How do you come to trust a person you perceive to be your enemy? Such challenges face communities grappling with troubled racial histories. This paper introduces how two sites of historic conflict have begun to address their complicated and painful pasts in order to heal history’s wounds and create a more just and inclusive future. Ordinary residents in Philadelphia, MS, and Birmingham, AL, are making their communities better at building trust in order to tell the truth about their pasts. Both communities are notorious for their racist histories and especially for the collusion of law enforcement in imposing White supremacy through violence. But through a facilitated process of storytelling and historical dialogue, a group in each community cultivated a space of trust and healing that are expanding the possibilities for belonging and equity. Drawing on a first-hand account of my role in community building and race relations as well as placing that work within a larger framework of social movement organizing, I show that telling the truth about the past through stories can transform and uplift distressed and inequitable communities.

Communities have long been seen as of central importance to individuals and families, and as critical lever for change. In recent years, the emphasis on community as an organizing principle to address a range of social problems and developmental needs of children and families has been increasing. This paper explores the question of why community is important for children and families, what communities can provide for their well-being, and how they might be strengthened. It outlines some of the reasons behind the interest in community as a locus for policy and practice, explores the idea of ‘community capacity’ and how to build it, and distills the principal strategies used by contemporary efforts to build capacity in disadvantaged communities. Finally, it examines both the promise and the limitations of a community capacity framework as an orientation toward social change and as an approach for addressing the needs of disadvantaged children and families.