Rebuilding the American Dream: Leadership, DEI, and the Power of Community Connection
Q&A with Governor Deval Patrick (Part 2)
Originally from the South Side of Chicago, Deval Patrick earned a scholarship to Milton Academy at age 14 and went on to graduate from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He began his career as a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, later becoming a partner at two Boston law firms and a senior executive at two Fortune 50 companies. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Patrick led the nation’s top civil rights office.
In 2006, he was elected the first African American Governor of Massachusetts, serving two terms. His administration expanded health care to over 98% of residents, advanced clean energy, boosted employment to a 25-year high, and made historic investments in education.
Patrick was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. He serves as Senior Partner at The Vistria Group, co-founded Bain Capital Double Impact and the Hauser Leader at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. Previously, he was the David R. Gergen Professor of Public Leadership and co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. A Rockefeller Fellow and Aspen Institute Crown Fellow, Patrick is the author of two books.
Kevin Robinson: We are delighted and fortunate today to have a conversation with Governor Deval Patrick. Governor, welcome.
Deval Patrick: Thank you very much, Kevin. Mary Jo, good to see you.
Robinson: I’d like to start by giving a bit of background. Our readers know certain roles that you have played — for example, you were head of the Civil Rights Division for the U.S. Attorney General’s Office.
Patrick: The days when it was in the civil rights business, right?
Robinson: That’s correct. You were the first African American governor, serving for two terms for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as later, you were in the academic and social entrepreneur space as a professor and the co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. All of that leads to our excitement to explore with you the issues and challenges we’re facing today — how you’d describe them and, hopefully, identify effective solutions to those issues. In many respects, you personify what we call the American Dream and given your lived experience we are particularly interested in your perspective, on the issues we’re facing relating to race and gender equity and from a DEI perspective.
Patrick: Wow. Start with the big open-ended question.
Robinson: It was a big wind-up.
Patrick: I think my own “coming up” story matters here. I’m a welfare kid from the South Side of Chicago who shared a room and a set of bunk beds with my mother and my sister — top bunk, bottom bunk, then the floor. Every third night on the floor, I went to big, broken, under-resourced, and sometimes violent public schools, but I had great teachers and other adults who paid attention to me — family, school, neighborhood. That was a time when every child was under the jurisdiction of every adult on the block. If you messed up down the street, Ms. Jones would call you out just as if you were at home. They were trying to teach us about what it meant to be a member of a community — that we all belong to each other at some level — and that part of their expectation of us was to do what we could to leave things better for those who came behind.
I compare my coming up to our kids, who always had their own rooms, most of that time in a big house in a leafy neighborhood outside Boston. They have traveled widely. They have friends of all sorts through childhood and into their adult lives. I remember they grew up knowing not just how to pronounce, but how to use a concierge.
When our youngest was in school, she had a homework assignment about the changing seasons. She was asked to describe the four seasons to mom and dad. My wife asked if she was ready. She said yes — and proceeded to describe her visits to the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C.: “First, you drive up and the doorman takes your car.” She recalled this from when she was five years old. One generation, and the circumstances of my life and my family completely transformed.
While that story of social mobility has not been told often enough — certainly not often enough on the South Side of Chicago — it was once told more often in this country than anywhere else. It’s a defining story, or it was. The fact that it has been slipping out of reach for so many people — for a long time — matters. When you connect the number of decisions, some small and some not so small, that we have made as a matter of policy — personally and economically — you can begin to understand why so many people across the political spectrum are frustrated, disappointed, and maybe even feel betrayed. That creates an environment for our leaders to invoke or provoke the worst of us instead of the best.
I don’t mean to say all is lost. But there’s a way in which many of us, from all sorts of walks and stations in life, are feeling disempowered to make the kind of country, economy, and community that we still crave. We’ve got a tremendous amount of work to do. The question many of us ask is: who’s doing it, and how do we get that work done?
Robinson: Thank you. We talk about race and gender equity and DEI. We can talk about the academic environment and the corporate environment and the issues in both. Do you see a through line in terms of effective strategies to push back? Not only identifying problems, but what solutions might look like?
Patrick: Not just one. First of all, I don’t think this is the first time we’ve been here as a country. From the start, we’ve struggled with what equality really means. Do we mean what we say about the lofty civic values around which the country is organized? Even the founders — Jefferson among them — wrote and debated whether the institution of slavery could live alongside those ideals. Compromises were made in the interest of unity — sacrifices of generations of Black people to hold it together. They knew the question would be called, and it was — up to and through the Civil War. There was a tremendous affirmation — dealing with the gap between our reality and our ideals — and we worked hard to close it. We had Reconstruction, until we didn’t. Another compromise was made in the interest of power, and it was another hundred years before the question was called again.
