ABSTRACT
The Civil Rights Educator Institute shuffles the deck to include personally held truths and experience, in the context of community histories, national history, and inherited stories. The institute relies on place-based learning to deepen engagement with history as a living force, one in which multiple forces use story to either uphold the racial status quo or to understand and unveil how white supremacy operates. As we will learn in the days ahead, the struggle to recognize the history buried here has been long and contentious. When a historical moment is no longer an isolated, unmoving monolith, but an outcome of multiple forces, participants begin to see history as a present and tangible force, one that we are moving within, can act upon, and can transform. The Storytelling Project framework is introduced after we engage in a power analysis: a look at the qualities of oppression, the way it functions, and the multiple levels on which it operates—institutional, cultural, and interpersonal.
