Join PGCC’s 30 Days 4 Change Challenge!
The staff, faculty and students at Prince George’s Community College are spending 30 days in September and October committed to learning about racial injustice in America in an effort to enact change. Inspired by journalist Shaan Merchant's "30-Day Justice Plan," the college community will be involved in daily experiences/activities geared to facilitating learning and motivating change in relation to race and justice. Each day during the challenge will be devoted to reading, listening, watching, or acting – moving together toward mutual understanding, equality, and justice.
If you participate in all or part of the challenge, let us know! As you participate, challenge yourself to look deeply at how you respond - your beliefs and feelings. Keep a journal of your thoughts and insights. What have you learned? How were you affected? Some of the activities are marked “You don’t want to miss this!” We encourage you to check-in with each other throughout the challenge AND discuss your experiences with what you have read, seen or done. Also, join our virtual discussions on October 9 and on College Professional Development and Enrichment Day on October 27.
Recognition will be provided to faculty and staff who participate. You will receive additional information about this as well as how to report your participation. We hope you will join the challenge! If you post on social media, please use the hashtag #PGCCchallenge.
If you have questions, contact Andristine Robinson at diversity@pgcc.edu.
Watch: Megan Ming Francis’ “Let’s Get to the Root of Racial Injustice” TEDx Talk.
Read: “Birth-Day,” by Lucille Clifton
Reflect: What waits inside you like an ache? Might it be your Day 1 vision. Will you commit to working every day to achieve it?
Support: Black-owned businesses.
Listen: to “The Racial Contract,” Social Distance podcast, with Adam Serwer
Discuss: what you just listened to with a fellow PGCC student, staff, or faculty member.
Read or See: An essay, poem, or photo exhibit of your choice from The 1619 Project, by The New York Times Magazine
Read: “Who Gets to Be Afraid in America?” by Ibram X. Kendi.
Read: “The Bridge Poem,” by Kate Rushin.
Watch: 21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear on a Daily Basis. Using a series of photographs by Kiyum Kim, Heben Nigatu elaborates on the term “microaggression.”
Discuss: what you just watched to with a fellow PGCC student, staff, or faculty member.
Read: Leading After A Racial Crisis: Weaving a Campus Tapestry of Diversity and Inclusion, American Council on Education
Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research by 
Watch: “Alfré Woodard Reads Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman?”
Watch: "Kimberlé Crenshaw: 'What Is Intersectionality?'"
Participate: “Check-in and Chat” Zoom with the College Community (Zoom information to be provided.)
View: They Say I’m Your Teacher (9 mins), a powerful document of US civil rights voting and literacy history.
"Highlander Folk School" - Encyclopedia of Black Studies by 
You Can't Padlock an Idea: Rhetorical Education at the Highlander Folk School, 1932-1961 by Watch: "The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed,”, by Joel Thompson. Performed by the Tallahassee Symphony, Morehouse College Glee Club, and Florida A&M Concert Choir
Read: PGCC’s Mission, Vision and Strategic Goals
Reflect: how can mindfulness of our mission, vision, and strategic goals help us create a more just PGCC.
Watch: “What I Am Learning from My White Grandchildren—Truths about Race” – TEDx Talk by Anthony Peterson
Read Colleges Must Take a New Approach to Systemic Racism, by Christiane Warren, Inside Higher Ed (June 9, 2020)
Discuss: what you just read with a fellow PGCC student, staff, or faculty member.
Act and Reflect: Take the Harvard Implicit Association Test
Read: “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” by Peggy McIntosh.
Sit: in the discomfort of confronting your own privilege. Consider not only the privilege you have but how it affects your life.
Peggy McIntosh - "Deprivileging Philosophy" from "I Don’t See Color” : Personal and Critical Perspectives on White Privilege by Watch: Britney Cooper’s “The Racial Politics of Time” TED Talk.
Dance: to music made by Black artists.
Read: Your Unconscious Bias Trainings Keep Failing Because You’re Not Addressing Systemic Bias, Janice Gassam Asare, Forbes (Dec. 29, 2019)
Discuss: what you just read with a fellow PGCC student, staff, or faculty member.
Listen: To an episode of your choice of the Seeing White podcast by Scene on Radio
Seeing White: An Introduction to White Privilege and Race by Read: PGCC’s current Cultural Diversity Plan. Reflect on and share goals that should be included in the next plan.
Listen: to “A Decade of Watching Black People Die” on NPR’s Code Switch podcast.
Read: Driving Campus Diversity One Decision at a Time, by Sharon L. Davies, Association of American Colleges and Universities
Send: this list to a friend and challenge them to see whether they can devote a small portion of each day for a month to supporting a more just America.
Attend: Dr. Falecia Williams’ College Professional Development and Enrichment Day address culminating the 30 Days for Change Challenge
