KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A new group aims to bridge racial and geographic divides between Missouri workers, to help bring economic prosperity to everyone.

The newly launched Missouri Workers Center has said it's pushing back against stereotypes and myths that can divide workers who share common interests.

The group was joined at its first event by Heather McGhee, author of "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together." She said there is, in her words, "a lie" that prosperity for some has to come at the expense of others. McGhee said it's being used to pit groups against each other - so, fighting for fair working conditions and combating racism go hand in hand.

"Forty percent of American workers are paid too little to meet their basic needs for things like housing and food," she said. "One percent of the population owns more wealth than the entire middle class."

Missouri's minimum wage is $10.30 an hour, after voters in 2018 approved a ballot initiative increasing the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2023. It previously was $7.85. The Missouri Workers Center has said it will advocate for such policies as paid leave and better working conditions.

Terrence Wise, a leader with the Missouri Workers Center who works at a McDonald's location in Kansas City, said prior to his introduction to organizing for a better wage, his workplace was segregated by the misperceptions that if Black workers are thriving, white workers are losing - or if immigrant workers are thriving, U.S.-born workers must be missing out.

"Not realizing that the time that we didn't sign each other's paychecks, we didn't write policy and legislation that dictate how our everyday lives were," he said. "All that was above us - the corporations, the elected leaders."

Wise added that it was important to realize that workers have to come together to demand change. In his own career, he said it's made the difference of earning $16 an hour instead of less than $8. Wise said campaigns such as "Fight for 15 and a Union" are making similar progress across the nation.

Today, the day after the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, comes a chance to put our ideals into action on the sixth annual National Day of Racial Healing.

Everyone is invited to log onto the virtual event, which will feature a performance by singer John Legend and roundtable discussions with social-justice advocates.

Dr. Icela Pelayo, program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which sponsors the event, said everyone can reach out to friends and family to talk about racial equity.

"When we take the time to see the humanity in one another and develop and repair our relationships, we are in a better position to advance racial equity and to fix our broken systems to cause the great injustices," Pelayo asserted.

The event starts at noon Pacific time today on dayofracialhealing.org. The website also has tips on how to engage in authentic conversations about racial healing and encourages people to share their own experiences using the hashtag #Howweheal.

In 2021, the City of Los Angeles created an Office of Racial Equity, an effort started several years ago at grassroots community dinners.

Pelayo pointed out the Day of Racial Healing is designed to start the conversation, so communities can decide what needs to be fixed and move forward.

"Whether they want to focus on various systems like housing or health care or transportation, justice, the economy," Pelayo outlined. "Communities know what they need, and therefore they definitely set the agenda."

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the Golden State is marked by wide racial disparities in criminal justice, health, wealth and education. And a 2016 study from UCLA found white households in L.A. have a median net worth of $355,000, while Mexican and African American households have a median wealth of $3,500 and $4,000 respectively.

Gov. Roy Cooper has signed a new executive order that directs cabinet agencies to consider issues of environmental justice when taking actions related to climate change, resilience and clean energy. Conservation groups are applauding the move.

The state will appoint an Environmental Justice Lead at each cabinet agency, tasked with increasing local residents' participation when projects are likely to affect their neighborhoods.

Daisha Williams, environmental justice manager with the group CleanAIRE NC, said providing a "point person" to tackle these issues will boost collaboration between state agencies.

"When they work together," she said, "it will result, of course, in more direct engagement with not only the agencies themselves but impacted communities to implement the needed remedies to foster the creative solutions that we need."

The order also called for more funding to increase public awareness about the health-related effects of climate change, and provide public updates on air pollution and heat-related illness risks and their disproportionate effects on Black and Brown communities.

Bonita Green, president of the Merrick Moore Community Development Corp., said she supports the executive order, adding that residents in her historically Black and increasing gentrified neighborhood feel they've been shut out of conversations on proposed development.

"The community is frustrated," she said, "the fact that development is just being shoved down our throats, and we have nothing to say about how our neighborhoods or communities are being developed."

Ron Ross, president of the Northwood Estates Community Organization in Charlotte, said families there are dealing with chronic health conditions from a lifetime of breathing polluted air. He said he believes the governor's latest action is a step in the right direction "for the communities that I live in - that are surrounded by highways, industrial facilities and so forth, and continue to be exposed to those situations on a daily basis."

The order also requires the state to update a greenhouse-gas inventory, to measure current levels of greenhouse-gas emissions and seek potential pathways to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

When plans come together for new retail centers and office buildings, policy experts and local leaders in Iowa said municipal and real-estate developers need to adopt a more inclusive mindset.

They said child care and accessible transportation should be on a project's checklist. The Greater Des Moines Partnership recently hosted a forum on the topic.

Dawn Oliver Wiand, president and CEO of the Iowa Women's Foundation, said their outreach has reinforced the belief child care is the number one barrier to economic success for women.

As it relates to development, she emphasized making sure a community has enough child-care workers who receive fair wages and benefits is key.

"If we can't figure out a way to step out of the box and creatively address that, we're not gonna have enough child-care slots," Oliver Wiand asserted.

She suggested businesses assisting with development investments not only help their staff, but also their bottom line by keeping more women in the workforce.

Wiand was on the governor's Child Care task force, which recently recommended a tax-credit program to incentivize employers to purchase available childcare spots for their workers.

Meanwhile, a regional transportation leader said more flexibility in public transit, such as non-traditional service hours, is important.

Luis Montoya, chief planning officer for Des Moines Area Regional Transit, said in his organization's long-term planning, it has found customers from different backgrounds prefer service that goes beyond the standard workday ride.

"The way people move about the community to drop their kids off to take night classes, shifts that are on the weekends or outside of what we would normally consider normal business hours," Montoya outlined.

He argued an expansive, inclusive transit vision should prioritize service information catering to those who speak little or no English.

The panel discussion also centered around needs to include input from those advocating for people with disabilities, noting they are not just consumers, but also business owners and entrepreneurs.