How to Learn from Our White Antiracist Ancestors: Lessons from the Life of Anne Braden

Monday, December 13th • 7:00 PM -9:00 PM ​• Online

Looking for some inspiration for your activism? Curious about the rich history of white antiracists who came before us in this movement? Join SURJ Bay Area for this virtual workshop!
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Using a reading about Anne Braden’s life as a foundation, we will develop a vision for how we can best learn from the lives and lessons of some of the greatest White antiracists in U.S. history. This will include reflecting on Braden’s antiracist growth process to better understand our own, and examining her strategies to identify lessons we could adapt to our current organizing. In community, we will discuss our key takeaways and big questions. The evening will be facilitated by educator, author, and activist Lynn Burnett, who is building a project to write about White antiracist history and to get the lessons from that history into White antiracist spaces.

​Pre-reading assignment:

• We’ll begin by discussing the short piece White Antiracists Have Ancestors (https://burnett-lynn.medium.com/white-antiracists-have-ancestors-52a8a0452442), as a way to develop our own visions of how we can best learn from this history.
  
• Then we’ll take a deeper dive by discussing this chapter-length article about Anne Braden (https://crossculturalsolidarity.com/the-life-of-anne-braden-part-one-finding-her-way-to-the-movement/).
  
• Note: For those unable to do the readings, no worries! This workshop is structured to ensure that all can participate.
  

About Lynn: Lynn Burnett is a former high school history teacher and longtime racial justice activist. In 2015, he founded https://crossculturalsolidarity.com/ in an effort to lift up racial justice history, both through his own writing and through the development of deep-dive resource pages. His recent White Antiracist Ancestry Project aims to provide White people trying to show up for racial justice today with sources of guidance, inspiration and self-reflection by telling the stories of the greatest White antiracists in U.S. history.

Accessibility:

• This event will be held on Zoom, and a computer or smartphone will be required.
• Closed captioning can be offered. If possible, please let us know you plan to use Closed Captioning by emailing basebuilding@surjbayarea.org
• This event will be offered only in English; we have not yet built capacity for translation to other languages.