The Unity Wall project: a student-led community organizing effort to advance public discourse on social justice

ABSTRACT

Socially-unjust public discourse targeting disadvantaged and oppressed populations has increased in intensity and acceptability in the United States. In response, social work students designed and implemented a community organizing effort, The Unity Wall, to provide community members with an opportunity to anonymously share personal responses to current discourse on racial tension and other current events. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of the Unity Wall, as well as the evaluation findings and implications for using this community-organizing approach in other community settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Community/civic engagement
• community organizing
• community practice
• inclusive community and social inclusion
• social justice
• education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.