As a group, Bridge Builders aims to bring people together across racial and cultural lines to discuss how racism impacts all of us. Established at Westover Hills in 2016, the group has studied two books per year (except during Covid) and has expanded to include a synod-wide audience.

Spring 2024 Bridge Builders Series

Poverty, by America – Matthew Desmond

Matthew Desmond, the author of Evicted!, has given us a fresh view of poverty – and our role in keeping poverty and the poor in their places. If we don’t have poor people, then how can we take care of our lawns, our children, our aging loved ones—at a price we’re willing to pay?  Desmond cuts to the heart of what has created poverty in our rich nation – and how we help poverty sustains our current economic system.

Join us for presentations on the week’s chapters + conversation with people working to address issues of poverty.

Tuesdays, February 27, March 5, 12 and 19, 6:30-8:30pm

Register for the series and attend as many as you can.

Registration link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUlc-2srD0jGtK1uXrgO0xn-xc7sRHSPmPT

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Or contact organizers at info@westoverhills.org

Bridge Builders Reading Group is an ecumenical, multicultural group of people who seek to gain understanding of each other and the issues caused by racism in United States life today.

Since the fall of 2016, Westover Hills has sponsored, in conjunction with an ecumenical planning team, two book series per year. Each spring and fall, we have met four or five evenings to discuss a book that illuminates some aspect of racism-related issues. We offer information and structure discussions around our experience and our strong hope for a positive future. We offer each other honesty, respect, confidentiality and a desire to see each other as unique and beloved.

Since the fall of 2016 we have engaged with the following books:

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Chaos, J. D. Vance

The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement, Dr. William J. Barber II

The Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, Michael Eric Dyson

Re-Thinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores, Dominique DuBois Gilliard

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson

The Half Has Never Been Told, Slavery & the Making of American Capitalism, Edward Baptist

Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America, Michael Eric Dyson;

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, Emmanuel Acho

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Minds, Resmaa Menakem

Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Fairness, Laura Coates

The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth about Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations, Robert Livingston; White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo

Bridging the Gap between the LGBTQIA+ Community & Straight Culture – no book; we relied on speakers and witness from community (both LGBTQIA+ and straight) members

 

Our reading leads each of us to discern our own will to take positive action.