A Love Letter to AMPT

June 3, 2020. 

74 days since the state of IL is on lockdown due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. 9 days earlier, the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Mn. 3 hours after calls and emails regarding local youth-led actions protesting anti-Black, state sanctioned violence. I sit at my dining room table, preparing to meet with the board of AMPT in the final phase of my interview process for the founding Executive Director position. Nervous, but excited, I share about my experiences, commitments to Chicago, hopes for the future. And then the heaviness in my chest is unbearable and the lump in my throat too thick to swallow. The only way out is through a tearful plea to use this moment in history to do more. To unapologetically love people of color and serve them in the way they deserve. To center them and not be afraid to be different. I left that call sure that I’d blown it. That I hadn’t held my cards close enough to my chest and that I allowed my full humanity to be seen by a group of strangers. 

I was completely caught off guard when I received the offer to become AMPT’s founding executive director. It was also the moment that I was clear on how I needed to lead. 

And the rest has been a blur. 

AMPT is an ongoing love letter to the city of Chicago. To Little Village and Auburn Gresham. Hermosa and Englewood. South Shore, Austin, Woodlawn. Brighton Park, Humboldt Park, Marquette Park. It is the tangible belief that communities of color are the experts of our own experience. That we possess the power and answers. That we are enough. 

In 5 years, AMPT has built transformational relationships with the most incredible leaders in our city. Nonprofit leaders, consultants, philanthropists. We have created an ecosystem of care, disruption and camaraderie. We encourage imagination. Ask why. Dream of the world we want and work hard to create the tactile experiences to get us there. 

This doesn't happen by accident. Nor in isolation. We've been unapologetic about naming the ways white supremacist dominant culture has been socialized into every aspect of our lives. We make it a point to pause, question it, push back against it and to discover other ways of being. "Get comfortable with being uncomfortable" was a slogan written at the top of my dry erase board regularly. I cannot reimagine when I'm unwilling to look at what's in front of me. 

And that's hard. It's not convenient. And it's surely not the express route to developing programming and metrics to write into reports. And that has been part of my own process. Shedding the urgency of progress put onto me by a culture that produced it.

But that's when the beauty of community comes in. There's nothing like being held down by your people. I am eternally grateful for the partnership and trust given to us by Black and Latine leaders across the city who work with us to build something for us. Who feel ownership and responsibility to make AMPT what they want and need. To actively sit with us in our journey. AMPT belongs to them. To all of us. It is also a reminder that my accountability is to them, to us. Not to a grant report.

We are toddlers, as we like to say in the office. We have so much to learn, to grow, to experience. We are filled with energy, curiosity and love. We know how much this space means and we humbly accept our responsibility to it. 

Thank you, for making this blur, this love letter to Chicago, and these 5 years a reality. An organization built on community and dismantling systems oppressive culture doesn’t happen without trust. I hope you continue to trust us.

Because AMPT is just getting started.