Solidarity Rooted in Abundance: A Reflection from Montgomery

By Leng Leng Chancey, Director of the Racial Justice and Equity Fund, ECFC

At ECFC, our commitment to racial equity and justice calls us to engage deeply with history, reflect on its lasting impact, and consider how philanthropy can contribute to building more just systems for children and families. As part of this journey, our staff and members will gather in Montgomery, Alabama we’ll explore the legacy of civil rights leadership and community power from Alabama to other southern states.

In this reflection, Leng Leng Chancey, ECFC’s Director of the Racial Justice and Equity Fund (RJEF), shares how recent visits to Montgomery offered renewed clarity and purpose in her work. She invites us to consider what solidarity means in practice and how cultivating abundance can create conditions for collective liberation.

Montgomery gave me something different… a mirror that challenged me to examine my own privileges, biases, and responsibilities in this work.

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I visited Montgomery twice this summer. Both visits filled me with a renewed sense of purpose and clarity for this work—the work of liberation for all people.

You might ask, “What is this work?” For me, it is about dismantling the systems that uphold racial and economic oppression. As an immigrant, I never fully understood the deep, generational relationship between Black and white communities in this country until I went to Montgomery and took a tour of the museums and walked the path where slaves were auctioned off. I was a history major in college and took many American history classes, but those textbooks never taught me how white supremacy and racial capitalism were built into the very foundations of this nation and how deeply it has clenched onto every facet of our lives.

The current state of the country is a reflection of that legacy: racism remains entrenched, economic inequality continues to widen, families are being forcefully separated, and democracy is under assault. For me, I’m moving through each day in survival mode, working reflexively to push back against these daily threats, and wondering if my husband will have a job tomorrow.

Montgomery gave me something different and broke my routine. Both trips gave me the space to pause, to reflect, and to reassess. It also served as a mirror—one that challenged me to examine my own privileges, biases, and responsibilities in this work. As someone who is not Black, I have to constantly reflect on the ways I benefit from anti-Black racism in this country. More than not, it makes me pause and think about my daily interactions with my colleagues, and most of all, how I’m shepherding RJEF.

Real solidarity, especially across lines of race, class, and citizenship status, requires more than empathy. It demands that we cultivate abundance in our mindset, in our relationships, and in our actions.

Real solidarity—especially across lines of race, class, and citizenship status—requires more than empathy. It’s not just about showcasing the great work of our grantees or the “stories from the field,” more importantly, it is a time of inner reflections and reckoning. It demands that we cultivate abundance in our mindset, in our relationships, and in our actions. Scarcity has been used as a tool of division. If we root our solidarity in abundance, we create conditions for a future that is rooted in collective liberation.