SURJ Boston

Take Action Together

☎️ 📋 ✊ ACTION HOURS

Every Wednesday 12 to 1 PM
Register here for action hours and invite friends to action hours on Facebook.

• The link is recurring, you can choose one or more sessions, and you can register again if you don’t know your schedule yet.
• Captions available: please try to indicate need for captions by 11:30 AM the Monday before your session.

SURJ Boston active members lead these weekly sessions to build collective power—we do a feature on a particular effort or issue, make phone calls, send emails, and sign petitions. Facilitators are on hand to answer questions!

Indigenous Solidarity

☎️ CONTACT YOUR REPS: CHANGE THE STATE FLAG AND SEAL!

The House of Representatives has not yet voted for a review of the racist Massachusetts state flag and seal. Call and email you reps TODAY during this extended legislative session and urge them to vote to change the flag and seal, and to ban Native mascots! Follow the link for an easy way to send messages to your elected officials.

🍎Webinar: Herring Pond Wampanoag Culture, History and Place-Based Knowledge

Thurs. September 3, 7-8pm

In this presentation, Tribal Chairwoman Ferretti and Dr. Den Ouden will discuss the importance of teachings of Elders and other community members about Indigenous place-based knowledge: a knowledge which reflects the spirit and power of Indigenous peoples that is rooted in an enduring connection to land, water, and wildlife. Indigenous place-based knowledge offers us the guidance required to heal the earth and to end environmental exploitation and destruction.

Housing Justice

📋 ALERT: SIGN TO PROTECT ESSENTIAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECT!

One of the largest affordable and supportive housing projects in Boston is under threat. Despite broad community support for this project, which will provide affordable housing and supportive services for people who have experienced homelessness, a large landowner and landlord Monty Gold filed a lawsuit against them, using racist and classist language citing that the project would be "dangerous" to the community. DEMAND THAT MONTY GOLD DROP THE LAWSUIT: read up, sign, and share the petition. We have 650 signatures already; help us get to 1000 by Monday!

🍎 JOIN US NEXT SUNDAY: TEACH-IN FOR RENT CONTROL

A long-term solution for housing stability in Massachusetts is long overdue. Join us next Sunday (12-2pm) to learn about where we are in the fight for rent control and how you can get involved. Register for the teach-in here!

☎️ CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS NOW FOR HOUSING STABILITY!

The legislative session has been extended and key housing justice bills have not been voted on—keep up the pressure!

• Call your legislators with this automatic calling tool today to prevent tens of thousands of evictions come October. If they've co-sponsored the Guarantee Housing Stability Act (H.4878/S.2831), ask them to request that Speaker of the House Robert Deleo and Senate President Karen Spilka schedule an immediate vote.
• Use this page to send a follow up email

📋 Sign and Share the Housing Guarantee

Massachusetts residents may soon face eviction, foreclosure, and huge amounts of housing debt when the state of emergency officially ends. It's going to take thousands of people to join the housing justice movement. We are 91% of the way to the 5,000 signature goal! Read up and sign it now!

Eviction Help

Are you, or someone you know, worried about getting evicted? Call City Life/ Vida Urbana's hotline.

• English: 617-934-5006
• Español: 617-397-3773

Prison Abolition

✊ ☎️ SURJ National Abolition Action Zaps

August 26th, 2:00 PM

Join us for a weekly Action Zap through August where we will take action together on pressing campaigns to get feds out of cities, #FreeThemAll, #DefundThePolice, and demand justice as part of Black and people of color led campaigns for collective liberation. Join with a cell phone and computer for this one-hour Action Zap to make phone calls and send emails to campaign targets around the country. Register here and see the Facebook event for more details.

💵 DONATE TO HELP KIMYA'S HOUSE

Kimya's House is a re-entry home run by and for formerly incarcerated Black women -- open on time in spite of setbacks from the pandemic.

☎️ 📋 Week of Action: Building Up People Not PRison

• Your calls and emails are having an impact! The legislative session was extended so we can continue to push for racial justice for our communities!
• Push the Senate and House to pass No Cost Calls ASAP!
• Contact Boston City Council to defund the Boston Regional Intelligence Center!

Sign these petitions to protect our people from police and prisons!

• Demand Gov. Baker use his clemency power to bring our people home!
• Release Arthur to home confinement! Arthur Williams remains in remission after a battle with leukemia, making him particularly vulnerable COVID19.
• Free David Yarde, wrongfully convicted of murder in 2012
• Support Raeshawn *Children need healing not punishment by incarceration*

Support Our Organizers And Our Communities!

💵 Invest in k, Community, and Black Radical Organizing
One of SURJ Boston's active members, Lisa, is working on a reparations project for a friend and comrade, karen marshall, a Black organizer. She and Lisa first met in Boston over 10 years ago and they have stayed connected and work on several projects together, one included hosting trainings led by Rethink youth in Boston. karen is a national leader and much of her work is connected to the Movement for Black Lives which is also very much connected to SURJ National. Please consider donating to this GoFundMe (and read more about her there).

💵 BLACK MEN X TRANS WOMEN 'BRIDGING THE GAP' EVENT

Please take a minute to learn about and support this vital work. BMEN and The Transgender Emergency Fund have created a series, titled Bridging the Gap, that brings Transgender POC and straight men together in community to talk and gather more understanding, in hopes that this dialogue can be the foundation to making a difference in the trans communities lived experiences through awareness and understanding.

