 But we have Timothy Conley, whose works at the California College of Arizona State University, has some wonderful leadership positions there, and teaches a variety of things, films, studies, media studies, ethnic studies, and so on. We also have Mikayla Jackson. Yes. Mikayla. A recent graduate of Georgia State University studying women's gender and sexuality and theater. Thanks. And we have Natalie Colbert here, a retired teacher after 34 years as an elementary and middle school orchestra teacher in the Atlanta Public Schools. We love our educators. We love our educators. Diane Carol George from Atlanta, who's passionate about the education and training, particularly of marginalized populations, and a loving mom, and serves on the training institute board for the southeastern states. And Paula Richards Ball, 25 years as an educator, most recently worked as an instructional coach in an elementary school and contributes in a variety of ways to the Bahá'í community here as well. And then our Jasmine Miller Klein-Hens, who's a cancer researcher at Emory University and also serves as an auxiliary board member here. So please join me in welcoming this incredible panel, Jasmine. Thank you. Thank you all so much for the love and support. And I just wanted to preface this panel as I would say it's more of a conversation and sharing some of our learnings, especially from this moment of historic portent that the House of Justice talked about. So think of it more of us sharing and as being a conversation rather than it being an academic presentation. Because as I think Shabnam alluded to, learning happens in many spaces. Knowledge is generated in many places. And this so happens to be knowledge that's been generated at the grassroots amongst communities. So I did want to start, as Shabnam mentioned, that there is a letter that came from the House of Justice on July 22, 2020, so a little bit more than three years ago. And it was written to the Baha'is of the United States. And I don't know if you all remember 2020 at all. It's just one of those years where you're all just doing it. It was a significant moment in time. There was much happening, not just the pandemic, which restructured all of our lives, but also there was a reawakening for many people and an awareness about the social injustices happening. And the House of Justice wrote to the Baha'is of the United States was that it's actually a very rare occurrence. They write to the national spiritual assembly of the Baha'is of the United States often, but to the Baha'is of the United States themselves. A letter hadn't come from the House of Justice since 1988. So it is not common for them to write to us directly. But when they did, it was very important for us to turn our attention to it. And we continue to do so today. So I'm going to actually reread that first paragraph of that message, just so that you can work from that understanding of where we are approaching this panel. So to the Baha'is of the United States, dear Baha'i friends, a moment of historic portent has arrived for your nation as the conscience of its citizenry has stirred, creating possibilities for marked social change. It holds significance not only for the destiny of America, anticipated in the sacred writings, but also for the mission entrusted to your community by the hand of Abdul Baha'i, who cherished you dearly and called you to a path of sacrifice and high endeavor. We are pleased to see that, led by your national and local spiritual assemblies, you are seizing opportunities, whether those thrust upon you by current circumstances are those derived from your systematic labors in the wider society. To play your part, however humble, to the effort to remedy the ills of your nation, we ardently pray that the American people will grasp the possibilities of this moment to create a consequential reform of the social order that will free it from the pernicious effects of racial prejudice and will hasten the attainment of a just, diverse, and united society, that it can increasingly manifest the oneness of the human family. So with that paragraph in mind, there are many of us that seized opportunities, but some of the friends that are on the stage are those who are coming to share what we have learned since seizing these opportunities, particularly in the Southeast region, that we have a friend from the West who also, and the reason that we have invited a friend from the West is because actually we had a large group from the West come visit a few months ago to help share what we've been learning and also learn from them and to be able to continue this process forward. So I'm sure you're seeing pictures playing behind me. These are slides and pictures from the efforts to bring about a more just, diverse community, but also manifest the oneness of humanity. And as our friends are talking, these are the fruits of their labor. So these are pictures that are actually reflective of what they're sharing. So with that, I'm going to let the panelists introduce themselves and share what that moment of historic portent was like for them. And then we'll share more about what we've been learning. Good morning. My name is Natalie Colbert, and I'm a native Atlantan. Yeah, go ATL. And we're just so appreciative that the conference has been able to be here and have been learning so much. I remember that during that time of that summer, the way I was affected by it is that I have a son who's 30 years old, 35, and grandchildren. And as the events were unfolding, I began to say to myself, another generation is seeing these same things that I have been witnessing how can we begin to have the right type of conversation in families and with our youth that can help them be