Dr. Deborah J. Walker & the Alabama Civil Rights Movement

Note: This episode was recorded before the events of October 2023.

In this episode I speak to longtime VISIONS consultant Dr. Deborah J. Walker, who has spent her life doing anti-oppression work-- a commitment rooted in her experiences growing up in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960s. When she was 12, Dr. Walker was a block away from the 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963, when it was bombed-- an inflection moment in the history of civil rights in the US.

Dr. Walker takes us back to her childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, painting a vivid picture of the Civil Rights movement and the striking events that occurred in 1960s, from the Children's March, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, and the 1963 March on Washington to the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. These experiences not only impacted her life, but also set her on the path towards working for social justice, change, and equity.

Dr. Walker recounts her professional journey, where she learned to channel her clinical skills to support historically excluded communities — work that eventually led her to VISIONS. From understanding the importance of self-care to building alliances, Dr. Walker takes us through the learnings that not only helped her grow, but also nurtured her resolve to continue speaking truth to power.

In the final part of our journey, we talk about the tour that Dr. Walker is leading along the Alabama Civil Rights Trail in May 2024. The trip includes visits to sites like the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Kelly Ingram Park, and the 16th Street Baptist Church. We discuss the  Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and its striking exhibits on the histories and legacies of enslavement, incarceration, and lynching in United States. Dr. Walker emphasizes how vital it is to understand history as we learn to work together for a more just and equitable future.

See what's coming up at VISIONS!

About us
Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and liberation is a production of VISIONS, Inc, a non-profit that offers effective tools that help individuals and organizations communicate and forge connections across differences that drive collective success.

Since 1984, we’ve offered research-based, time-tested approaches to cross-cultural learning that invite participants to engage in equity and inclusion work, starting at the personal and interpersonal levels and expanding to include changes toward institutional and cultural levels.

Whether it’s a book club, around the family dinner table, a school board meeting, or within your company, VISIONS offers actionable approaches that empower people to identify actions, explore their motivations, and effectively move through sometimes complex situations with respect and humanity for others and their differences.

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Music credit: Tim Hall @tv_hall

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Transcript

Leena: 0:01

Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a podcast about transformative change, equity and working against oppression. I'm Leena Akhtar, director of Programs with VISIONS Inc. Welcome, hi, everybody. I'm sitting here with the inimitable, the fabulous, the wonderful Dr. Deborah J. Walker, colleague and mentor and friend, who I've had the pleasure of working with closely over the past few years that I've been at Visions. Deborah, hello, welcome, thank you. Would you introduce yourself?

Deborah: 0:36

Sure, so I'm Deborah Walker. I have well. I started my journey with VISIONS in 1989 and have been a Visions consultant and served on the staff since that time, and originally from Birmingham Alabama.

Leena: 0:52

Wonderful. So, Deborah, among the things we've done together, one of them is the Visions on the Civil Rights Trail tour and workshop that took place earlier this year 2023, in different cities in Alabama. So we're going to talk about that in a minute. And first, so we get a sense of what your story is, tell me a little bit about how you grew up. I know you were born in Alabama and I had the privilege of seeing some of the places that you came from.

Deborah: 1:20

Yeah, so, as a note that I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 60s, I grew up in a working class community called Titusville and I want to say a little bit about my family and the community, kind of set the context. So my mom for many years worked as a domestic and then she became head of nutrition for a daycare center and that's how she ended her career. New field of daycare center. My mom also was a midwife, so she was a very talented woman. My dad owned his own business and he later was employed at John's Right Out,, which was a white funeral home. All of this will have significance later. I was the oldest of three children, the only girl, and I had two younger brothers and in terms of the community I grew up in, I'd say that particularly in the African American culture we often say it takes a village, and I lived in a village, in my community. Folks took care of one another and always looked out for one another and in many ways I felt isolated from the racism that was clearly in play in the 50s and the 60s. Also, we'll say that my community was also my church. I grew up in St Paul United Methodist Church and the church was a part of a larger community and had folks who were educators, school principals, and they really worked to do what they needed to do to ensure that we as children needed spiritually, emotionally and educationally Note the church community. Because St Paul was involved in the civil rights movement early on in the late 50s, early 60s and physically, st Paul is still located one block from 16th Street Baptist Church where the four little girls were killed in September 15, 1963. In fact we just had a 60th commemoration of that. So I want to say that because St Paul and 16th Street and other churches in the area really formed communities for us to be and to feel safe, although that didn't happen on September 15, 1963. And so my growing up in a village and growing up with folks that I knew cared about me deeply in the face of the racism that was prevalent was really powerful and greatly influenced who I am and what I do today.