Much of the modern civil rights movement unfolded when I was a kid. There was a tremendous sense of hopefulness then. One thing that strikes me about the difference between that period in the ’50s and ’60s and my work — as a civil rights lawyer at the Legal Defense Fund, later at the Civil Rights Division, and in private industry — is that a lot of people, in many ways, were trying to close the gap between our reality and our ideals. But in our history, we often default to the “great person,” and almost always “great man” conclusion: that it all happened because of Dr. King, or a chief justice, or Abraham Lincoln — when in fact one or two people gave voice to a groundswell.
On Inauguration Day when Barack Obama took the oath of office, the city was swollen with people, all feeling joyful. Total strangers greeted each other. It was peaceful. But the brand-new president understood he was being given credit and the weight for what a lot of people had done and taken responsibility for. His election was a milestone on a journey.
It’s worth remembering that the fix lies with all of us. It doesn’t lie solely with the next president, the next CEO. It’s the things we all do, choose to do, and choose not to do — and that we try to do collectively — that will make a difference in the next turn we take. That’s what’s happening. What’s frustrating to me, as a loyal but frustrated Democrat, is the lack of leadership in the party, the flat-footedness. I’m not just talking about resistance; I’m talking about the alternative. What’s the idea that competes with the idea that everything is scarce, and whatever you get, I lose? That’s absurd, especially when we’re talking about civic values like equality. It’s like saying there’s only so much love, and if you get some, I can’t have any. That’s not how this works.
So, I’m looking for — and trying to support — the folks who are organizing and spreading the gospel of community. There are a lot of them doing it despite social media’s portrayal that we’re overwhelmed by meanness, hate, and fear. Through history, those organizers have been responsible for closing the gap between our reality and our ideals, and I think there’s still an appetite for those ideals.
Robinson: As an aside, my 80-something year-old mother, my kids, my wife, and I were part of that crowd in 2008 as well.
Patrick: It was magic.
Robinson: It really was. The fact that my mother walked a mile and a half to a gathering was impressive and magical.
Patrick: There was a woman I met at my first inauguration, which we moved outside in January because there wasn’t enough room for all who wanted to witness it, who said in the primary that she went to get her mom, who lived six or seven stories up and was partly disabled. Her mom said, “I am voting on primary day and on election day, and I’m voting for Patrick.” She went to get her mom, and the elevator was broken. She climbed all those stories, wondering how she’d explain that she couldn’t get her mom downstairs to vote. When she arrived, winded, her mom was sitting there with her handbag on her lap, ready to go. She said, “Mom, I’m so sorry, the elevator is broken.” Her mom pushed herself up and said, “Take my bag.” And her mom walked down every one of those steps because she wanted not just to be a part of something historic, but to make history. She understood her power. That is what makes change happen — understanding how personal it is.
Mary Jo Meisner: Governor, that was beautiful. My question is about change happening. I want to harken back to the first time we interviewed you for the Social Impact Review in November 2020. I interviewed you about the election of Joe Biden and asked you to reflect on that. That was a huge change that had just occurred. Here we are five years later, and it’s hard to imagine all that has occurred in those five years. We were talking then about your work with American Bridge, about bringing people to the table in new ways. That kind of work, as you’ve referenced, needs to continue. One of the things we talked about recently was the issue of celebrity and spectacle overtaking norms — the death of shame — and what has occurred in our societal fabric. I’d love to have you talk about the last five years.
Patrick: Say what you will about Joe Biden: his was a consequential presidency. The number of pieces of big, important legislation enacted — some of it in jeopardy now — matters. He was willing to propose and, with Congress, enact consequential changes in the law, and through that express a vision of a national community that invests in each other. What they didn’t do well enough, in my view, was promote that as part of a vision rather than just a list of legislative changes. People want to feel like they understand where we’re being led — what’s the destination? The destination was in his mind, but not always in the rhetoric: a vision of the kind of country we could be, with the public sector doing its part and the private sector doing its part.
