In 2016 Leadership Greater Washington (LGW) partnered with Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers (WRAG) for a series on anti-racist thought leadership called Expanding the Table for Racial Equity, an offshoot of WRAG’s own Putting Racism on the Table initiative. It was the genesis of LGW’s own Civil Rights Learning Journeys, explorations of racial history in the American South, regional enclaves, and most recently, the National Museum of African American History & Culture.
But it was also the start of something much different.
A Backpack of Bricks
Charlotte Reid (’12) and Adam Levner (’14) both participated in the Expanding the Table series, and they both appreciated the opportunity offered by LGW and WRAG. There was though a nagging feeling that it wasn’t enough. “We felt like we weren’t getting deep enough,” Adam says, “that I wasn’t being challenged enough around what I – a white man – needed to do as an ally, how to be more comfortable with these difficult conversations around race.”
Charlotte had similar misgivings about the program. “I thought it was good, that it was interesting, but it never resonated heavily with me,” she says, “It wasn’t really a good depiction of what racism is like every day.” She offered up an analogy of what racism felt like: carrying an invisible backpack full of bricks. It’s something you put on every day when you leave the house, you carry it everywhere – to work, to school, running errands – and it’s heavy as hell, yet nobody sees it. All you want is for someone to take just one of those bricks, to lighten your load.
“I became really fixated on bringing a bunch of bricks into the class,” Charlotte laughs, “I even called my contractor, and he was going to bring me a bunch of old bricks from one of his sites!” Plans were set in place, but Adam stopped her – he thought her analogy was profound enough, that she didn’t need props to tell her story. “He was right,” Charlotte admits, “I was doing too much. But that’s what really started it for us.”
Setting Their Own Table
After the series ended, Charlotte approached LGW President & CEO Doug Duncan (’16) about continuing the conversation. Together, they set something up, a simple boxed lunch affair where participants could discuss what’s next. Breakout groups were formed, topics put forward, but a group of around 25 people coalesced around Charlotte and Adam with an idea for something simple: a space for people to simply talk. And so the Dominos group was formed.
Rachel Kronowitz (’15) was a part of this original discussion, and when questions arose about how this group would come together, she had a suggestion: “I’ll cook!” Her home in Chevy Chase became the heart of this group, with a regular monthly Tuesday meeting time to encourage active participation. The first meeting brought 15-20 people to Rachel’s table – a very specific table, it turns out.
“Not only does Rachel open her home to us, but she cooks these amazing meals every month,” Debbie Kaplan shares. “We sit around [what was once] her grandmother’s table, so there’s a lot of history along with this sharing. It’s just so warm and sets the tone.”
“Once we committed to the second Tuesday of night of every month,” Rachel adds, “people knew it was a real thing, and they kept coming back. Sometimes they can’t do it for a year and then they come back, and sometimes there’s a new knock at the door asking to be part of the group. It’s been a really joyful table to sit at.”
Amy Harbison (’10) was an original part of the group, and she’s anxious to share her gratitude for those founding members as well. “This conversation could have ended before it even began were it not for these forces that carried it all the way through,” she says, “I want to be at a table with other people who are not afraid to look at these issues, and it was such a powerful moment in saying we must act now. People were courageous enough to jump in at that moment, which is how these movements actually get started.”
“It was a level of welcome that harkened back to the days of my LGW class,” adds Myra Peabody Gossens (’87), another founding member, “a place where you are welcome to say and think and ask and just be together. I don’t find that in many places in my life, and I think that’s why we’re still all at the table.”
The LGW Connection
It may be easy to see the Dominos Group as just another social group – a social group with a cause, yes, but a social group nonetheless. So what makes this one special? Nancie Lynch (’16) has an idea.
“I think that this only works because it’s LGW,” she says. “The types of conversations we’re having at this table are deep, they take a lot of trust. And it doesn’t work if you’re not part of LGW. This is what the organization is all about. Without some of the trusted connections that have been built through the program, people wouldn’t be comfortable talking about these difficult subjects.”
Janice Frey-Angel (’10) backs her up. “The word that comes to mind for me is safe,” she adds, “At one of my first sessions we shared our own origin stories, and it was a very powerful way to make people feel comfortable with one another. And that’s part of where LGW comes in – you meet someone who’s gone through the program and you give them a little credit, you share something because you know what they’ve gone through.”
“One of the great things about the group is that it is not only safe but welcoming,” Jacquelyn Lendsey shares, “I wasn’t at the table in the beginning, and Janice asked me why I wasn’t coming to these meetings. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but as soon as I walked in the door I saw some people I knew, some that I didn’t, but everyone was welcoming. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been there the whole time – I was ushered right in and immediately felt comfortable.”
Teresa Payne-Nunn (’14) was also a late joiner to the group, and she shares Janice’s sentiments. “The group really welcomed me with open arms,” she says, “although many of them had been together for eight plus years at that point. Like Charlotte, I know the experience of carrying that invisible backpack of bricks as a Black woman, but I don’t know everyone else’s experience. This has been a wonderful opportunity to learn from other perspectives, other experiences, and to expand my world.”