able to use a spiritual solution and learn how to really make change and affect it. So with that, I began just talking to my family about it. And I think that was the change for me during that time. Hi, I'm Paula Richards Bell. And for me, I'm a Guaneshan. For me, the first thing that I remember about receiving the letter from July 22, 2020, is my community's immediate reaction to the call to study it together as a community. And we did that over a series of, weeks, we studied that letter along with several other letters that had been written about race in the United States. And the love that we had been fostering, because I was fortunate to always be in a community, that it's been a number of years prior to this moment trying to center African-Americans within the community, small population, in the Baha'i community, but always trying to make sure that we were centered. And we'd probably spent a decade working towards that. And so when this moment came, there were a lot of us really ready to dive in and study and think about what we could do as community members to make change. And the other thing about 2020 is the series of brutal murders that occurred right before this letter were impactful. Because 2020 was also the same year that I was going to have to send my son off to college. And he was going to have to really leave my home of protection for the first time. And he represents and embodied all of the things that were being attacked. And recognizing that any moment, regardless of what he was doing, he was vulnerable and that I could not protect him, really hit home that particular year. And having a community that recognized that with me was very supportive and helpful. My name is Diane Carol George. When I reflect back on 2020, it was for me the first time where I kind of realized that our society is not as stable as I thought. But at any moment of a real test where to hit our nation, we would not be prepared. And I didn't know how to respond to these things. You know, there are a lot of things on the news and different things. And I felt very, when we received this message, I felt like honored to be in a faith that is directly addressing the American Baha'i community about these issues. And not only were they addressing it the way in which they are addressing it. And I remember maybe even tearing up when reading that first sentence, that a moment of historic importance have arrived in your nation. And I felt, thank you, Baha'u'llah. Hello. I'm Mikaela Jackson. And for me, in 2020, I was graduating high school and moving into my undergraduate career. I had been blessed to be a part of and working with and serving with many of the friends here on this stage and others in the community, the Baha'i community, for a little over a year. And I was animating. And I think I, in lieu of the pandemic, exposing various injustices and the fact that they can't be hidden, I felt myself in a mixed emotion of extreme anger, but also being so tired of extreme anger and not really knowing where to move forward. And my first time studying the July 2020 message, I felt similar to Diane and extreme blessing because in this message, it was saying something, answering questions that I had always had my whole life, questions around what did it mean to contribute a distinctive share and not just simply molding myself to the environments around me, to the ways in which those around me were telling me I should contribute. And so I was grateful that we were able to study this message continuously in our community. And that's where I was at. And I was grateful to be able to learn alongside these friends about greater and greater what it actually meant to contribute a decisive share and to not feel apologetic for what that looks like in spite of various friends or community members like urgently, like, no, this is how you should contribute. Before I say anything, I just want to say, this is super exciting to me to see these strong, powerful black women on the stage. Just give them a hand. And I wanted to say that. I'm Tim Conway, by the way. I'm from California, South Central Los Angeles. They say South Los Angeles. I'm from South Central Los Angeles. It's a whole other conversation. But I wanted to say that because I was raised and I was taught and held up through all of the challenges of my life by black women. Black women have been at the forefront of teaching and holding up this nation. And they're never given the credit for it. So that's why I wanted to do that. A moment of historic port. What did that mean to me? I was sharing with the friends yesterday about an incident that happened in a series of incidents that have happened in my life. And it was probably a month before we saw the unfortunate tragic incident with George Floyd. And I was up early in the morning before teaching my class. And I was out walking my dog to go to the bathroom. And there was about 15 Los Angeles LAPD cars out front about just a stone's throw from my town home. Across the street, a neighbor had had a domestic incident that had happened. That neighbor, also African-American, was about five foot six, 150 pounds. I'm going to stand up for a second. I'm the largest Baha'i in Atlanta right now. I am six foot six, a retired professional football player, and I am not five, six, 160 pounds. But to many of the police officers in our nation, whether they recognize this consciously or not, they have been taught something that started by the first police force in this nation, slavers. Enslavers, I should say. There was a language given to somebody that looks like me, a brute or a buck, a violent, lacking intelligence human being, well, not human being to them, animal, whose only goal is to eat fried