Angela Glover Blackwell

"My personal aspirations are no different than anyone else’s, we want our families to be healthy and happy and fulfilling. We want our neighborhoods to be neighbourly and have a sense of community. We want to live in peace. Those are my personal aspirations."

"My social change aspirations mirror that. I want that for myself and I want that for everybody. I think we need to create a world in which that can happen. One that is peaceful. One that values all human life where there is no hierarchy of human value. All human life is scared. Black lives matter. All lives matter. But all lives will never matter until black lives matter. I want to have a society in which people get that and our institutions are aligned with our aspirations."

"People need to understand the importance of race. The racial issues predate the founding of the nation. Slavery predates the founding of the nation. We need to understand it has been a scar on the nation whether you are black or white or Latino. The refusal of this nation to come to grips with the role of race in policy making, in economic strategy, is holding this nation back and will take it down. You can’t think about going into the world of policy without understanding that legacy and the impacts of that legacy and how it impacts everybody and everything. Until you have the education, you will not be effective."

"By giving people a clear vision of what can be. People want to be able to be helpful, but they don’t have a clear vision of how to be helpful. People need a north star and they need to know that there’s a way to be able to get there."

"Everything can be turned into an opportunity and a learning moment so I try not to dwell on things. I think the things that are hardest are finding the resources to meet the big vision. When you’re in this work, trying to have transformative impact, that’s a huge vision and the money comes in small amounts. The combination of it always hanging on your neck, that you have to go raise more money and the reality that it’s going to small amounts is enough to discourage anybody but I think all of us who are in the business have made the decision to just put that aside as something we’re not going to let discourage us."