Racial Healing Hub

“If you are neutral in situations of
injustice, you have chosen the side
of the oppressor.”

Desmond Tutu

On January 19, 2021, the Harlem Wellness Center launched its Racial Healing Hub, a new public-facing program designed to change the way our communities talk about race in this time of social transformation.

HWC recognizes the critical need for skillfully curated activities that inspire and guide all of us to explore and challenge our thinking,

attitudes, values, and ideas around racial identity, systems, healing, and equity.

As we look to promote truth, reconciliation, and transformation, and heal the racial divide to end systemic racism, the mission of the Racial Healing Hub will harness the power of art, reflection, and authentic connection to create a more just and kind world.

“In the state of our nation, I so often hear, ‘This is not who we are.’ Well, I say that this is who we are…and we need to move beyond saying, ‘I’m not a racist’ to ‘How have my mind and my behavior been consciously and unconsciously shaped by the culture and systems ever mindful of race?"

Vivian Williams-Kurutz

Founder and Executive Director
Harlem Wellness Center

HWC’s Vivian Williams-Kurutz delivers a national speech on racial healing at the November 2022 Festival of Faiths conference, following an introduction by Omega Institute President Carla Goldstein

Once we get honest about our blind spots, then we can build a better world."

Soffiya Elijah

Director,
Alliance of Families for Justice

The Labyrinth

In a noisy world, the HWC Labyrinth provides a space for contemplation, and a way to quiet the mind, reflect, and listen from within.

Our Labyrinth is a single pathway marked by braided fabric or pine boughs—a short circular walk toward a central place of meditation at its center. Like the labyrinths used by hospitals and hospices for therapeutic healing, ours invites Hub event-goers to walk the path to courageously examine the influence of racism in our own lives.

Walking the Labyrinth as designed can help you to contemplate a stronger and more compassionate connection across racial lines, and re-imagine and co-create the just world we want to see.

There is a need for an alternative vision, a beloved community where being connected to the other is seen as the foundation of a healthy self, not its destruction, and where the racial other is seen not as the infinite other, but rather as the other that is already part of us."

Professor John A. Powell

The Robert D. Haas Chair in Equity and Inclusion
at the University of California at Berkeley

Speaker’s Corner

Our Speaker’s Corner gatherings in Marcus Garvey Park in central Harlem offer people of diverse backgrounds and experiences the opportunity to speak together about race, and to advocate for truth, healing, and transformation amid systemic racism and ongoing challenges to civil rights and democratic ideals across the country.

Launched in January 2021, these events are patterned after the famous Speaker’s Corner gatherings that were a central part of Harlem’s public intellectual and cultural life from the 1910s to the 1960s, and which featured intellectuals, cultural and civic leaders and others from the local community.

Recent Hub Events

Mindfulness and Racial Healing- A Conversation

Reading With Robin Presents: A Sixth Annual National Day of Racial Healing Livestream Event Mindfulness and Racial Healing Featuring: Jon Kabat Zinn and Vivian Williams-Kurutz.

Speaker’s Corner: GEN-Z

The next in our series of Speaker's Corner events occurs on Sunday, September 12th, when we gather the voices of young people to hear their unique perspectives and calls to action for social justice.

Healing the Racial Divide

This September 16th workshop combines mindfulness exercises with exploration of beliefs that separate us from one another. Join us for a joyful session to expand and heal our limiting points of view.

Speaker’s Corner: GEN-Z

The next in our series of Speaker’s Corner events occurs on Sunday, September 12th, when we gather the voices of young people to hear their unique perspectives and calls to action for social justice.

Healing the Racial Divide

This September 16th workshop combines mindfulness exercises with exploration of beliefs that separate us from one another. Join us for a joyful session to expand and heal our limiting points of view.

Racial Healing Hub

Join us on October 11th at 6 pm for an art-based interactive event to spark reflection, listening, learning, understanding and cooperation for positive change.

Voicing Race

Join us on September 16th for a compassionate, facilitated workshop on race, offering new narrative frameworks to explore differences, promote self-inquiry and improve racial literacy to catalyze new levels of cross-cultural understanding.

I. See. You.

This October 11th event, “I See You” will feature a facilitated conversation to explore how we, as a beloved community, can be authentically connected and closer to achieving ubuntu in our daily lives. Watch this space for more information.

Thanksgiving Salute

Join us for a pre-Thanksgiving mixer in Harlem on Saturday, November 20th, to celebrate our community’s wellness warriors and super-heroes for social justice and racial healing. For more info, email info@harlemwellness.org

Racial Healing Hub

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Once we get honest about our blind spots, then we can build a better world."

The Labyrinth​

There is a need for an alternative vision, a beloved community where being connected to the other is seen as the foundation of a healthy self, not its destruction, and where the racial other is seen not as the infinite other, but rather as the other that is already part of us."

Professor John A. Powell

Speaker’s Corner

Recent Hub Events

Mindfulness and Racial Healing- A Conversation

Speaker’s Corner: GEN-Z​

Healing the Racial Divide​

Speaker’s Corner: GEN-Z

Healing the Racial Divide

Racial Healing Hub

Voicing Race

I. See. You.

Thanksgiving Salute

Newsletter Sign-up

“If you are neutral in situations of
injustice, you have chosen the side
of the oppressor.”

The Labyrinth

Speaker’s Corner: GEN-Z

Healing the Racial Divide