More important to me are the things that didn’t happen, and some of that is about our politics and who feels like they are part of it. If you don’t live in a battleground state, you could think the primary has nothing to do with you. Increasingly, if you don’t live in key counties in those battleground states, you could think it doesn’t mean anything to you at all. If you’re a Democrat in a so-called red state or a Republican in a so-called blue state, nobody talks to you. Campaigns come to Massachusetts because it’s a good place to raise money, not because they’re campaigning here and listening to people.
Seventy-seven million people voted for Donald Trump. I think it was seventy-six million who voted for Kamala Harris. But ninety million people who could have voted didn’t. It won’t do to scold them for not voting or scold the media for not covering the importance of the race. What counts is engaging with people — not just in time for the transaction of a vote, but around the question of what kind of country we want, and what rights and responsibilities that bring to each of us, everywhere.
Based on work through a project we call Shared America, I think we are a lot less divided than we are portrayed. There is a strategy to portray us as divided, which furthers the strategy of making people feel discouraged. The less involved they are, the easier it is for people who want power for its own sake to have it. There’s a lot of work to do, but fertile ground to do it in. Americans are still up to it, but we have to call out some of the ways we all “politic,” and the things we put up with. It’s more than our social media habits. We’ve become an increasingly reality TV society, where a lack of decorum is entertainment.
It’s amazing the impact celebrities have — though I’m not sure what that impact really is. I’ve seen campaigns where a candidate chooses a famous concert over a grassroots event. I understand the profile-raising, but sooner or later the point has to be the people you’re serving, not the people you get to hang with. I once asked one of our kids about a particular celebrity — starts with a K — why they were a celebrity. The response was, “That’s just what they are.” No book, no transformational film, no other achievement. Celebrated because that’s what they set out to become. That felt like the death of civilization — but it’s a thing. There’s more to life than the number of likes on social media. Some young people understand that and need air cover and airtime to get that message across, so we keep social media in perspective. It isn’t right now from where I sit.
Robinson: I want to circle back. One of the things we talked about before was this notion of a campfire — common ground. It seems rare now to identify common ground that the majority believes to be important. In your beautiful anecdote about the grandmother coming down the steps: who, and how, do we make it impactful for people to know that their voice counts?
Patrick: Of the many things social media promised, one outcome has been more isolation than connectedness. Having a list of contacts isn’t the same as having a circle of friends. A circle of friends takes time and investment — highs and lows, exposure and forgiveness, learning and laughter. Social media enables that only in part and superficially. You can go down rabbit holes that make you more isolated. Everybody knows that.
But there are still local groups that build community on purpose — houses of worship, civic and volunteer activities. I’m a great believer in national service, civilian or military. It’s important for people who are different to be together and work together to meet unmet needs beyond themselves. That builds understanding and empathy.
Some of this is the old stuff people do — high school theater, youth sports. Our grandson is doing Taekwondo and building relationships in his classes. Schools historically enabled this for kids. Adults are having to figure out how to do it today — and that’s a lot to ask when many are working two and three jobs or much longer hours just to hold things together.
I don’t have a complete answer, except I think we’re going to have to figure out how to do things together — not just sit in a room facing each other, but do things and experience things together, ideally in service of someone else or something bigger than you. That’s how communities are formed and have been through history. Because we’re built to crave community, I’m hopeful. Through the Shared America project, I’m in search of those examples so people know they aren’t alone trying to find or do this in their local communities.
Meisner: We’ve gone through the assassination of Charlie Kirk. On one hand you don’t want to say it’s shocking because, unfortunately, in our society political violence is not shocking anymore. But many wrote about the need to come together in the wake of this, even as there’s backlash to what people say and how they say it. We saw Jimmy Kimmel suspended. The move against “bowling alone” is needed and yet seems hard to grasp, which is why I like hearing you talk about American Bridge and Shared America — efforts that bring people together.
Patrick: Thank you. I hope we don’t lose our capacity to be shocked by violence — let alone political violence. Sadly, we’ve seen so much that it’s not out of the ordinary — but that’s shocking too.
There ought to be a way to put your shock about the assassination of Charlie Kirk—or any of the others who’ve been killed or attacked because of their political views — into words regardless of the victim, and still have a place to say you do or do not accept those views, or that they are or aren’t helpful in building a unified, pluralistic society where we all belong. I don’t celebrate Kirk’s killing. I feel for his young family; they must be rudderless right now. You want to wrap them in your heartstrings and care for their healing. At the same time, some of what I understand were Kirk’s views and language — about immigrants aspiring to the American Dream, about Black people, about women — are not views I can accept or celebrate. I can hold that view and still grieve an act of violence.
