In the third episode of the Born Black Faith & Reason Series, Debo and Catherine Young talk with Dr. Alice Graham, the executive director of Back Bay Mission in Biloxi. Dr. Graham recounts her own experience growing up, as well as how she found herself living in Mississippi. Dr. Graham goes into detail about how there are racial inequities evident in things like education, lack of funding for transportation, and red lining of properties.

Dr. Graham describes her work with Back Bay Mission, strengthening neighborhoods with services like education and empowerment programs, food pantries, and their Bridges Out of Poverty program. Back Bay Mission’s work in communities on the Mississippi Gulf Coast creates a road map for tackling systemic racism in communities across the country.

As a reverend from Chicago, Dr. Graham has served as the executive director and co-founder of Pastoral Ministries Institute in Virginia and as a professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Hood Theological Seminary. Dr. Graham received her BA from Spelman College, her Masters of Divinity from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and her PhD from Northwestern University in pastoral care and counseling. To learn more about Back Bay Mission, please visit their website.