At the Chicago Botanic Garden, our staff community is working on being intentional in the way we do our work. In September 2022, we introduced a new set of values: growth, understanding, resilience, and trust and transparency. These values guide the work of our community and are our day-to-day actions that tie together everything we do.

This new set of values prompted many questions from our staff community. As we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday on January 16, I am reflecting on how his teachings are relevant to the work we’ve undertaken through our equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts and beyond.    
 
In reflecting on Dr. King’s legacy, I can see many of Dr. King’s values upheld in the way we approach our work, including our commitment to change. We joined in conversation across the organization about our strengths, where there are opportunities for improvement, and our vision for the future of the organization.

In these conversations, we identified growth, defined as the willingness to take risks, collaborate, and test new ideas as a value where we excel. Our organization also defines growth as “perseverance and humility as we work towards our long-term impact.” This is the side of growth that is very much tied to the way that Dr. King lived his life through his activism and his commitment to civil rights. I am centering this definition in this conversation because it is challenging to demonstrate, and those challenges are often not discussed.  

In applying Dr. King’s teachings to our value of growth, three major learnings stood out. The first is that change needs to be strategic; it can sometimes be slow, and progress should be acknowledged. The second is that in addition to acknowledging progress, we should continue to ask questions about impact and inequity. The third learning is that we must always work from a place of solidarity.

During his Nobel Prize lecture in 1964, Dr. King stated, “Fortunately, some significant strides have been made in the struggle to end the long night of racial injustice…let me not leave you with a false impression. The problem is far from solved.” He recognized where there was progress and continued to ask questions: Who is left out of this conversation? Who is the most disproportionately impacted?

These questions do not come without challenges or feelings of discomfort, and it prompts me to think of Dr. King’s words: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” My hope for this organization is that we live this sentiment, in the same we are working towards living our values.

In 2023, we are working towards living our values through building a stronger sense of community. Though our values are inward facing, we know the way we interact as a staff community also impacts the communities, audiences, and visitors that we work with and engage.

These initiatives are just a small part of our ongoing efforts to foster a culture of equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. We are developing new frameworks, policies and procedures that center equitable and inclusive decision making. We continue to be inspired by the legacy of Dr. King and the civil rights movement, which sought to create a more just and equal society for those most impacted by systemic barriers.

I also want to acknowledge that I do not identify as Black, which plays a role in how I am approaching this reflection. Though I am a woman of color, I am not part of the Black community and I do not experience the same type of racial injustices that they do. For me this then means that I need to work from a place of solidarity: mutual support for others even if it isn’t my struggle. That is what Dr. King asked of the White leaders of his time and something that is still needed from non-Black community members for all our communities to really be able to thrive.