Ending Black Oppression and Celebrating Black Dignity with Alencia Johnson

Today we open a new chapter of For the Love, where we’ll celebrate the beauty, wholeness, and dignity of Black Lives. At the same time, we’ll also explore the roots of the recent growing advocacy and racial reckoning with experts who will guide us through different facets of what it’s like to be Black in America—in education, health, culture, the church. We’ll unpack how the Black experience differs from the white experience, with true understanding of the gaps in these collective experiences becoming the catalyst for necessary change. Leading off this series is Alencia Johnson, who is the chief impact officer and founder of 1063 West Broad, a company focusing on social impact, brand engagement, and communication strategy (you may remember Alencia from the #sharethemicnow campaign, when she took over Jen’s Instagram to share some deep truths). Alencia helps us examine the intersectionality of racism and gender as she unspools more than 400 years of Black oppression in America, and helps us examine what our country could look like if we invested in the safety and health of ALL communities. Alencia longs to see action behind the words of those who have actual power to create change, and challenges us to implement that change swiftly to systems that uphold racism—and most importantly, sustain the change. Tackling some hard-hitting topics, Alencia touches on white fragility, voter suppression, and what “defunding the police” really means as she helps us imagine how our actions toward these problems might mirror the actions of an aggrieved, change-making, table-flipping Jesus in such a time as this.

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