chicken, watermelon, rape white women, and kill the white man. That was the language used to justify the barbaric treatment of somebody that looked like me. So fast forward that into the future. This white supremacist, racist thought still exhibits itself in police departments. And whether they know this history or not, when they see somebody that looks like me, whether I'm dressed like this, which I was that morning, all they see, thug, criminal, danger, all of those things. So the first thing they did is I got about 15 police officers pulling out a gun pointing it straight at me. I am terrified because it happens over and over and over again. And I'm tired. I'm tired. It's been happening since I was 15 years old. And the only thing that stopped them from pursuing this was my white Australian wife, who came outside and demanded that they put their guns down. So how am I supposed to feel as a man, a proud man, who comes from proud, strong people, that I have to rely on my white wife to protect me? So when I received this letter, I said, glory be to God. That this administrative body understands. They understand like Abdul Baha understood. And Abdul Baha began to understand the condition of people of African descent because of his relationships that he built, with folks like Robert Turner, so on and so forth. So when I think about this moment, I think about this happened to me, but what am I going to do now? And I want to close this part of what we're talking about with something, especially since we're in Atlanta, from Dr. Martin Luther King. Now is the time to make the real promise of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. And I'm going to add sisterhood to that. Friends, brothers, and sisters, now is the time for us to continue to work, and this is what we're talking about today. Praise God. And I think one of the things, like you said, to have an administrative body, the Universal House of Justice, that addressed us so directly, there is no question that racism is a deviation from the standard of true morality. We don't have to question whether it exists and whether we need to combat it. And actually, what are the tools in which that we have at our disposal that we can utilize to do so? And so later on in that message, it says the concepts and approaches for social transformation developed in the current series of plans that can be utilized to promote race unity in the context of community building, social action, and involvement in the discourses of society have been set out in our messages. Every believer as the promulgator of Baha'u'llah's central principle of the oneness of humanity should deeply meditate upon it in ways demanding implications for the profound alteration of thought and action required at this time. So many of us had that opportunity to meditate upon what has been laid out for us in the current series of plans by the House of Justice, to address race unity, and to think about the profound alteration of thought and action that it requires. And for this particular region, we had an opportunity to reflect deeply about how we can learn with large numbers of African-American youth and their families in engaging in community building processes that will hopefully do time, which we know he says it's going to be a long and thorny path beset with pitfalls. So we know that this isn't going to happen overnight, but we took a step towards on this long and thorny path to work with these African-American youth and their families. And so we wanted to share some of what we've been learning about that. And I want Natalie to start because she will be able to provide a perspective of the Southeast how we framed our approaches, especially starting out. Thank you, Jasmine. So as she outlined, we were thinking deeply about in the Southeast region, about understanding how the training institute can affect lasting change and serve as the engine of growth and to learn about achieving race unity and social justice in all the areas of life, as well as its role in creating human resources. So our first step in learning about that took us to studying the Ruhi Institute's statement of methods and purposes. And I want to share just a little bit about that right here. It says, guided by universal participation, both as a principle and as a goal, the Ruhi Institute tries to design and carry out educational activities that combine classroom learning and personal study with acts of service in the community. Each educational activity is to be in itself an enabling experience, which helps participants develop the further qualities, attitudes, capabilities, and skills of a new type of social actor whose energies are entirely directed towards promoting the well-being of the community and whose actions are inspired by the vision of a new world civilization, which will embody all its structures and processes in it the fundamental principle of the unity of human race. So this concept of a new social actor that begins whose energies are entirely directed towards promoting the well-being of the community began a major focus of our work. And as Jasmine said, we were looking at community building, involving families, and learning how all segments of a youth's life is not dichotomous. They don't have the Baha'i life, and then they have the other life, but how it's all one single source of knowledge, which is through the word of God, which is in the Institute. So as we all have said in 2020, the pressures of the pandemic came about, and it was so much grief and anger about what can we do? And we wanted to see the youth's energies directed in not fragmented areas or fragmented ways, but what can we do as a region to help them become this new social actor? And how we can start them