Heidi Keibler Stevens' 2019 "annual list of people I loved meeting."

I'm so humbled and so honored to be included (along with my team of organizers -- Kimberly Holmes-Ross, Kathleen Johnson Long, Evan Bernstein Finamore, and Jennifer G. Moran--and every single person who helped with and participated in our Uncomfortable Journey to Montgomery, Alabama) in this list of 10 people who Chicago Tribune columnist Heidi Keibler Stevens listed as her 2019 "annual list of people I loved meeting in the course of this job."

Thank you, Heidi, for loving community, for focusing on bridge-building and truth-telling, for your wisdom and your warmth, and for your always honest and raw columns that make me and so many others laugh, cry, think, learn, and evolve.

If you don't follow Heidi, you should. You can also join her Balancing Act Facebook page here.

"Evanston resident Nina Kavin started planning an 'uncomfortable journey' to Montgomery, Alabama, two years ago, when she first read about plans to build the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. In September, she and two busloads of 105 Evanston residents — black, white, Asian, Latinx, Jewish, Christian, doctors, teachers, social workers, police officers, ages 18 to 80 — made the journey together. 'I want to go and peel the scab off,' Bruce Allen King told me before they left. 'I want to open this wound so I can free flow and cry like a baby and go deeper than I’ve ever imagined possible in the healing process that needs to take place in America.'

Talking with King and his fellow travelers was a highlight of my 2019. Reconnecting with them to hear how the trip shaped and changed them is at the top of my to-do list for 2020."

Read more here.