Immigration Justice

💵 SUPPORT MASSACHUSETTS JOBS WITH JUSTICE

Massachusetts Jobs with Justice is declaring August as their month of movement-building and movement-giving. Follow them on Facebook to learn more about their ongoing work and campaigns. You can donate or become a monthly sustainer!

✊DIGNITY FOR DAUDA
Dauda Handan needs to get the dignity he deserves. On May 22, 2019, Dauda was shot by police while experiencing a mental health crisis and now faces unjust charges. Please take action by signing this petition asking the Hampton County’s DA office to drop charges, and share out the Dignity for Dauda Facebook event with your networks.

Worker Solidarity

📋 Sign: SOLIDARITY WITH EAST COAST SEX EDUCATORS (SECSE)

Support striking sex educators at Good Vibrations in Brookline! SECSE demands higher COVID-19 safety standards, better communication from our corporate office, a stronger human resources department, scheduled raises, and more local decision making power. For a more detailed list of demands, visit SECSE.net. Sign this petition to support!

📋 OUR ESSENTIAL WORKERS DESERVE BETTER!

Demand that Stop and Shop executives extend hazard pay for essential workers past the original July 4th cut-off and until the pandemic is over. Sign this petition to show Stop and Shop it needs to stop putting profits before its workers.

✊ 💵 Support Whole Foods workers in Cambridge

Workers have been sent home without pay and punished for wearing BLM masks. They are connecting organizing efforts at other stores, but are going up against a behemoth of white supremacist capitalism. They are demanding:

1. A company-wide commitment to hiring more BIPoC for leadership positions
2. Black Lives Matter apparel normalized within the company
3. Backpay for all protesting employees, and related disciplinary points revoked

How you can help:

1. Donate to a GoFundMe! to compensate workers for lost wages
2. Follow updates from the workers on Twitter and from community supporters

Mutual Aid and Supplies Collection

✊ 💵 alert: food and Critical Supplies Needed

We are partnered with 3 organizations (Cape Verdean Association of Boston, 12th Baptist Church, and VietAID) that have been working tirelessly since the start of the pandemic to provide food and essential supplies to hundreds of families and seniors each week.

They have all informed us that critical supplies like food and toilet paper are NEEDED NOW MORE THAN EVER. Families in our community are facing increasing financial stress as life in the pandemic passes 6 months and debt piles. PLEASE DONATE WHATEVER YOU CAN this week and on to help our neighbors stay afloat in a crisis that disproportionately affects those already most targeted by racism and white supremacy.

This week we’re asking folks to focus on the following items for 12th Baptist and CVAB:

• Clean travel size squeeze bottles (for distributing hand sanitizer)
• Canned goods
• Other nonperishable foods (especially Vietnamese, Chinese, Caribbean, Cape Verdean foods)
• Diapers
• Toilet paper
• Paper towels

For VietAID they are accepting the following donations:

• Oatmeal (boxes of individual packets)
• Mac n’ cheese
• Tuna

To get connected to more ways to help out, please fill out our community offers survey (if you haven’t yet).

🚗 DRIVING

Click here to join the driving group: Auto-mobilize! our announcements (and clarifying questions) only WhatsApp thread. We will announce

• Regular driving opportunities with their sign up form/contact information
• Last minute asks for drivers with contact information
• Car caravan actions seeking more folks to come make some noise in a physically distant way as we advocate for racial justice

Joining this thread is a commitment to actively engage and fulfill driving asks. The announcements on this list may not be for general knowledge, do not share anything outside of it without permission.

Public Education

☎️ Call Mayor Walsh

Call Mayor Marty Walsh at 3-1-1 (617-635-4500). Tell him we reject the “hopscotch” plan for reopening schools that was put forth for Boston Public Schools, and that we want to return to our school buildings when it is safe for our students, families, and educators—we need to hear that plan first! Ask him to support a phased-in plan which includes expectations that every school is provided with sufficient PPE, cleaning supplies, working sinks, windows, and other building repairs, plus time for relevant and adequate professional development before students return. This is critical for a safe and smooth reopening.

📋 SIGN NOW: BEJA Petition

Our partner the Boston Education Justice Alliance (BEJA) is asking for folks to sign this petition to ask the BPS School Committee to act swiftly in adopting the recommendation of the BPS Opportunity Gap Task Force and suspend the exam based admissions policy for Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Sciences, and we further call on the School Committee to direct the BPS to design an alternative selection process that does not use an exam for SY 20-21.

The entrance exams are frequently a barrier for black and brown students and with the disruption to the school year due to COVID-19, they are even more problematic. This petition only needs 750 more signatures, can you help us get there?

💵 SUPPORT Unafraid Educators

Unafraid Educators has set up a COVID-19 Relief Fund for students and families in Boston Public Schools who need financial support during this time. Please share the form with those who might need it, and donate to the fund if you are able.

Confronting White Supremacists

✊ join our announcement list

Join our Confronting White Supremacists Announcement List to hear from us about opportunities to learn more and take action against non-state white supremacists and fascists in New England.