thinking about the Institute as a place for social justice. And as it was said, Bahá'u'lláh says, those charged with strengthening the training Institute are asked, if Bahá'u'lláh names justice as the most beloved of all things in God's sight, how could there not be a Baha'i activity that does not seek to advance justice? So we then turn to the Institute after the extreme upheaval that occurred in 2020. And in consultation with Council of Lawson, the training Institute began to think about how to further stimulate the movement of youth in the region. And reflecting on the paragraph from December 30th, it says, appreciating the effectiveness of the Institute process, every follower of Bahá'u'lláh will feel a desire to contribute to its advancement in some way, not least the Bahá'i youth. Institutes know well that releasing the potential possessed by young people is for them a sacred charge. We now ask that Bahá'i youth view the future development of the Institute in the very same light. So when in that summer there was a surge of awareness in the society about the pressing need for social change, we saw hundreds and thousands of people channeling up their energies into movements that they felt addressed social change. And then we received the July 22nd message, telling us about the moment of historic port and for our nation. So observing this response of what can we do both within the Bahá'i community and the wider community, we asked ourselves, what is our understanding again about how the Institute addresses social change? And in learning about the Institute process, we know that it is free of manipulation. It is a system that seeks to empower every individual to be in charge of their own learning and through using the word of God as its guidance, using the word of God as its knowledge. And there are too many examples of participation by the righteous and the highly trained in the structures of oppression to allow any objective observer of social processes to accept proposals of change based solely and entirely on the redemption of the individual without direct attention to social forces and structures that at the same time history has already shown the evils of systems that deny individual freedom and derive their moral and social codes from a perception of the necessity of change in the structures of power. So the Ruhi Institute tries to understand the processes of transformation of human society in terms of a far more complex set of interactions. And this is from the statement of methods and purposes. There are two parallel developments, the transformation of the individual and the deliberate creation of structures of a new society. Moreover, just as it does not view the human being as a mere product of interactions with nature and society, it does not identify structural change only with political and economic processes. Rather, it sees the necessity of change in all structures, mental, cultural, scientific, technological, educational, economic, and social, including a complete change in the very concepts of political leadership and power. It is understood then that individuals, all of whom possess a more or less developed spiritual nature, may be illumined by the divine teachings, even under the most oppressive social forces. These individuals then, by no means perfected, try to walk the path of social transformation. A path, nevertheless, is not one of individual salvation, but one which implies a constant effort to create and strengthen the institutions of a new social order. So by really studying this statement and understanding with clarity how the Institute is that place where the youth can go and begin to transform themselves and become new social actors and be able to take this into their communities, that led to a series of regional youth camps in the Southeast region that were focused on this lasting change and social justice reform and meeting the needs, particularly of African-American populations, but all of our sacred youth and seeking to bring about the oneness of humanity, the power of the covenant and how the youth can draw on that as they begin to think about this moment in history. So my colleague and friend here, Paula, will talk to you about how we began that process of learning how as tutors we can begin to talk with our youth about the self-transformation. So one blessed thing about the Institute process is it's systematic, and it's systematic so that it can be replicated. So there are specific steps and actions that happen, and there was a continuous belief in action, reflection, consultation, action, reflection, consultation. That is a process that's ongoing right now with regional camps. But the very first time, we began with tutor prep, recognizing that any Institute process and any study can only be as effective as the tutors that are leading, facilitating, and learning with the group. We spent eight hours studying the July 22 message, the statement on methods and purposes. We studied the, at one point, we studied the group. We studied the Bahá'í International Community statement on eliminating racial prejudice. We studied book seven sections. We studied book one sections. We studied things from book two. There was eight hours just for the very first camp of just study. And it did not matter how committed you were if you were tutoring for a weekend, if you were tutoring for the full 10 days. And everybody that tutored had to attend tutor prep. That was mandatory. If you discovered you could not attend tutor prep, we'd be like, thank you so much, but we will catch you on the next wave. Because that is how vital it was. The tutors needed to be present because studying systematically those documents allowed tutors to be able to