[Piano begins playing] [Dr. Chidinma A. Ibe] Hi. I'm Dr. Chidinma Ibe, and I'm a health equity researcher and champion of community health workers. My hope is that, as you take in the pictures and the words and voices of community health workers and those who work with them, that you'll understand how special and invaluable this workforce is. And I also hope that you will join us in our efforts to dismantle health inequities through community-driven strategies. Thanks for listening to my story. [Piano music fades] I was floored and thrilled when Lisa Cooper told me about the opportunity to partner with LaToya Ruby Frazier and showcase CHWs through photography and first-person narratives. We talked about how wonderful it would be to have CHWs take their own pictures and add them to this exhibit, a vehicle for showing the world who they are, and what they see, from their eyes. From a research perspective, this could be achieved through the photo-voice method, a type of participatory visual method that uses photography to engage participants in reflection and dialogue regarding their community’s strengths, needs, and capacity for social change. I had yearned to conduct a photo-voice project with CHWs since I was a second-year doctoral student and was inspired by Anika, who was in the process of leading a photo-voice study with residents of East Baltimore that focused on food insecurity. As LaToya prepared the monument, we started to put the pieces of the photo-voice project, “Amplifying the Lived Experiences of CHWs (ALEC) Study,” together. My goal was to elucidate the pathways between Baltimore-based CHWs’ confrontation and navigation of the social determinants of health in their own lives, and how these personal experiences dovetailed with their work as CHWs. I was supported by outstanding Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity staff members, Nico Dominguez Carrero, a Research Assistant, and Alison Trainor, a Research Program Manager. We recruited 15 CHWs to participate and held four cohorts of CHWs who generously devoted their time to meet once a week, over a five-week period. Although each cohort contained different CHWs, each with their own diverse experiences, several common themes emerged: the compassion they had for the families they served, the barriers that hampered their ability to become a part of the broader healthcare delivery and public health infrastructure, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on them and members of the broader CHW workforce, the enduring legacy of redlining and systematic disinvestment in predominantly Black neighborhoods, and their belief that the best way to tackle entrenched inequities was by empowering and activating the community through education and outreach. All of this brings me back to why I opted to have my picture taken in Eager Park. To fully grasp my rationale, you need to know a bit about the history of this neighborhood. When I first came to Hopkins, there was no Eager Park. Rather, that area was enveloped in turmoil through a controversial urban renewal project initiated by Hopkins, in conjunction with the City’s leadership. Hopkins was cementing its status as an anchor institution, its leaders endorsing the need to support the City through appreciable financial investments with aspirations of revitalization. Nonetheless, I persistently heard complaints from community leaders and residents of the predominantly Black, largely impoverished neighborhood that was the target of this initiative. They were concerned with both the process and the impact of this redevelopment project and argued that several residents were financially forced out of their homes, their displacement justified by claims of eminent domain. For years, the area languished in the wake of the economic upheaval brought on by the 2008 recession. However, somewhere around 2014 or 2015, I began to see an uptick in construction and other activities in that neighborhood. Starbucks arrived with promises of hiring from the community. Development firms–some of which were minority-owned—built homes that became a part of the expanded “Live Where You Work” Program. The sizable grants conferred by Hopkins allowed many first-time home buyers (including several Black employees) to forge a path towards building wealth. Walgreens came even as longtime residents left, priced out of a neighborhood they had lived in for years. We all, indeed, are Eager Park, because Eager Park encapsulates the tensions between East Baltimore’s past and its present and illustrates that two or more things can be true at the same time. It is true that I am too American for some Nigerians, and too Nigerian for some Americans. It is also true that I am also an amalgamation of the best of both cultures and can see the clear link between the evils of chattel slavery, the vestiges of European colonialism, and the perpetuation of inequities on all fronts across the globe. It cannot be denied that anti-Black racism permeates every facet of society and is deeply embedded in the fabric of Baltimore City’s past and current struggles. However, it is equally undeniable that racism has failed to squelch the strength, resourcefulness, and clear-minded focus on social justice exhibited by so many of Baltimore’s Black residents, who have not remained silent in the face of exploitation, crime, substance use, and other issues that afflict the city.