RUNWAY on the Road with the State of the People POWER Tour
In a time when the state of the world is defined by political violence, deep economic precarity, and racial backlash, the State of the People POWER Tour dared to ask:
What if our collective power was the antidote?
From April to June 2025, the State of the People POWER Tour moved through ten cities with a bold intention: to ignite healing, resistance, and collective action in Black communities across the country. With stops in ten cities across the South, West, and East Coast—including Montgomery, Jackson, Altadena, St. Louis, Atlanta, Newark, Louisville, Durham, New Orleans, and Richmond—the tour activated thousands of people and organizations to move together toward civic action and building collective power.
At RUNWAY, we know that capital can be used as a tool for justice and repair. We also know that it’s not enough to simply write checks—we have to show up, shoulder to shoulder with our people to do the work. That’s why we were proud to join the Tour as a National Partner and show up on the ground in Birmingham, AL and Richmond, VA. Our presence on the Tour was an extension of our mission: practicing reparative economics, deepening relationships, and building the financial and political ecosystems Black communities need to thrive.
A Tour Rooted in Healing, Strategy, and Collective Power
Each stop on the State of the People POWER Tour was structured around two transformational days.
Day 1
A Day of Relief and Resistance, grounded communities in mutual aid and wellness—offering food distribution, healing spaces, and town halls that made space for truth-telling and local vision.
Day 2
A Day of Action turned that reflection into forward motion, with workshops on housing, health, and civic engagement.
The goals were clear:
Rally Black communities around a shared cause.
Provide hope and tangible relief in a time of crisis.
Chart a path forward toward the Juneteenth National Convening and the State of the People International Assembly, where delegates from every state will gather to dream, strategize, and build.
We are in a moment where urgency is the undercurrent of daily life. Under the shadow of an emboldened far-right political agenda and another Trump term, the stakes are high. But in cities like Birmingham and Richmond, we saw something more powerful than fear—we saw possibility.
RUNWAY’s Role: Investing in Power, Building With Intention
In Birmingham and Richmond, we brought our core message to the forefront: Reparative capital is strategy. Reparative capital is care. Reparative capital is transformative.
Our CEO, Jessica Norwood, participated in a fireside chat called Not On Our Watch, uplifting the vision of Black economic liberation and reinforcing the truth that our wealth is a form of power that must be protected, restored, and grown in community.
RUNWAY team members facilitated workshops on Building an Economy That Loves Black People, sparking dialogue around our shared “Money Stories”:
Who shaped your relationship to money?
What is a moment when someone believed in you and invested in you?
What have your experiences with money taught you about power or access?
Participants gathered in deep discussion around the question:
“What if we could not only name the harm—we could begin to map the repair?”
These weren’t theoretical conversations. They were strategic visioning sessions, rooted in lived experience and powered by hope, wisdom, and memory. In small groups, people mapped out what repair could look like in their communities, with reparative capital and power-building lenses as their compass.