handle whatever conflicts and whatever isms arose within the camp. There was no need to then turn to something else or try to figure out another way of handling the situation because the Institute was born of working with people of color and handling situations in some of the most egregious spaces. And so clearly in our space, we can use that same systematic process to do that. So tutor prep was very important. And the focus of tutor prep also dealt with this idea of accompaniment. So it wasn't just study the book and now you have knowledge. It was study the book and you're gonna do something that you might not be comfortable doing because you're gonna learn how to do it so you can do it with the participants. So you've never done home visits. You're gonna do some now. You haven't hosted a devotional. Why are you tutoring in book one? And you haven't hosted a devotional before? I don't think so. You have to be part of the action that takes place, the service that takes place within whatever book you're studying. If you haven't animated a group, then you are not the best tutor for book five. You need that personal experience 25 years and we need the personal experience. You need to be able to speak to problems. You need to be able to speak to situations. You need to be able to hear what other people have said and consult together to come up with ways in which that works. So that was also very intentional. The people who were tutoring were also people involved in those activities in their own personal lives. Every subsequent camp came with tutor prep. We did not study for eight hours and then, oh now we're good forever. We went back at the beginning of every camp. There was space to study for tutor preparation. There was also space to reflect at the ends of evenings for every camp. So no matter how tired we were, how sleepy we were or where we were driving, we knew we were getting together to reflect upon the day. And that was very systematic. It's in place on purpose so that the camps can be successful and they can handle whatever happens. And a real understanding started to grow of study and action going hand in hand in the work that we were doing. So when we started every camp with the study of the July 22nd message. And I remember thinking, why are we doing that? Because time had went by and the memories and the different things, like we had to, personally I moved on with my life. I had to watch my kids and different things. But the institution brought us back to this very important message. And I still didn't know the answers but out of obedience that we just went with it and the other board members were in each of those rooms where this message was studied. And as the study of the message started, you can see it was needed. The way that the youth responded, they had a lot of questions. So even though a lot of our society had moved on, the questions that were in the hearts of the people who had not been answered. And when we were studying, they brought a lot of those questions to the space. And there was one question that I think, I had too, I mean understood it better now, but those youth who wanted to know, they sacrificed their time to come here. How is this message? How is this institute gonna really solve the problems of society? What about Abdul Baha's example? What about all these moments that we have? How do we respond in the light of this guidance and the light of things that we're studying? And the spirit of the forces that contributed to otherness were very present in the beginning of the camp. I remember going to my auxiliary board members and saying, it's feeling a little uncomfortable here. And I was saying, maybe we might wanna create another space where we can address this conversation. Maybe we wanna show some films or I don't know, but it was obviously uncomfortable. And I remember the solution being consultation with your study circles. And not imposing upon this space some other ideas. So we met with our, we met with our study circles and simple questions like, what do we do when the youth are using their phones and not participating? They had simple answers. The youth would say, it's not that hard to not use my phone. When we're studying, I can just put it aside and then after we study, we can get back to it. I don't know why that question caused me so much stress, but the youth figured it out. And then they did that. They were perfect. And then it helped build this culture of when there is a problem, you consult with it with your study circle. And it was this large group of people was a perfect arena to really put this guidance to the test. And I must say by the end of that camp or by the middle, I had to leave early. The spirit of love, those forces that had divided people or starting to erode. And the amount of love that was felt in that space by people who came to the camp. And it was because of the efforts of every individuals. And that includes the institutions, the community and every individual were all doing their share to create this type of environment. And it was a perfect space because there's so many youth to really learn about applying this guidance and not just reading it and putting it on a shelf that we are the creators of the spaces in which we live. And I think that taught me a lot how the institutions reminded us of this guidance. It was intentional and I think that's important. It was intentional that we studied this message and we addressed some of these problems very in the context in the framework of the Institute. And at the end, I personally felt because a lot of the people in my group were not behind but they still felt satisfied by this message. But it made me feel very confident to go share this message with