Watch

Healing Racial Tension with Music and Lyrics

Creator:
Published:
December 12, 2023
May 29, 2021
Watch how David Bailey and Arrabon help communities engage in reconciliation and promote unity through songwriting.|Arrabon-Square|Healing Racial Tension with Music and Lyrics 1|Arrabon

David Bailey founded the Urban Doxology Songwriting Internship to invest in young people and create new culture by helping them write songs that facilitate healing and justice. They write songs of healing, songs of hope, songs that will help to bring people together in unity.

"We have two choices: either we could be a part of the problem or we can be part of the solution," he explains.

Video Transcript

(soulful music)

Promoting unity through songwriting.

David Bailey: My Name is David Bailey. I'm the Executive Director of Arrabon. It's a ministry based in the neighborhood of Church Hill in Richmond, Virginia.

Richmond, Virginia

I am the founder of the Urban Doxology Songwriting Internship.

David brings young people together to learn how to write and craft songs.

(soulful singing in the background)

We've been doing this internship for eight summers and over the last five summers, starting with Trayvon Martin, there has been a shooting of an African American young man. You had the Charleston Nine, you had the shooting on the police officers. In 2017 you have the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally where you had white men and women carrying torches in the middle of the night.

A friend of mine said it this way, that, "In our country, the racial temperature's always at a simmer and there's an incident that kind of takes it up to a boiling point."

The way we turn the temperature down is by bringing people together, but not just only so that we could talk about something — we actually have to do something. Investing in young people to create new culture, to see the kind of vision of the future that they want to see, to help write songs that help them facilitate that, is a way forward that I realized like, "Man, this is what we could do to help make tomorrow better by what we do today."

So for eight weeks, they're studying and learning about reconciliation and justice and some of the problems that are going on in the world. Instead of having them to write papers, what we do is we have them to write songs — songs of healing, songs of hope, songs that will help to bring people together in unity. And you kind of give people an outlook that would give them a longevity for the fight towards peace and justice that we need to see in the world.

And they get a vision of reconciliation. They get a vision of what does it look like to have an economically and racially diverse community that's flourishing. And that's just, it's priceless. I mean, it's really priceless.

We have two choices: either we could be a part of the problem or we can be part of the solution. And each of us has a piece to play and therefore we work together and create a beautiful picture of what we hope to see in the world.

(joyful singing)

Share peace.

(bell chiming)

(muffled smooth pop music)

Creators:
Grotto
Published:
December 12, 2023
May 29, 2021
On a related note...
"Random Acts"

"Random Acts"

Marjorie Maddox

From Abandoned Lot to a Fruitful Garden

From Abandoned Lot to a Fruitful Garden

Grotto

St. Elizabeth Spotify Playlist | #GrottoMusic

St. Elizabeth Spotify Playlist | #GrottoMusic

Grotto

#ABetterLight Live Q&A with Julia Hogan

#ABetterLight Live Q&A with Julia Hogan

Grotto

Mapping Catholic Lands to Save the Planet

Mapping Catholic Lands to Save the Planet

Grotto

4 Creative Ways to Stay in Touch with Friends Post-College

4 Creative Ways to Stay in Touch with Friends Post-College

Mariah Cressy

Blind Blogger Transforms Perceptions of Beauty

Blind Blogger Transforms Perceptions of Beauty

Grotto

Building Furniture & Community for the Neighborhood

Building Furniture & Community for the Neighborhood

Grotto

Improv Taught Me to Embrace the Fail

Improv Taught Me to Embrace the Fail

Jennon Bell Hoffmann

St. Joseph of Cupertino Spotify Playlist | #GrottoMusic

St. Joseph of Cupertino Spotify Playlist | #GrottoMusic

Grotto

What I Gained by Ditching House-Buying Conventions

What I Gained by Ditching House-Buying Conventions

Ben Wilson

Teaching English and Building Community with Immigrants

Teaching English and Building Community with Immigrants

Grotto

Podcast S1 | Ep.5: Finding Friendship

Podcast S1 | Ep.5: Finding Friendship

Grotto

How Volunteering Led to an Unlikely Friendship

How Volunteering Led to an Unlikely Friendship

Manda Carpenter

6 Signs You Might Be an Introverted Extrovert

6 Signs You Might Be an Introverted Extrovert

Patricia Valderrama

Spend 9 Minutes, 29 Seconds With This Prayer for Racial Justice

Spend 9 Minutes, 29 Seconds With This Prayer for Racial Justice

Grotto

3 Tips for ‘Leave No Trace’ Camping

3 Tips for ‘Leave No Trace’ Camping

Hanna Van Elk

Grotto’s Travel Guide to Nashville

Grotto’s Travel Guide to Nashville

Andrew Mentock

Want to Live More Intentionally? Channel Your Inner Monk

Want to Live More Intentionally? Channel Your Inner Monk

Isaac Huss

Closing the Gender Gap in STEM Fields

Closing the Gender Gap in STEM Fields

Martha Reilly

newsletter

We’d love to be pals.

Sign up for our newsletter, and we’ll meet you in your inbox each week.