This summer, digging through old photos and journals opened up more than nostalgia—it sparked deep reflections on how memory connects us, teaches us, and shapes the way we show up for change. From personal moments to global movements, this piece explores why holding memory might be one of the most radical things we can do.
After nearly 42 years living in my childhood home, my parents moved out of it last week. In June, I visited them and went through boxes of items they had kept for me. It was a hoot to read childhood report cards, and flip through old journals, and find photos and mementos from my life, my parents’ lives, and my grandparents’ lives. It also led me to reach out to many folks I hadn’t been in touch with for years to share back with them some of these signifiers of memory - photos in which they featured or letters they had written me. Every person I reconnected with responded by expressing appreciation, sharing their own memories, and expressing curiosity about my life today.
While visiting my parents’ house, I found this photo of my Great Uncle Mitchell who lived in Washington, DC, too. Here he is posing at the Miller Cabin Picnic Grounds in Rock Creek Park on March 27, 1936, about 2 miles from where I currently live. I walk in the Park 2-3 times a week with friends and colleagues, so it was a delight to discover that I’m not the first in my family to love this Urban National Park.
“Too rarely are changemakers afforded the opportunity to slow down and reflect and engage with individual and collective memory so that they can gain a better understanding of how the current reality – including challenges – came to be.”
Without that, we are missing a critical understanding that is necessary for figuring out how we might heal and transform to shape a more positive, equitable, and just world. To do this, learning people not only need to be the “holders of memory,” but to shape the conditions by which a diverse array of people’s memories can be shared and valued.
So what is the role of memory in social change work, especially in these incredibly complex times? I’ve been thinking about this a lot since June when I attended the Emergent Learning Community’s Annual Learning Summit and fellow practitioner Tehout Selameab shared an insight that has stuck with me these many months later, "Learning people's biggest role is [to be] the holder of memory."
Conceived of this way, the work of stewarding learning over time is quite radical - both in places facing human-made and natural disasters and in cultures like the U.S. where society, popular culture, news cycles, workplaces and many crises encourage (and sometimes force) us to jump from one thing to the next very rapidly.
