The National Collaborative for Health Equity (NCHE) celebrated the 8th Annual National Day of Racial Healing with groundbreaking activities, such as releasing a series of scholarly articles amplifying the value of connecting across racial, ethnic, and other perceived differences to embrace a shared humanity. And, working with publisher Mary Ann Libert Inc., NCHE also released a roundtable discussion on research showing that many Americans seek unity and want to embrace racial healing.
On January 16, an extraordinary day when more than 200 communities across the United States held National Day of Racial Healing events, NCHE continued its pursuit of health equity by emphasizing the need to eliminate racism.
“We recognize that health inequities and health disparities will only end when we end racism,” said Dr. Gail C. Christopher, NCHE’s executive director. “NCHE is expanding our mission to do just that, to work on ending racism in America. We recognize it requires comprehensive strategies that include healing from past injustices.”
While serving as vice president and senior advisor at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Dr. Christopher and others were catalysts for launching the National Day of Racial Healing, which has blossomed into a national event that unites people of all races, ethnicities, and religions in communities nationwide.
In October, NCHE released the results of its first annual Heart of America Annual Survey. As described by Dr. Christopher, “We looked at the major polls used to take the pulse of our country and realized that far too many are merely capturing and amplifying a dominant narrative about division and polarization. Yet our elections continue to show the general electorate is not so extreme or polarized. NCHE developed a survey to take the pulse of America’s readiness to do the hard work of healing, overcoming our legacy of racial division, and actualizing our core democratic ideals and tenets.“
The survey, conducted by The Benenson Strategy Group, a premier strategic market research firm, found that almost a third ( 3 1 % ) of Americans want our nation to do the relational work that will enable us to see ourselves through a lens of shared humanity. Eight out of 10 respondents recognize that diversity in the workplace is an important requirement for us to overcome our differences, and they believe that teaching our nation’s history of racism in our school system is a necessary step in our healing and overcoming our historical divides. And more than 80 % of the respondents want a leader that unites rather than divides.
“There is really a readiness in this country for us to put polarization and division behind us so that we can solve our collective and common challenges and problems,” Dr. Christopher said.
