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MOVING FROM SURRENDERING TO THRIVING

Nanci Palacios is the most courageous person in most rooms into which she walks. She is a community organizer who herself is a DACA recipient (an Obama executive order entitled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). DACA allows for young people who came to this country as children to apply for work permits. This has made it possible for Nanci to get a driver’s license (unlike in many states, in Florida you cannot have a driver’s license if you’re not a US citizen) and get a work permit so she can hold a regular job.

Nanci has battled many opponents throughout the years. Every day, when she leaves the house, she’s not sure whether that night, her mom and dad will arrive back home. They are both undocumented and have lived in the US for many years. Although they are not allowed to have driver’s licenses in Florida, they still need to get to work and pay the bills. So, each day Nanci walks out the door and kisses her mom and dad goodbye, wondering if it is the last time she will see them.

Nanci attended a briefing for donors in New York City, hosted by a generous supporter who had a large, spacious home in Midtown Manhattan. She wore a flowery dress, a sharp pair of heels, and glasses that kept sliding down her nose. Although she was the most courageous person in the room, no one saw it. She yielded to the leadership of the men in the room, who had less experience and less direct knowledge of the issue that undocumented families deal with every day. Before the event started, she was glued to her laptop. During the presentation, she gave her power up to the other people in the room. Actually, she handed it over on a silver platter. She was uncomfortable in the setting, and it showed. In that space, Nanci was not thriving.

Several months later, I visited the home of an undocumented woman with Nanci. The woman was afraid and intimidated by the current administration’s dragnet of immigration raids throughout the country. In that setting, sitting across the kitchen table, Nanci’s love, inspiration, and determination captivated us. She shared a detailed analysis of the ways that local governments in Florida were cooperating with immigration enforcement agents. She told her personal story in a deep and compelling way. Her passion and knowledge motivated everyone in the room to take action.

Later that year, I attended a regional training in Dallas. Nanci showed up with jeans, sassy shoes, leather jacket, and bright lipstick. Her lashes and brows were on fleek. She was providing powerful testimony in front of a room filled with faith and community leaders from Texas, Alabama, and Florida. She was on fire! She stood up front in her full light and shared her story of the battles she has fought with her people. She told us about how she walked one hundred miles between Orlando and Tampa on a pilgrimage for immigration reform, showed up at every event her local congressman attended—even met his wife to get the message through. She fought to hold a local prosecutor accountable for his inhumane positions on immigration and his harsh punishment of Black people in his prosecution and sentencing choices.

That cold day in Dallas, Nanci laid out a plan to send a message to her local sheriff and sheriffs around the country, that making money by breaking up immigrant families and criminalizing Black folks is immoral and will become politically unpopular. She wasn’t wishing for a new reality to come along. She wasn’t wondering where her limits were, she was stretching herself past her limits. Finally, she wasn’t waiting for permission or answers to come from others. She was designing strategy herself, with community leaders and pastors at her side. She had pushed past her fear and intimidation. She proposed running offense against one of the architects of her misery and the misery of her people.

She finished by saying, “This administration thinks I’m a threat. And now that I think of it, they’re right. I am a threat. So they’d better watch out!” To that, faith leaders from three states filled the hall with applause, shouts, and table pounding.

I saw Nanci in Florida one day after the Supreme Court of the United States decided to let the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order stand. She hadn’t slept much the night before because she and others had been celebrating the victory. She was at a Juneteenth rally and protest. She looked giddy, happy-tired, and powerful!

Nanci keeps throwing victories up on the board. Yet, she’s going beyond winning in the fight for change—she’s thriving. She’s taking the fight to her opponents by walking in the fullest, most brilliant version of herself today and for our future.

What Does Thriving Look Like?

Nanci’s story shows how she is growing into her leadership and thriving in the fight. There are three keys to thriving in the fight for social change: lead, live, and love. There are also three surefire signs to warn you when you start surrendering in the fight: wish, wonder, and wait.

Thriving in the fight means being active, being engaged, and passionately contributing to bringing about needed social, economic, and political change. The opposite of staying in the fight is surrendering, giving up, or passively standing by while problems get worse.

You are thriving in the fight when you are bringing your fullest, sharpest thinking to the day’s most pressing problems. You are most likely to do this when you are rested and have created routines that give you enough space to think. Leaders who are thriving in the fight are grounded in their love and passionate commitment to people, family, and justice. This love and passion fuels entire movements. When you are tied in to your love, your anger at injustice serves as a crystalizing agent for your thinking. It can help you forge a path forward that no one can see but you.

