President Barack Obama called us to action with the following words “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

In early June 2020, in the midst of the racial dynamics sparked by the murder of Mr. George Floyd and countless other black lives and in the spirit of President Obama’s call for us to look to ourselves, Dr. Ed Bush and Dr. Regina Stanback Stroud put their minds and hearts together with the goal of creating a space, a village, for the African American community in the community colleges to come together. Our purpose would be to make change that would address the current Anti-black culture and practices in our nation, particularly in the academy. Sparked by the legally sanctioned murder of Mr. George Floyd and many other black men and women, Dr. Bush and Dr. Stanback Stroud convened the village of more than 600 African American administrators, faculty, staff and community stakeholders on a webinar.

The convening provided “village time” amongst African American/Black educators in the system, while also addressing the state of education for African American/Black students. This meeting formed the statewide coalition of African American/Black educators, soon named The Village Demands, for the familial and uplifting sense of community created by the village leaders.

Founding affiliate organizations of The Village Demands are RSS Consulting, LLC, A²MEND, Umoja Community Education Foundation, National Council on Black American Affairs, and the Western Region Council on Black American Affairs.