My Journey Begins

The Black Child Legacy Campaign created an unapologetically Black movement in the city of Sacramento with one purpose: save the lives of Black children. The power of the initiative was in its embrace of the spirit that “it takes the hood to save the hood” (Watson 2012). Facilitated but not owned by the Sierra Health Foundation, BCLC was instead given to the community, to regular everyday people who were empowered politically, socially, and economically to become the change they sought. It proved to be supremely successful. By the summer of 2019, BCLC had exceeded its target goals for child death reduction in all the focal categories except one, and it was making significant progress in that area too. As a result, some of those who started this movement began to transition into new roles; still others began to transition out altogether. This is where my journey to lead the BCLC Del Paso Heights/North Sacramento Community Incubator Lead (CIL) begins.

As educators, scholars, and educational leaders, we often focus our view of leadership on the individual. As a result, leadership is seen as interchangeable, and institutions are seen as culturally distinct entities from the communities within which they operate. Applying autoethnography (Chang 2016; Hughes and Pennington 2017), I illustrate how my initiation into crisis response, along with my personal educational philosophy, governed how I would interact with the community as I developed in my leadership role. Applying Lave and Wegner’s (1991, 1998) framework of legitimate peripheral participation, I use the events surrounding Honesty’s death to discuss the challenges of being an outsider working in leadership within an historically established community of practice.

The Heights

The Del Paso Heights (the Heights) community is one of the last Black bastions of Sacramento, with generation upon generation having called the community home. Talk to anyone from the Heights, and not only do they know everyone else who is from the community but they can also tell you their whole genealogy and the stories that consist of street names, houses on blocks, who lived with whom, whom they lived with, people who lived on those streets, and all the other personal information that told you about their history and deep community. What stands out about these stories is the proximity between where they were told, the places where they happened, and where those involved still lived. You were always just down the street, around the corner, or on the other side of that block. This is the beauty of this neighborhood.

Place is a multidimensional concept that incorporates the biophysical environment, personal/psychological elements, social and cultural context, and the political/economic milieu (Ardoin 2006). Individually, people experience place through history, culture, geography, and politics. We make sense of our experiences and, by extension, our community based on how we are positioned among the elements of the place (Barton and Berchini 2013). Historically relevant cultural communities may or may not be congruent with political and geographical boundaries, however; because of the conditions in which they were formed, these communities have histories that are imbued with racial identification, oppression, and pride (McAuley 1998). This abstract understanding of place is realized in the Heights. The Heights is as much about the geography as it is about the people. In that sense, its geography adds a dimension to their stories. It is as real and as tangible as the people, the conflict, the struggles, and the victories; in other words, place as identity.

Although rich in history, the Heights is plagued by poverty. Driving around the community, you see its consequences in the pervasiveness of homeless encampments, substance abuse, and dilapidated buildings. Inexpensive when built, housing is now falling victim to the rising costs of living, forcing families to relocate or consolidate because economic insecurity and food insecurity continue to remain problems for so many.

If you are from the Heights, you love the Heights. The emotional bond between the people and their environment is real. Despite its challenges, it is the place where they feel comfortable and safe (Hildago and Hernandez 2001). But in that safety exists conflict. Strife that arises from an early age often follows individuals into adulthood. Wounds that occurred decades ago often are never addressed and heal but settle into vitriol that prevents connections, even when goals are shared. The result is you have a community moving in the same direction—but as five fingers as opposed to one fist. Yet even in this division there exists protocol. For outsiders seeking to penetrate the community with the aim of doing work, permission must be granted. Despite the division and disagreement inside the work, all are unified under the banner of their love for that place and their community, and they are extremely protective of them.

Community of Practice and Legitimate Peripheral Participation

As part of my foray into the BCLC universe, I instantly became a participant in three distinct communities of practice (CP), the BCLC CP, which was inclusive of the seven CILs and the Sierra Health Foundation; the Roberts Family Development Center (RFDC) CP; and the Del Paso/North Sacramento CP. Communities of practice “are groups of people who share a concern, set of problems or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (Lave and Wenger 2001, 124). I focus on my participation in the third of these CPs, because the Heights defies the perception that communities as defined by neighborhood affiliation are not legitimate CPs.

