Happy #ThankYouThursday. The past two years have been hard and challenging for most of us. Navigating life and death scenarios through a global pandemic, an amplification of America’s historic racial and social injustice, increasing political polarization, and rising gaps in income and wealth has, among many other things, weighed heavily on our collective psyche and consciousness. Sometimes the very real and present sense of loss and grief can seem unbearable.

I’ve discovered that during my darkest moments in life, the active practice of gratitude and giving thanks can serve to alleviate whatever ails my soul. It’s hard not to feel lighter, a bit more hopeful or re-centered by a more affirming perspective when we make a concerted effort to find gratitude and give thanks to those in our lives. We can lighten our lives when we show appreciation to others. That’s the value of #ThankYouThursday – making a commitment to pause, slow our pace to give thanks to at least five people in our network for who they are and what they do to make the world a better place.

Today we’re sharing #ThankYouThursday love and appreciation for Althea Dryden for her foundational leadership with Cities United, a national organization that has created a network of mayors, community groups and young leaders to end gun violence and homicides of Black males in cities across the country. An organizer, storyteller, emerging practitioner of Old Shore/New Shore leadership and organizational transformation, and amazing mom to Imari and Grayson, Althea demonstrates a quiet storm activism in the City of Louisville, KY – the epicenter of Black Male Achievement that has erupted over the past year in the wake of Breonna Taylor’s murder by Louisville police officers.

We also thank Althea for being a mini-manifesto contributor to I Too Am America: On Loving and Leading Black Men & Boys where she eloquently writes about the tragic loss of Breonna Taylor and the need for her city of Louisville to reconcile it’s place and role in America’s history of racial violence and oppression of Black people: Says Althea, “If we are to build a new foundation grounded in racial, economic, and social justice; if we are to write a new story centered on our promise and not our peril, Louisville must win. This is sacred ground.”

Thank you, Althea, for demonstrating what it means to Love, Learn and Lead for the liberation of Black people in Louisville! We invite you to hear and see more of Althea, and other mini-manifesto contributors, during the “I Too Am America Book Blessing & Celebration” on Saturday, August 28^th 2pm – 4pm. REGISTER HERE to join us for what will be elevating experience of the power of telling our stories.