The origin of Men’s Circle:

Men’s Circle started as a response to an important call. In the summer of 2020, two movements brought forth a new wave of overdue reckoning. Namely, the Movement for Black Lives and #MeToo. Neither movement was new. Black communities have been fighting for freedom and self-determination since before the inception of the United States. Tarana Burke began the MeToo Movement in 2006, focused on bringing "resources, support, and pathways to healing where none existed before" — laying the groundwork for the 2017 surge in truth telling (metoomvmt.org).

Our sibling, Oluwatoyin Salau, in her life and death, held up a mirror with these exact intersections.

One of the questions that came clearly to the surface was:

If we are not going to the police, since they perpetrate the same violence and are most often unhelpful in handling situation of sexual violence, what are we going to do?

Another question that arose was:

How will we be transformed by this?

In the wake of seemingly unending online call-outs — which often publicly named perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence — it became clear the collective was deeply unwell. The silence that was held for generations was being shattered. The pervasive culture of sexual violence was no longer able to hide in the scars of our bodies.

Those who came before us, often forced to experience the worst violations in silence, seemed to be screaming through us that summer.

The first iteration of Men's Circle lasted over 1.5 years, meeting weekly for 4-5 hour sessions. People joining Circle were welcome to come and go as needed, one example of how we cultivated a culture of choice rather than coercion. People were never called on to speak or required to speak at all. It left space for deep listening and an presence without performance.

We were interested in transformation through accountability, love, and community. Unable to change the past, we chose to show up in the present moment to explore what is needed to birth a different future.

The other plague we are facing is the bystander phenomenon. The insistence on "passively" watching while our siblings are degraded, harassed, assaulted, kidnapped, and murdered.

There is no such thing as a "passive bystander". Everyone present during a situation of misconduct or violence, is actively contributing to the outcome. Silent observation without true solidarity or intervention enables and normalizes the harm.

We sat together at the crux of these devastations and willed ourselves to do better.

Our missing and murdered siblings, including Oluwatoyin, give us great motivation to dig deeper. To sift through generations and lifetimes of trauma and remember another way of being together.

Circle began out of a deep love for and belief in our men, specifically Black men and men of color. We see how that without healing, our conditions stagnate and loop in cycles of violence.

Our task was to investigate the imbalances of our ecosystems and offer our truths and perspectives in effort to find healthier pathways forward.