As with many organizations seeking to serve movements for well-being and justice, each year at Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) begins with a time of reflection on vision. Across gatherings with the Board of Directors, frontline staff, and key partners in the field, efforts to align energy and ensure clarity consume the calendars of leaders. This year has been no different, except that it has been very different.
In January, we gathered CDF board members from across the nation in Washington, D.C., staff from 11 locations virtually, and CDF Freedom Schools® executive directors from 30 states in Clinton, TN, and convened with nearly 200 movement and faith leaders in Atlanta, GA. In February, our team hosted 60 congregational leaders for retreat and reflection on young people’s concerns at CDF’s Alex Haley Farm, and our team engaged hundreds of policymakers with children’s priorities in state capitols across the country.
In every setting—with every partner, and every policymaker, and every parent, and every pastor, and every participant, and every parishioner, in every place—we lifted the vision of Beloved Community. We asserted that this elusive expression of human connection, marked by peace, justice and love, is both required for our children to thrive and the sign of flourishing youth.
To affirming nods, audible “Amens,” and curious inquiry in strategic conversions, we also owned the fact that it is harder to see this vision of Beloved Community today than it was just a few months ago. It is hard for others to hear us speak of such promise amid such peril.
- As Congress passes a budget with cuts to Medicaid, which covers 37 million children…
- As advocates work to defend funding and reclaim the mission of public education…
- As the most diverse collection of high school students in history ponders the meaning of diversity rollbacks from their government on their personhood…
- As the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the Administration for Children and Families, is directed to cut thousands of workers in mass firings…
- As Executive overreach and governing homogeneity in America today stirs memories of apartheid oversight in South Africa from a generation ago…
it is difficult to gain a glimpse of Desmond Tutu’s “rainbow people of God” much less Martin King’s Beloved Community. Yet, we must advance this vision vigorously, speak of it openly, and build it relationally. Because the joy, dignity, and safety of our children depend upon it.
In this moment of American history, the Beloved Community is both a place of safety and an alternative witness to what our children, youth, and families experience. Our challenge in this environment is not to lose sight of the vision, but to consider new approaches to bring it into fruition. This calls us—especially as we close Black History month—to practices of Sankofa (reaching back into our heritage to move forward for a greater future). In 2016, the late Rev. C.T. Vivian, a colleague of Dr. King and our Founder and President Emerita Marian Wright Edelman, addressed servant leaders gathered by Children’s Defense Fund and charged us to be courageous, curious, and creative. “You can’t create the Beloved Community on yesterday’s understandings,” he said. “It’s up to us to create the world we really want.” It is up to us.
I began this week in conversation about CDF with two elders of our tradition (89 and 90 years old, respectively). Each worked with Rev. Vivian in the contemporary Civil Rights Movement and for years through CDF at Haley Farm. Meanwhile, our strategy team hosted a “visioning session” for all staff, projecting 50 years into the future for children and youth. Through the deliberate, reflective, encouraging speech of the elders I gained confidence that the hope-filled visions of our energized young staff team will be successful in crafting a community where our children sing and dance.
Join us as we build it…
For our children,
Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson
President and CEO