The President's Message 2/27/23

How do we overcome injustice and grow into the leaders we long to be?

Ms. Quadai Palmer

2/27/20231 min read

“If your success is defined as being well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference, then we don’t want successful leaders. We want great leaders who love the people enough and respect the people enough to be unbought, unbound, unafraid, and unintimidated to tell the truth.” – Dr. Cornel West

How do we sum up our last heart and black history month newsletter? There’s no better way than talking about the condition of the heart and how it pertains to social injustice. Dr. West’s quote makes it clear that our society isn’t interested in successful leaders. They want leaders who will turn a blind eye to the injustices in our communities.

What sets us apart from those kinds of leaders? We take steps every day to leave our communities in better condition than we found them. Our dream isn’t to make millions

Although, millions would be nice. We are here working to improve the lives of others. This quote is a heart check. Where do you stand? Are you on the side of turning a blind eye when it’s convenient for you or standing up at every opportunity to make a difference?

The work we do is very fulfilling but it’s not easy. We have to fight within our communities, ourselves and with our own desires. The fight within ourselves is the hardest to bear. We long to make change in our communities a reality but, our capacity may not always match. Some of us struggle to know what’s within our control and what’s not. It can be difficult to cope with the reality that we may not be able to do EVERYTHING!

So how do we work through that? What do we do? Build relationships with other organizations. The partnerships we build should be exclusive to the work we do. Our partners should be able to bring something new to the community we can’t offer. A lot of times, we build relationships because we do the same work or serve the same population. This creates major gaps in resources for our communities. If we all learn to work together and serve, we can begin to make great changes in our communities.