Discovering Assets in Tragedy: Navigating Community Repair in a Time of Grief and Climate Displacement
Dr. Mindy Fullilove’s Keynote at the 2024 Common Ground Gathering
Note: This is part of a series of posts related to storytelling the experiences of the 2024 Common Ground Gathering, held in Indianapolis (May 14–17) in celebration of The Learning Tree’s 10th anniversary.
I had been looking forward to Dr. Mindy Fullilove’s opening keynote at the 2024 Common Ground Gathering since I found out The Learning Tree had secured her to officially mark the beginning of the Common Ground Gathering. A prolific writer, community organizer, and thought leader in community repair and development, Dr. Fullilove has long been someone I often find myself reading, referencing, and directing attention toward. Naturally, I was excited to have an opportunity to listen to her when she visited the Tube Factory on Tuesday, May 14th, to mark the opening of the 2024 Common Ground Gathering.
One of Dr. Fullilove’s gifts is presenting ideas in emotionally fulfilling and intellectually stimulating ways. Her books are as lush in storytelling as they are grounded on a foundation of meticulously researched details. Luckily for the audience, her keynote exhibited the same dedication to both creative and cerebral appeals. Speaking from a deeply humanistic perspective, Dr. Fullilove explored the intricate relationship between asset-based community development and the inescapable presence of tragedy in our lives. Her talk was a compelling call to embrace both the abundance and the doom that shape our world. “I believe that there’s a tsunami of tragedy coming down on us,” Dr. Fullilove told the audience. “And therefore, we have to understand the value of tragedy and how do we take that value of tragedy. And perhaps the lesson is that tragedy itself is the asset that helps us manage tragedy.”
“There’s a tsunami of tragedy coming down on us… perhaps the lesson is that tragedy itself is the asset that helps us manage tragedy.”
Dr. Fullilove began by sharing her experiences with the Faith and Works Congregation, illustrating how they transformed their declining Unitarian Universalist Church into a vibrant community hub. By reallocating resources and embracing an asset-based approach, they revitalized their space into a central meeting point for diverse city events. This transformation underscored the power of focusing on community assets, such as the rich musical culture brought by various immigrant groups in Orange, New Jersey. She emphasized, “We wanted to become a place for things like the mayoral debates and harvest festivals, where people from all parts of the city would cross paths and get to know each other.”
However, Dr. Fullilove did not shy away from discussing the pervasive and often paralyzing nature of tragedy. She linked the concept of “root shock” — a term she coined to describe the traumatic effects of displacement due to urban renewal — to the current climate crisis and societal upheavals. “Displacement is profoundly all around us,” she stated, highlighting the deep uncertainty and existential dread many of us feel today. She further elaborated, “We actually don’t know what’s going to happen next. When will the polar ice caps melt? When will the seas boil? How far will the sea level rise? What will happen in the interiors? We actually don’t know.”
One of the most striking parts of her keynote was the juxtaposition of historical and contemporary tragedies with the potential for communal healing and resilience. Dr. Fullilove referenced the work of Brian Doerries, a classics professor at Keyon College and founding member of Theatre of War, who uses classical tragedies such as Antigone to illustrate how timeless stories of loss and grief can offer profound lessons for modern times.
“He took the play Antigone to Ferguson in his special way,” said Dr. Fullilove, “which was that he would create a play with famous actors to come and play key roles but also local people to play the other roles. And he had this concept that the chorus should be local people, those who knew Michael Brown and were part of his community.”
Through the discussion of the dramatic reading of Antigone in Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown, Dr. Fullilove showed how art and literature can mirror contemporary struggles, validate communal pain, and provide unparalleled insight into the essence of tragedy. “What was powerful about the play was that the sister loved her brother so much that she was willing to die to keep him alive,” Dr. Fullilove reflected, drawing connections to the unwavering love and grief of modern-day families facing loss to political, structural, and natural upheavals.
Dr. Fullilove also highlighted the creative resilience of communities facing extreme adversity. She pointed to the South Bronx, where planned disinvestment fueled the spread of rap music, as an example of how tragedy can fuel cultural innovation and art can be used to cultivate resistance. “The young people were saying in their rap what the people in the South Bronx were saying to me in my interviews. They weren’t different,” she explained, emphasizing that even the most devastating experiences can become assets that foster growth and transformation, inviting us to draw out and document the assets of tragedy through art and creative expression.
Her discussion on tragedy’s role in asset-based community development was thought-provoking. Dr. Fullilove challenged us to reconsider our understanding of assets, proposing that tragedy itself can be a valuable asset. By acknowledging and integrating the painful parts of our history and current realities, communities can build a more holistic and resilient foundation for the future. “I think that what the people who are incarcerated say — ‘we can come through root shock with knowledge that we didn’t have before’ — is crucial,” Dr, Fullilove stated. “We can understand that by being in the tragedy when it’s our turn and witnessing other people’s tragedy when it’s their turn, our understanding of the universe expands and becomes more complete.”
Dr. Fullilove’s keynote was a powerful reminder of the dual forces of abundance and doom that shape our world. Her insights encourage us to embrace both the strengths and the struggles within our communities, recognizing that they are intertwined. This call to seek out the potential assets of tragedy and the knowledge it brings is all the more immediate because of the ongoing climate crisis. “Displacement is profoundly all around us,” she said. “And at a deeper level, we’ve all been displaced because the weather that our species, that all of our whole ecosystem, that we evolved in, that climate is gone. It’s not just changing, it’s gone. And that’s terrifying.”
We are, she made clear, living in difficult times. But there is no reason to lose hope. She encouraged the audience to look to the creative expressions of the past to make sense of the present while also understanding our own creative expressions of the present will likely be what future generations use to learn from. By doing so, we can create spaces that not only celebrate our assets but also honor and learn from our tragedies, fostering a deeper sense of connection, resilience, and humanity.
As an audience member, I left her keynote feeling inspired and challenged to think differently about community development and the many forms of tragedy we are all but guaranteed to meet along the way. Dr. Fullilove’s message is a call to action for all of us to engage with our communities more deeply, to see the value in every experience, and to work together towards a more inclusive and compassionate future.
