Racial and Social Justice
Equal. Powerful. Unstoppable.
Our intersectional mission to eliminate racism and empower women demands that we recognize our responsibility to use our voice and platform to push for action and long-term legal, economic and societal change — to forge a more equitable Central Virginia. We are committed to working with you on issues of gender equality, economic inequity and racial disparities wherever it is found: healthcare, housing, employment or education.
This means working harder to engage and amplify women of color as voices for solutions and strengthening partnerships with organizations throughout Central Virginia that do the work against violence and systemic racism, so together we can drive change.
We envision a world of opportunity. We commit ourselves to the work of racial justice. We will get up and continue to do the work until injustice is rooted out, until institutions are transformed, until the world sees women, girls, and people of color the way we do: Equal. Powerful. Unstoppable.
Our Legacy
YWCA knows that in order to lead the charge against racism, we must also set the example within our own organization. African American and Native American women have been providing leadership in YWCA’s movement since the 1800s. Because of the leadership of women of color, in 1946 YWCA began working for integration throughout the entire organization, adopting an “interracial charter” that established that “wherever there is injustice on the basis of race, whether in the community, the nation, or the world, our protest must be clear and our labor for its removal, vigorous, and steady.” That work culminated in the addition of the “elimination of racism” to our mission statement in 1970.
