A group of eleven Vermonters has started training with the Bright Leadership Institute, a new organization that aims to make it easier for people of color to access and maintain leadership positions in the state.
Leaders announced in February that they had received a $100,000 grant from the Northfield Savings Bank to fund the program. It followed a slew of announcements, particularly from Black women, who have said the harassment they’ve faced while holding leadership positions has been too much to bear.
“It’s not uncommon for people of color, and particularly Black women, to suffer in isolation and silence until it is so bad that it almost feels too dangerous or unlivable,” said Sen. Kesha Ram, D-Chittenden. “What we hope this network can do is open up space a lot sooner for people to feel encouraged and supported, to talk about the help they need, before it becomes a crisis.”
Ram, one of the leaders of the organization, said she’s hoping the network will help prevent those situations among any students who eventually hold leadership positions in the state.
While Steffen Gillom, a founder of the program and the president of the Windham County NAACP, said those instances are inherent in the conversations taking place at the Institute, he said they weren’t at the center of the first training session.
“It didn’t come up that much,” he said. “We focus on our trauma a lot, but this space really took a tone of empowerment.”
Faculty members at the institute have largely held leadership positions already, and most students have ambitions to hold public office or become leaders in community advocacy. Students dial into the virtual sessions from all over the state, and Gillom said the diversity of the group strengthened the conversation.
At the first session, held last Saturday, he said faculty focused the conversation inward, and spent much of the time talking about mental health.
“Most of the conversation was based on transcendence of the distortions that we believe about ourselves, and the reframing of those distortions into something that’s powerful, once we realize that what we’ve been told about ourselves is actually fiction and not fact,” he said.
The group includes students with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. Some have lived in Vermont for a long time while others recently immigrated to the United States.
The group will meet once a month for six months, and Ram said they’re incorporating one-on-one meetings with mentors and meetings among students between sessions.
“My biggest goal for the participants is that they know that they have a large family around the state that will be there for them, whether they have an uphill battle with their race, or are struggling through their first year in elected office, whether they win or lose their election — it’s so much easier to do this when people have your back,” Ram said.
Some of the participants have already run for public office or plan to in the future.
Tina Cook, a student who lives in Bennington, narrowly lost her race for Bennington Selectboard in March. She said running for office was a lonely experience, and she’s questioned whether she should run again. But after the session on Saturday, she’s motivated.
“I was like, maybe that one time was enough,” she said. “But no, not even close.”
The institute is designed both for students who want to run for public office and those who don’t. Gillom said many of the most influential leaders of color began by organizing and leading grassroots movements.
“If people want to start off by being a leader in their community, by being the leader in their nonprofit, by being a leader in their work department, that is a great place to start,” he said.
Shawn Pratt, who also lives in Bennington, said he chose to apply for the program because he’s interested in honing his skills as an advocate.
“I think, for me, it’s mainly to establish relationships with new people that you don’t know, that you’re not usually in contact with, and also to make some new friends,” he said.
Another student, Ray Awusi, is a senior at Castleton University, and will graduate later this month. Awusi is working to charter a chapter of the NAACP on campus, which will be the first student chapter in the state.
“I hope to further expand my leadership skills and basically know how to interact with people and understand them,” he said.
Ram, also a founding board member of Emerge Vermont, which trains Democratic women to run for public office, said she hopes to see the students eventually enter local and statewide races.
“Every one of these people is needed in elected office, and that you can do a lot of that organizing work and also run for office. That said, I recognize that there’s an understandable perspective that you can sometimes accomplish more, or have a different voice, when you’re not an elected official.”
The grant is helping to pay both faculty members and students for their participation. Ram said people of color are often expected to perform social justice work for free.
“We celebrate, too often, people running themselves into the ground to create change, and we’re trying to really steer away from that model, and resource people,” she said.
The participants receive stipends to offset the barriers that wall leadership positions off from people of color.
“For people of color to even think about running for office or taking a leadership role,” she said, “it is a luxury, and it’s one that we want to make much more accessible to people.”
