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The Association for Community Design is horrified by continued systemic violence that targets our Black community members; a system meant to silence, to oppress, and to incite fear. We believe in the rights of everyone to walk the streets of their community without fear of harm, and to occupy those streets and public spaces in order to demand redress for hundreds of years of violence. Our country must change, and it must do so to ensure that Black Lives Matter. 

We acknowledge that the design professions have been complicit in the creation of buildings, streets, open spaces and whole cities that perpetuate racial injustice. We hold ourselves and all our allied professions accountable for this complicity and call upon all those who consider themselves designers to join us in working to transform design into a practice that dismantles systemic injustice and creates an equitable built environment. We call on the design community to rethink our internal systems in order to create responsive, inclusive teams working for a world where Black Americans are able to pursue the life they choose safely and equitably. 

The Association for Community Design stands with our Black colleagues and community leaders engaged in this work. We believe that the elimination of racist systems, processes, and biases is how we reach our goal of a just and equitable built environment. Before moving to action, take the time to reflect on what in our history- from colonization of indigenous land to slavery, Jim Crow, redlining and segregation in all its forms, led us to this current moment. 

We will use our platform to amplify the voices and practices of our Black colleagues and leaders and community groups on the ground leading this work. We will use our organization’s position to further engage design professionals in anti-racism work. We commit and ask you to commit to a life-long anti-racism practice.

 

Will you join us? 

 

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