Sign up. Show up. Stand up.
On Tuesday, September 1, from 11:00 a.m. to noon Pacific / 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Eastern, we are launching the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion with a free livestreamed event.
RESIST! Join the Launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.
Register now:
https://www.linkedin.com/events/launch-communitycoalitionforsus7491207384133111809/
Don’t wait until September 1 to decide whether you are part of this.
You are invited now.
If you believe in fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity and human dignity for all, we need you.
If you are tired of watching diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging programs being dismantled, we need you.
If you are feeling isolated, discouraged or afraid to speak up, we especially need you.
Because resistance has never been a solo act.
And neither is ours.
We Are Not Starting from Scratch
The Community Coalition will build upon, learn from, honor and respect the extraordinary work of people and movements that resisted injustice before us.
At the end of July, my wife Ros and I spent several days in Oakland, California, a city we love and where our daughter Rachel lived for many years.
Oakland is also the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966. This year marks the Party’s 60th anniversary. (Oakland Museum of California (OMCA))
The Panthers developed an extraordinary network of what they called Community Survival Programs: free breakfasts for children, health clinics, food programs, sickle-cell testing, legal services, transportation, education, services for seniors and people with disabilities, and much more. (Black Panther History Project)
They understood something that remains profoundly relevant:
Resistance isn’t only about what we stand against. It is about what we build together.
That idea speaks directly to what we are creating with the Community Coalition.
We can resist attacks on inclusion while simultaneously building stronger communities.
We can oppose injustice while creating practical resources.
We can challenge systems while caring for the people living within them.
We can turn frustration into organization, isolation into connection and fear into collective power.
That is why our Coalition exists:
The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion empowers members to move from reactive, isolated survival mode to strategic, sustainable, collective power through courageous communication and connected communities.
When Movements Meet
There is another part of the Black Panther story that has particular meaning to me as a lifelong disability advocate.
In 1977, Judy Heumann and other disability activists occupied the federal building in San Francisco, demanding implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a landmark civil-rights protection prohibiting disability discrimination.
The occupation lasted 26 days.
And the protesters could not have sustained it alone. (National Park Service)
Among them was Brad Lomax, a Black disability activist with multiple sclerosis who was also a member of the Black Panther Party. Lomax helped create a bridge between the disability-rights and Black-liberation movements. (ArcGIS StoryMaps)
The Panthers responded.
They brought food and supplies to the protesters throughout the occupation. The National Park Service reports that they provided a hot meal every day as well as supplies for additional meals. Other allies including churches, labor unions, gay activists and community organizations also stepped forward. (National Park Service)
Think about that.
People came from different communities.
They had different histories.
They faced different forms of oppression.
But they recognized something in one another.
Your struggle for dignity is connected to my struggle for dignity.
That story, captured powerfully in the documentary Crip Camp, reminds us that the movements for racial justice, disability rights, LGBTQ+ equality, economic justice, women’s rights and other struggles for human dignity have never existed in neat little boxes.
They overlap.
They intersect.
And at their most powerful, they show up for one another.
That is precisely the kind of solidarity we want to nurture through the Community Coalition.
Study Is Part of Resistance
Recently I learned about the new Seattle Black Panther Party Interpretive Center, created to preserve the history of the first authorized Black Panther chapter established outside California.
This history is not distant from our family. We are privileged to know the Dixon family. Brothers Aaron and Elmer Dixon helped establish the Seattle chapter in 1968, the first authorized Black Panther Party chapter outside California.
Our two beloved grandchildren receive pediatric care at the Carolyn Downs Family Medical Center, which traces its roots to the free medical clinic established by the Seattle Panthers. It is the only one of the 13 original Black Panther-founded health clinics still operating today. Every time our grandchildren receive care there, they are benefiting from a legacy of community members who saw an unmet need and built an institution to meet it.
That legacy is also present at the Madrona–Sally Goldmark Branch of The Seattle Public Library, where Ros and I took our children to check out books. Outside the library stands Richard Beyer’s sculpture The Peaceable Kingdom. Among its figures is a panther representing the Seattle Black Panthers, whose headquarters were in the Madrona neighborhood.
These are not merely artifacts from the past. They are threads running through our family’s life: the people we know, the clinic that cares for our grandchildren, the library where we nurtured our children’s love of learning and the neighborhood we call home.
The Seattle Panthers didn’t simply protest. They built. Their work included children’s breakfast programs, medical care, food distribution, transportation, clothing drives and legal assistance. The new Center describes these programs not simply as charity, but as models of collective power and self-sufficiency. (Seattle Black Panther)
I watched a video about the Center and something seemingly small grabbed me.
