Meeting the Moment

Community Conversations on Healing, Organizing, and Building the future we want

On September 22, 2021, COO hosted a virtual gathering of community leaders, activists, artists, organizers, guides, storytellers, experimenters, disrupters, and builders whose work is moving us towards the future we want. Community leaders from across King County came together to build critical connections and co-create spaces for healing, relationship, and innovation, and we heard about innovative work happening to support systemic change needed to create greater equity and well-being.

Gathering sessions aimed to ground participants in the personal and relational work necessary to dismantle anti-Blackness, and the racist and oppressive practices and structures that are barriers to communities of true belonging. Together we used this time to share, build, and connect our visions for a future invested in the strengths, self-determination and well-being of all.

The day included 10 sessions across 3 thematic tracks: Connection & Healing, Organizing & Advocacy, and Future Visions, alongside a welcoming story offered from Fern Renville, a keynote conversation with Autumn Brown, and a closing story shared by Roger Fernandes. A separate reflective art activity, guided by Mari Shibuya, concluded the days events.

Session recordings may be viewed at the links below. Program agenda details may be downloaded here.

Welcome STory - Fern Renville

Fern Naomi Renville (she/her) is a Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, Omaha, and Seneca-Cayuga storyteller, theatre director, and playwright. She is the great-granddaughter of Melinda Cayuga, a Seneca matriarch who exemplified the loving strength of the clan mothers.

Introduction - Sarah Tran

Sarah Tran (she/her), Sama Praxis

Sarah Tran (she/her) provides leadership coaching, facilitation, training, and consultation to community organizations, philanthropic foundations, businesses, and government entities committed to advancing racial justice and equity. Drawing on her roots as a daughter of Vietnamese refugees, a survivor of violence, a former Executive Director of color, and organizer - she is committed to supporting leaders of color as they mobilize their communities and transform systems to support collective liberation.

Keynote & Grounding - Autumn Brown

Autumn Brown (she/her) is a mother, organizer, theologian, artist, and facilitator. The youngest child of an interracial marriage, rooted in the complex lineages of counter-culturalism and the military industrial complex, Autumn is a queer, mixed-race Black woman who identifies closely with her African and European lineages, and a gifted facilitator who grounds her work in healing from the trauma of oppression. 

She was a founding member of the Rock Dove Collective, a radical community health exchange active in New York City from 2006-2012, and she currently serves on the Board of Directors of Voices for Racial Justice and the Common Fire Foundation. Autumn brings over 15 years of experience facilitating movement strategy, organizational and strategic development with community-based and social justice organizations, and training organizers in consensus process, facilitation, and racial justice. She has taught and presented in many places across the country, as well as internationally. She has worked with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Kairos Fellows, the American Civil Liberties Union, MPD150, and the Black Visions Collective, among many others.

Autumn is a facilitator with the Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance (AORTA), a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy through political education, training, and planning. Prior to joining AORTA, Autumn served as the Executive Director of RECLAIM!, a non-profit that works to increase access to mental health support so that queer and trans youth may reclaim their lives from oppression in all its forms.

Autumn is a 2020 Auburn Seminary Lives of Commitment Honoree. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Autumn has also completed specialized study in Theology at Oxford University and the General Theological Seminary of New York. She is a speculative fiction and creative non-fiction writer, and her work has been published in Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (AK Press 2019), the Procyon Science Fiction Anthology (Tayen Lane Press, 2016), Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016), Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (AK Press, 2015) and Stay Solid!: A Radical Handbook for Youth (AK Press, 2013).

Autumn co-hosts the podcast "How to Survive the End of the World" with her sister, adrienne maree brown. She lives in Minneapolis with her three brilliant children.

Closing Story - Roger Fernandez

Roger Fernandes (he/him) is a Native American artist, storyteller, and educator. His work focuses on the local tribal cultures of the Coast Salish tribes of western Washington. He is an enrolled member of the Lower Elwha S'Klallam Tribe. He has a bachelors degree in Native American studies from The Evergreen State College and a Masters Degree in Whole systems Design for Antioch University. He has worked in the fields of American Indian Education, social services, higher education, and legal services.

GRATITUDE!

Meeting the Moment was produced by Sama Praxis, Communities Rise, and Cascadia Consulting Group in partnership with the COO Learning Community.

We are grateful for the support of many community partners to develop the vision, themes, and agenda for Meeting the Moment. The following individuals served on our Community Advisory Committee over 6 months to support the program design and implementation:

Curtiss Calhoun, Africatown Community Land Trust & Black Dot

Riley Irish (he/him), Saint Vincent de Paul - Centro Rendu

Emijah Smith, King County Equity Now

Sarya Sos (she/her), Cham Refugees Community

Folake Oyebola (she/her), Kent Community Development Collaborative

Steven Sawyer (he/him), POCAAN

Gloria Ramirez (she/her), Comunidad Sahim Sau

Tepatasi Vaina (she/her), UTOPIA Washington

Larissa Reza (she/her), WA Dream Coalition

Violet Lavatai (she/her), Tenants Union of Washington

Meeting the Moment is also grateful to artist, muralist and facilitator Mari Shibuya, for facilitating an evening guided art session to reflect on the experiences of the day; and visualize the future we want by understanding what is falling away and what is growing as we create the systemic changes needed to build a community of belonging.

Graphic recordings capturing the themes and discussions of the day were also captured by Mari and will be shared with Meeting the Moment participants and COO community members.

Mari Shibuya (she/her) is an artist, muralist, and facilitator who creates community based, process oriented artwork. In her work as an organizer, she works as a lead facilitator for multiple organizations focusing on the Creative Empowerment of young people through the arts. In her work as a muralist, she creates public art that highlights people of color in positions of power fueled by a deep connection to the wisdom of nature and ancestors.