More than anything else, the Heights functions as a CP because it was built around regular interactions between members of the community who deal with the consequences of learning how to survive and build a better community. Furthermore, these interactions have taken place over decades. The Heights therefore fits into Etienne Wenger (1998)’s identification of the three defining characteristics of a CP: joint enterprise/domain, mutual engagement/community, and shared repertoire/practice.

1. Joint enterprise/domain is the shared interest of a group. It “defines the identity of the community, its place in the world and its value to members and others” (Wenger 1998, 195). For the community, this is their negotiated response to their situation, to the conditions in which they are bound; it goes beyond working together to achieve a stated goal, but creates among members a mutual accountability, shared competence, and commitment to the domain that distinguishes members from non-members (see also Floding and Swier 2012).
2. Mutual engagement/community is rooted in the idea that culture does not exist in the abstract but is a result of people engaging in joint activities with each other. Culture exists in a community of people and the relations of mutual engagement. Those who engage “help each other, share information, learn together, and build relationships—resulting in a sense of belonging and mutual commitment” (Floding and Swier 2012, 195). As such, members of a CP are committed to figuring out better ways of improving the community for everyone’s benefit.
3. Shared repertoire/practice. The repertoire of a CP is the culture and all the routines, words, tools, ways of doing things, ways of knowing, stories, gestures, symbols, genres, actions, and concepts of that culture that the community has produced or adopted in the course of its existence. The repetition of these things is what ingrains them within the practice of the community (Floding and Swier 2012).

This is what makes the Heights a unique CP: it is a domain of living and surviving amid challenging social and economic conditions where residents help each other realize a better tomorrow, based on shared practices that define the ways they go about this work. This is also what makes BCLC uniquely successful. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, it gives ownership of the seven CILs to the communities, allowing them to customize their approach to reducing the deaths of Black children based on their communities of practice. This is also what makes it challenging for an outsider to engage in the work. When a CP has been developed over generations, newcomers cannot just jump in and start leading. More than knowing the domain or the shared repertoire, they must establish their commitment to making the whole better through the community’s negotiated set of practices, not their own.

Legitimate peripheral participation orients any entry into a community of practice as a learning experience (Lave and Wegner 1998), precisely the opposite of dominant White notions of leadership. The dominant model is centered around the individual, is hierarchically based and unidirectional, powerfully distinguishes the leader from others, and suggests innate qualities unique to the individual (Simkins 2005). By focusing on the individual, this brand of leadership is seen as transferable, regardless of community or place. Leaders are seen as effective because they emphasize task and not people and relationships (Lomotey 1993; Tillman 2009), and they often approach entry into a CP as one in which they are the primary actor and the CP is a supporting character.

In contrast, entry into a CP from the periphery, as the function of a learning experience, results in the newcomer’s legitimacy, regardless of their status, being conferred not by their credentials but by the OGs, elders, and other participants of that community. This can happen in a variety of ways, but what is most important is that the OGs control access to the kinds and levels of participation that the newcomer is permitted to experience (Floding and Swier 2012; Wegner 1998). A key advantage of the legitimate peripheral participation model is that the incoming leader’s entrance is facilitated by a willingness to assume the role of learner, giving the OGs an opportunity to own the role of expert and begin to teach and help the new leader discern what is essential and important (Floding and Swier 2012).

A second advantage is that, as new leaders enter the community, they do so with a new perspective, one that is generally welcomed by the OGs. However, this gift must be given in accordance with the legitimacy and access conferred to them by the OGs. In other words, the new leaders must understand that the sharing of their perspective must be moderated by their level of participation and acceptance in the community. As they are drawn further into the community and are given permission to practice their craft, their level of mastery and competence in the practices of the community grows deeper along with their level of authenticity and belonging.

