Chestnut Hill Local: ‘Race Still Matters’: a series of virtual conversation

West Mt. Airy Neighbors’ Quality of Life Committee is launching a series of Zoom conversations over the coming months as part of WMAN’s continuing commitment to building community. Our goal is to inform, inspire and activate. Each 90-minute session consists of a moderated panel discussion followed by interactive conversations with community members taking part.

All sessions will be moderated by Samuel Grannum, COO of New Covenant Church and a member of the WMAN Board. The sessions will be recorded and made available in the WMAN website. The general theme of this conversation series is “Race Still Matters.” The first session will take place on Thursday, Sept. 24, starting at 7:30 p.m. It will focus on: Race and the Franchise: Voting as a Key to Overcoming Racial Barriers. Panelists will be Congressman Dwight Evans and David Thornburgh, of the Committee of 70.

Racism hurts in so many ways: being profiled by a store clerk or security guard, being shut out from a job, home loan, pre-school or health care based on skin color or address, feeling unsafe or threatened around police and in so many other ways. In this series West Mount Airy Neighbors invites you to learn, speak out and discover new ways of building community. Together we can defeat racism, build better communities and overcome the caste systems that still shape our world.

Subsequent conversation topics, all scheduled for Thursday evenings, are:

  • Nov. 12: Mt. Airy’s Rebirth: Looking back to the community’s renewal in the 1950s
  • Jan. 14: Race and the Quality of Life in the Public Realm: Balancing the role of police and social services
  • Feb. 25: Race in the education of our children
  • April 8: Race in employment: Overcoming Structural Racism in the workplace
  • May 20: Race and health: The Effect of Systemic Racism on Health Outcomes
  • June 24: Race in housing: Is ‘Affordable Housing’ an answer?
  • July 29: Race and the role of faith traditions in community building