Chicago ROAR works to build diversity, social equality by dismantling systemic racism

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The organization "Chicago Roar" is helping to build a Better Chicago by getting to the root causes of systemic racism.

The group works to build diversity and social equality within Chicago area businesses and institutions.

Chicago Roar Program Coordinator Derrick Dawson joined ABC7 Chicago to tell us more about their efforts.

Chicago ROAR began as a regional program of Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training in 2009 after several years of organizing and relationship building. For over 20 years Crossroads had been building transformation teams inside Chicago area institutions and organizations that sought to claim an antiracist identity. In its work across the country, Crossroads has discovered that it's impossible for individual organizations or institutions to be fully transformed if the community, and ultimately society, is not also transformed.

Crossroads staff worked with a small group of volunteers to create and nurture the Chicago ROAR program so that it now has committed staff and a leadership team to do the organizing and training work of Crossroads in the Chicago metropolitan area.

The organization envisions fully inclusive, equitable and life-giving institutions that partner in dismantling White supremacy, systemic racism and all forms of oppression in a movement that builds healthy, restorative, and sustainable communities in the Chicago Metropolitan area.

Chicago ROAR offers a variety of ways to work to dismantle systemic racism, from hourly consulting services, to introductory and in-depth workshops, to strategic planning sessions.

For more information, click HERE.