all the people who I encountered. I shared it with you. I gave a talk at my school. I brought out the message. This is from the Universal House of Justice and the group was like the Universal House of Hoops. I shared it with my neighbors. It started the first, like one of the first study circles. It didn't continue. But I took from this space that this message does not only belong to the Baha'i community that is actually healing the hearts of all of those people who are suffering in our country. And so just to give a little bit of like context as well for these camps, the first camp that we had, it was in June and there were, it was actually a 12 day camp. I attended my first youth camp in 2019. It was about a weekend, I think it was a weekend camp. There were youth from the Southeast as well. And so to go, we went, we didn't have any major youth camps in 2020 as you might imagine. Well, I'm sorry, we did. We literally did, the camp I was about to share with. In a span from the first and second camp I attended, there were a few months where there were no larger camps. And then in reflection of what we could do, it was decided that this camp would be 12 days. Now, so the average person to go from a weekend to a 12 day endeavor with a lot of new youth that may be in sending through the institute for the first time, it was a big, it felt like a big jump to me. And we didn't really know like what would come of it. But by the end, we had a roughly like 130 youth that had participated in some extent in the camp, most of which actually stayed the full 12 days. And a lot of them that was their first experience with the Ruby Institute. And so some of the transformation that we were able to see very clearly over the series of camps because that was the first in June. And then we had another Labor Day and then a weekend. Then we had another Thanksgiving over a weekend. And then we had another longer one this December. And then we had this past June, actually. Some of what we were able to see was that many youth, some of whom had been involved with the institute process before some of whom were new for the first time, were able to learn very quickly what it looked like to actually apply what we were studying. In each camp, there was planned outreach and like community involvement based on what study circle you were a part of. So the book ones, for example, there was devotionals organized for them home visits to high families mostly, where they were able to share some of the concepts and say prayers around what they were learning. Book two participants were also engaged in home visits. Book three participants were able to like go out into communities and teach children's class either that were ongoing already or be able to learn about outreaching for new children's classes, as well as by I believe the third camp being able to host a children's festival adjacent and within this youth camp. Other aspects of transformation that we were able to see over time were that many families were actually becoming quite engaged in this process as well. It was no longer just like youth coming from South Carolina and Mississippi with their besties and maybe never going back home to share with their families, actually got the last camp. We were able to have family gatherings and some families brought like mothers and children that were part of children's festivals but also that joined book one. And we were able to even see like even amongst the volunteers by the last camp many family members were like maybe I haven't helped at a camp before maybe I've never done the Ruhi Institute before but I would love to come and just be in the space and serve food or I would love for a youth to come visit my home. And so we were able to kind of create this culture where everybody felt that they had a part in the Ruhi process and the community building process and this transformative process regardless of what that part looked like and it all felt I believe and it felt like from what the people that was around were expressing that we all felt that each role was important. In addition to other transformations that we were able to see, youth were able to forge long term friendships that at the beginning of the camps maybe like Diane was mentioning, there were some, you know, tensions but by the end there were friendships that are even forged to this day. There's like a group chat made and many of the friends are in this room so we always are like really happy to see each other but then also reflecting with each other on like how is it going? For many of the youth that came they didn't necessarily have a pretty like a large community that was doing many things back home but they really were inspired by being able to serve and actually apply what they were learning while they were here in Atlanta so much so that by the end of this camps as well our last camp in June it was planned for some youth to be able to dedicate a period of service after the camp and initially the vision was for several youth from the many states that have been represented within the camps from states and also areas. Jackson, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, Metro Atlanta, Georgia, Gwinnett cluster in Georgia and by the end though there was a cohort of about four youth accompanied by a resource person and Natalie and what we were able to accomplish in the month of July we actually were able to travel to each of those areas actually to some extent some visits longer than others. We were able to go to Jackson, Mississippi most recently and help in the revitalization I suppose or the vitalization of a focused neighborhood that was gonna be like new and developing and we were able to like help them to see the tangible