ROOTED IN FREEDOM, Rising in Legacy By LaDawn Sullivan
E
very year Juneteenth arrives carrying two truths at once: celebration and warning.
Celebration because Black people in this country have always found ways to make joy out of survival. Warning because history has taught us that freedom delayed has a dangerous habit of disguising itself as freedom delivered. Juneteenth marks the day enslaved Black people in Texas finally learned they were free — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had already declared it. Freedom existed on paper while oppression still lived in people’s front yards. That gap between policy and practice has shaped generations of Black life in America. That is why Juneteenth is not simply a historical commemoration. It is a living lesson about systems, power, access, and the ongoing fight to make freedom real. It is legacy work. A reminder that liberation is never a one-time event. Every generation must protect it, redefine it, and push it forward. That same spirit lives inside the Executive Directors of Color Institute (EDCI), which this year celebrates 15 years of building, strengthening, and sustaining leaders of color across Colorado through the Black Resilience in Colorado (BRIC) Fund and its partners. Fifteen years may not sound long in the grand scheme of history, but in nonprofit years — especially for leaders of color navigating chronic underinvestment, inequitable systems,
burnout, political backlash, and the expectation to somehow save communities with half the resources and twice the scrutiny — fifteen years is both an accomplishment and a declaration.
communities, leadership is not a professional role — it is a calling. It shows up in grant reports and board meetings, in crisis response and healing work, in every space where love and justice demand to be present.
EDCI was founded in 2011 as a two-year leadership development and organizational capacity-building program created specifically for BIPOC nonprofit leaders. What began as an intentional space for connection and growth has evolved into one of Colorado’s most important leadership pipelines for nonprofit executives of color.
EDCI understood early what many institutions are only now beginning to grasp: leaders of color do not need “fixing.” They need investment, trusted space, connection, restoration, strategy, and the ability to lead fully as themselves.
And honestly, we must give thanks to the late Dr. Vincent Harding for inspiring its creation. For leaders who are Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, multilingual, first-generation, and rooted in their
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| Denver Urban Spectrum - www.denverurbanspectrum.com - June 2026
Over the past 15 years, EDCI has supported more than 300 nonprofit leaders of color and strengthened organizations serving communities across Colorado. Those leaders work in education, housing, health care, arts and culture, youth development, economic justice, mental health, civic engagement, safety, environmental justice, and community healing. That is legacy too. Legacy is often misunderstood as something reserved for famous people, wealthy families, or buildings with somebody’s last name engraved on the side. But in Black communities, legacy has always looked different. Legacy is the grandmother who made sure everybody ate, even when money was tight. Legacy is the neighbor who organized rides to the polls. Legacy is the church basement meeting, the scholarship fund, the mentor, the activist, the barber shop
conversation, the auntie who tells you the truth whether you asked for it or not. Legacy is what survives systems designed to erase us — and right now, those systems are louder, bolder, and more emboldened than ever before. Juneteenth itself exists because Black people preserved memory, story, culture, faith, and collective hope long enough to outlive the lie that we were not fully human. EDCI exists from that same lineage. Programs like EDCI matter even more during difficult political and social times. Across the country, diversity efforts are being attacked. Equity language is being stripped away. Honest conversations about race are treated like threats instead of truths. Funding for justice-centered work is becoming harder to secure precisely because that work has been effective. But pressure has never been new to Black communities. We know how to build anyway. We know how to organize anyway. We know how to laugh anyway. Sometimes that laughter is the only thing standing between us and a full emotional collapse in the middle of a Zoom call. Still, we continue. That continuation matters because liberation is not hypothetical. Liberation shows up in whether communities have housing, healthcare, culturally responsive education, economic opportunity, political voice, and leaders