A self-identified white supremacist walked into the Tops Friendly Markets grocery store and executed 10 innocent Black people whose only “crime” was being Black and shopping at the only grocery store accessible to their community.

Unbeknownst to me, this egregious act of racial terror fueled by White Christian Nationalism would change my life.

Seventy-two hours later, I was on a plane headed to Buffalo. When asked what they needed, Rev. Denise Walden-Glenn, then executive director of VOICE Buffalo, called my name. At the time of the shooting, I had only been coaching Rev. Denise for about 60 days.

In the aftermath of Ferguson, I had answered calls to multiple cities — usually supporting organizers and faith leaders responding to the police killings of unarmed Black people. Buffalo was different. This was the first time I had been called to put my boots on the ground after a mass shooting.

As expected, I encountered a community engulfed in grief and chaos. What I did not expect was the absence of faith leaders in the places they were needed most.

In the days and weeks that followed, I found myself accompanying Rev. Denise, the FBI Special Victims Unit, and grieving families through some of the most intimate and painful moments of their lives: sitting for hours in funeral homes as families made arrangements for loved ones, gathered around dining room tables while obituaries were written, standing beside families in the courtroom during the arraignment of the shooter — where only two local faith leaders were present, one of them the brother of a victim — and attending seven of the ten funerals, many of which had little visible clergy presence.

It was in the aftermath of that collective trauma and sacred work of pastoral accompaniment that In the Public Square was born.

Incorporated in the State of Missouri in 2024, the organization has been incubating for a moment such as this: a moment when troops are dispatched into Black-led communities, when coordinated judicial and legislative attacks threaten our people and our voting rights, and when too many communities are left to navigate crisis alone.

In the Public Square is not merely committed to showing up. We are committed to preparing people to show up well — training faith leaders, organizers, and community members to accompany communities through crisis, coordinate resistance to systemic threats, and build the collective power necessary to confront and ultimately transform the very systems that create these crises in the first place.