Robinson: There’s such a coarsening of the discourse to get attention — eyes, clicks. To get attention, you have to go beyond the prior level of coarsening, and I don’t know how we pull back from that. Community, in my view, is organic and bottom-up. Politics, at least in the two big parties, has been top-down in recent history. How do we combine bottom-up organic power with top-down power to address these issues?
Patrick: I’m not sure, but history tells us that when there has been change at the top, it came because the bottom generated it. Barack Obama wasn’t the party insider when he first ran. He overcame the Democratic establishment at the national level. Same was true for me at the state level. What we didn’t accomplish as well as grassroots campaigning was grassroots governing. That puzzle still needs to be worked out.
People have criticized OFA — Obama for America, later Organizing for Action — for not taking over the DNC. I think they didn’t because the DNC didn’t want them at the beginning and kept them at arm’s length. There was unease there — maybe a missed opportunity.
When I left office, the Democratic establishment closed ranks behind us in Massachusetts and went back to some of the old ways. One thing about the grassroots: we have to learn that it isn’t just one destination; it’s an expectation of changing behavior and sustaining it. It’s not just the next election; it’s what we do to hold ourselves and those we empower accountable. That takes energy, time, and some resources — though a fraction of what’s raised for campaigns.
When I was a kid, my mother was a member of the Young Democrats Club on the South Side of Chicago. It was social in part — making sure everybody had a turkey at Thanksgiving — but when you moved to the neighborhood, everybody knew who you were, who was voting age, whether you were registered, which precinct you were in. If you moved elsewhere, that information got passed on. You can call it the machine, but it was its own form of community, sustained between elections by relationships and convenings — some politics, lots of gossip and information. Relationship-building.
There were forms of this all over the country in the Democratic Party. We invented this. Then we got too smart and started relying on consultants, poll data, and money for TV ads — which is not the same as a sustained relationship.
I remember early in business, executives would take me to their country clubs. Everyone supposedly was Republican. I don’t think a lot of them had thought deeply about party; everybody else was Republican, so they were too. Party can be more about affiliation than identity. Affiliation itself has power: “I’m a Democrat because my mama and my grandma were Democrats.” Like it or not, that’s a trusted source. Part of building community is that affiliation — making it feel like something other than a transaction. We can do that; we just don’t.
Robinson: Do we have to break apart some of the things that don’t work to get to that community and affiliation? Do you see anyone — political or grassroots — who can pull the levers we need to move us forward? To some degree I fear we’re moving backward.
Patrick: There are people working this way all over the country — politically and otherwise. Among Democrats, there’s a great organization that identifies and supports such groups around the country called Movement Voter Project, based in Massachusetts — very thoughtful and consistent in identifying organizers and organizations building lasting relationships and engaging many unengaged or disengaged people in politics and civic life. I have a lot of respect for them, and there are others.
I agree we’re moving backward. Part of the strategy is to convince us it’s inevitable and there’s nothing we can do. As Democrats, we will continue to lose power until we elevate organizing work above the conventional advice of consultants who say the way to win is to raise as much money as possible to run 30-second attack ads in the final weeks — making people afraid of the other side rather than offering an alternative vision and destination. Some candidates see that and are working on it — some thinking about running for president, many for city or town council or school committee. We need them at all levels. When they identify themselves, I try to help.
Meisner: That’s a terrific note to end on, Governor. Once again, you’ve given us so much to think about — so much context and hope. Thank you for doing this with us.
Patrick: Thank you.
Robinson: I echo that. And it wouldn’t be a conversation among us unless I pointed out Mary Jo’s connection to Chicago, my connection to Chicago, your connection.
Patrick: Chicagoland, that’s right.
Robinson: Thank you so much for your time and your thoughts.
About the Authors:
Kevin Robinson serves as co-lead and senior editor for the Race and Gender Equity Domain under the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative Social Impact Review. He has substantial private sector and public sector legal, governance and strategic expertise and, among other roles, serves as a board member on several community and national non-profit organizations. Kevin is a 2022 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow.
Mary Jo Meisner is a senior business executive specializing in communications, media, government relations, and public policy. Over the course of a 30-year career, Mary Jo has been a journalist, a newspaper and business executive, and was the architect of a groundbreaking civic leadership arm of the Boston Foundation. After spending a year as a 2017 Advanced Leadership Initiative fellow at Harvard University, Mary Jo formed MJM Advisory Services, a bespoke consulting firm that advises senior leaders in the private sector on their social impact initiatives.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.