Deborah: 4:13

And I wanted to say a little bit more about 16th Street within the context racism and how it was playing out in Birmingham, alabama. I'm realizing that in May of 1963, Dr King wrote the letter from Birmingham jail and he actually came to Birmingham because Fred Shuttlesworth, who was the leader of the movement in Alabama, asked him to come and help. So he came and, of course, in May of 1963, he wrote this letter from the Birmingham jail because he didn't want to stop protesting and so they jailed him. The date is significant because also in May there was the Children's Crusade, where children were marching in Kelly Ingram Park, and that was during the time when the police, commissioner Bull Connor, sick the dogs in the fire hoses on children. And so that happened in May. And then in August of 1963, august 28, Dr King and many in the country had the March on Washington for Jobs and and Justice, and that was August 28, 1963.

Deborah: 5:36

Six and three weeks later, 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan and it took the lives of Denise McNair and Addie Mae Collins and Carol Robinson and Cynthia Wesley, and the bomb also injured Sarah Collins, who was Addie's sister, and she lost her eyes. What some folks may not know is that at night black boys were also killed Johnny Robinson, who was killed by the police, and James Ward, who was killed by a group of white boys. And so, being in that environment and being a block away from the from 16th Street when it was bombed. We certainly felt the impact of that. Of course, when it was bombed the whole area could feel the impact. And then from our church running towards 16th Street and came back and told us not to go up there because the church had been bombed. And like the folks 16th Street who were preparing for youth day and were in the basement of the church getting ready, we also were in our church basement getting ready for going through our assembly in our Sunday School.

Deborah: 6:55

I remember feeling a sense of rage and incredible sadness I mean rage and fear and I think that the bombing of the church really solidified for me the notion that I personally had to do my part to have this not ever happen again and that eventually led to my doing the work that I'm doing now.

Deborah: 7:21

I share that in part because a few days ago was the 60th commemoration of the bombing at 16th Street and Dr Eddie Glaub, who's a Princeton professor, spoke eloquently about the importance telling the truth and continuing to do the work and honoring our humanity. And then, on the day of the September 15th, associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was a keynote speaker and talked about even though folks in this current age are uncomfortable talking about race and other kinds of differences, that we had to keep talking about it, that we can't erase the history because we still have work to do 60 years later. So in some ways, I think about how we in our country take two steps forward, because, after the bombing, the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were passed in 1964 and 65. And yet we're in 2023, faced with folks who say you know, we don't need to talk about race, we don't need to talk about that history anymore because it makes folks uncomfortable. So that really is a way of saying why I continue to do the work that I do.

Leena: 8:47

Yeah, how old were you when that happened, when the bombing happened?

Deborah: 8:52

I was 12.

Leena: 8:53

Okay, and you said that you were relatively insulated from the things that were happening around you at the time. So was the bombing, the moment, that changed that for you?

Deborah: 9:07

Yeah, because our communities were very aware of what was going on and so they did all they could to protect us and to keep us insulated from the hate. And even though we were aware of it and we had fathers and grandfathers who had rifles, you know, in their homes their goal was to keep us as safe as possible and to not create scare, and that's they were successful in doing that. For the most part. I've talked to other friends who, you know, had similar experience and talked about what their parents did to ensure that they didn't experience racism. The community I grew up in was predominantly black and we had white merchants in the community and they, you know, they were really cool folks. They weren't ugly or anything like that, and yet we were aware of what was going on in the larger world.

Leena: 10:01

And what I remember. There was a lot happening in Birmingham at the time. I think one of the things that really struck me, Deborah, was how there was this entire neighborhood that was nicknamed Dynamite Hill.

Deborah: 10:11

Oh yeah, yeah, Dynamite Hill Center Street, which is where Dr King's brother, AT King, lived, and actually where Angela Davis's family lived and other prominent African Americans, and it was a community that was all white until black folks started integrating it. So it really, I feel was targeted after the integration and all these prominent black folks started to move there and because Dr King's home was bombed and there were other acts of devastation, they named it Dynamite Hill.

Leena: 10:49

What do you remember about the Children's Crusade, both in how it happened and then the kind of violence that it was beset with?

