Following a trip in December 2016 to Carlsbad, California for Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) training, a handful of Kalamazoo agencies, organizations (including ISAAC) and the Kalamazoo Community Foundation returned to plan Kalamazoo’s First Annual National Day of Racial Healing in January 2017. TRHT is a community-based process to plan for and bring about transformational and sustainable change, and to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism. It seeks to unearth and jettison the deeply held, and often unconscious, beliefs created by racism—the main one being the belief in a “hierarchy of human values.”

ISAAC is proud to have been at the planning table in 2017 and on design teams for Racial Healing Work, Implicit Bias Sessions and other sector work, such as Separation. Adrian Vazquez, Executive Director of El Concilio (an ISAAC member) and our Executive Director Dr. Charlae Davis signed up to be Racial Healing Practitioners to facilitate community Racial Healing Circles, a fundamental step in this process. In November 2017 ISAAC was part of a TRHT Kick-off event and Visioning Sessions. ISAAC leaders who have participated so far encourage the rest of us to participate in 2018.”

TRHT builds upon the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s decades-long commitment to advancing racial healing and racial equity throughout the US. The Kalamazoo Community Foundation is the local convener of TRHT, and the host of local partners include SHARE, The Douglass Community Association, Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan, El Concilio, YWCA, Michigan United, United Way, Kalamazoo College Arcus Center, The Fetzer Institute, ERACCE (Eliminating Racism & Claiming/Celebrating Equity), KydNet, City of Kalamazoo, ISAAC and more.