I stepped into this work earlier than most, starting in 1971 when I was a student at Dartmouth College protesting the Vietnam War. I was recruited to Dartmouth and given a full scholarship thanks to affirmative action policies that included low income and working class white people.

Despite the fact that Dartmouth was more than 90% white at the time, one reason our student organizing was successful was because it was multiracial, often led by the affirmative action students including the white ones like me. We saw connections between American militarism abroad and American racism at home. After linking our student strike over the killing of four students by the National Guard at Kent State to the killing of two Black students by local and state police that happened less than two weeks later at Jackson State in Mississippi, our student organizing shut down Dartmouth College. I was told by the Dean that unless I changed my position, and got the students to reverse theirs, I would lose my scholarship. While that didn’t happen, I learned then that there are real risks to standing up for justice. AND, I learned that the risks are lower if you are a white man. That meant I had an important role to play as a white man.

Influenced by my time in college organizing with Black revolutionaries and socialists, unlike most Ivy League grads, by my mid-twenties I was working on a heavy assembly line, mostly making Ford F-series trucks. I worked at the Twin Cities Assembly Plant in St. Paul as a riveter for 10 years before being elected as union rep for another 20 years, eventually, serving as the lead bargainer for the plant.

I felt in my body, and saw in the expressions of the faces of my coworkers, the physical pain and brutality of assembly line work. We all worked through the grinding pain in our joints from the repetitive motions demanded by the non-stop assembly line. In addition to the pain, like everyone else, I experienced the dehumanization of working the line. Imagine having to get permission for a bathroom break.

The pain and dehumanization was not equal for everyone.

If you were one of the roughly 25-30% of the line workers who were Black, you knew that a planned ‘speed up’ of the line would more likely require the Black workers to speed up than white workers. A speed up meant turning more bolts, lifting more parts, etc, every minute; that meant more profits for the shareholders and more pain for the workers. If you were a Black line worker, you knew that the foremen regularly took 2-3x times longer to approve your ‘relief break’ than to approve a break for your white co-workers. That’s not only uncomfortable, but degrading. If you were Black, you knew what had happened when you heard that one of your Black co-workers had to puke in a bucket because the foreman was intentionally slow in giving approval to go see medical.

As a white union rep, one of the ways I could build solidarity with the Black workers was to point out this racist behavior to my fellow white workers. The same information landed differently coming from me. Despite my college degree, I was a known line fighter ‘rivet rat,’ not some shaming intellectual. White workers understanding this racial disparity in treatment, was a big factor in their accepting, even if reluctantly, what we called Just Layoffs as part of our solidarity strategy.

Just Layoffs were when white assembly line workers accepted that a white worker with more seniority would get laid off before a Black worker with less seniority. All we were doing was reversing the seniority system that was already in place based on prior discrimination in hiring, what some might call white affirmative action. The Black workers knew that when push came to shove in negotiations, their white co-workers would not sell them out. This is what gave us 80-90% support, which is what we needed to negotiate successfully.

Why were white workers willing to do that?

The white workers knew they needed the Black workers to be willing to strike with them. They knew how devastating a strike would be for Black workers who had little or no reserves compared to white workers to survive a loss of income, even with strike pay. The white workers knew this because we were talking to each other in ways we never had before, including about the history of exclusion and exploitation that caused the racial wealth gap.

The organizing of the 1984 and 1988 Jesse Jackson Rainbow Coalition gave the growing multiracial Unity Caucus in our local a real lift. It was the first time that the staggering racial wealth disparity was being discussed broadly, and that gave folks like me a real opportunity to develop multiracial community and make the case for restorative action. Our caucus slogan was Unity Depends on Equality. One of the best experiences of my life was presenting Jesse Jackson with our union jacket at the packed Machinists Hall not far from our truck plant.

I was awed by the solid Black support when our local voted to authorize a strike during negotiations for the four day workweek. Their explanation: “Y’all backed us with Just Layoffs. Now it’s our turn to show our solidarity on this contract.” We knew we had each others’ backs.

This wasn’t without risks.

As we organized ourselves right on the line, I was targeted by corporate violence. As we successfully shut down production, and successfully dipped into their pocketbooks, I was the target of a near-miss industrial ‘accident’ intended to at least injure me, and to intimidate the rest of my fellow workers on the line. The violence and intimidation didn’t stop at the factory door. My garage was torched; my windows were shot out; my son was harassed on his way to school. I went to work every day with the assumption that one day I might not make it home. I experienced personally that the #1 target is a white man working to build multiracial power for working people. My Black co-workers knew that I had joined the club that nobody wants to be in, and too few white people are willing to risk joining.

Despite that truth, the reality is that my whiteness saved my ass, too. My Black brothers and sisters had all been stopped numerous times by the cops going to or from the plant, whereas cops stopping me was virtually nonexistent. The message: any random Black person is more suspicious and potentially dangerous than even a white race traitor from the Ford plant.

