OUR STORY:

Everything— every human being, idea, creative spark, every value, and practice is the natural expansion of what came before to address the needs of that time. REI is both the result of the past and a beginning. We seek to address injustice in a changing world and we also seek to address the cause of that injustice that it may cease to remake itself generation after generation.

REI was founded by Deena Hayes-Greene and Suzanne Plihcik in 2012.  Two Anti-racism trainers and community organizers, Black and White, who were lead trainers for Dismantling Racism Works and the People’s Institute for Survival and beyond. Early in our organizational life, Monica Walker, also a People’s Institute lead trainer, joined REI and the Leadership Team. Both the People’s Institute and dRWorks were leading training and organizing agencies with numerous trainers working across the country. The racial analysis on which their respective trainings were based remains the racial analysis shared by anti-racist organizers and trainers around the world. It remains the analysis on which REI’s underlying principles are based.

REI and the movement for justice owe both organizations a great debt for their commitment and creativity, as well as for their intelligence and humor. We acknowledge them as those who came before us and often say, “We stand on the shoulders of giants,” for no one’s sight and reach are entirely their own but always a reflection of the foundation built for them.

As we began fifteen years ago, we sought to build upon the analysis in which we were trained and help others become more effective using a movement approach to organizing work. To reach people who had no experience of the Civil Rights Movement or the history of race in the United States, we expanded how the very definition of racism was articulated. We sought, also, to expand organizing within organizations and institutions and to aid in the creation of partnerships between institutions and those they serve with a shared power. 

There was little time when work was not plentiful. After the tragic death of DRWorks (Then Changework), Director Kenneth Jones, Bree Carlson and Suzanne Plihcik were tasked with finishing the Dismantling Racism contracts he held. When Bree left to take another position, Deena Hayes joined Suzanne to continue this work.  Organizations, both grassroots and more formal institutions, begin to seek us out. 

Soon, under Deena’s leadership and creative vision, The Racial Equity Institute came into being as a formal entity. REI neither advertised or sought work through proposals, or grant making, went nowhere uninvited and the number of requests doubled in short order. REI’s Clients return year after year and together we are travelers in the movement for justice. 

It was REI’s dream, from the beginning, to challenge the common charitable practice of locating the problem within those harmed by injustice, by focusing on perceived deficits in the individual rather than systemic causes. It was REI’s dream, from the beginning, to help forward the understanding that charity is an unacceptable response to injustice, and that the invisibility of power is the prerequisite to oppression. It was REI’s dream to forward the understanding that power is at the root of human experience—and to work alongside communities to grow their power and reclaim the vitality they once held. 

Our history, although only 13 years old, is ancient. We are part of a continuum of learning and organizing that has been passed down for generations. We, too, pass it on in a contemporary voice, calling people to action in our time.