A Spiritual Path to Unity & Social Justice

We hope you’ll join us for our February Overcoming Racism gathering—right in the middle of Black History Month—for an afternoon of learning, conversation, and connection. 

We’ll be joined by Dr. Guy Mount, a historian whose work helps make sense of how race, power, and history still shape our lives today.

Guy is an award-winning professor at Wake Forest, deeply involved in reparations work across the country, and currently writing a book that tells a global history of emancipation through the lived experiences of Black workers moving across borders and empires. 

That sounds big—and it is—but what makes his work so compelling is how grounded and human it feels. He spoke with us back in September 2024 on Reparations and it was one of the most energized programs we've had.

Every month we gather... An essential element of the process will be honest and truthful discourse about current conditions of racism and their causes, and understanding, in particular, the deeply entrenched notions of anti-Blackness that pervade our society. 

A documentary on less well-known aspects of King's work will be followed by small group discussion. We'll take this time to review the discussion series over the last 3 years and consult together on how we move through 2026.

"Justice is a capacity of the human soul. It enables each of us to see the world through our own eyes and not through the eyes of others... "

Race and Gun Violence

Tiffany Garner, Policy Advocate with Futures Without Violence, along with her colleague Leila Milani, will present compelling work on reducing gun violence and the unique challenges of how that work intersects with racism. Our preconceived notions and bias around fear, crime and its connection to the Black community is investigated and illumined.

Join us Sunday, December 21 for a powerful afternoon of learning and discourse.

2:00-6:00pm at the Charlotte Bahá’í Center

“The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men.” — Bahá’u’lláh

No two people have the same lived experience. Learning that your experience and understanding of the world is vastly different than someone else's and is shaped by the social construct, forces & messages around you is a first steps towards overcoming racism. Because racism continues to work its evil upon this nation, an essential element of the process will work to learn about current conditions and their causes, and understanding, in particular, the deeply entrenched notions of anti-Blackness that pervade our society. 

MORE RESOURCES

Articles, movies and books are one source of information to build the capacity to truly hear and acknowledge the voices of those who have directly suffered from the effects of racism. 

 It is not acceptable to expect those people so weighed down by injustice to also educate us on their experience or what needs to be done by white people . There is plenty of available information to begin doing the work required. We invite you to consider the following to begin:

Article: Both Black and White, and Neither 

Book: 'White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide'

Book: 'The Invention of the White Race'

Documentary: I Am Not Your Negro

Documentary: Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise

The 400-Year Holocaust: White America’s Legal, Psychopathic, and Sociopathic Black Genocide - and the Revolt Against Critical Race Theory examines and discusses the relationships between the legal history of anti-blackness and Whiteness through colonialism and the United States, and its impacts on present-day America. It centers anti-blackness as the core tenet of "racism" in White America and amplifies its relationship to the inherent "value" of Whiteness (i.e., White identity, White culture, White institutions, etc.). The text repositions and critically examines four core White American economic, moral, socio-cultural, and ideological institutions: human sex trafficking, rape, pedophilia, and violence (murder).

It positions racism as a disease/illness (i.e., psychosis, psychopathy, sociopathy, etc.), rather than a mere "social construct"; and amplifies the significance of anti-blackness and Whiteness within and throughout White American institutions (i.e., legality, politics, language, economics, etc.), past and present.

Link for more on Dante King

A film directed by Stephanie Welch that examines the history of the eugenics movement in the United States and its perceived resurgence through contemporary genetics. The film argues that the belief in biological determinism—the idea that some groups, races, and individuals are inherently superior and more deserving of rights—has threatened the American Dream since its inception, being used to justify the disenfranchisement of women, Black people, and Native Americans. It claims that modern genetics represents a new form of eugenics, where the concept of the "gene" is misused to justify social inequality and resist progress in racial and gender equality.

See more on our Resources Page

Join us for a discussion on Environmental Justice with cleanAIREnc. This month’s Overcoming Racism discussion explores environmental racism; how race, place, and power intersect to determine who breathes clean air, who has safe drinking water, and who bears the burden of pollution and environmental neglect. 

“We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions.”

Join us for a discussion on Environmental Justice with cleanAIREnc. This month’s Overcoming Racism discussion explores environmental racism; how race, place, and power intersect to determine who breathes clean air, who has safe drinking water, and who bears the burden of pollution and environmental neglect. 

“We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions.”