As protesters filled the streets in 2020 fighting for racial justice, many observers referred to the multigenerational and multiracial dimensions of the crowds. Why is it essential for older and younger people to fight side-by-side? What can the generations learn from each other? What role does individual and collective memory play in shaping a more just future? And how can we overcome generational tensions within communities as well as generational tensions across racial ethnic identities?
This session was curated in partnership with Encore.org.
Raymond A. Jetson is the catalytic force that has powered the evolution of the innovative social enterprise MetroMorphosis. After completing a two year fellowship on advanced leadership towards social impact at Harvard University, he's set about the business of creating a different approach to community change. When asked to describe the work of MetroMorphosis, Jetson responds, “we create movements that matter enough to people that they become engaged in bringing change to their own communities.”
Isabel González Whitaker is a Principal Advisor for the world's largest healthcare charity where she leads C-suite thought leadership and executive visibility efforts especially at the intersection of Purpose. Previously Isabel was Deputy Editor of Billboard and prior to that Features Editor at InStyle. During her 18-year career as a journalist in New York, she wrote cover stories and produced features on Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, President Biden, Sec. Clinton, as well as the World Trade Center attack and the Bataclan and Pulse tragedies. Isabel’s work has appeared in Time, The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, The Washington Post among other outlets. Isabel is the co-author of Latin Chic: Entertaining with Style and Sass (HarperCollins) and executive producer of documentary short "Women in Music: Inspiring a Generation" featuring former First Lady Michelle Obama. In 2019, she co-edited and contributed the essay "Finding La Reina in Queen Bey" to Queen Bey: A Celebration of the Power and Creativity of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (St. Martin’s Press). In 2018, Isabel was selected to be a Presidential Leadership Scholar as determined by the Pres. Clinton, H. W. Bush, W. Bush and Johnson Presidential Centers. As a Scholar, she debuted the first park in the State of Georgia to be named for a Latinx individual, the Sara J. González Memorial Park, which President Clinton wrote "will have a lasting positive impact on the community [and] inspire all those who visit it in the years to come." The Atlanta-based park reflects themes of diversity, inclusion, unity and equity and demonstrates these values through pan-generational, community-centric programming and design. Isabel received the 2018 Trust for Public Land Heroes Award and the 2018 Park Pride Inspiration Award. Isabel was the Scholar in Residence at Rhodes College 2018-2019 and is an 2021 Encore.org Senior Fellow examining intergenerationalism through Latinx identity.
When he joined the Foundation in 2020, he had more than two decades of experience as a journalist, author and activist. He was a co-founder and executive director emeritus of Man Up Campaign, a global initiative to activate youth to stop violence against women and girls. This led to his selection as the winner of the 2010 GQ Magazine “Better Men Better World” search, and as one of the Women’s eNews ‘21 Leaders for the 21st Century’. Jimmie has served as an adjunct professor of investigative journalism at the New School for Social Research and was a George A Miller Visiting Professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies at the University of Illinois: Champaign-Urbana. For a decade, he has been an adjunct teacher of documentary journalism at the International Center of Photography
As a journalist, he has written for scores of publications following staff tenures at The Washington Post, The Village Voice, LIFE magazine and others. The recipient of honors for his work as a journalist and advocate, he’s been a National Magazine Award finalist, recipient of honors from the Open Society Institute, National Association of Black Journalists, the Carter Center for Mental Health Journalism, the Congressional Black Caucus, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and the Freedom Center in Cincinnati, among many others. His 2005 book Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War took readers into the lives of war-affected children around the world in half a dozen countries. His next book project is an oral history of Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in 2014. He currently contributes to Vanity Fair magazine in addition to his role at the Skoll Foundation.
Jimmie holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors, in Philosophy, from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, as well as a Medal of Distinction from Barnard College. He lives in New York City.
Brittany T. Paschall does freedom work as an educator, minister, and organizing aligning social justice and education.
Brittany started her lifelong activist work with the Oasis Center in Nashville and is the founder of We Remember Nashville, an intergenerational effort she found, that aims to address the historical terror of lynching and public memory in Davidson County. Brittany is an educator, liberator, activist, organizer, minister, writer, and leader at the intersection of social justice and healing for many on the front lines of activists’ work. She is a graduate of Grand Canyon University and the TTA Humanitarian Community Service Award recipient for the Status of Women. In 2017, Brittany was awarded a National ELLA Fellowship with the Sadie Nash Leadership Project. Her fellowship project, Nashville's Daughters, engaged Young Women of Color by exploring mentoring (femtoring), historical exploration, social-emotional learning, and social action. Nashville’s Daughters is now a program of We Remember Nashville. Brittany was named to the Millennial Leaders Project of Union Theological Seminary in the Summer of 2018. She is also an alumnus of the RISE Together program through Union Theological Seminary and the Racial Justice Learning Cohort through Faith Matters Network. Presently, she is an ELA Resident Teacher with the Nashville Teacher Residency in Metro Nashville Public Schools and a member of Freedom Time Collective. Committed to the power across the generations, Brittany is carried by the wisdom of many before her namely her late paternal grandfather, Rev. Dr. Julius A. Paschall, Sr. and her late maternal grandmother, Sarah E. Tolbert whose lives were both touched by dementia.
Senior Program Strategist, AAPI Civic Engagement Fund and Executive Director, Coalition of Asian American Leaders
Bo Thao-Urabe is a practice-based possibilian who focuses on creating community-centered, asset-based solutions and transforming practices so
that there are meaningful changes for those most impacted by systemic
inequities. Currently, she serves as senior program strategist consultant for the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund and is the executive and network
director of the Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL), a social justice network of leaders harnessing their collective power to improve the lives
of community by connecting, learning and acting together. Bo’s lived experiences at the intersections of war, poverty, immigration, gender,
culture and race continuously shapes how she builds and contributes to ensure communities can fully participate in creating systemic and cultural solutions that shape the future. Her extensive leadership experiences include building and leading local, national, and global efforts. Bo is recognized locally and nationally for her leadership and impact.
