Our Work Together
Spartanburg Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) is based on the national Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation framework, developed by Dr. Gail Christopher, who was Spartanburg’s MLK keynote speaker in 2020.
Truth
Telling the truth about past wrongs created by individual and systemic racism, actions that caused harm or loss.
Telling the truth about the present consequences of individual and systemic racism.
Changing the narrative: creating and distributing new complex and complete narratives in entertainment, journalism, digital and social media, school curricula, museums, monuments and parks and in the way we communicate that can influence people’s perspectives, perceptions and behaviors about and towards one another so that we can work more effectively and productively towards community-based change.
Racial Healing & Relationship-building
Focusing on ways for all of us to heal from the wounds of the past, to build mutually respectful relationships across racial and ethnic lines that honor and value each person’s humanity, and to build trusting inter-generational and diverse community relationships that better reflect our common humanity.
Transformation
Examining and finding ways to address segregation, colonization, and racially concentrated poverty in Spartanburg’s neighborhoods to ultimately ensure equitable access to health, education and jobs.
Studying structured inequality and barriers to economic opportunities and recommending and advocating for approaches that will create an equitable Spartanburg society.
Reviewing discriminatory civil and criminal laws and the public policies that come from them and recommending and advocating for solutions that will produce a just application of the law.