Community Change Inc. invites you to a night of food, connection and fellowship, a night of Communion, to feed our collective souls and honor the work of the past two years. Drylongso 2022 is a gathering of past, present and future anti-racist community members in Greater Boston and Northern New England who have joined the 400 year struggle for racial justice.
Friday, October 14th
We will come together to reignite old friendships and forge new ones, while enjoying barbecue, courtesy of M&M Barbecue of Dorchester (vegan and veggie options provided), and beverages atop Dorchester Brewing Company's fully wheelchair accessible rooftop bar. This outside venue was chosen to optimize our opportunities for safe fellowship as the pandemic becomes part of normal life.
Join us to celebrate and reflect on the work we've done, and the work still yet to come.
**COVID vaccine required, rapid test encouraged - let's protect our most vulnerable!
Kendra Lara
Boston City Councilor, former Emerging Leader winner
Keynote Speaker
Debby Irving
Author of Waking Up White
Emcee
For our more than 50 years, we have depended almost exclusively on donations from individuals. We know that the funding world tends to be led and directed by established rules of whiteness. For example, most grant funders require measurable outcomes tracking numbers rather than qualitative indicators of success.
We recognize how traditional funding has been wrapped in a history of white supremacy, but we also know that reaching out and building relationships -- authentic partnerships -- with established businesses and funding organizations is now a vital part of our work on “the white problem” of racism.
For nearly a decade Shay Stewart-Bouley, our first black executive director, has led CCI in insisting white people go way beyond merely “getting woke” and find a way to risk their privilege in joining others to move the dial on racism. As the anti-racist community grows stronger we need your partnership and investment to fully support, and hopefully grow, our staff and programs so we can continue to play our essential part in this movement.
We are hopeful that you will recognize the value of our decades long efforts, our current work, and our future plans. Work that directly calls on white people to step up, learn something, and take action in accountable relationships with black and brown communities is not easy work to fund. We invite and welcome your partnership.
Established in 1989, the Drylongso Awards honor ordinary people doing extraordinary anti-racism work in Greater Boston. The Drylongso Awards are inspired by the book Drylongso: A Self-Portrait of Black America. In that book, anthropologist John Langston Gwaltney details the daily struggles of Drylongso, or ordinary African Americans fighting racism.
This year, the Community Change Drylongso 2022: Communion celebration is a continuation of the event held annually in the fall. The event grows out of an expansion of the Drylongso Awards Celebration which CCI has hosted since 1989. The first CCI Leadership Awards Celebration was held on November 10, 2009.
Please get your tickets, learn more, or make an immediate donation in support of our staff and programs. We hope you can join us!