When you’re thriving, you’re leading with your full heart, soul, and mind and your leadership is growing. You are committed to always learning. You lead with confidence, charisma, and courage. You stand up tall, you enter places you know are yours to own, and people can almost see the warmth and glow of your joy and power. When you laugh, you laugh with all of you. You show others the full truth of who you are as a person, and you encourage others to reciprocate. You show up in multiracial spaces as the most open, resilient version of you. You handle stressful situations with grace. You’re thriving in the fight when you’re successfully integrating your work and your personal life, not compartmentalizing. You build strong relationships and develop strong leaders. Leaders who are thriving in the fight are making steady progress on issues that are important to your Tía Carmen.

I’m inviting you to help create organizations that are willing to listen to you, center your leadership, and be loyal to you when you go through hard times.

Black women, Latinas, and all women of color are the backbone of the social change movement. Since the work you do as a change agent is important, we need you thriving in the fight for change.

You do consequential work. You confront immigration systems that demean your families, schools that can’t see the possibility in your children, police violence and gun violence that continues unabated because of a lack of political will, and public health care systems woefully unprepared to protect children and their families from illness. These realities are cosigned by unaccountable government officials and a democracy that is being tested on a daily basis. Hermana, you stand toe-to-toe against corporate giants, political leaders, and widely accepted public opinion that is eventually proven wrong. You believe the world is round, while others still worry about falling off its edge.

Let’s be clear. It’s not just on those of us who identify as women of color to stay in the fight, change the internal organizational systems, and battle the injustices facing our world. Creating change is on all of us.

We need people and institutions to be committed to your long-term development, not just using you up until you have nothing more to give and then throwing you away. Some organizational leaders have no idea how to set you up for success. This must stop.

The same applies to our country. When we create a country where Black and Brown bodies truly thrive, everyone will thrive. Our descendants deserve nothing less from us.

Former US surgeon general Vivek Murthy was asked to name the leading disease affecting Americans. His response: “It’s not cancer, it’s not heart disease. It’s isolation.”¹ The COVID-19 epidemic required people to wear masks and physically distance from one another. Yet, Nanci and other sisters like her found ways to strengthen ties between people regardless of the limits placed around them.

Our country needs you. As the pandemic swept through the United States, elected officials made faulty decisions that cost lives. Many of the people who got ill, were hospitalized, and died from the illness were disproportionately Black, Latino, and Native American. While officials fumbled the ball, women-of-color organizers around the country pivoted all their work to online organizing, delivering food, money, and masks to people in the poorest communities. Women in communities of color rose up to protect the hardest-to-reach families and helped them stay safe.

Three Keys to Thriving in the Fight: Lead, Live, and Love

I have identified three keys to thriving in the fight for social change. They are lead, live, and love. (See figure 3.)

Figure 3. Three keys to thriving in the fight

In Spanish there is a saying, “Adelante todo el tiempo, pa’ traz ni pa’ coger impulso.” It means “Always forward, never backward, not even to gather momentum.”

I’m inviting you to lead into

  your values

  your dreams of a better future

  your beliefs that, together, people can change the world

  your hope that your work can make the world a better place for future generations

  your faith in a future that has not yet been seen

I’m inviting you to live into the fullest version of you to

  Reject those messages ingrained in you by faith, family, culture, and experience that tell you to just keep your head down and do the work.

  Take off your cape and stop trying to be a superhero.

  Care for your needs too, not just the needs of everyone else.

  Reject limits that you or others have placed on you.

  Lead in ways that are authentic to you.

  Speak up, speak out, and lead from the front.

  Dream big and believe that you, my sister, are a threat to the status quo.

  Do things you’re not yet comfortable doing.

  Know yourself well enough to show up as the best version of yourself everywhere you go.

I’m also inviting you to love past some negatives. I invite you to love past

  the negative forces that make you want to give up

  despair, discouragement, and disappointment

  opponents who try to intimidate you into standing down

  people who tell you that your way is not the “right” way

  racism, colonized thinking, and anti-Blackness in you, your culture of origin, and society

We need you to thrive in the fight. In order to change, I’m inviting you to lead into your vision, live into the fullest version of you, and love past negatives that hold you back.

What Does Surrendering Look Like?