next steps. We were able to go to Florida, South Carolina and accompany some youth that have been present in most of the camps in the starting children's classes but also learning about what does it mean for the effectiveness and quality of the children's program to be uplifted specifically drawing on resources from the neighborhood and so those are just a few of the things we were also able to outreach around the Baha'i Unity Center indicator where these camps were hosted and this past month we were able to speak to about 70 people out of 200 doors that we knocked in within a week's time every day going out studying in the mornings, going out in the afternoons reflecting on what are the questions that we're asking people what are the questions that yielded the 12 conversations that maybe lasted more than 15 minutes and in that learning we were able to have several people that actually came a few people that came to events within that week and we were able to think about what is it that got this mom and her three kids to our children's festival days within meeting or this youth to come to a youth night on his own volition within meeting and we're still I think reflecting on this but a lot of it had to do with tapping into what they also understood to be important and that importance is working together with the community many of the people that we spoke to didn't necessarily already feel that their community was very collaborative but saw that there was a need for it and so I feel like the more that we were able to tap into that in our conversations the longer the conversations will yield and often people will share like things that they're trying to do already that they feel to be addressing these and often they're very eager to hear about a larger process that was taking place where more and more people are gathering and also considering that there's a spiritual reality to these solutions. What wonderful, wonderful service happening here in the Southeast region. I was excited to hear about Mississippi being included in this service, right? My family range from a small town, Grenada, Mississippi about an hour from Jackson, Mississippi where you all were serving and so I'm happy to hear that the message of Baha'u'llah is shining its way through Mississippi and other places, of course. I just want to share briefly about when a group of African-American tutors made our way to Atlanta back in March when it was much colder. Kind of felt like this room outside. Not how it feels outside now but like this room you need a jacket or shawl or something, right? But in all seriousness, it was really, really transformative for us to be able to share about the service and learning in a large city like Los Angeles and also in metropolitan area of Atlanta, right? And one of the things that was really important is one of the friends was invited who at one point was really, really active and sort of pulled back in many respects and then I can understand why. I had a long conversation with this friend before we came down here and she explained to me that one of the reasons that she had pulled back is the reason that a lot of folks pulled back. We have been studying a pathway of service and talking about unity from one perspective for so long and is extremely Eurocentric. It is not talking about centralizing or acknowledging other perspectives, one of them being Afrocentrism. Afrocentrism is a pathway of study and understanding, seeing the world through what we would call African eyes. I heard my dear brother Masoud Olofani talk about his connections to his family roots in the continent of Africa and really engaging in a high level of Afrocentrism. And there's been a stain on this country of really not allowing for and speaking against people of African descent in a derogatory and undignified way. And speaking as if people of African descent are less than. And that language seeps its way into not only those of European descent but of other descents in our communities whether they wanna acknowledge that or not because that is the language that has been reigning supreme in the continent of United States. So because of the challenges of not centering blackness or not centering other perspectives it causes distance sometimes and challenges within communities. And in order to change that it is the work that we're hearing about right now. The truth. The truth is that Africa, people of African descent are those who come from the cradle of humanity, right? We know scientifically now that the continent of Africa is where humanity started whether folks wanna believe that or not. And that for thousands of years innovation, thousands of years strength, thousands of years of majesty come from the continent of Africa and spread out amongst now what we call the world. And so we're all one human family and it's okay to center blackness. It is okay to begin to understand the conditions of those of African descent in this country. And it is okay to really dive deep. And it is important to dive deep. And so coming down here we studied from I'll say an Afrocentric perspective the statement of purpose and methods. And I had never really dove into the statement of purpose and methods and I've been a tutor for quite some time. And after studying that document this friend and studying from another perspective a perspective that she could engage with that she felt safe with that finally understood her condition has come back home to Los Angeles and has arisen to serve once again. And is doing so in what I would call being on fire using hip hop terminology. She is on fire in her service. And that is because of what happened here in Atlanta. And for the friends who cared so much to acknowledge the work and