Meet Donna Odom, Executive Director, Society for History & Racial Equality

Donna Odom/Kalamazoo College

 Donna Odom is a native of Chicago, Illinois.  She   holds  a   Bachelor of Arts Degree from Kalamazoo   College and a   Master of Arts Degree from Loyola   University of   Chicago.  Her background includes   teaching at the high   school and community college   level and higher education   administration in   Chicago.   She retired from the   Kalamazoo Valley   Museum   where she coordinated history   programs   and special   projects from 1994 to 2010. She   founded  the   Southwest Michigan Black Heritage   Society   in 2003,   which in 2015 became SHARE (Society for   History and Racial Equity). She now serves as executive director.

Donna was a member of the Steering Committee for the Southwest Michigan RACE Exhibit Initiative, is a past board member of the Kalamazoo County Historical Society, the Historical Society of Michigan, and the Michigan Oral History Association. She currently serves on the Kalamazoo College Emeriti Alumni Leadership Council and has been appointed to the Michigan Underground Railroad Commission. She was Project Director for the 2009 History Detectives Oral History Project, Project Co-director of the 2010 Telling the Kalamazoo Community Race Story Project in partnership with the WMU Journalism Program, and Project Co-Director of the Engaging the Wisdom Oral History Project in partnership with Kalamazoo College.  She is a recipient of the YWCA Women of Achievement Award (2018), the Westminster Presbyterian Peace Award (2019), and is a 2020 finalist for the AARP Purpose Prize.

 

How long has the Society for History & Racial Equality (SHARE} been doing its work? Could you give us a brief history of the organization’s beginnings?

The Society for History and Racial Equity (SHARE) was originally established as the Southwest Michigan Black Heritage Society with the purpose of researching and documenting the history and contributions of African Americans in Southwest Michigan to provide material for publications, programs, exhibitions, and possibly curriculum.  In 2014 we made the decision to make racial equity part of our mission with the core programs being the Healing Together Retreats, Engaging the Wisdom, the Race Initiative Book Club, and the Summit on Racism.  Recognizing that with the expanded mission and scope it was necessary to change our name to one that is more reflective of what we do, in May of 2015 the name of the organization was officially changed to the Society for History and Racial Equity (SHARE).

Part of the mission of SHARE is to fight racism and promote racial healing. One of the methods used by SHARE is the Racial Healing Initiative. Can you give us a sense of what’s involved with the Racial Healing Initiative?

The focus of the Initiative is to educate the community on the importance of our region's African American heritage, foster connections and conversations on race, raise awareness of racism and the broad societal benefits of its elimination, and awaken the community to the urgency of change.  We meet individuals where they are, inspire them to take action through self-education and increased involvement. Additionally, we engage in research and documentation of the history of African Americans in Kalamazoo that inform the Initiative.  

The four touchstones of the Initiative are:
Healing:  Providing opportunities for community members to engage in self-reflection and story- telling to begin the process of addressing the trauma of racism.

Facing History:  Lack of knowledge of the history of racism and discrimination is a major cause of misunderstanding and lack of empathy. Educating participants on the history of racism and how we got where we are is central to the Racial Healing Initiative.  
Making Connections:  Providing spaces where community members have opportunities to connect across racial, gender, and generational barriers.

Taking Action:  Offering opportunities for the community to come together to identify and plan action steps, forge partnerships, and develop strategies for community transformation.
All of our programs fall under the heading of one or more of those components.
The goal of these programs is to bring people together to relate to one another on a human level, eschewing hierarchical structuring and seeing each person’s success and achievement as a benefit to the community as a whole and not as a threat.

 

Preservation of local history, pertaining to racism and the fight for equality, is an important part of SHARE’s work. For example, SHARE’s Oral History Project. On SHARE’s website there’s a powerful quote from James Baldwin: “History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.” Would to like to expand on this?

Our motto is Acknowledging the past, healing the present.  Racism is Deeply Ingrained in our Society.  Racism is based on fear – fear of “the other,” ignorance – a lack of knowledge about and familiarity with “the other,” and the belief in the inferiority of one group and superiority of another.  As Americans, we have a history of racism and until we deal with that, we will never come together across the barriers that divide us.  As mentioned above, facing history is central to the Racial Healing Initiative.  Until we understand how we got where we are, we will continue to be unable to move on.

Another part of what SHARE does is initiate Community Discussions. Could you mention a few of the past topics, how often the discussions are usually held, and their importance?

When we first began the community discussions were held every month.  History and other workshops often now occur in place of the community discussions.  Topics we have covered since 2016 include White Privilege; It Starts with Us!  People of Color and White People in Alliance Against Racism; Racial/Ethnic Bias in the News Media; Police/Community Relations, Let’s Play the Race Card; Building a Racial Equity Network.

 

SHARE also hosts an annual Summit on Racism. What’s the goal of the Summit? Given the reality of Covid-19, are plans in the works for this year’s Summit?

The Goals of the Summit on Racism are:

1. To educate the community on issues of racial inequity.

2. To share testimonials from current activists and organizations.

3. To provide inspiration for self-empowerment.

The 2020 Summit on Racism will be presented on a virtual platform over three days – Thursday, November 12, Friday, November 13, and Saturday, November 14.  Our theme is "#BEYOND 400: THE VIRTUAL SUMMIT ON RACISM:  400 Years After Slavery Began, A Collective Conversation to Chart a Better Future." The areas we are targeting are Education, Health, and Voter Suppression.  We will be putting special emphasis on COVID effects on the Black and Brown communities.  Keynote speaker will be Jesse Hagopian, social justice educator.  Other sessions will feature representatives from the Southern Poverty Law Center addressing voter suppression, and health experts addressing COVID’s effects on the Black and Brown communities.  The finale will be a multi-media presentation on 400 years of African American history sponsored by the 400 Years of African American History Commission of the National Park Service.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to mention? Especially of the importance of SHARE’s work, in light of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement?

When we first learned of the Pandemic, I revised our programming for the year and began making plans for how we would handle reduced donations and grant funding believing that giving would be most concentrated on organizations and activities that fed and clothed.  Then George Floyd was murdered, and the Black Lives Movement happened.  And all suddenly we became more relevant than ever.  Our donations increased; we were awarded grants I had considered long shots; and we ascended to the final stages of the AARP Purpose Prize awards.  These developments are heartening and encouraging, and they inspire me to move forward with greater purpose and renewed energy.  We won’t see a total transformation in my lifetime and perhaps not in the lifetime of our children, but I do see an awakening.  It’s up to us to seize the moment and do our best to answer the call for change.