The Kellogg Foundation CEO shares her own life story to foster more racial healing

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La June Montgomery Tabron believes many Americans have a desire for racial healing. They just don’t know how to start.

“It may sound mysterious or challenging,” said Montgomery Tabron, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s first woman and first Black CEO. “But it’s actually quite simple.”

It starts, she says, with a conversation — with the sharing of stories between people of different backgrounds so they can better understand each other. So when Montgomery Tabron set out to explain the foundation’s “Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation” work and its creation of the annual National Day of Racial Healing, set for Jan. 21 this year, she realized she should do it by sharing her own story.

That’s what she does in a pair of books released earlier this month —“How We Heal: A Journey Toward Truth, Racial Healing and Community Transformation from the Inside Out,” a memoir tracing the steps from her Detroit childhood to leading one of philanthropy’s most prestigious foundations, and “Our Differences Make Us Stronger,” a children’s book about connecting with others outside our comfort zones.

“I wanted to use the methodology of healing that we use, which is through storytelling,” she said. “I think people relate through stories. And this became a book of very interconnected stories.”

The Associated Press recently spoke with Montgomery Tabron about her books and the Kellogg Foundation’s racial healing work. The interview was edited for clarity and length.

Yes. There were several places across our portfolio where we had the same reaction: Had it not been for the healing work, a situation could have escalated, particularly in Buffalo. Not only was that work about connecting people, it also was about affirming everyone as part of the