DEAL 6

Members of the 2016-17 DEAL cohort at an annual retreat.

The Detroit Equity Action Lab (DEAL), an initiative of Wayne Law’s Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights, launched its sixth cohort of racial equity fellows in February.

“I am thrilled to welcome DEAL 6 into our network of diverse and dynamic leaders,” said DEAL Director Asandi Conner. “We are applying what we learned in 2020 to increase their capacity and further advance racial equity in our beloved city.”

Since its inception in 2014, DEAL’s Racial Equity Fellowship program has brought together nearly 200 leaders working in the many dimensions of racial equity — including arts and media, community development, education, environment, food security, health care, and housing — to address issues of structural racism in Detroit and beyond.

With the mindset that the transformation of movements is dependent on the transformation of those within them, the 30 fellows in the 2021 cohort will spend their fellowship year in a carefully designed curriculum.

Fellowship learning objectives include:

Building structural racism analysis.

Deepening understanding of structural racism in Detroit and Detroit’s history.

Understanding one’s own racial(ized) identity.

Exploring multiracial coalitions and how white supremacy culture shows up for all racial groups.

Moving from allyship to co-liberation.