Release | January 15, 2021

National Day of Racial Healing

Barry D. Ford, J.D.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has designated Tuesday, January 19, 2021 as this year’s National Day of Racial Healing. The event is as notable for its timing as it is for its substance, given that it occurs this year between Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States. These national events highlight the challenges and the opportunities that our country faces as we strive to fulfill the promise, enshrined in our founding documents, of liberty, equality, and justice for all.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s years-long promotion of racial healing as a key component to advancing racial equity and justice is a call for facing the truth of our nation’s tragic history of systemic racism, in order to realize the promise of a diverse, inclusive and equitable future. I am honored as President and CEO of Council for a Strong America (CSA), a Kellogg grantee, to share CSA’s position on racial equity and healing.

CSA believes that advancing racial equity is foundational to the national security, community safety, and the economic vitality of our country, because each of those societal outcomes depends on the thriving of our families and the success of our children. By recruiting, educating, and mobilizing law enforcement, military, business, faith and sports leaders to be champions for public investments in kids, particularly kids who live in the most vulnerable and under-resourced communities in our country, we seek to strengthen our nation.

For our nation to be truly strong, we must commit to the equitable distribution of public investments necessary to ensure that every child can grow up safe, secure, healthy and well-educated; where a child’s zip code, ethnic group, or family’s financial circumstances do not dictate their chances of success in life. That means we must take seriously the ongoing impact of systemic racism and structural disinvestment in communities of color throughout our nation and dedicate ourselves to removing the barriers that prevent us from becoming the nation we aspire to be.

On this National Day of Racial Healing, CSA commits to redoubling its efforts to achieve this vision of a strong nation. I hope you will join CSA members, staff, and partners in these efforts. For more information on CSA and our work, please visit www.strongnation.org.

Barry D. Ford
President and CEO
Council for a Strong America

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Barry D. Ford, J.D.

President and CEO

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  1. National