Chicago Heights, IL—(ENEWSPF)— 45 members of the Marian Catholic High School community took part in a 2½ day anti-racism conference this past weekend. The training, "Understanding & Analyzing Systemic Racism." was facilitated by Crossroads Ministry, an interfaith and community based anti-racism training organization.
The participants included administrators, teachers, staff, parents and alumni. The trainers were Anne Stewart and Chuck Ruehle. Stewart is a teacher, counselor and lay church leader from Evanston, Illinois. She began her work as an anti-racism trainer in the context of Reba Place Church, a Mennonite and Church of the Brethren congregation in Evanston. She does anti-racism training in schools, churches, and other Chicago area organizations. Ruehle, who serves as Executive Co-Director of Crossroads Ministry, is a Lutheran Pastor who served in an urban parish, Reformation Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, from 1986 to 1995.
Stewart says she was pleased with the workshop at Marian, “I think this went really well.” She described the mission of Crossroads as an organization that does anti-racism training and organizing. "We help institutions learn to do what we call anti-racist transformation."
Sr. Kathleen Anne Tait, principal of Marian Catholic, commented on the success of the weekend, “Marian was please to invite staff, parents, alumni to the Crossroads training this weekend." She reflected on the importance of the training, “Our continuous search for excellence within our school community and fulfilling our mission of Veritas, truth, has led us to a recognition of how biases and racism impact us in ways that we may not even be aware. We were grateful to have a community join us this weekend to begin a process of looking at the systemic realities of racism, and how we might eradicate that – not only from our school, but from our larger community."