Deborah: 10:57

So what was interesting and I never asked the question of my parents my parents allowed me to move to California in the summer of 1962. And I was there for a year and I came back to Birmingham in June of 1963. So the story I tell myself is that my mom and dad allowed me to go because they knew I'd be right there in the streets with everybody else. So I actually did not physically participate in the Children's Crusade and with the dogs and the fire hoses. So just want to note that. And I actually talked to other friends whose parents said you better be more scared of me than you are of going out there protesting because I will hurt you if you go out there. I had a friend who considers himself a foot soldier who said I was more scared of my mama than I was of going out protesting. And there were folks who clearly did that. Janice Kelsey had just had a conversation with Janice about her mom told her don't you go in that march and you better go to school. And Janice said I am going to school. What she didn't say to her mom is and I'm not going to stay, but I'm going to school, I'm going to do exactly what you have to do. And Janice was one of the hundreds of folks who got put in jail for four days and then the school system suspended all those kids who had been arrested and it took I'm saying it act of Congress. It took a lot to even get them enrolled back in school just because they participated in the marches. Yeah, it was one. The Bull Connor was determined that he was going to rule Birmingham and that nothing would get in the way of it.

Deborah: 13:01

The unfortunate, unfortunate thing is that when the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed it reverberated around the world and folks were like wait a minute. And I remember John Kennedy and others were saying wait a minute, congress has gone too far, you're killing kids now and we can't allow that. That's not who we see ourselves to be as a country, so we've got to do something about it. Significant for me too in 1963, the bombing of 16th Street happened in September 15, 1963. John F Kennedy was killed November 22, 1963. So I'm just connecting the dots for those dates. What a year In 1963. And like, Dr King wasn't killed until 1968. Malcolm X, 1965. So that's for me significant that not only the four little girls who were killed, you got the president of the United States, who was killed that same year.

Leena: 14:10

You must remember that day too.

Deborah: 14:12

Oh yeah, I was in seventh grade. We were in Miss Beans class. I was in elementary school and they came out over the loudspeaker that President Kennedy had been killed and I remember getting really violently ill because for me you know he was a good guy and it disrupted yeah, it disrupted the whole school and I remember going to the restroom crying that I couldn't believe that someone would kill him. So there's a lot of violence in 1963 and in other years and particularly in 1963.

Leena: 14:55

I mean, that was just so soon after the 16th Street church bombing as well.

Deborah: 15:01

Yeah, and that's how it's trying to connect the dots. You know, when Dr King and Shuttlesworth worth and others you know went and said we want to have a march and the city leaders said no in May, and then they said we're going to do it anyway. So May 2nd and 3rd, that was the Children's Crusade. While it was incredibly Painful to watch the dogs, the fire hoses, it also was a price that those children paid to have the world say wait a minute, enough is enough, and then to have the March on Washington August 28, two months later. I'm and I remember my uncle who lived in California, the one I stayed with, actually went to the March on Washington and there were just like millions of people there. So that also, I'm suspecting, was another signal that we're not gonna tolerate this kind of treatment anymore and people across race, racial differences, other differences, religious differences, showed up in Washington and Then, three weeks late, response I say it was. The response was the bombing in September.

Leena: 16:24

So two steps for one step back you doing this work now professionally as a consultant, and I'm curious how you started, how you started your involvement in getting politically active or doing anti oppression and anti racism work.

Deborah: 16:41

I will say that I was aware that I, along with a lot of other people, were traumatized by what happened in 1960s, and there is a way in which there wasn't Support available for dealing with the trauma, and so we, as kids, handle it in our own ways. And I remember, when the afro came out and I'm black and I'm proud, and Black Panthers and Angela Davis was a part of you know, just you know, saying we're not gonna take this anymore by any means necessary, Malcolm X that I was scared. So while when the bombing happened I was filled with rage and fear, I'm still carrying that rage and fear. I graduated high school in '69, so several years later, and so the manifestation of it for me was I was scared to wear an afro.

Deborah: 17:40

I Was scared that if I wore an afro, that folks would think I was one of those radical people, and so it was only when I got out of high school and went away to college I was like, forget this mess, I can wear an afro. And so I think that's part of healing the layers on the onion and really coming to terms with the trauma of having been there and trying to be protective of myself and my family by being kind of a model student and doing what I needed to do to get into college. And when I went away to college I said you know, I can do this, I can wear an afro. Most significant was in the 70s. I Was had finished college and moved back to Birmingham, got a job at Miles College, which is a historically black college, and I was hired at Miles, for it was a federal program that supported communities who were desegregating their schools.

