Youth organizations from 29 states and the District of Columbia will receive grants for vulnerable children, youth and their communities affected by racism through a $75 million racial healing initiative led by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation will present the “Racial Healing Initiative” on May 11 in Washington D.C. The initiative arrives at a time when minority populations are increasing, but disparities are rampant.
According to Gail Christopher, vice president of programs for the Kellogg Foundation, in the near future a majority of U.S. children will be children of color and 60 percent of African-American children currently live in low-income populations.
“When you couple that with the disparities in education and health, we’re looking at a future country potentially where most of the children don’t have equal opportunity for success,” Christopher said. “That’s simply unacceptable on behalf of our national well-being.”
Christopher added that the initiative is important for the country because it enforces equality among races and confronts racist ideals of the past.
“Our democratic ideals are good for the country and we preach the concept of equal opportunity, so we need to ‘walk the talk’ and make sure we can do everything we can to address the hidden structural issues that don’t get addressed,” Christopher said. “Our country spent three centuries creating a society that privileged some based on physical characteristics and disadvantaged others, and the legacy of that belief system is still at play. We’re still dealing with the legacy built on a myth on racial superiority and inferiority and we have to deal with that.”
