Beyond Good Intentions: Becoming Trustworthy White Allies

In this year’s Martin Luther King Memorial Lecture, Melanie S. Morrison will explore how white people who aspire to be antiracist allies can develop the courage, strength, and resiliency to become what Rev. Dr. Ruby Sales calls “long distance runners for racial justice.” Morrison’s lecture, titled “Beyond Good Intentions: Becoming Trustworthy White Allies,” will name the challenges white people face on the path to allyship—and the practices that make genuine partnership possible: moving through shame and guilt, building accountable relationships with people of color, stepping out of social segregation, investigating suppressed ancestral stories, taking action to dismantle systemic racism, and rooting the work in love and cross-racial collaboration.

Morrison will draw on her work as executive director of Allies for Change, a national network of social justice educators, and on her experience as lead facilitator of Doing Our Own Work, an intensive anti-racism seminar for white people that has attracted hundreds of participants. 

This event will take place at Avondale Regional Library, 40th Street South. If you have questions, please contact Catherine Oseas at Catherine.Oseas@cobpl.org