth
  • Tascha Johnson ’22 We see you
  • Sharon Chism ’22 for helping to facilitate a powerful gathering in New Orleans with the Compton Foundation
  • Voters for showing up to the polls and making their voices heard
  • Washington Women’s Foundation for partnering and for knowing that ain’t no bomb cyclone gonna stop us

The history of the United States resides within our collective memory largely through stories. Many vital stories are hidden. This is unacceptable. To understand Black history in the United States is to know that progress and struggle go hand in hand and we believe in remembering and uplifting stories of resilience, community, and profound love.

We must tell the unvarnished truth. The United States is racist, sexist, transphobic, xenophobic, and under the harmful sedation of capitalism. We know all this because we know our history. Politicians and public figures often respond to social injustices by claiming that, “this is not who we are.” The recent presidential election results confirm what many of us know in our head and hearts—this is exactly who we are. 

History demonstrates that those in power will act upon their worst instincts and harm people to maintain the status quo. For hundreds of years, the violent actions of white landowning men have called upon our collective resilience. When we visit Whitney Plantation outside New Orleans, we learn about enslaved people who slowed or stopped labor completely, snuck food for loved ones, spat in meals they were forced to serve, ran away from the terror and bondage, and violently rebelled against white oppressors. Resistance was acted upon with little to no hope of relenting in their lifetime.

The results of the election have left many in our community angry, dysregulated, and something far beyond sick and tired. Things seem bleak and there is no guarantee that things will be ok going forward. When we travel to Memphis, we learn about the sanitation workers that went on strike there in 1968 to gain better working conditions and wages. They stopped work and relied on each other without any assurance that change would come. The community banded together and eventually, the white power structure in Memphis acknowledged the workers’ humanity and relented. When we organize, we win.

What is most personal is most universal. If you have felt rage, know that many others have been enraged. If you have cried, know that we have cried with you. If you have just needed a minute, know that we have taken several. If you are feeling determined, know that we are building an army of light that will overcome any darkness. No political election, the elimination of DEI programs, or book banning will erase history.

James Baldwin said, “Love has never been a popular movement. And no one’s ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course, you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also you.”

We need to see each other. This moment desperately calls out for community. Community that we can be sure of. Make that call to an old friend. Attend a community event. Seek out alignment and you will find it. We can be sure of each other and we will need to be. The algorithm will not save us. As June Jordan said, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” 

When we travel to Mississippi, we often visit the grave of Fannie Lou Hamer. She is a cornerstone of Sankofa Impact. Born as a sharecropper, Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights activist, known for her work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), advocating for voting rights, racial equality, and economic justice in the 1960s. She was an everyday activist. She believed that our liberation was bound to one another. It must be said, this is also who we are. 

There may be no more profound history lesson than this: We are connected to everyone before us and to all those yet to come and we have a responsibility to honor the past through our resilience, creativity, and profound love so that this world can become a place worth living in. A world where we all, ALL of us are free. 

UW Undergraduates x Sankofa Impact

This past summer, Sankofa Impact partnered with the University of Washington and the Community Engagement and Leadership Education (CELE) Center, offering an immersive “study away” experience that centered on place-based learning. Students embarked on a four-week bus journey across ten states in the South. Through “Honors American South: Foundations of Black Culture, Social Movements and Collective Liberation,” they explored the legacies of enslavement, racial terror, civil rights, mass incarceration and contemporary abolition activism—making history a shared, living narrative.

We recently had a reunion at Othello Commons, (shout out to LeVera!) with most of our students and leadership team in attendance. Folks spoke about the impact of the trip, how it is actively shaping their lives, and the actions it is inspiring. One of our students shared, “This trip changed my life. To not only learn our history, but to visit it, and learn from people who lived through it was something I will carry with me forever.”

We are so deeply proud of the students and all those committed to building a broad community that will lead to our collective liberation.

Sankofa Impact is grateful for the dozens of community members who have stopped by our office and spent time with us for Coffee x Vinyl each month. From Beyoncé to Bob Marley,  Mary J. Blige to Aretha Franklin, we have truly appreciated opening our doors and being in community with you all. We understand that it is in uncertain times when we need community the most. Sankofa Impact is proud to create a safe space available for our community to convene, communicate, and find joy in music. 

In the spirit of rest and rejuvenation, Coffee x Vinyl will reconvene in January 2025. Sankofa Impact looks forward to continuing to use our office for gathering, community, and conversations over coffee.

Philanthropy Northwest’s Pilgrimage In Place

Nancy Sanabria is the Vice President of Program Strategies at Philanthropy Northwest. In our latest blog post she details her experience in Sankofa Impact’s Pilgrimage-in-Place workshop. She writes, 

“When coming back from a break, we noticed that the room had been rearranged in two long sets of rows with an aisle down the middle, much like a bus. Nathan Bean and Felicia Ishino led us on a virtual bus ride through Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, lifting up moments in history unknown by many in our group. 

We learned about the Gang of Four in Seattle, which refers to four men who founded Seattle’s Minority Executive Directors’ Coalition. This demonstration of BIPOC solidarity was a force to be reckoned with and their contributions still impact the community to this day. We learned about the Japanese internment camps in Washington and Idaho and held our collective breaths as Felicia shared that her own ancestry is linked to these devastating circumstances and resilient people. We saw faces of Black Portland families and learned about the history of Albina and the efforts happening today to support the community. 

The Pilgrimage-In-Place proved to be a profound experience, where we expanded our knowledge and understanding of the historical context of racism in our very region. We were reminded that the ripple effects are present to this day, and that philanthropy has a role to play in moving power and resources to historically underinvested groups. The memory of that experience was such a significant part of our re-entry into bringing our network together in person. Could a real-live northwest bus trip be next on the list?”

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QUESTIONS?
Feel free to reach out to us with any questions or comments.

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