Two nonprofit organizations launched a series to support the Black community. Their goal is to not only bring awareness to the inequality, but to provide solutions.
“With this COVID-19 pandemic, the Black community has been hit hard, extremely hard. Whether it’s loss of jobs, poor access to certain healthcare benefits, and so on,” said Jamaal May, Executive Director of The Albert Wilson Foundation.
Jamaal says they launched the series “Unspoken”, in partnership with the nonprofit HANDY, to shed a light and bring awareness to the not so obvious inequality and injustices Black Americans face everyday.
“Last week was over policing in Black communities and we discussed Black housing and real estate. A lot of things we discussed were in general what Black people face in general. How it ties into the system and how systemic racism impacts housing and healthcare and so on,” said Jamaal.
“How can we partner together to make that system that we see a flaw in, and the system itself has admitted that there’s a flaw there, how do we make that system better as a community,” said Kirk Brown, CEO of HANDY.
Kirk Brown says each week they will host prominent business and community leaders as panel speakers who have relevant and relatable experience to discuss that week’s topic.
This Thursday, July 23rd, at 6 p.m. the session is called “Discovering Black”.
“It’s a candid discussion with community leaders about the day you were of color. I’ve had this conversations so many times with my friends, colleagues and people of color, it’s not a foreign topic to them. They remember their day. What did that do to how you carried yourself throughout your journey as a human being is significantly tied to the sociological trauma that we experience. Which has made itself very obvious in the past year,” said Kirk.
Anyone can join.
“I think it’s important for everyone to know that this is not just a moment, it needs to be a movement,” added Jamaal.
Unspoken is a 12-week series and you can catch it live every week on The Albert Wilson Foundation’s Facebook page. It includes live questions and feedback from viewers for candid and open discussions.
Jamaal says if you’re interested in being a panel speaker in the panel, you can email him at jamaal@albertwilsonfoundation.org.