We Reckon, We Heal: Recovering from Racist Violence with Fierce Love

We live in a traumatic world. Every day, our news feeds show us suffering and death, and remind us that we exist in systems that are dehumanizing, degrading and deadly. For communities of color, this anguish is particularly acute. Nurturing personal healing and wholeness is an essential task, and yet we are forced to do that work while also enduring this country’s unrelenting racism and white supremacy. How can we recover in the middle of that mess?

Join a conversation between two of the country’s foremost thinkers about racism and recovery. Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts is the author of Then They Came for Mine: Healing from the Trauma of Racial Violence, which offers a blueprint for healing as Black and brown people reckon with the impact of trauma and feeling free to grieve in whatever way grief shows up. She’ll be joined by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, whose book Fierce Love outlines some of the ways she has approached this work in her own life, and gives people tools for engaging the world while also nourishing their own wholeness.

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Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts offers those who read her work and hear her speak an authentic experience; an opportunity to explore the intersection of culture, identity and faith/spirituality at the deepest levels. She is the host of the podcast, HeARTtalk with Tracey Michae’l, and founder of HeARTspace, a healing community created to serve those who have experienced trauma of any kind through the use of storytelling and the arts. As a writer, Tracey has published eighteen books including several collaborations with numerous high-profile authors. In 2021, Tracey became one of 20 writers who contributed to the groundbreaking book, You are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience edited by acclaimed researcher, Brene Brown, and founder of the MeToo Movement, Tarana Burke. She is also the author of Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration which has received rave reviews from celebrities like Kerry Washington, literary writers like Kiese Laymon and Deesha Philyaw, and media outlets like Good Morning America, Essence Magazine, and USA Today

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is Senior Minister for Public Theology and Transformation at Middle Church in New York City. In her activism, preaching, speaking, writing, and teaching, Dr. Lewis advocates for racial equality, gun control, economic justice, and equal rights for all sexual orientations/genders. A world-renowned theologian, Dr. Lewis has been featured on the The Today Show, All In with Chris Hayes, AM Joy, The Melissa Harris Perry Show, NY1, ABC, NBC, PBS, CBS and many more, and her writing has appeared in outlets like Harper’s Bazaar, Vox, The Huffington Post and Religion News Service. She is the author of several books, most recently Fierce Love: A Bold Path to a Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World which was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.