equity and justice factors that have hovered just under my awareness.
These gifts to me have encouraged me to more diligently work to educate
myself. In that spirit, I have been actively studying history. Over the last
year, my wife and I have read several very compelling books by Sue Kidd
("The Secret Life of Bees," "The Invention of Wings") and "Just Mercy"
by Bryan Stevenson. I have recently read the book by David Blight,
"Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom," which gave some insight into
his early life as a slave and then his struggle for freedom. This led to
now reading another book by Isabela Wilkerson, "The Warmth of Other
Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration." Ms. Wilkerson
has included a wonderful bibliography of many additional books that I
intend to read. I have ordered her next book, "Caste: The Origins of Our
Discontents." I share these not as a way to say that I am educated in this
area. I have concluded that I will never really be educated in this area. I
humbly seek to understand enough to be a help rather than a hindrance
to greater equity, inclusion, and justice for all humans. I include them
as parts of an invitation to all of us to continue or begin the search for
deeper understanding and stronger motivation to make a difference in
creating equity, inclusion, and justice in our shared world.
