2 TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE FRAMEWORK Building Black Legacies
Maisha T. Winn and Lawrence “Torry” Winn
During the spring and summer of 2020, millions of individuals across the world stood in solidarity to protest oppressive, dehumanizing policies and practices that harm Black lives. A movement sparked by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery—on top of so many other Black deaths in recent years—highlighted pervasive racial inequities that affect the life chances and opportunities of African Americans, as well as Indigenous, Latinx, and other historically marginalized communities. In a matter of months—though these overdue changes were decades in the making—states and cities removed Confederate flags, monuments, and statues; universities and museums renamed buildings previously honoring white supremacists; food companies discontinued the use of racist images and stereotypes; hundreds of private business and philanthropic foundations agreed to invest billions of dollars into organizations focused on anti-Blackness and improving the quality of life for Black families; and cities such as Asheville, North Carolina, began providing reparations for African Americans in under-resourced communities.
The pursuit of racial justice spread to every corner of the world: from Minneapolis to London, from Tokyo to New York, from Portland to Washington, DC. In Sacramento, thousands joined weekly protests led by local activists, leaders, youth, and organizations to oppose unfair justice systems and racial policies in the region. Established and emerging leaders held bullhorns and led chants of “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace.” Protests moved from Oak Park to Greenhaven to Natomas. Rallies led by Black youth and leaders included individuals and groups representing diverse industries, ages, demographics, and ethnicities. Sacramento City Unified School District’s Board voted to end its contract with school resource officers, and Sutter Medical Center removed a statue of colonizer John Sutter.
The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Aubery were not the only catalysts for action against anti-Blackness and police brutality. The devasting impacts of COVID-19 had already shed light on the racial disparities of historically marginalized communities and particularly for those who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. In places like New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, and Atlanta, African Americans were infected and died at a disproportionately higher rate than their white counterparts (Grace, Johnson, and Reid 2020). Similar data emerged in Arizona and New Mexico for the Navajo Nation and in cities such as Los Angeles and San Jose for the Latinx community. In Sacramento, communities such as Oak Park, South Sacramento, and Del Paso Heights, where large numbers of African Americans reside, experienced high infection rates.
Yet, the fight against injustices that harm Black children and their families and communities, with a core focus on addressing the causes and impacts of racial health disparities, did not begin in 2020. The Sacramento region has experienced and pushed back against decades of state-sanctioned violence toward Black adults and youth. In the spring of 2018, Sacramento communities, leaders, and activists marched for justice after a police officer fatally shot Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s backyard. Sacramento has lost hundreds of Black lives to gun violence, inadequate access to health care, and other avoidable causes. Local organizations have advocated for years to address these injustices.
The Black Child Legacy Campaign (BCLC) was a bridge connecting pre- and post-COVID-19 and pre- and post-Black Lives Matter protests. Its work with community organizations, leaders, residents, and families before COVID helped pave the foundation for a strong community response. BCLC’s efficient and expansive network was years in the making (see figure 2.1).
Background
In April 2013, the Sacramento Blue Ribbon Commission Report on Disproportionate African American Child Deaths presented data documenting twenty years of disproportionate African American child mortality in Sacramento County, recommended the adoption of the goal of reducing African American child deaths by at least 10–20 percent by 2020, outlined potential approaches to achieving the goal, and established the Steering Committee on the Reduction of African American Child Deaths (SC-RAACD). The report identified the four causes of death most disproportionately affecting African American children in Sacramento County: infant sleep-related deaths, perinatal conditions, child abuse and neglect homicides, and third-party homicides.
FIGURE 2.1. 2020 Steering Committee on Reduction of African American Child Deaths (Sierra Health Foundation).
Credit: Terence Duffy.
The report also highlighted neighborhoods with the most disproportionate rates of African American child death in the county. Seven neighborhoods became the focus of the efforts of the SC-RAACD: Arden-Arcade, Del Paso Heights/North Sacramento, Fruitridge/Stockton Boulevard, Meadowview, North Highlands/Foothill Farms, Oak Park, and Valley Hi. Within these communities, the aim was the strategic provision of targeted resources to bring about urgently needed systemic changes and improve the health and well-being of the most vulnerable children.
