Our Next Chapter
From Center to Collective.
The Collective for Racial & Disability Justice is entering a new chapter that builds on our work while more clearly naming how we hope to do it.
Our transition from Center to Collective reflects more than a name change. It reflects our belief that racial and disability justice is built through relationships, through shared learning, community knowledge, sustained action, and collaboration. A center can describe a place from which the work happens; a collective speaks to the people, relationships, and ideas that make the work possible.
That distinction matters to us.
Racial and disability justice cannot be advanced by any one discipline, institution, or form of expertise. Rather, it requires people with varied experiences and ways of knowing to work alongside one another, from those directly impacted by systems of ableism and racism, community members, advocates, researchers, students, practitioners, and organizational partners.
What Collective Means at CRDJ
We Co-Create.
Knowledge does not belong exclusively to universities or credentialed experts. CRDJ brings research, legal and policy expertise, lived experience, local knowledge, movement knowledge, and practitioner expertise into relationships. Co-design helps determine what questions we ask, what we build, and how we define success.
We Mobilize.
Knowledge should move. CRDJ turns research and analysis into resources and actionable tools that people can use—in advocacy, practice, policymaking, organizing, education, and everyday life. Our Toolkits provide living infrastructure for that work.
We Connect.
Knowledge becomes more powerful through relationships. CRDJ Collectives create spaces where people connected to an issue can learn together, exchange strategies and resources, build relationships, identify gaps, and develop new possibilities for collaboration.
We Built Forward Together.
The process does not end with dissemination. What people learn, contribute, question, need, and build through the Toolkits and Collectives informs future research, resources, partnerships, and priorities.
Together, these practices help democratize access to knowledge and the institutions that shape people's lives.