Saturday morning at Magic Island, the YWCA will kick off its inaugural "Race to End Racism," a 5k road race and one mile walk.
The race, which follows a route through Charleston's West Side, is intended to help draw attention to the problem of racism and help fund a racial justice coordinator for the Charleston YWCA.
From 2008 to 2011, the YWCA had a racial justice coordinator funded through a grant. The coordinator often worked through the court system, but also helped promote racial justice statewide.
YWCA Charleston CEO Debby Weinstein said, "We wanted to continue the work, asked around about sponsorship."
She held up her hands and shrugged. There were no takers, or at least not enough takers to continue the racial justice coordinator position as it had been.
There's a lot of work to be done to promote racial justice, Weinstein said.
Things seem to be moving backward.
"It's like we've stepped back 20 years," Weinstein said.
Weinstein remembered the 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, by self-styled white supremacist Dylann Roof, racist Facebook statements about then first Lady Michelle Obama by a Clay County official and the shooting of an African-American teen in Charleston in November by a white man.
Chief Program officer Jennifer Goddard said she didn't think the rise in racism could be pinned to a particular political party so much as a change in public discourse through the rise of social media.
"People can say anything," she said. "They can go on Twitter or Facebook and throw things out there that they don't check. They can say whatever and there's very little accountability."
Bad ideas and hate get shared. They spread.
The race on Saturday is a new wrinkle to the National YWCA's "Stand Against Racism," started in 2007, but Weinstein said the local chapter's stand against racism goes back much further and deeper.
"In the 1940s, the YWCA had a woman of color on the board," she said.
People hadn't been ready for that. There'd been opposition.
"Not on the board level," Weinstein said, "but on the community level."
Segregation was the rule of the land and would remain so for the next 20 years, but attitudes changed slowly.
The new racial justice coordinator would focus on projects inside of Kanawha, Clay and Boone, the three counties the Charleston YWCA serves, but what the job will entail isn't up to Weinstein.
"A committee is in place that will determine that," she said.
The committee, Weinstein explained, is purposefully diverse with different races and religions represented and given voice.
What the racial justice coordinator does may also be determined by what happens after whoever they hire begins the work.
Weinstein said when they began working on the YWCA's senior abuse program through the YWVA Shanklin Center for Senior Enrichment, they really had to learn what needed to be done based on the needs of the people who approached the program.
"Sometimes, you have to learn as you go," she said.
Weinstein said the coordinator would likely begin with looking at the way the YWCA handles racial justice within their operating policies.
"I think we need to look internally and see what we can do to strengthen our response."
A serious task will be ahead for the YWCA, but Saturday's race is less solemn and more about fun.
"It's going to be a nice run or walk through the beautiful, historic West Side," Goddard said.
"At Magic Island, we'll have food vendors, prizes and a bouncy house for the kids," Weinstein said. "It's just going to be fun."
Reach Bill Lynch at lynch@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5195 or follow @LostHwys on Twitter. Follow Bill's One Month At A Time progress on his blog at blogs.wvgazettemail.com/onemonth. He's also on Instagram at instagram.com/billiscap.
YWCA Race to End Racism 5k Run/1 Mile Walk
WHEN: 9 a.m. Saturday
WHERE: Magic Island, Charleston
TICKETS: Individual 5k $25, Individual walk $15 (team sponsorships available)
INFO: 304-932-6480 or ywcacharleston.org/race