They have assembled the books that appeared on the Panthers’ required reading list, marked so visitors can identify them and read what the Panthers read.
I love that.
Because movements need more than passion.
Movements need study.
Panther culture placed enormous emphasis on political education, reading, discussion and learning together. The Seattle Interpretive Center continues that tradition as a place for education, dialogue, research and organizing. (Seattle Black Panther)
Our Coalition will echo that commitment in its own way.
We are creating a research and resource library, discussion spaces, opportunities to learn from experts and places where members can wrestle together with difficult questions.
Not talking points.
Not slogans.
Learning.
Listening.
Questioning.
Growing.
Then acting.
Black August: Remember, Study, Act
There is another reason this history feels especially meaningful right now.
This is Black August.
Black August emerged from California prisons in the late 1970s as a time to remember Black freedom fighters and political prisoners and to practice reflection, study, discipline and resistance. It grew from the commemoration of figures including George and Jonathan Jackson and has expanded into a broader remembrance of Black struggles for liberation. (America’s Black Holocaust Museum)
I didn’t grow up knowing about Black August.
I learned about it years later, when Ros and I moved to Arlington, Virginia, while I was serving as president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind.
We began listening to Washington, D.C.’s WPFW radio. Through WPFW, we learned about Black August and began attending Black August events in the D.C. area.
I was learning again.
And that matters to me.
None of us enters this work knowing everything.
We learn from people whose histories are different from ours.
We listen.
We show up.
And when we do it well, we allow what we learn to change what we do.
Put Your Dollars Where Your Values Are
August is also National Black Business Month, established in 2004 to call attention to Black entrepreneurship and encourage support for Black-owned businesses. (Black Enterprise)
So here is another form of action available to virtually all of us:
Spend some of your dollars with Black-owned businesses this month, and keep doing it after August ends.
Where we spend money matters.
When dollars circulate through locally owned businesses, they support entrepreneurs, workers, families and neighborhoods. Supporting Black-owned businesses is therefore more than a symbolic gesture. It can become part of a circular economy of community investment, people supporting businesses that employ, purchase from, mentor, sponsor and reinvest in their communities.
Resistance can look like marching.
It can look like organizing.
It can look like studying.
It can look like mentoring an entrepreneur.
And sometimes it looks like deciding where you buy dinner.
Now It Is Our Turn
We inherit powerful examples.
Not perfect movements.
Not histories without controversy or contradiction.
But examples of human beings deciding that injustice would not have the final word.
The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion will learn from those who came before us while building something for the realities we face now.
Our “why” is simple:
WE BELIEVE IN FAIRNESS, INCLUSION, EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND HUMAN DIGNITY FOR ALL.
And on September 1, we begin bringing people together around that belief.
This will not be another webinar where experts talk at you for an hour.
It will be an Ask Us Anything conversation.
Bring your questions.
Bring your frustration.
Bring your ideas.
Bring your lived experience.
Bring your courage.
And bring somebody with you.
SIGN UP NOW
RESIST! Join the Launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
Tuesday, September 1, 2026
11:00 a.m.–noon Pacific / 2:00–3:00 p.m. Eastern
Register here:
https://www.linkedin.com/events/launch-communitycoalitionforsus7491207384133111809/
And if you believe this Coalition needs to exist, please help us build it.
We are raising funds to create the Coalition’s online community and mobile app on the Circle platform. A gift of $10, $25, $50, $100, or whatever is right for you, moves us closer.
Donate:
https://gofundme.com/f/support-our-fight-for-inclusion-human-dignity-for-all
Sign up.
Make a gift.
Invite someone else.
RESIST fear.
RESIST division.
RESIST isolation.
RESIST hate.
And learn from those who resisted before us.
Because the strongest movements don’t just fight what is wrong.
They build what comes next.
Let’s build it together.
Dr. Kirk Adams, Ph.D.
Advocate, Leader and Keynote Speaker on Disability Inclusion & Leadership
Leading the Way to Accessible Innovation
” Inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s a strategic advantage. “
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI)
Executive Director
Strengthening individual and organizational capability for creating diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces.
Innovative Impact, LLC Consulting
Managing Director
Impactful Workforce Inclusion Starts Here
American Foundation for the Blind
Immediate Past President & CEO
To create a world of no limits for people who are blind or visually impaired.
Connect With Me:
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