At the local level, our local was learning that we were successful because of our multiracial unity. We negotiated for improved ergonomics in our workstations that reduced the cumulative trauma disorder caused by heavy assembly line work. I’m most proud that in 1993 we were the first Ford plant in the country to negotiate a four-day workweek. That was huge. That was liberating. Workers who had never seen their kids play Friday Night football or sing in the school choir or act in the school play, got to have more time with their families. That still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about what that meant to the men and women I cared about, and who cared for each other, even when it was hard. It’s a testament to the power of solidarity that this four day x ten-hour workweek eventually became a common model across Ford’s national operations.

It’s important to understand that this is a story as much about the exhilaration, even joy, that comes not only from shop floor victories and contractual gains, but also from being a part of a multiracial community that feels cared for by each other.

The only way we won was because of our uncrackable racial unity. I became a Class Patriot when I became a Race Traitor. And what I won continues to lift up my spirit today far beyond the shop floor.

The story of AND 1 is not only a story about successful entrepreneurship and a street basketball brand that became a cultural phenomenon, it is also a story about hard work, race, and the American Dream.

As White men are being actively encouraged by the federal government to file ‘reverse discrimination’ lawsuits, it’s useful to step back and take a look at who benefits most often from our unlevel playing field.

Headline: The story of the Self-Made Man is a myth.

Individual success always involves the contributions of others. Individual success by White men, even those who grew up poor, is also at least in part because legacy systems, culture, and networks provide relative advantages for White men and relative disadvantages for White women and people of color. This is true whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not. It is simply the air we breathe.

No doubt, my partners and I are smart and worked hard. Late nights and early mornings. Weekends. We bootstrapped. We hustled. We earned our money. This is a true story.

And I have also come to understand that this story — the one where we work our butts off to get what we deserve — is more complicated than many of us would like to admit. In reality, not everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve this American Dream.

Money

Entrepreneurs generally need money to start and grow their businesses. In the U.S., more than 60 percent of seed funding for startups comes from family and friends. That was the case for us: we raised $50,000 from family and friends. However, money like this isn’t equally accessible to every talented entrepreneur. What if you don’t have any family or friends with cash to invest? That’s a headwind. Generally, that headwind is different for White entrepreneurs than for Black entrepreneurs.

According to the Federal Reserve, in 2019 the median White household was worth $188,200 — 7.8 times the wealth of the typical Black household ($24,100). This means that Black entrepreneurs are much less likely than their White counterparts to be able to raise money from family and friends because, in most cases, their family and friends don’t have money to invest. Having fewer resources to meet even basic household expenses means fewer resources to put toward starting a business or investing in one. The lack of assets also makes it more difficult for Black entrepreneurs to access credit to finance their startups.

What about venture capital? Black entrepreneurs receive only 1 percent of venture capital investment despite representing roughly 14 percent of the U.S. population. Some investors believe this underinvestment is a “pipeline problem.” Putting aside any individual bias on the part of White investors, the fact that Black entrepreneurs must overcome racial disparities in education, healthcare, housing, criminal justice, government policy, and in the workplace, though, seems to be a far more rational explanation for why there are, or are perceived to be, too few Black entrepreneurs who are investment ready.

Here’s a telling thought experiment:

AND 1 had six partners — the three cofounders (all White) and three friends who joined us within our first year (two who are Black). AND 1’s Black partners were both from solidly middle class families, both graduated from elite colleges (Howard University and Pepperdine), one had the same Wharton MBA as one of the cofounders, and both had early resumes as strong as the cofounders, with one arguably having the strongest resume of all the partners, having worked at IBM and Smith Barney.

If our roles were reversed and our two Black partners were AND 1’s co-founders trying to raise that initial startup capital, could their family and friends have come up with the same $50,000 that we were able to raise from our friends and family? Could they have worked for a year without pay? If we had tried to help them raise money, would our family and friends have given them the same level of trust and support as majority-controlling owners that they gave to us?

Years later, would the private equity firm that eventually put millions of dollars in our pockets have been tracking them the same way they were tracking us, and would they have moved from check-in call to term sheet in less than a week to invest in a Black-led company? Whatever our respective talents, there is a lot of trust embedded in these transactions, trust more likely assumed for people you know and who feel more like you.

The racial advantage of $50,000 of startup capital from family and friends may be the easiest to see, but that was just one element of our racial advantage.

Connections

When we were assembling our board of directors, a CFO client of my dad’s agreed to join, giving us not only the benefit of his decades of industry experience, but also the credibility that came with it. The parents of another cofounder were intellectual property attorneys, so we received valuable and pricey legal advice for free and were able to make filings to protect our intellectual property at cost. They also introduced us to partners at a prominent accounting firm with a large apparel industry practice, so again we benefited from very high quality, very low-cost expertise in setting up and financing the growth of our business.

The partners of the accounting firm introduced us to a factor (a specialty kind of financing firm) who would purchase our receivables and advance us 85 percent of the value so we could pay our suppliers and off-load the risk and administrative burden of chasing down payments. AND 1 was also extended credit (typically 30 days from invoice) from the screenprinters and factories that made our products. This meant that if we could sell it, we could finance it; no working capital constraints. These financing partnerships were unusual for a startup, and a huge advantage. Most of these connections and trust are not available to Black entrepreneurs.