Deborah: 18:50

So I had come to miles to work in this program and do workshops and trainings for Jefferson County and other school systems in the area. So that was my first kind of formal way of addressing issues of Race and other kinds of differences. It was through my work at Miles in the Jefferson County school system. I think the other thing in terms of that work at miles was in I think it was 1976 we got a request, we got an invitation actually to join other HBCU colleges from throughout the southeast to be a part of a program that was teaching Transactional analysis and social change theory, and this grant from the Lilly Foundation Was given to the Southeast Institute, which is in chapter, still exists today in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the main person who was working with there were seven or eight historically black colleges Was Jo Lewis, Jo Bowen Lewis, who hits the mentor for many folks when they issued the invitation. Then they asked if there were folks on the campus who were interested in participating in this two-year program and I said absolutely so we would do this weekend retreats. That's how I met Jo and this was an before visions actually was even formed in 1976. And then Van joins, who is the head of the Southeast Institute and then Norman James, who's a black guy, who was a professor in Minnesota. So they will come down like once a month to do these essentially what we do in visions with Teaching TA theory and doing our own personal work in service of how do we support historically black Schools and communities? First we have to address the trauma that's still present in our own lives.

Deborah: 21:01

I thought it was a brilliant idea, hmm, so we went to your program and we would spend a couple of weeks in the summer in Chapel Hill, you know, doing deeper dives with Jo. She and I became friends. I also during that that time period or a little bit later, at Wakesa that's a mojo who actually are have a relationship with Val and Angela and they knew each other at Chapel Hill. Mm-hmm, wakesa for many years was a visions consultant and for me I think Jo had a tremendous influence because she was using her skills as a clinician to do social justice work. It's really greatly influenced by Jo Lewis and her clinical skills and her commitment to social justice. And what was real clear is that doing social justice work can take many forms. Mm-hmm, you can be marching in the street, you can do education, you know. It can have a religious focus, and so it was. It was really powerful to say, oh, I can use my or use clinical skills to help the movement.

Deborah: 22:13

For it, I will say that my undergraduate degree is in sociology. Sociology with a minor in counseling and then I have a master's in counseling and guidance and then a doctorate in Higher Education with a minor in psychology. So Jo clearly influenced I mean, I had my, my BA before meeting her, but I clearly was influenced by you know how can I support folks as they are on their journey to making sense of what have, of the traumas that happened to them, and and she definitely was a key for saying, okay, this can work. So I still was at Miles College and decided to leave miles in 1986 and form a consulting firm with a couple of other folks. And we were together for a couple of years and Jo and I were in touch back and forth and so I was sharing with her that I really was looking for a community to continue to do this work. And she said why don't you consider coming to visions? And I also got that encouragement from what Wakessa, because they were, you know, both heavily involved.

Deborah: 23:28

And so in 1989 I went into my training to become a business consultant and I think we were in North Carolina when I had my first session. But I Was really thankful because I really wanted to be in a community and I had a little bit of that at miles, and Yet it wasn't enough of what I wanted to see happen in terms of the work. So it was a joy to be To do the prep work. I needed to become a vision consultant and, if my dates are correct, I became a consultant in 1991 and Wow and then became a part-time staff person because I was really good at proposal development.

Leena: 24:16

Yeah, they what yeah? I know experience that part of you?

Deborah: 24:19

Yeah, and because of my background, my work was generally with educational institutions or nonprofits, institutions of higher ed, governmental entities and Then, what is it that has led you to?

Leena: 24:36

I mean, been with visions for a good while now 30, 30 years, 32, 2 years yeah, what keeps you coming back?

Deborah: 24:46

There's several things. One I absolutely believe in the visions model, in the framework, because it makes sense to me in terms of my own personal work and as I've been working with individuals and organizations. It's a brilliant model and framework.

Leena: 25:03

So I love it.

Deborah: 25:03

I think the second thing that keeps me is the sense of community. Being a member of the visions community requires that each of us do our own personal growth work to examine our own stuff, because I'm clear that I cannot invite folks to be on this journey of creating a more equitable and diverse society unless I'm willing to continually do my own work. So that's important to me. And visions, like any other organization, has its bumps in terms of relationships, etc, etc. And I think that one of the things that we also have is a structure, is a way of addressing those issues, and I think that's a really important piece. Sometimes we do that better than other times and it is what it is, because we're human.

