PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — This year's National Day of Racial Healing will fall after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Organizers hope this will inspire people to take action towards equity in their own communities.
Lajune Montgomery Tabron, with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, said the National Day of Racial Healing was created six years ago, based on the idea that healing is the path to a more racially equitable society.
"We ask people to come together to conduct conversations around healing, which means that you are coming together with your own stories, sharing your truth and your stories, whether it be pain or trauma or success," she said.
They will host a virtual event Tuesday on YouTube, featuring John Legend and many others. Organizers hope the event will help jumpstart difficult conversations. Local events will also be held through Rutgers University.
"What we hope is that people, when they listen in, will learn a lot about healing, will learn how to conduct healing conversations, and will actually see the healing is happening in this country," she said.
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Tabron said the civic uprisings from 2020 opened up a point of awareness that's continued through the pandemic, and now it's time to do the work.
"I think we've been able to help people see how this inequality hurts all of us. So now I believe we're in a place where people want to do something. They just don't know what to do, or how to do it. And part of our work, and this day of racial healing, is a way to show people how to take action.