23-02-2025
Hundreds turn out for 27th annual Pittsburgh Racial Justice Summit
Hundreds came to the CCAC Allegheny Campus on the North Side for the Pittsburgh Racial Justice Summit on Saturday.
It is 27 years of banding together, meaning 27 years of community.
"You never know when you initiate something, what's going to happen," Tim Stevens, founder of the Black and White Reunion and the Racial Justice Summit, said.
Nearly three decades later, people of all races and backgrounds come together for what Stevens started.
"Our initial logo was building bridges, so that's what we're going to do today," he said.
Saturday's theme was "People, Progress, and Power."
"We're trying to figure out how do we get people? Like just, civilians more engaged in the sort of work that it means to like, move political and social justice movements forward," Kevin Jarbo, programming lead of the Summit Planning Committee, said.
There were around 12 to 13 workshops on Saturday.
"Housing issues, food justice, health equity," Stevens said. "Understanding the recent changes to immigration, that's a big deal right now, climate justice."
Jarbo is one of the organizers. He said that while the lack of progress can sometimes be discouraging, there are also bright spots.
"Unless you're actually doing the work, you're not seeing incrementally, like gradually, how little-by-little it takes and how long it takes," he said. "You start to see more like coalitional kind of activity and progress be made."
Stevens says a lot of that requires being politically engaged. It was one of his messages nationally, but especially at the local level.
"We have to keep our energy up," he said. "Even if we have to refocus, if we have to go sit down for a minute, we have to come back and we have to keep fighting."
