Thursday, July 7, 2016 is not a night Dallas will forget anytime soon. A peaceful protest turned fatal shooting left the city in tears and heartbreak. Yet, hearts began to mend as early as two days later with the opportunely scheduled inaugural Dallas Human Rights Summit.

Hosted by SMU, directors of the Embrey Human Rights Program and Journeyman Ink led the room of students, volunteers and non-profit members to dig deep in personal and community reflection. From spoken word poetry to roundtable discussions, the hundreds of activists in attendance were asked to be vulnerable, humble, passionate and open. Though the crowd was diverse, with these instructions they soon learned they all had a common goal in mind: advance their city in peace, love and truth.

Inside the packet handed out at registration was a card attendees were asked to fill out prior to the beginning of the summit to share throughout the day. In an attempt to encapsulate the day of deeply moving human rights activists, their stances and the advice ingrained in both everyone’s hearts and minds, here’s an example:

My name is
Human Rights Dallas

I was born in
More than 25 different states and 30 different countries

I speak
More than 32 different languages

My ancestors come from
Raised voices, raised hands and raised spirits tearing down generalizations, peeling away the façade of history, facing race, answering for the past so they could grow fresh grass

I am a
Room of heroes and sheroes; refugees, survivors and fighters; a diamond in the rough

This family is my hero because we’re tackling big questions; calling for transparency, accountability; actions with our words; demanding we define vocabulary: what we say, what we do, and how we do it

I experienced great joy when
I knew that regardless of what the refs said, Dez caught that ball

I experienced pain when
I went from holding up a protest sign saying “Black Lives Matter” to then setting it down to lift up our fallen officers.

In my life I am planting seeds of
Hope for a day when you don’t need a piece of paper to prove you’re a person.

I am searching for
How to stamp out the ignorance; how to replace the fear with empathy; how to say come here, let me love you, let me champion human rights

It’s been a heavy month of reflection amid more violence and hate. Multiple attendees commented that the day was impactful, yet it was akin to preaching to the choir. If there’s one thing to take away from this summit, from these words, it’s that “your voice has power to speak your truth and share your light.” So even if the initial efforts seem fruitless – falling deaf on the ears of those you’re seeking – that power is now amplified and echoed by the choir who agrees with you.

We are still a city in pain, a city in need. If we want that to end anytime soon, we’ve got work to do.

Photos of the day as well as the full transcripts of the poems I borrowed from can be found at this link for viewing and downloading. https://smu.app.box.com/s/msc8llz7e9lferp52dvfv5jre48xqsxx