Wade in the Water: Leadership Imperatives for Turbulent Times

by LaShawn Routé Chatmon, Executive Director, National Equity Project

June 21, 2023

Recently, I was moved to research the history of the legendary Negro spiritual, “Wade in the Water.” In doing so, I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for the weight it carried then, and was struck by just how relevant its guidance continues to be in our contemporary moment. The song’s lyrics, which first appeared in the 1901 edition of New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, covertly communicated to enslaved Africans instructions for avoiding recapture. As the story goes, Harriet Tubman used the song to encourage her people on the run to trudge through the water instead of on the land where the bloodhounds chasing them could more easily trail their scent.

Presencing myself to the true definition of the word “wade” underscores and amplifies the meaning and power this song holds. Rather than floating or swimming—which seems to be how the word is often used colloquially—to wade is actually, “to walk with effort through water or any substance that offers resistance to movement to make one’s way slowly or laboriously; to go forward with effort or difficulty.” To wade, it turns out, is to resist in the face of a powerful force.

While the lyrics are familiar, the significance they bear calls for amplification now. “Wade in the Water” carries a message of encouragement—a command even—for those of you wading in the murky waters of public education to stand resolute against the overwhelming forces encroaching on efforts to create equitable conditions for every child to learn, develop, and thrive. I want to help you hear the call in this song with your heart, fortified by the faith of the ancestors it was written for, so that you might summon the level of courage and determination required in this time.

As we wade through daunting and discouraging waters, it’s crucial that we stay present to the incredible legacy of our ancestors—particularly as Black Americans or others who come from a lineage of people who’ve endured systematic oppression and injustice. Maintaining a connection to the survival and resilience of our ancestors through unimaginable circumstances, can help us see ourselves more clearly and hold tight to a sense of hope and imagination for our collective future. When we understand that our ancestors made possible what once seemed impossible, we too can operate from a place of audacity in the face of mounting threats to our freedoms.

There are mounting threats to creating the kind of student-centered learning environments every child needs to learn, thrive, and belong - pounding on us like forceful ocean waves against rock:

  • The unprecedented disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated longstanding structural inequities related to food security, family income, health, education, and access to technology;

  • Declines in reading and mathematics plague an overwhelming majority of states, including the largest score drops in math ever recorded (National Assessment of Educational Progress);

  • A recent CDC study showed that nearly half of young people reported feeling sad or hopeless during the pandemic, with even worse impacts on girls and young adults ages 18-25;

  • Teacher shortages are further compromising student learning and adult connection, with the highest rates of vacancy occurring at schools serving low-income communities and majority students of color;

  • State legislators are drafting and passing legislation to ban books and censor content that facilitates critical thinking, dialogue, and true understanding of American history—preferring erasure and ignorance over truth and reconciliation of this country's complex past;

  • Simultaneously, lawmakers are prohibiting representation of LGBTQ+ peoples’ histories in classroom discourse and books, rendering queer, questioning, and non-binary youth invisible, othered, and unsafe in their own learning environments. Ironically, these regressive actions by lawmakers who are supposed to represent ALL of us are being promoted under the guise of psychological safety, racial harmony, and the preservation of parents rights.

And the list goes on… Yet so does our faith, our resolve, and our vision. Amidst all there is to wade against in this time—as we simultaneously lead, manage, respond, and recover—there is a responsibility for each one of us to work toward a collective vision for the future of education as a critical, transformative public good in service of a multiracial, pluralistic democracy.

At National Equity Project, we define leadership for equity as taking responsibility for what matters to you (Weissglass, 1996), and we believe that anyone can lead, no matter your age, race, gender identity, status or position in an organization or community. 

Our practice is guided by the evolution of a set of coaching methods and tools encapsulated in our Leading for Equity Framework. For more than 28 years, we have been teaching and supporting leaders to wade in turbulent waters. Increasing personal and collective agency of leaders to listen, lead, disrupt, engage, and co-create new futures is a prime directive of the National Equity Project. Our field-tested experience equips us with a perspective that can support concerted efforts toward a new possible future.

We find these principled leadership behaviors helpful as we forge ahead together—leading, organizing and navigating the tragic gaps between the current situation and the desired future state for which we are longing.

Leadership Imperatives for Wading

1.) Build Social Solidarity                   

Leaders for equity understand that our fates are linked by the water we wade in. We must work to strengthen relationships and action across our intersectional identities and organize multi-racial, intergenerational, cross-sector coalitions toward an irresistible shared vision and goals for youth, family, and community thriving. 

2.) SEE Self & Systems

Leaders for equity work to make the invisible visible—to SEE and understand how we build and maintain inequity in ourselves, interpersonally, and across our systems and structures. The work to SEE involves asking, “How do I deepen my self-awareness (look in the mirror) and understanding of oppression in the world (look out the window)?” You must move with an awareness of the water and its currents in order to redirect your course.

3.) ENGAGE Hearts & Minds

Leaders for equity thoughtfully design brave spaces for meaning-making, participation across difference, navigating uncertainty, and healing and wellbeing. Leaders who engage with love, empathy and compassion work in ways that build relational trust and mutual respect. This is liberatory collaboration: the dynamic ways we wade together toward a mutual goal.

4.)  ACT to Create Liberating Spaces and Belonging 

Leaders for equity recognize the importance of not jumping from problem to solution in a single step; they hold space to check their assumptions and invite multiple stories and perspectives. We cannot know where every current will take us, but we can act in ways that allow us to try new things and test the waters.

Along with these leadership imperatives, I am continually fueled by the memory and power of ancestral guides who came before us.

Harriet Tubman—an abolitionist, spy, nurse, and suffragette—freed enslaved Africans via the Underground Railroad in solidarity with a multiracial network of leaders committed to freedom. Ruby Bridges, the courageous six-year-old from New Orleans, Louisiana, became the first Black student to integrate an all-White elementary school in 1960, while her family, mind, body, and spirit were all under threat and terror. She spent a full school year alone in a classroom with a single White teacher who courageously taught her despite being marginalized and terrorized herself. Sixty years later, we herald Ruby Bridges’ tenacity and name schools in her honor; and we honor the leadership and conviction of her teacher, Barbara Henry. 

There are countless stories of people across all forms of difference who have banded together amidst unthinkable adversity. All acted at great risk to their personal safety, supporting people to relentlessly forge ahead toward their freedom and not retreat. Understanding our own ancestral and collective histories of struggle and resilience emboldens us to practice these leadership imperatives to advance creative solutions for a fair and inclusive vision for public education. To make a new way, to lean in against the current—to wade in the water.

Endnote:

At the National Equity Project, we define Leading for Equity as “taking responsibility for what matters to you.” Within this definition, anyone can take on a leadership role. This notion was adapted from the work of Julian Weissglass and his pioneering efforts in the field of equity and social justice particularly in the area of healing and recovering from the trauma of all forms of oppression. See his seminal work: Weissglass, J. (1996) Ripples of Hope: Building Relationships for Educational Change.