Guidance for Collaborative Equity Initiatives, Symbols & Public Spaces

A confluence of events, including a pandemic, protests, and business and school closings disrupted our country in 2020 and, despite deep political differences, there is broadened support for structural changes to advance racial equity.  These resources illustrate ideas for advancing sequences collaborative race equity initiatives, and for transforming contested monuments and symbols into welcoming public spaces. 

Through its partnership with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, DCP leverages the ideas and resources of interdisciplinary practitioners, advocates, community leaders, and scholars to develop the following guidance for communities seeking to advance equity. 

Just in the past two years, we've witnessed emerging truth, reconciliation, reparations, and action efforts emerge across the country.  Published in July 2022, A Practical Guide to Planning Collaborative Initiatives to Advance Racial Equity, highlights lessons learned from domestic state and local efforts to advance race equity.  Here is a working list of such commissions.

NEW Second Edition | Guidance for Collaborative Race Equity Initiatives

Dozens of collaborative initiatives to advance racial equity are underway at both the state and local level and are under discussion at the national level and in additional communities. This edition of the guide offers promising ideas and illustrations gleaned from these new initiatives together with insights from historical and international contexts. The focus is on government-community collaborations with multiple goals: helping people understand the history of current racial harms, instituting changes to advance racial equity, starting the healing, and more. 

Symbols and Public Spaces Amid Division

Creating accessible public spaces that feel welcoming to residents and visitors can bring people together to interact across societal fault lines.  A planning process can be most effective before conflicts over symbols divide people into opposing camps. By working proactively, leaders and others within a campus, city, region, or state – what we call here for simplicity a “community” – will also respond more constructively and collaboratively when conflicts over symbols or other divisive incidents occur. They will be able to draw on enhanced relationships and detailed plans created beforehand for responding quickly in a volatile situation.

Spearheaded by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies in collaboration with the Divided Community Project, the following conversations connect to the themes of truth, healing, reconciliation and race equity initiatives.  

• A Nation Grappling with its Sins? featuring Kouslaa Kessler-Mata
• A Shared Future: Overcoming Polarization featuring Duncan Morrow
• Facing the Past to Forge the Future featuring Martha Minnow

In Spring 2022, Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution in collaboration with the Divided Community Project, the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program, and Stanford Law School's Gould Center for Conflict Resolution hosted a three part symposium series titled Rethinking Systems Design for Racial Equity & Justice.  Selected panels and presentations focused on truth, reconciliation, healing, and equity initiatives are available here:

• From Stanford Law
  • A conversation featuring individuals engaged in this work in California.   
  • A conversation among thought leaders and practitioners.
• From Ohio State Law
  • Practitioner Observations from the Field
  • Race & Policing: Design Interventions
  • Framing Justice: A Conversation with john powell
  • Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation in Action
  • Reflections on Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation
• From Harvard Law
  • This link features two conversations focused on these topics

FIRST EDITION Guidance for Collaborative Race Equity Initiatives

A confluence of events, including a pandemic, protests, and business and school closings disrupted our country in 2020 and, despite deep political differences, there is broadened support for structural changes to advance racial equity.  This may be an ideal time for Americans to pursue this goal at the local, state, and national levels.  A multi-pronged, sequenced approach has a mutually reinforcing effect.  Whether it is called a truth commission or something else – that process facilitates collaborative problem-solving over a period of years to achieve the equitable society that will afford each person the opportunity to thrive.

There is no single blueprint for the kind of transformative process that seeks to provide equity and “raises all boats.”  Planners will tailor the process to the context and their goals.