From integration to racial justice: Organizational learning in the YWCA

Retired, national YWCA leaders engaged in shared storytelling in order to explore organizational learning that occurred during 1946‐1970, a critical period of organizational history for the YWCA of the USA. Adopting an organizational mission to eliminate racism by any means necessary (1970) was a culmination of individual and collective learning regarding social justice that resulted in organizational change. Themes that emerged in the shared storytelling were complemented by a search of organizational documents and studies. Describes individual and collective learning in the YWCA and its members between 1946‐1970, and reports on the first phase of a study which will be conducted in five urban centres in the USA. Concludes that shared storytelling illustrates the potential and the challenge of organizational and social change when a movement commits itself to justice.