“We need our individual and collective wisdom to guide us home to ourselves, to a better way of living, a renaissance, away from catastrophe. Join the vanguard of visionaries who are defining success and the purpose of work from solely making money to making a better society. Pursue your purpose, your highest aspiration and by the power of our trust and faith, the walls will tumble and the way open wide for all to proclaim proudly, in the words of Langston Hughes, ‘I too am America’.”

– Susan L. Taylor, I Too Am America, Foreword

Today, we write this message from an emotional vortex of volatility, heartbreak, death, division and despair — a vortex in which we also hold near and dear a hopeful vision of an America that truly lives its values of liberty, equality, and justice.

Still reeling from the shock and trauma caused by the harrowing mass murder of 10 community members by a white supremacist last week in Buffalo, New York, we are now forced to reckon with yet another horrific and inhumane mass murder, this time of 19 elementary school children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas.

We also take pause to acknowledge the two-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, as well as the death of Tony McCade, a Black trans man killed just two days later by law enforcement in Tallahassee, Florida.

During times such as these, we cling tightly to our loved ones and members of our beloved community for safety, solace, spiritual grounding, and re-assurance that hope for a brighter future can still exist amidst what sometimes feels like unrelenting darkness.

In this spirit, I invite you to join me in re-imagining what a truly loving and united America can look like and how, together, we can courageously center ourselves in collective stories of loving, learning and leading that guide us towards tangible healing, hope and change.