Leena: 26:02

So that leads into one of my other questions what has been some of your biggest lessons, or maybe your biggest growth areas? Have you, as you've done, this work, ah?

Deborah: 26:13

I think for me, the biggest growth areas are. The biggest lessons are that the work is ongoing, it's a lifelong process and that I don't envision that it will be completed in my lifetime. I mentioned earlier about how we as a country take two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes it feels like we're taking two steps forward and three steps back, given more recently, the desire to erase history, particularly African American history. That's really painful. The other lesson for me is that I use the analogy that we're all in this ocean and that we're in different folks folks based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, other differences and to really be aware that we're in this ocean together so we could be impacted by just being in the ocean. I along with that.

Deborah: 27:22

One of my favorite quotes you've heard me say it before is by Dr King, who says that we're caught up in a web of mutuality. What affects one of us directly affects all of us directly. I often want to know, or invite folks to know, why is it in your own best interest to create an environment where everyone's humanity can be honored and that folks do what they do because it's in their own best interest? Now it currently may feel like the best interest is to keep this power dynamic going, the better than less, than dynamic going In the end, to the degree that you keep the divisiveness, it's going to impact you, it's going to impact your children and generations ahead. Those are some of the things I think the other and I heard Dr Glaub and Justice Kataji Brown Jackson both either say directly or allude to telling the truth and speaking truth to power while honoring our humanity, that our discomfort is not an excuse for destroying one another, and that we really have to keep on sending that message. Saying that message is doing what we need to do to build alliances and coalitions so that folks figure out wait a minute, this is divisiveness across the differences. Actually, it's not working for me. What am I willing to do differently to ensure that it works for me and everybody else?

Deborah: 29:02

Yeah, I think the final thing I'll say about that and a noted article on whose shoulders I stand that the price that I pay for doing this work is small compared to others who have done the work. One of my favorite folks is Fannie Lou Hamer, mississippi sharecropper, who said I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. She got up and did something and made a difference. There are women throughout history who have done that, so those are my role models. When I get tired and when a sense of hopelessness comes, I really have learned that I have to have a community that can support me as we support one another in our ability to keep on keeping. So those are some of the lessons that I've learned over the years. And I still get tired. So self care I think it's also an important piece of doing this work. That's the emotionally draining.

Leena: 30:07

What does self caring look like for you?

Deborah: 30:10

Having a sense of community. I'm aware that, while I'm extroverted in the work that I do as facilitator, that I'm actually an introvert, and that's becoming clearer and clearer. Exactly, and so just being aware of my own emotional, psychological needs, putting myself in places where I can connect with other communities, whether it's my church or family or whatever that's why the trip to Birmingham was so good. It's because it connected me with communities, so it's like, okay, surround yourself with folks that can support you and that you can support them and be a part of different communities. I'm aware that that's becoming increasingly important, in part because the vision's community is changing so much and because I am an elder and there are younger younger in terms of age and other differences consultants, and that those of us who are in the elder group are not going to be doing this work forever and ever, and so it's making that transition. That's also, I think, a part of really being clear about what a self-care look like in the midst of leaving a community that you've spent years in.

Leena: 31:37

I was thinking as you were talking earlier. One of the profound things that I've experienced at Visions is the way that the work we do is. We help people build relationship across difference. And this is very much true in our consultant community. And I think about when you and I first met and I was assigned to your consult.

Leena: 31:58

I think I was there with you for a week doing just morning and afternoon trainings for this group and I was like I remember I took a minute. I was like okay, I think I think Denver's like a little wary of me and like you know, kind of like trying to suss me out here and like okay, and I think my moment of breaking the ice with you was when you told me that you hadn't slept very well the night before. I was like why is that, debra? And you're like well, I got a text at 2am. I was like Debra, is your do not disturb on your phone active? And you're like it is not. And I was like give me your phone and I set you up with do not disturb, do you remember?

Deborah: 32:35

That's right. I remember that and I still use the do not disturb. I am not available from 10am to 9am in the morning, that's right. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.