Educational Leadership Philosophy

My leadership philosophy stems from my identity as a scholar and educator. Borrowing from the literature on Black school principals, my educational leadership philosophy is based on what Kofi Lomotey (1993) calls the “ethno-humanist” role. Leaders who operate within this role are defined by their commitment to the community they serve, carry confidence in the ability of those they serve to achieve, and embody a compassion for and understanding of the structural inequities that frame communities. Mark Gooden (2005, 649) notes that these leaders lean on their ethno-humanist role to remain “engaged as he or she struggle[d] to transform a situation of despair and hopelessness into one of infinite possibilities.” Leaders who occupy this form of leadership focus on service through interpersonal care where the primary goals are met through acknowledgment of a set of cultural goals (Tillman 2009).

One reason why I use the legitimate peripheral participation framework is that, as a scholar and educator, learning is at the core of my work. But there is more than learning involved: healing serves as the foundation on which I focus the outcomes of my work. Education and learning are the mediums through which I am healed and I heal, with healing being the intentional process of humanity restoration. In other words, my work is about trying to restore what has been stolen: our humanity. This is the quintessential work of BCLC. When a mother comes into our office, vulnerable because she is housing insecure, food insecure, or job insecure, she is saying to us that she needs to be restored. Her healing becomes our priority in all the areas of her life that we can affect.

This is the job. Leadership is to be expressed not through actions that highlight self but through selfless service that seeks to acknowledge our full humanity. Fundamentally, this requires humility and love. Humility because as I assume the role of learner, I am freely admitting the areas in which I am not whole. My work is not a function of knowing the answers but of knowing how to seek the answers. Thus, the job becomes a cycle of lessons and self-assessments, where each day my service is dependent on my ability as a leader to learn from those I serve so that I may serve even more effectively. And love because, as Martin Luther King Jr., reminds us, “power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.” Without love, there is no justice, just reckless and abusive power, the actualization of which becomes oppression. That is why I follow the ethno-humanist expression of leadership: at the core of this work is the demand to fight for a justice that will transform the lives of those I serve.

“Legitimate” Is Preceded by an Invitation

When I saw him, he said “What up O, you wanna come with me?” He invited me inside the caution tape, where we met a few of the mothers of the community …

At the time of Honesty’s death, although I knew I had to lead our area’s Crisis Response Team, I still did not understand what that role should look like. When I came on the scene, my feelings of invisibility were generated by the questions I was posing to myself: Did I belong here? If so, where? How exactly did I belong? Legitimacy of participation takes on a form that defines ways of belonging “and is therefore not only a crucial condition for learning, but a constitutive element of its content” (Lave and Wegner 1998, 35).

One mistake that a new leader cannot afford to make when entering a new CP is to fail to recognize the power relations and social structures that existed before he or she came along. It is not merely the legitimacy of participation that is at stake but also the legitimacy of peripherality. In all communities of practice, there exist formal and informal social structures and power relations that carry the history of the community whose members, as a consequence of their lived experiences with both pain and victory, possess the right to grant permission of entry and participation and to validate the new leader’s position, access, and level of participation.

On the evening of Honesty’s death, I was given permission in the form of the invitation from one of the elders behind the caution tape. With that simple invitation, my presence at the crisis was given legitimacy, and I received the answers to my questions of whether and how I belonged. The concept of belonging is a powerful and important value to leadership because it speaks to identity and the ability of a leader to identify with those he or she serves.¹

“Peripheral” Sometimes Equates to Invisibility and Exits

Yes, they were willing to bring me along, but I didn’t have what they had to be brought along.

Legitimate peripherality and peripheral participation are about understanding your place and position within the community, and the two work in tandem with each other. For me, this is where the concept of servitude comes into play. On the one hand, legitimate peripherality is the validation I received to be on the periphery to do the work; its legitimacy derives from the power structure or eldership of the community. On that evening, only the elder’s invitation behind the tape carried weight because he represented someone who had access and authority.

My peripheral participation is about knowing the role I was given permission to participate in and understanding that permission from one or a few did not equate to consensus throughout the community. I took my leadership as an expression of servitude to mean that serving did not require me to be heard or seen, that there are moments when I must decrease so that the community can increase. For me on that night, service was not about taking credit, being seen, or being in the mix; it was about remaining invisible and giving space to those who were grieving. My instincts told me that, as a function of my newcomer status, this is what was most important: that my leadership was about maximizing my contribution while minimizing the potential of becoming a distraction. It was important that I took this stance because, even though I had received permission to be there, my work had yet to be validated. Although some of the elders knew who I was, I was still an unknown for most of the community. Furthermore, I knew that only my work could validate my presence as our conversations would become more intimate and sensitive. My credentials had no value; they did not earn me a license to operate.