On the opposite end of the spectrum from thriving in the fight is surrendering in the fight. Surrender means giving up, or passively standing by while problems get worse. Leaders who have already surrendered the fight are passive. They tread water, follow the rules, and stay busy. Surrendered leaders persevere through exhaustion.

We have likely all experienced surrender at some point or other. Perhaps you haven’t even realized it. There’s no judgment here. This book is an invitation for you to move into your fullest leadership.

Three Warning Signs of Surrendering in the Fight: Wish, Wonder, and Wait

Three signs that you may be surrendering in the fight are when you find yourself wishing, wondering, and waiting (see figure 4).

When you are able to move out of surrender and toward thriving, you can have a greater impact. You can continue to stand strong with and for your communities. And you will find yourself leading more creatively and making better decisions.

The Spectrum from Surrendering to Thriving

I mentioned earlier that one of the symptoms of white supremacy is binary thinking. As such, I have created this value model (see table 1) that you can use to assess your own leadership. The first column describes the status of your leadership on a spectrum from surrendering to thriving. The second column gives examples of how you act at each level of leadership. The third column shows how you may increase your impact as you move from one stage of your leadership to the next. Take a moment to review the chart below with your own leadership in mind.

Table 1. The spectrum between surrendering and thriving

Now that you’ve reviewed the spectrum from surrendering to thriving with your leadership in mind, note where you see your leadership today (surrendering, surviving, staying, winning, thriving, or add a new category). Write your response in a notebook, make a voice recording, or use the following space.

Okay, now, note where you’d like to see your leadership in three months and why (surrendering, surviving, staying, winning, thriving, or add a new category).

Finally, lay out one step you could take to grow your leadership. Here are some ideas to get your juices flowing:

  Read an article or book on anti-Blackness.

  Ask your manager to help you grow in one area.

  Accept an invitation to lead publicly.

  Take a step to raise money.

  Identify a mentor to help you grow in one area.

  Say no to a work event so you can say yes to a chosen family activity.

Now it’s your turn. Note one step you will take to grow your leadership.

I’d encourage you to share this one-step intention to change with someone you trust. Ideally, it is a person who can help hold you accountable to your desire. You can even set a time on your calendar now to meet with them in three months to share what you’ve learned. If you have a person in mind, make a note of their name now.

Don’t Wish, Wonder, and Wait

At Faith in Action, there was a period of years during which our organization was having difficulty retaining, training, promoting, and centering the leadership and vision of Black women and women of color more broadly. The Black women in our organization came together and partnered with the rest of the Black Caucus to put forth a set of demands of the network. They recommended that the network commission a report on the state of Black women in Faith in Action. Black women were at the center of asking for the report, creating the request for proposals for the report, shaping the questions on the report, and making sure it happened.

The report came up with a number of key recommendations. But as you know, organizational change can be slow. As such, a few women recognized the urgency of implementing one of the report’s recommendations right away, to protect from future departures.

Phyllis Hill, Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould, Rev. Jennifer Jones, Isabelle Moses, Felicia Yoda, Megan Black, and Crystal Cumbo-Montague (the Black Women’s Caucus Planning Committee) started to put together a curriculum for the development of Black women organizers that includes over seventy Black women working across the national network in nearly every role across directors, community organizers, and operations staff.

The key insight from the research is that Black women needed intentional development rooted in the incredible lineage of Black women organizers and activists, including Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Ella Baker. Phyllis and Dr. Gould led the first session on Womanist Theology, which is a Black-woman-centered approach to theological insight founded by Dr. Katie Cannon. For too long, we’ve been asked to follow organizing models steeped in patriarchy and whiteness when, instead, we can learn from Black women who have paved the way for us to be where we are today.

Had Phyllis and the Black Women’s Caucus taken the stance of wish, wonder, and wait, we might still be waiting for the report’s recommendations to be implemented. Had they only wished for a different future, they’d likely still be wishing. Had my sisters wondered where their own limits were, we probably wouldn’t have a curriculum completed. Together, they assembled the organizing, theological, and power framework for a tool that signals to Black women in organizing loudly and clearly, “We see you! We love you and we want you here with us.” Finally, had they waited for permission for all this to happen, we’d likely still be waiting. They sought the answers to the challenges they were seeing and acted strategically. They looked to themselves and to other experts for the wisdom, and together, they had all the relationships and tools they needed.