the majesty of people of African descent. So I'll stop there. We don't have much time but I did because our friend came so far. There was something I think that we were hoping that you would share in particular about how the institutions have been impacted in this time and just sharing about the two, what is it two? Two stage election. Two stage election in the Los Angeles community. Just sharing a little bit about that and then we'll. I'll try to make it brief but you give a microphone to a former preacher and a teacher and I don't always know how to be brief but I will. Remember the convention. I'm looking at your eyes. You give me the auntie eyes. I'm not gonna talk. I have a couple aunties that have those eyes and I'm still nervous. In short, you all are probably aware or many of you are aware that there was the first of what is happening now across the country in two stage elections. In Los Angeles was one of the cities that was chosen. It was Los Angeles, San Diego and New York were the first cities. Now I think it's Chicago and Arizona in the second two stage election that happened this past Rizvang. And so in that first two stage election something happened in Los Angeles that had never happened before. And we have now serving on this current assembly that started with that two stage election a couple years ago for African Americans serving on the Los Angeles Spiritual Assembly. And why is that important? When I talked about earlier seeing the world from other perspectives, if we're really gonna reach the community in the backyard of the Los Angeles Bahá'í Center which is South Los Angeles then we need to understand the conditions of the community that is there which is predominantly black and brown. And understand truly how we can be a part of this moment of historic portent. And so this election, the first one was interesting. And I thought it was gonna be business as usual. I hadn't seen any change. And the fact that they were, and I'm jokingly saying this but maybe somewhat serious, they were crazy enough to vote me on the assembly but I'm somewhat joking on that. Was interesting. And I think often about this because in my work as a department chair in a PWI for those who don't know the terminology that's a predominantly white institution we have all of these acronyms that we use. Bahá'ís know we use a lot of acronyms as Bahá'ís. I really thought about that because one of the first things I did in that PWI is I made sure that I opened up the opportunity for deserving people of color to have opportunities to teach in my institution. And I'm proud that we were able to do that because we went from having predominantly all white males teaching our classes to now having balance of women, women of color, men of color, all teaching courses. And of course, you know, I was gonna make sure that we had some brothers and sisters in that teaching course. When I say brothers and sisters, I'm talking about black folks, all right. So I was gonna make sure that deserving that weren't given those opportunities. And so I think about this and the reason I'm bringing this up is when we're consulting as an assembly, we're now consulting from those who are bringing their culture, culturally responsiveness into the consultations, into the decision-making. And every single assembly member on that assembly is engaged in the framework of and for action within the community. We're not just serving on the body. We are hands deep, feet deep, in there with the friends in the community and whether it's accompanying or leading discussion or whatever it may be or being active in the field like brother Derek Smith talked about Ella Baker, we are in there doing the work at a grassroots level. That is what's gonna change things, folks. Not just Orator's talking in front of people as he was talking about, but people at the grassroots level, whoever you are, whether you serve on an assembly or you serve in a different capacity, if your job is just to say the prayers, we all have a commitment to serve the cause of Bahá'u'lláh's panacea for society, for America, for Canada or wherever you hail from. That is our duty to be of service. And that's what this assembly in Los Angeles understands. And we wanna thank the friends in Atlanta for helping us to help others arise to serve and also learning from you all how we can institute some of the things you're doing in the camps that we're doing, such as focused neighborhoods like View Heights in the South Los Angeles area. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I just wanted to thank all the panelists. I know it's hard to condense years worth of effort, hundreds of and probably thousands of families, youth, community members, institutional members. It's not, we're trying to condense so much into such a small amount of time. But I think what you can see is that through systematic efforts to bring about social change, much can happen. And the systems of oppression are working hard and they're systematic and they do not rest. And so we have to do the same in terms of our systematic effort to raise up not one Martin Luther King but one on every block, one in every home, multiples in every home. That's what we're doing. Praise God. And so I just wanted to thank you all and end the panel with just the last part of the message which says that which is confirmed is the oneness of the world of humanity. Every soul who served this oneness will be undoubtedly assisted and confirmed. So I hope that all of you today feel that you can go out, hopefully taking some of what we've learned to impel you to work towards this oneness and hopefully we'll have more learning generated that we can share this time next year. Thank you all so much. Thank you.