Deborah: 32:51

I think it took a minute and I think that, for me, was part of my like I don't know this woman. That not that I had it, you know, negative feelings about you or anything. It's like okay, yeah, it took a minute. I'm glad I we took the time because I so value you are what you bring to the table and as I think more about it, probably I'm imagining, knowing me, that it grew out of my own scare. I'm like I don't know this person and what does this mean? And I knew that you were smart as hell. I knew that and that you had your own way of being and doing it. And I remember when we were working with what was it? That group of faculty and I couldn't do it for some reason and we had done one together and then I think Sarah Kayton did the other one with you. Something happened that couldn't do it and that for me was like this woman knows what she's doing. Let me just chill out.

Leena: 33:55

I appreciate that that vote of confidence and then I think what really cinched it was when we developed interactive guidelines for that at one company, the tech company. I had a blast with that and I'm still teaching guidelines like that. The next question is what is something that you want to teach and this is open-ended. It could be that you want to teach to clients and trainees, or generations of consultants that are coming up and doing this work, or just people involved in social justice work in general.

Deborah: 34:27

I certainly would want to continue to use vision's model and framework for work with clients and with trainees and the coming generation of consultants. I also am seeing younger folks 40, 30, who are doing a lot of social justice work I saw that when I was in Birmingham who have connected with organizations that focus on housing or other issues, and I really would like to spend some time working with folks who have created CDCs or other entities where they're working in the community and teach the vision's model and framework. That's really. I think there are lots of young folks who are doing great and wonderful things and it would be great to work with them using the vision's model and framework as they are building communities in their own areas of work. I mean, there are a lot of them in Charlotte who work with neighborhood development and other community-based and it would be wonderful for them to have vision's model and framework as they do their work.

Leena: 35:41

Fantastic. And then, what is something that you hope to see in the world?

Deborah: 35:48

I would hope to see a time when we don't have to do this work. I know that's. I would hope to see a world in which folks didn't feel like they had to maintain this better than less than dynamic for their own safety, that we create a world where folks can really talk about what they're mad about, what they're sad about, what they're scared about, because I believe at the core of the power dynamics is fierce feelings that aren't being addressed, about their own humanity, as I think about proud boys and insurrection and white supremacy. It's like, okay, in addition to that being about maintaining some sense of self, what are you mad about, sad about, scared about that you would go to these levels to disenfranchise other people. A world where we speak truth to power and we also do more and more work on having folks understand their feelings and being in touch with their feelings.

Deborah: 37:00

I think that we as a country have traumatized tremendously that if we don't get to a place where folks can figure out what they're mad about, sad about, scared about that, there will be such a sense of hopelessness that we won't have the ability to keep on keeping on doing the work. That feels really scary, because I know there are folks who are on the edge of hopelessness just because of the rhetoric that's going on. I want us to counteract that and talk about it. Okay, so what are you eating? And for me it goes back to that well, you're in this ocean, okay, so what are you needing to be able to keep on keeping on without destroying other folks? What are you scared about? What's the danger? What's the threat? What's the risk, such that you don't hurt other folks who don't look like you and, in the process, yourself and your generations going forward.

Leena: 38:11

I appreciate, Deborah, how you went to feelings for this. Now people who are listening to this are not going to see, but in the video, in the background of your video, is a framed, enlarged feeling wheel which I always chuckle at when I see. I appreciate that you went to feelings and surfacing and really acknowledging the role of feelings and everything that's happening and the importance of addressing them in working to move that to something somewhere else. I'm curious if you're willing and this is like a spontaneous question, so feel free to pass what the feelings framework like, how it was very impactful for me, right? And I'm wondering if you remember want to speak to how it was when you were first introduced to it.

Deborah: 39:06

Oh, I think it was. I thought it was there's. This is a Southern expression. It was the best thing since sliced bread. You may not get that. That's a I don't know.

Leena: 39:19

I've heard that one.

Deborah: 39:20

Okay, so we're going to start at the part of the model, the three dimensions of change. That change happens individually and organizationally to the degree that we address the cognitive, the thinking, provide information, we address behavior actions and generally in this work my experience has been that consultants focus on the cognitive and the behavioral and don't get into the affective or the feelings pieces.

Leena: 39:51

So you're talking about other approaches like not visions approaches, Other approaches when you say other approach.

Deborah: 39:56

Yeah, that right. Don't don't address the affect of the climate, the emotions of the, the yeah, the feelings. And what I often say is that if you address the cognitive and the behavioral, what you will have is folks doing stuff that's politically correct for a hot minute and then something in terms of their feelings may I say it's scared will erupt inside them or in the climate of the organization and they'll have to figure out what to do with it. When I thought through, thought through the three dimensions and thought about how other consultants sometimes approach the work with the cognitive and the, the behavioral, it allowed me to focus more closely on well, what does it mean for us to really take on the affect?

