The Opposite of Hopeless
Stacey Abrams in conversation with Eric Liu at the Homestead Community Land Trust annual fundraising event in Seattle, WA on September 27, 2025.
Last evening I was invited by my brother and sister-in-law to attend the annual fundraiser for Seattle’s Homestead Community Land Trust. The event included Eric Liu in conversation with the amazing and brilliant Stacey Abrams.
With an inspiring call to action by Board President Cherryl Jackson-Williams, Eric took the stage first. After serving in the Clinton and Obama administrations, he is now co-founder and CEO of Citizen University which works to build a culture of powerful and responsible citizenship in the United States. I immediately identified him as the man who waved me away from a parking lot that was full, one block away from the venue. Thank you, Eric, for saving me some time!
Stacey was as magnificent as I knew she would be. A master storyteller who magically weaves the facts of democracy with the impact that dramatic change is having in our lives and how we can choose to act in response. There’s so much more to share which I’ll do in my next Thankful Thursday post.
At the conversation intermission, Marcus Harrison Green, a Seattle-based publisher and journalist, took the stage with an impassioned ask of all in attendance. His ask was simple. Move into action to help Homestead Community Land Trust continue their efforts to create permanently affordable home-buying opportunities for income-qualified households.
His spoken word was a beautiful tapestry of how we arrived here and how people who have to leave their communities—and sometimes cities and states—where they were born and raised is an unreasonable solution to finding affordable housing. It’s hard to hear that the financial gain and overtaking of neighborhoods that have stood for decades for some, means others must leave their communities, and all that is familiar, in order to live safely and gain stability.
Marcus’ mic drop call-to-action moment was this statement, “The opposite of hopeless isn’t hope. It’s action.” He implored us to write a check, use our voice with elected officials, have conversations with family and friends, and most importantly, to hold ourselves accountable to what we are seeing happening right before our eyes.
Homestead Community Land Trust isn’t doing something new. They are using a model created by Civil Rights leaders and adopted by other homeownership organizations. It’s a sign that all that we need, we already have. All we have to do is put it into action.
Thank you, Marcus.