Sweet Home Selma
with Krystal Allen, founder of K. Allen Consulting
By Michael Mckenzie
Over 500 activists marched from Brown Chapel to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, demanding Black Americans’ right to vote in 1965. Courtesy of Library of Congress. Photographer Peter Pettus.
Krystal Allen is a New Orleans resident and native of Selma, Alabama. As the founder of K. Allen Consulting, Krystal and her firm are passionate about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). She is also the best-selling author of the book entitled ‘What Goes Unspoken.’
Despite the staunch attacks and restrictions on DEI at the federal and state level, Krystal and her K. Allen Consulting are undeterred. I got the sense that Krystal’s resilience was a testament to her Selma upbringing. As Krystal reflects on helping her parents become homeowners for the first time, one can sense Krystal’s passion for housing justice.
What was it like growing up in Selma, Alabama?
I remember being surrounded by a lot of rich community, not in terms of material resources but in terms of plenty of like outlets and conduits to develop a healthy sense of a racial pride. I do reflect on my family not having financial means, and grew up in a lot of financial poverty and sleeping in jackets and double pants because we didn’t have heat in the house. But I was wealthy and the people around me instilled character and values. They taught me how to think.
“Who I am is a hundred percent because of how I was raised growing up in a small, but historic town like Selma.”
There was clarity of my like Black identity and a sense of social consciousness. I had permission even at a young age to question things that didn't make sense to me and things that felt unjust whether it was from the Black church setting or social and extracurricular spaces. I was taught who were graduates of Tuskegee University.
What is the approach and origin of K. Allen Consulting?
K. Allen Consulting is a New Orleans based education and management consulting firm and we provide a variety of capacity building to organizations and individual leaders across many different disciplines and industry backgrounds. Those supports look like trainings, coaching, strategic planning, auditing, and development of other customized tools such as frameworks to strengthen, deepen organizational overall effectiveness. We help organizations center principles that will help them live out their mission and vision.
We center our work around inclusion and justice and equity for the stakeholders that we serve. The work is super important to me as a founder because the firm was birthed out of a very traumatic workplace experience that I had as a Black woman in educational leadership. This was an experience of racial injustice.
The Edmund Pettus Bridge, now a National Historic Landmark, was the site of the brutal Bloody Sunday beatings of civil rights marchers during the first march for voting rights. The events mobilized the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which was signed into law on August 6, 1965.
With the attacks on Diversity Equity & Inclusion Initiatives, particularly in the Gulf South, how has K. Allen Consulting adjusted considering these attacks against Critical Race Theory or DEI?
Interestingly, one would think with the media coverage of political attacks on DEI would cripple our ability to do the work — but it's been quite opposite. Because Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are under attack we want to make sure we're on the right side of history. And so it's been really fascinating for us to see an expansion of who our clients are to restaurants and bars doing DEI trainings from a customer service standpoint and an HR standpoint. We have also been supporting early childhood centers especially around linguistic diversity and how they serve families of multi linguistic learners. I'm going to be honest with you, it feels even greater because we're doing it with people who really want to do it. Like they're not being forced to implement DEI. And as a matter of fact, because they're doing it in the midst of scrutiny is another sign that they really want the training.
You recently purchased a home for your parents in Selma who never owned a home. What was that like?
So, you know, being able to save enough money to purchase my family a home was special, especially knowing how hard my parents have worked their whole lives. My parents have been in jobs that just don't pay well so they've had this aspiration for a long time but could not afford [a home]. They weren't necessarily eligible for pre-approval because of their income thresholds. And so it felt like such an honor for me. I've always provided financial relief for my parents since having a job, like even at 16 years old. But being in this aspect of social entrepreneurship and being able to dream big and go after something so audacious was a great feeling. It was also powerful because it was the first time the property was owned by Black people. Being able to change the narrative of possibility and the symbolism behind purchasing my parents a home was huge.
And I think the other piece of it that I think about is the fact that not only is it about the physical space, but also the security for them physically, emotionally, and mentally. But there are so many people like them that work so incredibly hard every day, multiple jobs, and still can't afford the housing that they deserve. And my parents were in a situation where they had a landlord who wasn't doing right by them.
You know and so I think the housing justice is so real. It’s real because home ownership is not always because of a lack of information and awareness of how [to purchase a home] as opposed to the economic disparities and injustices that keep people from being able to access home ownership. So, I think on one hand [home ownership] is awareness and on the other hand, it's the means and the resources to purchase a home that should be at the core of equitable solutions.
Learn more: kallenconsulting.org