“It’s not only safe space”, Phil Hampton (’05), another late addition to the group, adds, “but also somewhere you can learn about other people’s journeys. I’m a Chief DEI Officer at my firm, and these are not pleasant days, but I get enough emotional support [from this group] to continue the fight.”
Discomforting Dialogs
It’s this comfort from a shared experience that allows them to transcend the social, to dig deep in discomfort and have conversations impossible in a less connected group.
“The beauty of this group is that we stretch and push each other,” Chalotte says, “and being uncomfortable is a gift that this group keeps giving. It’s not comfortable when someone says something you don’t like, but you have to sit with it. Just sit with it for a minute. And that continues to bond us and make us feel safe with one another.”
“We have friends of all different kinds, right? But it’s not like you're sitting around with your friends talking about racism,” Nancie Lynch adds, “I remember one of our members – a Black woman – was concerned with anti-Semitism, about not showing up for her Jewish friends because she didn’t immediately see it, their struggle, that there was so much pain there. And that conversation helped illuminate my thinking as well. I’m one of the only Asian people sitting at this table, and it’s amazing to be surrounded by people who believe that having hard conversations can radically change your perspective in life.”
“It’s easy for people to ignore racism,” Janice says, “It’s crazy saying that, but it’s true. Having these difficult conversations, having Dominoes, it keeps these things top of mind and helps you be a better person, to not slip up and be lazy and become someone you don’t want to be.”
The group has dug deep on racial violence and injustice, inequitable policing, and unfair biases. They had been having these conversations before 2020, and when George Floyd was murdered, that history helped them confront it.
“We were already deep, deep in it, and that allowed us to immediately start having honest conversations as the world reeled,” Charlotte says, “I had no problem calling my friends and saying what can we do? What can white people do more? We can move the needle in a way that only one person can’t.”
And while many conversations addressed universal issues, there were also personal moments of understanding. Charlotte remembers another Domino – a white man – who opened up to the group.
“His neighbor was dating a Black man, and they had issues with family and friends, and this person would come to our group and ask real-life questions. There was an almost comical lack of awareness about these people’s struggles, but it wasn’t funny; we didn’t see it that way. We shared what he couldn’t say, what he should say, and they would share these things back with their neighbor.”
“Where else can you have these conversations?”
An Outsized Impact
LGW might have brought the group together, but its impact has at times transcended the organization. Myra shares the story of someone – a non-LGW Member – who joined after the WRAG series:
“At the end of dinner, he asked if someone could drive him to the [nearby] metro, because he didn’t feel comfortable walking around Chevy Chase as a Black man,” she recounts, “Something that didn’t occur to me as a white woman. Things like that, learning personal experiences, happen over and over again, and you can see emotion on all our faces as we have these realizations.”
Charlotte remembers him too, “He reached out to us another time because his housing situation had fallen apart. He needed somewhere to stay, and Myra, myself, Rachel, and a few others rallied together, made some calls, and found him a place to live.”
“Something so ordinary that we take for granted”, “that we take for granted, we can make two phone calls and change someone’s trajectory. We, as a group, can lighten his load – we took a few bricks out of his backpack that day.”
The group has also begun to encompass more critical issues in the country. Dominos member Tatiana Torres – or Tati, as the group calls her – brought new topics of discussion to the table.
“She has been to the [US-Mexico] border,” Debbie remembers, “and you can read about that all you want, but it’s much more impactful hearing from someone who’s actually been there.”
“Tati was very involved in all sorts of politics, but when she spoke on immigration it rang so differently,” Charlotte adds, “As a daughter of immigrants her stories were so powerful. After hearing from her we organized and sent toiletries and supplies through Catholic Charities.”
Rachel remembers another time that Tati facilitated difficult but important conversations. “We had had a couple of sessions where we talked about anti-Semitism in the United States. Tati helped arrange for a member of the Palestinian community to join the table for that.”
The Domino Run Continues
So what does the future hold for the Dominos? What’s next on the agenda?
“I want us to keep going,” Maria Nagorski (’10) says, “keep being there every month, supporting each other through the journey of figuring out who we are and how we handle the world we’re in. we know that when we get together, each of us matters, and we're heard, and we're seen.”
“There’s been times over our ten years where Rachel and I have had to come up with something creative to keep the momentum,” Charlotte says, “and we realized we don’t need to figure it out ourselves. The beauty has been that people that people at the table have expanded our conversation, and we hope to keep doing that.”
“There have been numerous points along the way,” Adam adds, “where we have tried to clearly figure out what we’re really doing. And at some level that’s actually the strength of the group, a sort of opportunism that gives us space to care about what matters to us.”
Charlotte has one question to answer before the conversation wraps up: where did the name Dominos come from?
“It’s the domino effect, where a single impact triggers an incredible chain reaction because they are so close together. And that’s what we are, our impact – black and white, coming together, and once we touch each other, we’re never the same.”
Want to join the conversation? The Dominos aren't currently accepting new members, but we encourage you to form your own groups to have these important discussions with other LGW Members!