Blog 

The newest Racial Equity Fellowship cohort officially began in January!

DEAL 8 Racial Equity Fellows are embarking on our year-long program focused on training and supporting those working to end structural racism in Detroit. 

Our ultimate impact is shifting fellows’ baseline understanding of racial equity and supporting their journey toward co-liberation. Fellows discover more about themselves, Detroit, and the deep history of structural racism — through building a shared understanding, developing skills and tools, and co-creating a space to deepen relationships. Read more.

This project documents how grassroots activists in Detroit have challenged systemic racism during the era of emergency management by building movements for a more just and equitable city. This collection aims to preserve, honor, and amplify the voices of grassroots organizers during this pivotal moment in Detroit’s history.

Launched in October 2023, the Voices from the Grassroots website showcases inspiring, diverse stories of resistance through grassroots activism in Detroit. Check it out for yourself! Visit voicesfromthegrassroots.org to see the profiles, oral history interviews, and more.

We ended the DEAL 7 cohort year with a fun celebration at Jam Handy. It was a great evening to close off our year-long program. 

Check out the photos!

We held a special screening at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights on April 6, 2023, of Walk With Me: The Trials of Damon J. Keith, a documentary exploring the life and work of Detroit-based civil rights giant Judge Damon J. Keith. 

We were joined by members of the DEAL and Wayne State University Law School communities to watch the film together, discuss, and connect. 

Learn more about Judge Keith.

We're already halfway through the DEAL 7 Racial Equity Fellowship! We walked into the Annex of the Arab American National Museum on the second Thursday of September 2022, most of us as strangers, with an underlying passion for racial equity and liberation.

The goal of the first half of the fellowship is to really root the work in the understanding that the ‘Personal is Political’. We've explored two of the three themes in our curriculum arc and given fellows tools to disrupt structural racism. 

So let's take a look back at DEAL 7's journey together so far! Read more.

Check out the DEAL 7 Resilience Playlist curated by our current cohort of Racial Equity Fellows!

Fellows chose songs that energize and help them get through hard times. 

We create cohort playlists to uplift music as a form of resilience and grounding for the work we do. It's also an opportunity for us to get to know each other in a new way.

Check out the playlist.

In the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we collaborate with other racial justice leaders every January to host the National Day of Healing from Racism. At our 2023 event at Wayne State University, we created space to tell the truth about racism. We learned how to talk about racism's impact and how to use practices—including meditation, art, breath work, movement, song, and improvisational performance—to guide us on our journey of healing from racism. 

Read more (and see photos).

Challenging racism is hard, painful work. Detroit’s got a new cohort of racial equity leaders taking that challenge head-on.

We recently announced its seventh cohort of Racial Equity Fellows to join its multiracial and multigenerational network of leaders dedicated to ending structural racism in Detroit. 

Read more (and see photos).

Here's a look back at our DEAL Reunion on Aug. 5, 2022! We celebrated with our Racial Equity Fellows, across all cohorts. Through our Racial Equity Fellowship, we bring together and develop leaders who work to end structural racism in Detroit. 

A big thank you to Derrielle Goodwin, DEAL Community Engagement and Event Coordinator, for organizing this event. ❤️

See photos.

Resiliency practices will get us through these times of crises. What opportunities for intergenerational dialogue and sharing do you have in your life? Check out our conversation with Tawana Petty as we discuss the power within the living knowledge of our ancestors, elders, and communities.

Tawana Petty, National Organizing Director at Data for Black Lives, led this conversation for our Racial Equity Fellowship's 2020 cohort, a.k.a. DEAL 5. 

Check out the video.

“All Eyes on Detroit” tells the story of how our work at the Detroit Equity Action Lab (DEAL) is developing a national blueprint in Detroit designed to empower local communities to fight structural racism from the ground up.

Read the feature.

We celebrated at Belle Isle on Aug. 6, 2021 with our Racial Equity Fellows. 

"I love my job, community, and village. Without you, there would be no us. We look forward to many cohorts in the future!" — Derrielle Goodwin, DEAL Community Engagement and Event Coordinator

See our photo collage.

Words cannot truly express the pain, grief, and anger I feel toward the system and culture that continues to treat Black bodies and souls as anything less than human – no matter a person’s political or economic status. The safety, dignity and right to be and belong in this world is worth fighting for. The Black community, in particular the Black community in Detroit, has been devastated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in true United States fashion, were not provided the space and time to actually grieve and grapple with the toll in our community and how to keep our families healthy and safe without being re-triggered by the realities of police violence. Black people in this country are [and have been] in a state of heightened awareness of our identity. The continuation of violence on all scales must end. Whether it be police violence or the violence of disproportionate health outcomes due to a myriad of detriments steeped in structural racism. The violence has to end.

Read more.