Risk

Stepping back, another example of advantage relates to the ability to take risks. Risk looks and feels different for White founders and Black founders, and this dynamic plays a significant role in the inequity of startup experiences between them. This was the case for me and my co-founders at AND 1.

AND 1 partners posing for a local media photo shoot on the full court in their offices outside Philadelphia sometime around 2001. Left to right: Tom Austin*, Bart Houlahan, Jay Coen Gilbert*, Ray Moseley, Guy Harkless, and Seth Berger*. * Cofounders

As I recall, one of our competitors, in the market before us, worked at a Boys & Girls Club in Chicago and was pursuing his dream of starting a basketball brand in his spare time. He was solo. He was Black. AND 1, on the other hand, already had a three-person founding team working full time — two without pay, one for a salary of $25,000. We could take this risk because together we had no student debt, some personal money in the bank, credit cards, and the luxury of strong family safety nets and brand-name educations to fall back on. Ignoring for a moment many other important variables, assuming our Boys & Girls Club competitor was working on his basketball business half time, which is a big assumption, that’s a 6x advantage for us just in manpower alone right out of the gate. We were set up for success against this competitor without selling one piece of merchandise because of the risks we were willing and able to take.

Closed loops

Racial advantage plays out not just for founders.

Most senior managers at AND 1 were White largely for the same reason that our friends and family investors were White: our social networks were largely White. Many of those hired, most often without any robust interview process, were “just like us,” people we knew and liked and trusted: friends from college; a sibling of a friend from college; a co-worker from a first banking job; a next door neighbor; a friend of a friend; a former student of a friend, and then his friend; poached talent from our ad agency; ballplayers and their friends from a nearby college where we balled at lunch and knew the coach. Almost all White. Predominantly men. This means that the people who benefited financially from the success of AND 1 were predominantly White men. A self-reinforcing cycle of racial (and gender) advantage perpetuated by people who were not racist.

The success of AND 1 was the result of a great idea well executed with a lot of hard work at the right time in both our culture and the industry. The success of AND 1 was also the result of the advantage of its White (and male) cofounders (from relatively well-off families). For me, AND 1 created wealth I can pass down to my kids, and maybe to my grandkids, passing down advantage that I hope they will deploy in part for the benefit of others.

Leveling the playing field

The success of AND 1 reveals an uncomfortable truth: the playing field in America is not and has never been level.

We all experience the impact of racism without racists in the form of systemic racial advantage or racial disadvantage. The legacy of hundreds of years of racial inequity is in our groundwater, invisibly seeping into every system and structure in our companies, communities, and country.

Despite this, a majority of White Americans (52 percent) believe that White people do not benefit from any societal advantages compared to Black Americans (Pew, 2021; NPR/Ispos 2020). Until this number drops significantly, I believe we will not make material progress toward achieving a true meritocracy: one that rewards talent and vision first and foremost, not connections, wealth, and race.

My hope is that when it becomes normal to see, hear, and read White men talking about their success as a product of their smarts and hard work, AND also as a product of their advantages—their head start, their tailwind, and their relative lack of obstacles—we’ll all be in a better place. We’ll be a little more humble about our own achievements, a little more committed to leveling the playing field so that everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve the American Dream.

This act of protest drew significant attention and controversy, highlighting issues about representation and social activism within the entertainment industry. Brando's refusal remains one of the most memorable and politically charged moments in Oscar history.

From our perspective, we applaud Marlon Brando for being proximate (he had Indigenous relationships he could engage), for doing the work (he wrote the speech, which Littlefeather paraphrased due to time constraints), and most importantly for using his power (his stage, literally) to elevate voices that struggle to be heard. When you enjoy watching The Godfather (for the 18th time) remember Don Corleone this way. We will.

Beyond the daily tensions, overwhelm, and exhaustion that my clients and I have been feeling, there’s something that’s been bothering me about the national coverage of the presence of ICE in my city, since even before Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by federal immigration agents. It’s the use of the term “Protester” to label the tens of thousands of moms and dads, friends and neighbors who are opposed to the unwanted ICE, Border Patrol, and Customs and Border Protection deployment, and to what we’ve seen with our own eyes to be often overreaching and cruel actions of federal agents and officers.

Protesting is happening, of course: daily rallies at the main federal building (aka ICE HQ), general strikes, 50,000 person marches, singing outside ICE hotels, and interrupting businesses that are supporting ICE. There are signs, chants and a constant presence of folks on the streets to let the federal agents know that they are not welcome.

But the VAST majority of the organizing that is happening here is NOT protest. It is protection.

As described beautifully by my friend Will McGrath in his New York Times essay, “They Don’t Tell You How Fun the Resistance Can Be,” average everyday people are organizing themselves both to prevent abductions from happening, AND to support those who are fearing to leave their homes. They are providing rides to doctor appointments, delivering food and household supplies, and observing federal agent actions to ensure they respect our Constitutional rights. These actions are done without signs, without chants, and often are explicitly trying to remain underground for fear of being targeted ourselves or of unintentionally leading ICE officers to our immigrant neighbors who are here legally and terrified of being separated from their families. Their feelings of terror are understandable, given ICE data that shows more than 70% of ICE detentions are of people with no criminal record. People countering what feels like an occupying army are not looking to agitate, let alone get violent. They are helping kids get to and from school and helping parents keep food on the table. They are protectors of families and of communities.

I knew this, but I didn’t feel this until Alex Pretti was killed and the Administration said that Alex was not only a protestor, but also a domestic terrorist. Alex was NOT a protester when he was murdered; no matter what he was saying to the agents in that moment. Even if he attended protests prior to that tragic moment, Alex was there on the street filming, a constitutionally protected action, in order to create some form of accountability of our government to the people, even if only eventually. While filming, Alex responded to protect a woman who had been unnecessarily pushed to the ground by an overly aggressive ICE officer.

I used to lead anti-bullying programs in schools. Mustering the courage to stand up to protect others when anyone is being bullied is what we teach young people, especially young men, to do. Alex Pretti was an anti-bullying role model, risking physical harm as he sought to protect a woman being bullied by a heavily armed, aggressive man.

Truth be told – I could have been Alex. Though I did not know him personally, several of my close friends did. He worked at the VA hospital that my father frequents as he recovers from cancer. We were both in the streets trying to be good neighbors.

After watching the video, seeing Pretti pinned facedown on the ground, cell phone still in hand, disarmed of his legal firearm, which he never motioned toward, I do not believe those ICE officers credibly feared for their lives. So, I wonder WHY Alex felt like such a threat to them. What part of his presence was so threatening that two ICE officers fired 10 shots in 5 seconds into Alex’s body, killing him not 10 feet from where one of them had pushed down that woman? As Shari Dunn said powerfully, I suspect some of it had to do with the federal agents’ idea about what it means to be a man. Perhaps they felt that the woman didn’t do what she was told. That’s not hard to believe after we heard via bodycam video another ICE officer calling Renee Good a “fucking bitch” after shooting her in the face for disobeying his orders. Perhaps they felt Alex Pretti was challenging their authority, an affront to their manhood, especially by standing up for another ‘mouthy woman.’

In America, Protector is one of the central tenets of being a ‘real man.’ All young men get flooded with messages of needing to be strong, to defend those in their charge. I enjoyed thinking of myself as Batman as a young man - a defender of those who couldn’t defend themselves. In other words - A Protector.

However, there is a shadow side to being a Protector: The Predator.

It is considered ‘manly’ to dominate in much of ‘traditional’ American culture. Winning, Power and simple physical Dominance, at any cost, are rewarded and often revered. I remember my uncle reinforcing this as a young man, “If you cheat to win, you still win.” The manosphere amplifies this harmful idea of what it means to be a ‘Real Man’ and convinces young men that this dominance is their only path to true “manliness”.

One of my earliest “John, You’re becoming a man” moments as a young teenager was in a conversation initiated by my father. We were watching a James Bond film in which 007 shoves a woman down before throwing himself on her sexually. This moment was deeply confusing and a little uncomfortable. Other than the weirdness of watching this with my father, the ‘good guy’ was doing something that felt really off. This thought was spinning in my head when my dad said, “That’s not how you treat a woman”. It was a seminal moment for me. My dad was telling me Protectors shouldn’t become Predators.

As men, we have a choice when we show up in our role as Protectors. I love how Minneapolis poet and hip hop artist Guante reminds us that not all problems can be solved by ‘growing a pair’.

Alex doesn’t ‘grow a pair’ in the predator sense of being man enough to fight back physically. He simply puts himself between the bullying, heavily armed man and the woman, and holds his ground. He says through his body posture and constant filming…you are wrong…and I am holding you accountable. Alex Pretti’s powerful restraint must have driven these guys crazy. They want a fight and he’s just refusing to take the bait. In some ways, it parallels all the reasons why Minnesota has been successful at bringing positive attention to this issue worldwide, a powerful resistance that counters the traditional masculine dominance.

To classify him as a “protestor” is frankly an insult. Calling him a domestic terrorist is an intentional fabrication of an excuse to use deadly force against anyone who disagrees with this Administration’s policies. That should be terrifying to all of us.

Alex Pretti was a man who sat patiently with dying veterans in their hardest moments. He was built to bring that same presence and protection to the street. This is the kind of role model I need as I raise my daughter and continue mentoring young men.

Be like Alex…stand up to bullies . . . speak the truth, even when it’s unpopular. Be a Protector, even when it’s hard. That is a role model for how I want to live.

The much-deserved attention Coogler and Sinners is getting reminds me of another groundbreaking filmmaker, Ava DuVernay, whose films have helped me see America and myself more clearly.

I feel deeply connected to Ava DuVernay. Not just because we’re both storytellers – me for brands like Nike and AND 1, and DuVernay as an Oscar-nominated filmmaker – but because of an experience I had in Selma, Alabama.

DuVernay may be best known for her 2015 Best Picture Oscar-nominated film Selma, which chronicles the historic Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches in 1965, including the infamous Bloody Sunday march, over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, led by John Lewis.

In March 2023, at the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, I crossed that same Edmund Pettus Bridge. It is now named the Edmund Pettus-Foot Soldiers Bridge in a compromise presumably to honor both those who fought for freedom of the formerly enslaved and continuously terrorized, alongside the name of a Confederate General and alleged leader of the Klu Klux Klan. I crossed with 5,000-10,000 others, almost all Black, alongside 50 of my brothers from White Men for Racial Justice (WMRJ).

Our day in Selma was memorable for so many reasons – from the spontaneous, tearful, and reverent joy that encircled a wheelchair-bound Jesse Jackson during the annual King Unity Breakfast, to the lifted voices of the choirs in the morning Black church services we were invited to attend before the afternoon crossing. The one reason that stands out the most is the feeling of being welcomed and loved, a feeling of connection and community.

As a group of 50 white guys, I expected that we would be pretty conspicuous. Like most, I was uncertain how we would be received. Like most, I was anxious about the reactions of the overwhelmingly Black crowd to our White Men for Racial Justice t-shirts. All day long, people were checking us out, reading the t-shirts. Often, someone would break from their group of fraternity brothers or sorority sisters, church group, or local union, and come over to ask us, “What’s up with the tee?” One woman, face set to deep skeptic mode, even pointed to her phone and started recording as one of us shared his story of why he was there.

All day, as we fumbled our way through explaining ourselves, if perhaps not for this woman, then for most, we could watch skepticism turn to curiosity and then to interest; sometimes, more often than justified, interest unexpectedly expressed itself as hope and gratitude. On many uncomfortable and kind of embarrassing and then fun occasions, people asked if they could take photos with us to show friends and family back home the not-gonna-believe-this crazy thing they saw in Selma. We were embraced with love we didn’t deserve. It was just a t-shirt. The bar is that low. But for many there was a deeper message in that t-shirt that says White Men for Racial Justice – as we had heard from one Black woman prior, the t-shirt said, ‘It means you know my story.’

Yeah, most of us ask ourselves if wearing this t-shirt is “performative?” Maybe. The truth is this simple t-shirt sets a marker. Black women occasionally give me the “chin lift” that says, without words, welcome to the fight. That non-verbal exchange is also a form of accountability because I feel the added weight of raised expectations that I stay in the fight, even when it’s hard.

DuVernay once said, “The challenge is not to take the past and romanticize it, but rather to use it to inform the now.”

DuVernay’s Selma was released in 2014 amid escalating racial tensions in the U.S. – just weeks after massive “I Can’t Breathe” protests erupted in New York City because a grand jury failed to indict a New York police officer in the choke hold killing of Eric Garner, and just months after Black Lives Matter burst into the national consciousness during the uprising and riots in Ferguson, Missouri after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer. While the protests in New York and Ferguson were largely peaceful, I was among the majority of White Americans who were uncomfortable with the arson, looting, and violence in Ferguson. Yet, as a preacher’s son and person of deep faith, the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. resonated: “It is morally irresponsible to condemn riots without condemning the intolerable conditions which cause them.”

DuVernay’s Selma, along with her 2017 Best Documentary Oscar-nominated 13th about mass incarceration, and her 2019 Emmy-nominated miniseries When They See Us about the wrongful conviction of the Central Park Five, helped me to understand our still recent history of racial violence and the current conditions of a racially biased criminal legal system. DuVernay’s storytelling helped me to see the conditions that can lead to uprisings or riots, like when a drought creates the conditions for a forest fire when lightning strikes.

DuVernay’s impact extends beyond her art. What stories get told, and how those stories are told, has a lot to do with who the storytellers are. That’s why DuVernay founded the filmmaking collective Array, which champions diverse storytellers in film, offering resources and support to filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds. DuVernay also uses her platform to raise awareness on issues such as immigration reform, women’s rights, and environmental justice.

As we approach both the Oscars and the March anniversaries of the Selma to Montgomery marches, and as we live in another moment of mass protest against state-supported violence in our streets and racially biased mass detentions, I invite you to watch Selma, 13th, and When They See Us to better understand our national story – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and its relevance to our lives today.

Cassius Clay was a southern planter’s son. His family enslaved Africans. Despite this, Clay, nicknamed the “Lion of White Hall,” became a ferocious anti-slavery crusader. These seemingly contradictory facts challenge another myth, that every white person born and raised south of the Mason Dixon line supported or was complicit in slavery. Cassius Clay was a Southern white abolitionist. I, too, am a white man born south of the Mason Dixon line. I, too, feel called to use my voice to stand up against racial and economic injustice.

In 1845, Clay founded the True American, an abolitionist publication that advocated for an immediate end to slavery. The paper used the constitutional right of free press to advocate for abolition. As a result, the paper’s headquarters were attacked by angry mobs, forcing Clay to reinforce the building with iron-lined doors and two brass canons loaded with nails and ammunition. The attacks became so frequent that he eventually moved the paper’s headquarters to Cincinnati, while still distributing throughout Kentucky.

Despite his abolitionist views, Clay went on to be elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives. He survived assasination attempts: once, shot; a second time, stabbed. Both times, he fended off attackers with his famed Bowie knife. Still, he never relented in his fight for justice.

Clay’s legacy lives on in his name, passed down over generations. One of the men his family had enslaved, Herman Heaton Clay, named his son Cassius Clay in honor of the abolitionist. That Cassius Clay then named his son Cassius Clay Jr., who would ultimately become the heavyweight champion of the world before changing his name to Muhammad Ali.

I didn’t learn about Cassius Marcellus Clay until I was 45.

Putting aside the greatest pugilist of all time, Cassius Clay, the Kentuckian, remained hidden from me for most of my life. Like so many other heroic figures that I now idolize for their bravery, courage, and moral and spiritual convictions, Cassius Clay was not mentioned in the history classes I attended in my youth in both public and private schools in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Nor were John Woolman, Benjamin Lay, Lucretia Mott, and many others. The fiery writings of John Brown never made it into the curriculum. In our limited discussions of the Civil Rights Movement, we never heard about Jim Zwerg, Rev. James Reeb, Viola Luizzo or other white heroes who joined in solidarity with their brothers and sisters of color. I wonder, do children in Kentucky learn of their local hero, Cassius Clay? I went to high school in Baltimore Co, Maryland and never learned of William Lewis Moore.

All these people were “products of their time.” They witnessed the brutality and inhumanity of the status quo, whether enslavement, racial terror, or segregation and were compelled by it. . They joined many Black leaders refusing to accept injustice and brutality as normal or palatable. They stood against racial injustice and dehumanization, even when it was unpopular and even when it cost some of them their lives. Their examples inspire me. Cassius Clay represents a different choice for white men like me.

There is a connection between Cassius Clay, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti…and me

On the morning that she put her car between ICE agents and her community, perhaps Renee Good read an issue of the True American. I suspect she did not, but I like to think that she had similar inspiration running through her veins. Perhaps the morning before he lost his life at the hands of federal agents, Alex Pretti was moved by these words from John Brown…

I believe that to have interfered as I have done — as I have always freely admitted I have done — in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments. — I submit; so let it be done!

Pretti too mingled his blood with the oppressed. He stood up for racial justice, for freedom from tyranny, and to protect that which he cared about most: freedom, equality and the dignity of all human life. Cassius Clay carried a Bowie knife, and only used it in self-defense. Pretti had a holstered side arm he never drew. Clay was attacked by representatives of the state. Alex Pretti was, too.

I find myself a product of my time, a product of witnessing ongoing brutality against, Black and Brown bodies, against women and children, and against poor and working white folks too. For me, it started with Rodney King, and later Trayvon, then Mike Brown, Freddie Grey, Sandra, Mother Emanuel, Breonna, George, and dozens more. I am witnessing the rounding up of countless Hispanic, African, and Asian working folk, more than 70% without criminal records, more than 170 of whom are American citizens, many of whom have served in our military, and almost all of whom are paying taxes and contributing to the American economy. I am witnessing state-sanctioned violence against human beings of all racial and class identities. I understand the righteous anger and outrage Cassius Clay and John Brown embodied. I too am angry, as I eagerly await the day when I see the promise of “liberty and justice FOR ALL” fully realized.

Michael B. Jordan plays Bryan Stevenson in the biopic Just Mercy. The movie is about Stevenson’s successful work to exonerate a man who served 6 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. You know you’re pretty cool when Michael B. Jordan plays you in a movie about your life.

Still, my eyes rolled the first time I heard Bryan Stevenson speak. Despite my self-image as a ‘good guy’ who had studied and worked more than most on issues of race, poverty, and justice, I thought Stevenson was both exaggerated and uninspiring.

My discomfort: “Slavery didn’t end, it just evolved.”

My eyes rolled when I heard Stevenson say that “Slavery didn’t end, it just evolved.” ‘C’mon, really?!?’ I thought, taking Bryan Stevenson literally. My eyes rolled because I do not believe that mass incarceration is literally an evolved form of enslavement – most people are in our prison system because they broke the law. I do not believe we should abolish prisons.

However, since then, thanks in large part to Bryan Stevenson’s work through the Equal Justice Initiative he founded in 1989, I have come to understand that mass incarceration is a result of the same underlying belief that Black people are less than White people – a belief that Black people are more dangerous than White people, and also less deserving and less capable. This delusion of a racial hierarchy extends to see all people of color as less than White people, and explains the colorism among people of color who favor lighter skin tones.

Despite the self-evident truth that America has made meaningful progress to reduce racial injustice, it is a less self-evident truth that significant racial injustice still exists, especially in our criminal legal system. It is also true that our unequal education and economic systems make it much more likely that Black people, other people of color, and poor White people end up entangled in a criminal legal system that itself still shows evidence of significant racial bias in policing, sentencing, and treatment.

As I reflect, my initial eye roll seems like a defense mechanism, a way to distance myself, intellectually and emotionally, by dismissing a provocative statement that was contrary to what I thought of as my well-considered ‘good guy’ beliefs. It is clear to me now that Stevenson was not saying that slavery still existed as an institution in the United States (although many advocates for an abolition of prison labor would credibly make this case), but rather that the systems that perpetuate racial injustice have evolved because the underlying belief in a racial hierarchy remains largely unchanged for most Americans. In some ways, that makes me even more uncomfortable because that statement is not so easily dismissed, and it applies to me.

My arrogance: “We have to be willing to be uncomfortable.”

Twelve years after Stevenson successfully freed a man from death row, he did the same for that man’s cell mate, who had served 28 years on death row for another wrongful conviction. In between, Stevenson successfully argued a case at the Supreme Court, resulting in their ruling to declare unconstitutional mandatory sentencing of life-without-parole (or death-by-incarceration) for children. Yet, arguably, none of these things are what history will show to be Stevenson’s most powerful and enduring legacy.

Despite my discomfort with some of Stevenson’s language, in 2018, as I became increasingly disturbed by the pattern of killings of unarmed Black men, women, and children by police and the increasingly racist dog-whistles of our national politics, I went with a close friend to the opening of the Legacy Museum, the centerpiece of three Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama created by Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative.

The Legacy Sites of the Equal Justice Initiative are a national treasure. They are a treasure not because they bathe us in cultural riches and glory, but because they invite us to be courageous enough to confront the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about our American history and its influence on our lives today. They are a treasure because Black history is American history. They are a treasure because the future of Black Americans is the future of all Americans. As Bryan Stevenson says:

“There’s something that feels more like freedom waiting for us in this country. . . .

But we can’t get there if we’re afraid to have the important conversations that we need to have

to recover from the long history of racial inequality and racial injustice.”

I remember sitting on the edge of my seat listening to Bryan Stevenson give a powerful talk in 2016 at a conference of some of the world’s most inspiring changemakers. He was reaching the crescendo and about to share ‘the four things we need to do to change the world.’ I was ready! He shared that first: We need to get proximate to the poor and marginalized. Next: We need to change the narratives that sustain inequality and injustice. Then: We need to stay hopeful. And lastly, wait for it: We need to do uncomfortable things. I felt so let down. ‘Really?!? That’s it?’ All this build up. After 35 years of the most inspiring work and deep thinking, Stevenson’s final call to action is to ‘do uncomfortable things.’ That’s the best he can offer?

In the nearly 8 years since EJI opened its Legacy Museum and National Memorial to Peace and Justice opened, I have come to experience for myself and witness firsthand in hundreds and hundreds of diverse White men the truth and power of Stevenson’s four calls to action. I have been humbled to experience and to witness that Stevenson was right to leave the hardest thing for last. No one wants to be uncomfortable. Every human being understandably moves away from discomfort. Discomfort can cause pain, both physical and emotional. Avoiding discomfort is likely a biological defense mechanism. Therefore, like any other skill, we need to practice – we need to practice the ability to sit with discomfort. The discomfort of sitting with the discomfort of hard truths – about the history of our country, about the actions and inactions of people we admire, and also, perhaps most importantly, the hard truths about ourselves.

My truth: I have lifelong work to do to become the man I want to be.

The hard truth is that I am often not the man I want to be. Not in my work. Not in my actions. Not in my relationships. None of that makes me a bad person. All of that makes me human.

Decades of my own imperfect actions have shown me I can’t change meaningfully and consistently on my own. Being part of a community called White Men for Racial Justice whose core principles remind me weekly to ‘prepare for discomfort’ has been one of the most powerful change agents in my life. Over the last five years, the most transforming experience for new members of our community is when groups of 30-50 of us travel together to Montgomery, Alabama each year for an immersive weekend confronting the hard truths of American history at EJI’s Legacy Sites.

EJI’s Legacy Museum has helped us see American history through a justice lens, and specifically through the eyes of Black people who have been brutally oppressed for much of that history. The Legacy Museum breaks down our history into four eras:

• Era of Enslavement, during which 12 million Africans were kidnapped and chained to sell into slavery, and 2 million human beings died just during the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean

• Era of Racial Terror, during which 9 million Black Americans were terrorized by state-sanctioned violence, including lynching more than 4,400 mostly Black men, women, and children, resulting in the Great Migration, a refugee crisis for 6 million Black Americans fleeing the South

• Era of Segregation, during which 10 million Black Americans were oppressed through laws to maintain a racial hierarchy throughout the U.S., using voter suppression, redlining, and legal discrimination and disinvestment to prevent Black Americans from acquiring power, wealth, or skills

• Era of Mass Incarceration, during which 10 million Americans, disproportionately low income and people of color, in far greater percentage of our population than almost any other nation on Earth, have a direct family member who is incarcerated due to the ‘colorblind’ government policies that ensure unequal protection under the law and racial inequities in policing and sentencing

Despite 400 years of undeniable progress moving toward the American ideal of freedom and justice for all, confronting these hard truths of the scope and the persistence of the brutality and horrors inflicted on Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color is painful and uncomfortable. I want to look away. I want to say, ‘That’s all in the past.’ I want to say, ‘That’s not me.’

The hard truth is that the injustice is not just in the past. Whether I’m an unintentional perpetrator, or a semi-conscious tolerator, I am participating in a system that perpetuates racial and economic injustice on a massive scale.

Bryan Stevenson‘s Equal Justice Initiative has helped me see that “an ideology of white supremacy and racial difference was created to justify slavery and make it morally acceptable,” and that same set of beliefs has remained largely unchanged, even if they sit under the surface in the minds of most Americans, including mine.

Even if I am not wearing a white robe and pointy hat, or carrying a neo-Nazi flag, if those beliefs about racial difference weren’t there – about who is dangerous, about who is deserving – then I would not have ignored, denied, or accepted the significant and widespread racial disparities that exist in every aspect of American society. Bryan Stevenson helped me see what was hidden in plain sight. Once I was willing to see those hard truths, I was compelled to do something about it to live in integrity with my values.

Starting this week and throughout 2026 the WeCanHandleTheTruth storytelling project will share stories of great American heroes, like Bryan Stevenson, who have had the courage to tell the truth and stand up for American values, fighting for freedom and justice for everyone. Coming to know these stories has given me hope and courage.

As a White man, it has been especially inspiring to learn that there have been other White men who have fought for justice throughout each of these four eras of American history alongside White women and people of color. Knowing the stories of these imperfect heroes helps me to become the good ancestor I want to be.

We are a community of White men from across the country and we can handle the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about our American history and its relevance to our lives today.

WeCanHandleTheTruth is a storytelling project of White Men for Racial Justice, a national community of men who love our country, have the courage to stand up to false narratives seeking to divide us, and are working together to make sure that America works for everyone.

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America. We have much to celebrate in America, and we also have much further to go to fulfill the American promise of freedom and justice for all.

On this anniversary, our country is in a struggle over competing visions of who our country exists for and who we want to be.

Who is deserving of equal opportunity and equal protection? Who is deserving of feeling that they belong? Who is deserving of being cared for the way we would like to be cared for?

At the core of this struggle is a battle over the truth.

What is the truth about our American history? Who decides? Why does this matter?

How we see our American history shapes how we see ourselves and current events. How we see our American history influences what we think is possible and what we believe is desirable for ourselves and for our country.

The truth is our country is great AND imperfect. Our history is beautiful AND ugly. Telling the truth will set us free to fulfill the American promise for everyone.

Yet, there are people who seek to tell half-truths about American history to divide us and to distract us, serving their own selfish interests to build and maintain power for themselves at the expense of the rest of us.

When we pull up the roots, it seems that some of those people may simply be uncomfortable and insecure. They may be uncomfortable sitting with ugly truths, and uncomfortable thinking about the implications of those truths for themselves and for our country. They may be insecure about whether there is a place for them in an America that doesn’t look or feel like it used to. They may be insecure about whether they can succeed if there were a truly level playing field. That discomfort and insecurity is understandable. Many of us have felt uncomfortable and insecure ourselves.

However, we have practiced leaning into our own discomforts, and as a result those discomforts are no longer as scary. We have experienced, as White men, that not only is there a place for us, but that this place is more attractive to us than the place of fear and separation we were used to. In this place we feel more connected, we feel more valued, we feel more cared for, we feel more joy. We also feel stronger, more power-full, because we feel that we are not alone, and we recognize that success is not a zero-sum game.

Our American Heroes

In addition to feeling uncomfortable when we have learned stories of injustice, we have been inspired to learn about the many White men who have spoken out and fought for justice throughout America’s history alongside White women and people of color. Many of us are frustrated and angry that we didn’t already know about these role models. Throughout 2026, we’ll be sharing stories of these, and other, imperfect American heroes who told the truth and fought for justice. These are models of the good ancestors we aspire to be.

Our Personal Stories

We study American history to better understand how that history impacts our own lives today. Throughout 2026, we’ll be honoring men in our community for their courage in sharing their emerging understanding of these connections between yesterday and today through personal “Yes/AND” stories:

• Yes, I have worked hard, AND Whiteness has given me a head start and a relatively clear path to reach my full potential

• Yes, I have experienced struggle and hardship, AND I know that, unlike others, my hardship was not caused by my race

• Yes, I’m a ‘good guy,’ AND there still has been a gap between my beliefs and my actions

• Yes, I felt pretty knowledgeable, AND I can now see that I have a lot more learning to do

We offer these stories because it helps us live into our values. We offer these stories because it helps dispel the myth that White guys don’t give a damn about freedom and justice for all. We offer these stories because we hope it will make it more likely that other White men who give a damn will realize that they are not alone in wanting to work together to create an America that lives up to its promise for all of us, including all White men, not just those with money and power.

We offer these stories because it is honorable to tell the truth about American history, to stand up for American values, and to fight for a more perfect union.

As one good ancestor we admire, Michael McAfee, has said, there have been many founding moments in our nation’s history - 1776, 1865, 1920, 1965. We are at another founding moment. We are ready to play our role alongside others as ‘the next founders.’

We can handle the truth. We can love each other. We can all win together.

Join us.