“Participation” Is Facilitated by the Service of Care, Compassion, and Commitment

To my surprise, when I saw her, she greeted me with an endearing “Dr. O,” gave me a hug and said, “We are glad to see you here.” In her voice, as well as her hug, was not just grief. You could feel her exhaustion.

Although I presented legitimate participation and peripheral participation as separate ideas, they really act in concert with one another. There can be no legitimate participation without peripheral participation. The legitimacy of my participation on the night of Honesty’s death was facilitated by a recognition that, by my peripheral participation, I understood my place and position. One cannot occur without the other, but there is no set order in which they must take place. This is often the mistake that new leaders make when they enter a community of practice: either they expect permission without offering peripheral participation, or their work and participation are not appropriately peripheral, in that they begin operating within boundaries for which they have not been given permission and thus their participation is not legitimate.

Legitimate peripheral participation is less about what you do and more about how. The way I showed up that night and in the days and weeks that followed is what resonated most with the community. It was not what I did but how I showed up. When I first arrived in the Heights in my new role, community members frankly told me that they had been observing me. As an outsider, they paid attention to the work I was doing, how I approached the work, and how I held myself when interacting with the community. So, when the community mother greeted me that evening, the endearing nature of her greeting, followed by a hug, was recognition that I had shown up correctly. The how of my crisis response revolved around three distinct components: showing up, showing compassion, and serving with care.

Showing up is the first step because it demonstrates commitment to the community and the work. In that moment, I was afraid that I was not mentally prepared to deal with the emotions caused by a homicide, and I was worried about the spiritual toll that the violence of that event would take on me. Walking within the inner sanctum of a still-foreign community, when everyone is on edge and there are active concerns of continued violence and retaliation, was challenging, but approaching the situation and my peripherality within it with humility made it possible to show up in a way the community needed. The other elements that informed my participation—compassion and care—then allowed me to serve a grieving community. The community mother’s embrace of me embodied her grief and exhaustion. My role, guided by compassion and care, was to be open to her vulnerability and her pain.

Implications

As an educational leader, it is critical to understand how leaders show up in new communities. My new role with BCLC therefore was an opportunity not only to serve the Heights community but also to test out the framework and ideas I had been theorizing as a scholar and now had to put into place as a leader. Did my approach have any positive impact on the community’s ability to heal or on our primary objective of reducing juvenile homicides in Sacramento? I believe our work has enabled the community to heal from legacies of violence, but its impact is less conclusive in regard to homicide reduction.

One of the tragedies of the two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic is that we simultaneously experienced a gun violence epidemic in the United States and in Sacramento. During the summer of 2020, Sacramento experienced twice the number of homicides than the previous year. It was not a coincidence that during one of the most difficult times in our recent history—as people were losing jobs, as families were struggling, as we isolated from each other, and as we watched images of violence against Black bodies stream across our phones, computers, and TVs—anger erupted in our communities. Hurt people hurt people—usually those in closest proximity. For those in the BCLC in that moment, our work was never harder, and the resources were never more meager. As a result, it is difficult to quantify the impact that my approach had on our ability to prevent any more Honestys from losing their lives. But my framework did earn me the respect of the community, which in turn enabled me to respond and do the work required in that moment.

This story is not my story. It belongs to Honesty, who lost his life far too young. It belongs to his mother, whom we worked with and assisted in the weeks afterward, trying to ensure that her humanity was restored. It also belongs to the other young men and women who lost their lives to violence and poverty and the systemic inequity that plague our community. And in many ways, it belongs to the community warriors—the mothers, the fathers, the ministers, the advocates, the youth, and the folks who do not get to tap out and escape. This story and hundreds of others like it are the essence of why BCLC exists.

NOTE

1. 1. For Lomotey (1989), cultural affiliations and a leader’s ability to identify with those they serve have a direct correlation with the care they give.

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