Deborah: 40:49

And I got so excited because I'm like this is where the work is, this is where change happens and if we can create the safe space for feelings to be okay to feel, then I think that we have opportunities to do even greater work.

Deborah: 41:07

because the truth is and I've said this before if feelings don't come out straight, never come out crooked and they're going to come out, and so I would love for us to even spend more time, you know, with the affective part of it, and I think folks are becoming more and more aware of the importance of that as they talk about mental health and the trauma that we've experienced. I know Dr Glaup talked about it the other night, about the need to really in tune with what is going on inside of us in terms of their feelings. So I can't say enough about the value, both therapeutically for our mental health, for our well-being individually as as communities, as a country, for us to really create space for folks to say I'm mad about, I'm sad about, I'm scared about, and have some tools more addressing those.

Leena: 42:00

Yeah.

Deborah: 42:02

And addition. So much not to do that. It's a long haul and I'm glad we're talking about it in terms of trauma and mental health. Thank you.

Leena: 42:11

I think you hit the nail on the head. That's the vision's difference with what you said about people doing certain things, acting in certain ways because it's politically correct, but then it busting out in some other way because they're uncomfortable and feel threatened and scared and don't know how to how to deal with that. Thank you for that.

Deborah: 42:29

Absolutely. I mean because you know we get messages, as you know, and catch messages about what it's okay to feel and what it's not okay to feel, and you know that's different across race, ethnicity, gender, and I'm feeling that, I think, is a tremendous tool for for healing, which is a part of what I think is required to shift the dynamics across our differences.

Leena: 42:55

Wonderful. So earlier this year you and I and our wonderful colleagues Ann Ealy facilitated a workshop and tour of the state where you grew up. We did various sites on the Alabama Civil Rights Trail. We're the originator of that and I had the privilege of accompanying you on that. Would you talk about how you originated that and a little bit about what we did and how you were thinking about it?

Deborah: 43:24

Well, first, I was really excited that you were excited about you at Zan and you doing the trip, and for me it was an opportunity to take folks home and to share a bit of Alabama's history.

Deborah: 43:43

And part of that was because I remember growing up and even as an adult, people would talk about Alabama like it was some third planet and not account for the fact that the same thing that's going on in Alabama is going on in California, in Massachusetts and other parts. But because we had so much civil rights strength in Alabama, in Birmingham, in Montgomery and in Selma, alabama became the whipping post, if you will, for all that is wrong and that all problems around racism reside in Alabama or Mississippi. So for me it was an opportunity to say that is true. And what is also true is that we are doing the work to address the legacy and the history of racism and white supremacy in Alabama, and I want wanted folks to really understand at a deeper level, not just the Reddit talking points, but to really see a state and cities where folks were doing the work. So, yeah, so I was taking you all to my home.

Leena: 45:02

So the tour is based in Montgomery and we took a long day trip to Birmingham and a half day trip to Selma. Do you want to talk about some of the sites that we prioritize in each place?

Deborah: 45:15

So we started the tour and our base was in Montgomery, and Montgomery was the seat of Confederacy.

Deborah: 45:23

So that's significant and I think Brian Stevens and others have done tremendous work in building what some call the lynching museum, which is a museum that houses soil from folks who were lynched and really shows history of lynching in Alabama. It's an incredible exhibit of the ways in which folks were treated so badly, and a part of the EJI, which is the Equal Justice Initiative, is the Peace and Justice Memorial, where there are slabs from various states and counties that have the names of folks who were lynched which is powerful, and so I think the EJI both the lynching museum and the memorial provides an opportunity for us to see up close and personal the impact of slavery and the treatment of African Americans.

Leena: 46:28

I have to say that the EJI, the museum in particular and I say this as somebody who does this work from my particular location, I say this as a former museum professional and I say this as a historian it is the most incredible museum I have ever been to. I walked into it the first time you and I were in Montgomery when we were pitching to a client. I walked into it and I walked out of it not the same person. It was so profound and powerful and I think one of the things that got me that first time there were other things that got me the second time and I was a blubbering mess. You saw me.

