There’s Room on the Porch for Everyone

I walked into a room full of people who had collectively served what I estimated to be around 3,000 years behind bars. I expected to find guardedness. Maybe wariness. What I found was one of the purest expressions of joy I’ve ever witnessed.

This was my second year attending the Returning Citizens Luncheon in Virginia, hosted by The League for Safer Streets. I went as part of White Men for Racial Justice, a community of white men committed to dismantling systems of supremacy. I knew what I was walking into this time. I’d been moved the year before. The question was whether it could hit me again.

The answer came before I even sat down. A man named Malie rushed over and embraced me like I’d been part of his family for decades. Not a polite handshake. Not a quick hug. A full-heart embrace that most people just don’t know how to give.

There’s a song by Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ called “Room on the Porch.” The chorus says it all: come on up, there’s room on the porch for everyone. At this luncheon, I watched that song come to life.

These men had every reason to hate people who look like me. They’d been failed by systems run by people who look like me. Yet they stepped off their porch and invited us onto theirs. Not just tolerated us. They loved us.

That day I also reconnected with Carlos Walker, a friend I’d made the year before. An artist and author. Our friendship, which grew from this community, is exactly what happens when people choose connection where the world tells you to look for danger.

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Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org