Contemplating 400 Years of Inequality
A Legacy of Reflection, Healing, and Historical Reckoning
Between 2018 and 2022, the Contemplating 400 Years of Inequality project served as a powerful contemplative and educational offering, inviting thousands of participants across the United States to reflect on the enduring legacy of racial injustice in America. Created by Dr. Angel Acosta as part of the national 400 Years of Inequality initiative, this experiential workshop blended mindfulness, historical analysis, and restorative dialogue to support individuals and communities in reckoning with the roots and ongoing impact of structural inequality.
At its core, the project asked a simple but profound question:
How do we sit with the truth of our shared history—and what kind of future might we build from that place of reflection?
A Contemplative Approach to Historical Memory
Participants engaged with a curated timeline of historical events spanning four centuries—from the arrival of enslaved Africans in 1619 to the present day. In silence and guided contemplation, individuals were invited to witness the arc of systemic injustice, followed by journaling, group reflection, and facilitated dialogue. The experience created space not only for historical awareness but for emotional processing, collective mourning, and the beginnings of healing.
This approach—merging contemplative practice with civic education—offered a unique model of truth-telling and restorative engagement, one that has been implemented across schools, universities, nonprofit organizations, and cultural institutions.
A Lasting Legacy
While the Contemplating 400 Years experience is no longer being actively facilitated, its spirit lives on in the hearts and minds of those who participated. It served as a foundational expression of healing-centered education, influencing the development of future Acosta Institute offerings like the Wounded Healers Portrait Series, the Healing-Centered Education Certificate Program, and the Acosta Institute Fellowship.
We continue to uplift this work as a legacy project—a reminder of the power of stillness, storytelling, and courageous truth-telling in times of great reckoning.
Learn more about the timelines and the project below.Â
"Angel Acosta is an inspiring guide through the timeline of our lives since the first slave ship arrived on North American shores that has shaped the history of the United States over the last four hundred years. Each of us can benefit as individuals and organizations in deeply experiencing this journey of our modern world to bring more wisdom, understanding and compassion to our collective lives."
Daniel Siegel
Clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute
"I walked late into the session... a hotel ballroom filled with people in silence...slowly pacing in and around the laminated words and images on the floor. I could tell from the intensity on their faces, there was a message in those laminated sheets that dug deep into each person's experience. As I got close enough to see what was holding everyone's attention so closely, I was surprised to see the 400 year history of my ancestor's painful yet resilient journey laid out on a graphic timeline. I was fascinated! I couldn't skip over ANYTHING! I wanted to read every word. To know those pieces of American history that speaks to the truth of our racist past and present. Angel's facilitation of the process was exquisite, as he was able to make the experience as digestible as possible for everyone."
Konda Mason
Filmmaker, activist, social entrepreneur, and Strategic Director of Jubilee Partners
"Angel Acosta’s work on 400 years of slavery and institutional racism focuses on what matters most: moving marginality to the center of collective attention. That shift in attention might well be the only way to truly address the increasing polarization in society today. He is a master facilitator that can hold these deep structural tensions in ways that allow for healing and possibility."
Otto Scharmer
Senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-founder of the Social Presencing Institute
"Angel Acosta has developed an embodied, emotionally powerful, and highly meditative first-person experience in which we literally walk at our own pace past large canvases on the floor depicting a time- line of major events in US history, most of which we hardly ever learn anything about in school or reflect upon as adults—events that mandated inequality, and legalized and institutionalized horrific injustices of all kinds. These legacies have huge and ongoing repercussions for all of us to this present day. Angel’s guidance in this reflective process gently invites us to learn and to heal, individually and collectively. Hopefully, it will also inspire us to act, to take stands both little and big, in the service of true equality and justice."