After an intensive community process driven by core values of collaboration, community engagement, commitment, accountability, innovation, sustainability, and service, the Steering Committee created a strategic plan in March 2015, “African American Children Matter: What We Must Do Now,” outlining five priority strategies to transform public systems and foster meaningful community engagement:
- advocacy and policy transformation
- equitable investment and systematic impact
- coordinated systems of support
- data-driven accountability and collective impact
- communications and information systems
In June 2015, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors voted to approve $1.5 million annually for five years to support implementation of the strategic plan. This funding commitment supplemented investments by the county’s First 5 Sacramento Commission and its public health, human services, child welfare, and probation departments. The funding from the Board of Supervisors was structured to focus on engaging community and both building and strengthening community infrastructure to quickly mobilize to reduce the specific causes of death cited in the Blue Ribbon Commission’s 2013 report. In 2016, the City of Sacramento joined the initiative, committing $750,000 in the first year. Additional funding was since obtained from other sources, including the Obama Foundation, First 5 Sacramento, and the Board of State & Community Corrections for a total of $10.9 million (2014–2020).
Shortly after receiving funding from the Board of Supervisors, the Steering Committee issued an implementation plan that described how the five interdependent strategies would be put into operation. Seven community organizations were selected as Community Incubator Leads (CILs) to coordinate and implement services and communications at the neighborhood level. Respected within their communities, the CILs are responsible for strengthening community infrastructure to ensure that the changes created by the initiative are sustainable. The CIL’s were assisted by the Community Leadership Roundtable, which comprised of residents who volunteer in the seven neighborhoods.
Evaluating the BCLC Strategies Using a Transformative Justice Framework
In July 2018, together with Vajra Watson, we began a two-year evaluation of BCLC. The members of our research team were selected for their academic prowess and long-standing ties to Sacramento. The purpose of the evaluation was threefold. It examined how the SC-RAACD implemented the five strategies in seven designated neighborhoods to reduce African American child deaths, identified the challenges and promising practices highlighted during implementation, and determined how best to scale up this work in other jurisdictions and communities experiencing similar issues throughout the United States.
From July 2018 through July 2020, the evaluation team examined multiple sources of data, including stakeholder interviews, participant-observation of the Steering Committee’s Evaluation Workgroup meetings, observations of several other Steering Committee meetings, and review of archival documents. The analysis of BCLC’s implementation of the five strategies was guided by these four research questions:
- In what ways and to what extent has each strategy been implemented?
- What are the challenges to and facilitators of implementation success?
- How, if at all, are Steering Committee strategies influencing public systems and their relationships with community organizations?
- How, if at all, are Steering Committee strategies strengthening communities in ways that are likely to reduce African American child death and sustain low rates of African American child deaths into the future; for example, through increased CIL capacity, reduction of risk factors for the four causes of death, or improved utilization of services?
Design, Data, and Positionality
The design of the evaluation was transformative, participatory, and ethnographic, linking qualitative data to the quantitative data on changes in the rates and disproportionality of African American child death. Ethnographic research appropriately maintains a “focus on the lived experiences, activities, and social context of everyday life from the perspectives of the participants” (Mertens and Wilson 2018). The research team used several data collection methods that are culturally responsive and not “damaged centered” (Tuck 2009). The evaluation approach was multidimensional and considered microlevel individual impact points in relation to macrostructural system shifts. Thus, examining data points at the personal, interpersonal, and institutional level informed the findings.
Methodology
The evaluation used the following methods:
Participant observation: Participant observations were conducted to fully participate and learn about the implementation of the five strategies, thereby providing a deeper understanding of the implementation process. The researchers immersed themselves in the culture and social functions being evaluated through daily routines, practices, and meetings.
Qualitative interviews: Qualitative interviews were conducted with selected participants and stakeholders. They were semi-structured, using an open-ended protocol that invited narrative responses and encouraged participants to speak openly about their personal experiences with the challenges, successes, and promises of strategy implementation.
Data analysis: Field notes were analyzed by first writing conceptual memos, which helped organize the findings and bring in theoretical insights that emerged during engagement in the field. Patterns and themes emerged from the field notes and observations and provided the words and phrases used subsequently for coding categories (Bogdan and Biklen 1997). Interviews were transcribed and analyzed for “significant statements,” which were organized into themes (Creswell and Poth 2016).
Historical analysis: The disproportionality of African American childhood deaths in Sacramento did not develop randomly, recently, or in isolation. To study this crisis without an accurate understanding of its relevant historical context would be intellectually inappropriate. Thus, the research team conducted a historical analysis using archival data of the communities participating in BCLC; it also did a public policy review to shed light on histories of homeownership, community investment, social services, and education, unemployment, and poverty rates. This information allowed us to look at how history matters to patterns of child death.
Positionality
A transformative approach to justice … addresses the harms and obligations inherent in social, economic, and political systems.
—Howard Zehr
The evaluation focused on cultural competency, a commitment to community-driven solutions, and an emphasis on structural and historic barriers. The evaluator’s research was grounded in transformative justice beliefs:
- We believe evaluators/researchers must resist conducting “damage-centered” evaluations/research in Indigenous and marginalized communities (Tuck 2009). The seven neighborhoods have been historically marginalized, racially segregated, and economically oppressed. As researchers who come from similar communities, we know firsthand the damage of deficit-based interventions.