Leena: 47:07

The thing that got me the first time was when they showed a map of where the EJI was, showed the main commercial strip, which was where the thing was located, where the museum was located, and showed this was an auction house. This was a bank that profited off the slave trade. This is an insurance company that facilitated all of this happening and it was right there and we were right there. It was just mind blowing how embedded we were in that, just in that history. So anyway, that's Montgomery.

Deborah: 47:48

That is Montgomery, and there's much more to see in Montgomery because, of course, rosa Parks statue is in the center of Montgomery, the church that Dr King pastored, which is right down the street from the Capitol, and in Birmingham. For the day trip we went to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, which is another museum that highlights Birmingham story of the Civil Rights Movement, and across the street from it is Kelly Ingram Park, which now houses statues and other memorabilia that highlighted the place where Will Connor sicked the dogs and the fire hoses on the kids during the children's crusade, and one of the most powerful statues is a statue of the four little girls, which can see from where the statue is placed. It directly looks into 16th Street Baptist Church which is on corner.

Deborah: 48:56

And then, of course, I shared about St Paul, which is the church I grew up in and was right next door, 16th Street, and I also will say that the entering 16th Street Baptist Church physically and seeing the way in which they have chronicled what happened was really powerful. So one of the things I really appreciate about Birmingham is how they are coordinating all of these buildings and statues within what's called the Birmingham Civil Rights District, which was President Obama was designated as a historical district. And when we go back we also get a chance to go to the A G Gaston Motel, which is where billionaire AG Gaston businessmen and where Dr King and others stayed during the Civil Rights here because she couldn't stay anyplace else, and which was bombed as a way to kill them and they didn't. And then, of course, visiting Dynamite Hill where Dr King's brother lived and other prominent Arthur Shores was a prominent attorney, Angela Davis, her family lived on Dynamite Hill and then visiting the Black Business District which is adjacent to the park and the area. So four or five blocks. What you see is Birmingham and how it grew to and responded to the to the racism and the devastation of the sixties. So that's for him.

Deborah: 50:35

And then we went to Selma, which is powerful and special in its own right.

Deborah: 50:44

Black Panthers and others actually spent time in Selma and what it's most famous for is the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The young man was killed and Dr King and John Lewis and others said we're going to march from Selma to Montgomery, which is about 55 miles to the state capital, and it took tries before they were able to do that. And and John Lewis tells the story about how he was, you know, beaten and their clips but yeah, and it took. It took a minute to get to Montgomery and until the federal government said, ok, we'll provide protection for you to get there. And it was only after the federal government said we'll provide protection that they were able to make the trek to Montgomery and stand before the capital, the seat of Confederacy, and essentially say no more, this has to end. And so tying all those pieces together those three cities really does paint, think, a powerful picture of Alabama and how the various cities, including the three that we're visiting, are working to ensure that the history doesn't get lost.

Deborah: 52:10

And that truth is for all to see, and that's why I'm excited that we're going again in 2024. I think the combination of the sites and our using the vision's tools to teach and process what folks are seeing is a way to invite folks to keep on keeping on undergirded history, and so the combination of, in this case, and having that history again, given what's going on currently as history is trying to be erased, is critical. So I'm excited that we can help begin.

Leena: 52:54

And then, while this tour is happening, we also scheduled time to teach the fundamentals of the vision's model.

Deborah: 53:02

And the visual what it was, and then using the tools to process, including processing feelings, is really an important piece to supporting individuals who come in their own personal work around these issues and to also support them as they support others, given they do themselves. And I'm aware that, for example, one of the folks that we had this time was in education and he had planned. He had planned to bring students down, and this is a great opportunity to bring students and or to come with your faculty or staff or whatever, and learn this history so that you can support what your students need to learn in their schools, given the band books idea. So come on down.

Leena: 53:59

Deborah, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your story and sharing your insights. I have been deeply appreciative and grateful to be able to be in community with you, to be able to be your colleague and to call you a friend. So thank you so much for the time.

Deborah: 54:17

And I want to thank you. You are one awesome woman, human being, and I deeply appreciate you and the work that you do and the way in which you care about this work and the people that you work with, and I am grateful to be on this journey with you. So thank you for being you, thank you.

Leena: 54:39

Deborah, if you're curious to learn more about Dr Walker's work experiences or the tour that she's leading on the Alabama Civil Rights Trail in May 2024, I've included links in the show notes. If you want to know more about us or about what's coming up at Visions, there are links and resources in the notes as well. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, as well as at our website, www. visions-inc. org. Thank you so much for listening.