Deaconess plans to help black people in St. Louis heal from racism

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The Deaconess Foundation wants to help African Americans in the St. Louis area recover from the effects of racial trauma through its Institute for Black Liberation.

The institute aims to teach 25 participants how to develop a mindset free from internalized and structural racism. During a year-long program beginning this fall, they will learn to identify white supremacy and its impacts, fight racism, and challenge black stereotypes.

Funded by a $1 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the institute will also provide participants with leadership training so they can contribute to change in their communities.

Black people must first understand the role that systemic and structural racism has played in their lives for generations to mentally heal and move forward, said institute director Rudy Nickens.

Freedom right now is the ability to imagine it, create it, and think about what my life would be like if I could live without the effects of these injuries, Nickens said. Unless we clear our minds and secure our collective ties to this ideology, together we can never truly mount the kind of effective change and resistance we seek.

To help people 25 and older recover from the mental and physical effects of racism, the program will explore ways to celebrate their blackness.

If black people had the ability to heal their minds of the idea that they are not good enough, then they could help build an equitable society, Nickens said.

We don’t approach that, like, Oh, black people are so bad and messed up, we approach that, like, We’re brilliant humans, we’re amazing, he said. We are strong, powerful and resilient, and we need tools to help us take the next steps and move forward.

Foundation leaders say black people have never been able to imagine an anti-racist system, and they and their communities have continued to experience the painful effects of racism.

Research shows that no matter how educated black people are, they pass on the stress of racial trauma to their unborn children. It’s important to break that cycle, said Bethany Johnson-Javois, CEO of the Deaconess Foundation.

I envision the St. Louis area will see a narrative that not only is being polished around the edges, but we own the narrative of our bodies, our lives and our future, she said. I also think that we can have an easy, bolder strategy and even more incredible thinking than what we see today, because people have freed themselves to be able to dream.

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