2022 Unity Walk grows beyond Tempe Town Lake amid pandemic

For the past 18 years, cities in the Phoenix area have come together at Tempe Town Lake to honor the fight against social injustices through the annual Regional Unity Walk.

Last year, in the wake of COVID-19, seven cities came together to compile a list of artwork for citizens to view at different locations. As the 2022 event approaches, officials are planning how to reach hundreds of neighborhoods in their united campaign.

The cities that participated included Chandler, Gilbert, Guadalupe, Mesa, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe, according to a press release from the City of Tempe.

“During this time, we invited residents to journey across city boundaries to safely explore different pieces of cultural art,” Mayor John Giles of Mesa said in an official video produced by the City of Tempe.

This year, the City of Tempe Humans Relations Commission has been working on something different in regards to planning the upcoming Unity Walk for January 2022. Due to current COVID-19 case numbers and the arrival of the Delta variant, the board has decided that the best course of action would be to conduct these celebrations on the microlevel in neighborhoods within different communities. They plan to do this while still utilizing diverse forms of artwork as an outlet to express emotions about different injustices.

“There is a common ground in the expression of art. When given the ability to congregate and contribute artistically to some kind of event, it engages all demographics of people. It helps engage the youth, and if you engage with the youth you begin to foster real cultural change,” Jana Lynn Granillo, a member of the Humans Relations Commission said.

The tentative plan for this year’s upcoming celebrations is to incorporate social justice-inspired and themed movies into the events. In addition to having featured artwork from local artists, Jonae Harrison, equity and inclusion manager for the City of Tempe, wants to encourage discussions centered around different movies, Ted Talks, speeches and podcasts featuring enlightening information about ongoing diversity and equity inclusion issues.

“Within the communities, our goal is to create thought-provoking and generative conversations that each of the neighborhood pods can discuss,” Harrison said. “Our plan would be to incorporate a new movie every week. Instead of the normal Unity Walk, we would consider this a new and different way to have unity in your block.”

There are about 127 communities between formal neighborhood associations, HOAs and other groups of residents this initiative is planning on reaching. By hopefully working alongside guidance from Common Ground: The Cleveland Foundation, Harrison hopes these new and improved plans come to fruition.

Common Ground is a foundation built and based upon community partnerships. Each year they showcase the residents in their communities who want to find new ways to bring people together. They strive to “grow common ground by utilizing people, places and shared power,” according to their website and mission statement.

“A few years ago, the Human Relations Commission came up with a diversity dialogues program that had high interest and success rates. When I came onto the board one of the things that I talked to others about, and have worked with some people on, was how to modernize the program and put it on a platform that really parallels where we are and where people's interests currently are,” Harrison said.