Kellogg Pledges $75 Million on Racial Healing

alt

Kellogg executives and trustees recently announced  the launch of America Healing, a $75 million five-year initiative to fund anti-racism efforts throughout the country. Every state will have at least one Kellogg-funded project. Michigan, Mississippi and New Mexico, because of high concentrations of children in poverty, will be awarded additional grants.

One of the key goals for the Kellogg initiative is to fund various media projects. There is a need “to diversify the culture of editorial, broadcast, and print — and new media, as well,” says Dr. Gail Christopher, vice president of programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Kellogg recognizes the role of media in helping forge a public will to take on issues like the social determinants of health.


A second objective is to support the “community-based infrastructure for achieving racial equity.” Christopher noted that projects to receive funding are drawn from “Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Latinos, Arab Americans, African Americans, and Caucasians — this issue of racism affects us all,” particularly, she contended, when the current rhetoric around race is so divisive.

“There’s a growing body of research that is specifically addressing the harmful effects of discrimination and structural racism and we’ll be helping to fund some of that research,” Christopher said of the initiatives third goal.


Kellogg’s fourth goal is to financially bolster “traditional organizations,” like the NAACP, National Council of La Raza, National Congress of American Indians, and the National Urban League. This funding is important, she said, not only to augment their resources during the recent economic downturn, but to acknowledge the historic contributions they’ve made to the quest for social justice.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a living legend because of his fearlessness in confronting the most vile and pernicious form of racism during the civil rights era, recounted as a young boy seeing signs of “white men, colored men, white women, colored women, white waiting, colored waiting,” while growing up in Alabama. He thanked the Kellogg Foundation for its initiative and for “getting in the way” of racism to help America achieve “a more perfect union.” –terry shropshire


Also read
Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Read more about: