In the two years since the publishing of Collective Courage and my entry into a beloved community of powerful Black fundraisers, I have traveled the long road toward personal restoration and racial healing and awakening.

In my Chapter, The Epiphany of Joyful Fundraiser, I share that I woke from a long slumber of believing that I was not fit for nonprofit work.  I had been degraded, demoted, humiliated, and fired from jobs on more than one occasion.  I thought I had chosen the wrong career or maybe I was just not good enough a fundraiser to be successful.

Friends and some family members suggested that I do something else – you know – be a teacher, social worker, or counselor. I did after all earn a master’s degree in counseling.  While I had considered all the above, I didn’t feel drawn to these careers which were also fraught with challenges.

During the pandemic, I grieved the loss of my partner and son’s father and was deafened by the cries for social and racial justice from around the world.  I knew I wanted to delve into deeper introspection of who I was, what I believed, and how I could use my voice to make change.

The real epiphany was yet to come.

I began by writing my race story.  I thought about my parents, their beliefs, and how they instilled them into me and my three sisters.  Both of my parents were born in the 1940s in Brooklyn, New York.  My father had family in the south and had been exposed to the racism and bigotry of Jim Crow laws there.  He talked of his summer trips to North Carolina where he was not able to go inside restaurants.  To be served, he had to pick up food from the back door. White police and others in the south could beat and abuse black people with little to no consequences. My father later became a policeman in New York City and was subjected to racial discrimination on the force. My mom’s family was from the Caribbean and Georgia although she grew up in Brooklyn and was protected from overt discrimination.  Her community was segregated. Her family were lower middle-class, blue-collar workers who worked hard to provide.  They wanted no trouble.  They were not rabble rousers. 

As a child, I was “bused out” of my predominantly Black neighborhood in the second grade.  I didn’t know then why I couldn’t just go to the school closer to my home.  When I graduated from high school, I wanted to attend an Historically Black College and University (HBCU), but my father forbade it.  He insisted that I attend a Predominately White Institution (PWI) because the white man would not respect a degree from a HBCU.  My father saw my disappointment but explained.  “I want you to attend a university that will provide you with a quality education and groom you for a good job at a reputable company. Your mother and I have worked our entire lives to get you here.”  I begrudgingly acquiesced and attended a predominantly white, private, Jewish university in Long Island, NY, Hofstra University.  

I had been hearing of this white man my whole life. As a child, I wondered why he was so mean and hated Black people. As an adult I believed that he was powerful, and we were not.  Since I could not go to my neighborhood elementary, junior, and high schools, I figured they must be bad.  Then HBCU’s were not good enough either.

I had been taught that anything Black was inferior and that to be deemed worthy, I should insert myself in places where white people were if I wanted access to good things.  Being Black alone was not enough - not good enough to be deemed worthy.  

The murders of innocent Black people in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, during this complex search for my truth compounded my confusion and emphasized the false beliefs I had been taught. They had manifested themselves in my life in numerous ways. Although I rejected living in an all-white neighborhood, I found myself bypassing local resources to find the grocery store, or pharmacy or library in predominately white communities.  Their stores were stacked with fresh fruits and vegetables and meat and the books I wanted from the library was usually in stock.

It had been ingrained in me.  White was right and black definitely was not.

Along this sojourn, I became ravenous for information about race and equity.  I read numerous books.  Authors like Isabel Wilkerson, Resmaa Menakem, Ijeoma Oluo, and Heather McGhee began to surface on my bookshelf.  I listened to podcast after podcast and took copious notes. I watched videos and Ted Talks on race, bias, and inclusion. I enrolled in courses with Equity in the Center and Race Forward and completed a deep dive antiracist experience, The Racial Equity Blueprint, with my dear friend and Collecting Courage, editor, and coauthor Nneka Allen.  I then wrote and published my first children’s book about acceptance and diversity, Mac and Cheez, Being Different is Okay.

I was on a mission. This intentional search for truth brought me eye to eye with myself.  Often in between Zoom meetings during the day and sometimes late at night, I’d run to the mirror and conduct meticulous inspections of my face.  I stared at my large nose and full lips which my mom shared with me.  I touched the moles on my face and body passed down to me by my father and grandfather. I ran my fingers through my course natural hair.  I studied my ears and large hands. I measured my height and weight and wondered who of my ancestors I most resembled. The inquisition ensued.

I needed full disclosure.  I ordered 23 and me and discovered hundreds of relatives of every hue.I learned that my ancestry composition is 45.1% Nigerian, 23.1% Ghanian, Liberian and Sierra Leon, 5.4% Congolese, and 2% Senegambian and Guinean.  I learned that “Nigeria’s traditional values system include respect for elders, chastity among women, dignity of labor, patriotism to one's community, courage and self-reliance”.  This new information about my kin blew me away. I was so proud! 

I thought I knew who I was but this experiment, this unraveling of my identity into bits and pieces, began to reveal who I was at my core.  It was simultaneously scary and exciting. I was embracing all of me. 

I was not inferior as I had been taught and believed.

My people, my ancestors were survivors. They had beat unbelievable odds and had suffered and sacrificed so that I could be here today. I was a child of God.  My life meant something, and I didn’t need approval of anyone to be authentically who I am.  I cried.  I hugged myself.  I celebrated my blackness.  I affirmed my purpose.  I belonged.

Today in my work with nonprofit mostly white boards, I speak candidly about race, equity, and belonging.  I speak of bravery and having the courage to investigate one’s true personal identity through race stories.  I ask them to do the hard work to learn and accept the ugly history of our country and how their personal race stories have afforded them privilege and belief systems that have been harmful to others.  

The title of our book, Collecting Courage is multifaceted and purposeful.   It is at once a memoir of our past, a chronicling of the present, and a journal for our future hopes and dreams.  I am grateful for my epiphany when writing my chapter two years ago but am I enchanted by the road I’ve traveled since then. 

In 2022, I had the honor and privilege to travel to Vancouver to meet in person with most of the contributing authors of Collecting Courage.  I had been oblivious to the profound affect these individuals would have on my life.  The collective voice that we have added to the antiblack nonprofit sector, who protected their own and shut us out, is shattering systems.  We have written books, started podcasts, created curriculums, and are now leading nonprofits, coaching leaders, and are teaching others that they too can find a path towards reconciliation, forgiveness, courage,and truth.

I seized my courage through this community, now my family.  

I am forever changed.  I am found!

Christal M. Cherry, is a mom, board consultant, sister, friend and author.