- We believe in “humanizing research” in which scholars become “worthy witnesses” in their sites by earning the respect and trust of participants (Paris and Winn 2013). We have collectively written more than one hundred articles, books, chapters, and reports that discuss participants as experts rather than objects/subjects.
- We believe history matters, race matters, justice matters, language matters, and futures matter—and must be examined and explicitly addressed to get to the root of inequities (Winn 2018).
- We believe that the aim and approach of the Black Child Legacy Campaign align seamlessly with our own work and goals to ensure that every child, especially those from marginalized communities, enjoys the access, support, and opportunity to live healthy and prosperous lives.
Transformative Justice Framework: Five Pedagogical Stances
The researchers use a transformative justice framework, adopted from Maisha T. Winn’s (2018) “5 Pedagogical Stances” (5PS), to evaluate the Black Child Legacy Campaign:
History matters is a pedagogical stance that draws attention to local, national, and global histories. It calls on communities to find ways to engage the histories and lived experiences of those who comprise the BCLC community. The next chapter presents a history of race and real estate in Sacramento that provides context for the various neighborhoods and shows how systemic racism through redlining and zoning can affect generations. History matters is also a call for people to historicize their own lives while connecting to the histories of others, so that there can be a collective understanding of how our lives intersect, as well as the lives of our families and communities.
Race matters is a pedagogical stance inviting stakeholders in a community to see the full humanity and potential in people while actively resisting racist ideas that impede one’s ability to cultivate a connection or relationship. Race matters is also affirming. In the BCLC’s work, race/ethnic identity and pride serve as guides through transformative conversations about how race, racism, and racist ideas show up in services the community needed.
Justice matters is a pedagogical stance that encourages stakeholders in a community to consider how social movements seeking equity across domains such as education, the workforce, health care, and ownership map on to their communities. In the BCLC, the distributed leadership seen in Community Incubator Leads (CILs) is an example of how justice projects are often launched by everyday people who identify an issue and take action. The BCLC story offers examples of how people with different areas of expertise and lived experience come together on behalf of Black children, Black families, and Black life.
Language matters is an invitation for communities to consider the role of language in defining/redefining and illuminating the assets people bring to the community, rather than situating people and their experiences as burdens or deficits. For example, the use of “legacy” rather than “infant mortality” is at the heart of this story. When the BCLC team came together to imagine how it would look and sound different than similar efforts throughout the country, the deliberate use of the word “legacy” provided a map and a compass for the work. This pedagogical stance is a commitment to the importance of interrogating language and ensuring it does not hold anyone hostage by its limitations.
Futures matter is a pedagogical stance that is deeply committed to ensuring that there are determined and desirable futures for children and their families. In many ways, language matters and futures matter work side by side in the BCLC story: a clear focus on legacy is a commitment to Black futures. How do we provide Black children and their families with tools to imagine their lives ten years from now? What legacy/legacies can Black children and their families imagine when they are confident in their futures and in their ability to plan for and execute futures they desire?
A Transformative Evaluation Process
As transformative evaluators, we expect their social justice values to influence the process and outcomes of their evaluation work (Mertens and Wilson 2018). While conducting the evaluation, it soon became apparent that the stories, experiences, and contributions of the participants needed to be explored in greater detail. Even though the research design, data collection, findings, and future implications are the backbone of this book, its soul is grounded in community contributions and celebrations. We researchers listened, observed, and studied the actions of the BCLC participants. The story of the BCLC would not be complete without reflections written by members from the community, portraits of several leaders, and chapters authored by African American residents of Sacramento County. It is through their lived experiences, stories, and faith in a better future that the data become flesh.
REFERENCES
- Bogdan, Robert, and Sari Knopp Biklen. 1997. Qualitative Research for Education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
- Creswell, John W., and Cheryl N. Poth. 2016. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Approaches. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
- Grace, De’zhon, Carolyn Johnson, and Treva Reid. 2020. “Racial Inequality and COVID-19.” Capitol Weekly, May 4, 2020. https://
capitolweekly .net /racial -inequality -and -covid -19 /. - Mertens, Donna, and Amy T. Wilson. 2018. Program Evaluation Theory and Practice: A Comprehensive Guide. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford.
- Paris, Django, and Maisha T. Winn, eds. 2013. Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry with Youth and Communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
- Tuck, Eve. 2009. “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.” Harvard Educational Review 79, no. 3, 409–428.
- Winn, Maisha T. 2018. Justice on Both Sides: Transforming Education through Restorative Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
- Zehr, Howard. 2015. The Little Book of Restorative Justice. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster.