✊ ACTION HOURS
Every Wednesday 12-1 PM, as well as every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 5 PM, SURJ Boston members will guide you through actions curated from our BIPOC-led partners' priorities for that week! We also offer training in how to host action hours for your own community from 1-1:30 PM on the last Wednesday of the month. Action hours are open to all! Bring friends! :) Register here!
⭐️✊☎️join us at the polls this tuesday
Join us in supporting the Yes on 1 for a Better Budget campaign this Tuesday, September 14th by standing out at the polls to get the word out about #YesOn1. Sign up here for AM or PM shifts (we’ll pass your info along to the campaign), upcoming canvassing dates with SURJ Boston, phone-banking, and more!
⭐️✊TOMORROW AT 11:30 AM: SHOW UP FOR PRISON MORATORIUM RALLY AT THE STATE HOUSE!
Building Up People Not Prisons has been walking across Massachusetts to raise awareness for the need to stop prison construction since September 7. Join us tomorrow for the final events: a walk & car caravan from Suffolk County House of Corrections to the State House, followed by a petition delivery and press conference. We’re especially looking for people to join the 11:30 am rally at the State House! Register online at bit.ly/RSVPnonewprisons.
💵 Solidarity with New Orleans Hurricane Relief
A member of SURJ Boston is connected to folks on the ground in New Orleans through Rethink, a youth-led organization. Rethink has already supported over 200 people with housing, transportation, and vital supplies – and there are so many more looking for support and to join their organizing work.. Please donate so they can continue to show up for their community.
Prison Abolition
✉️ WRITE IN SUPPORT OF A #DEEPERTHANWATER FRIEND SEEKING PAROLE
Sean “Truth” Evelyn, an incarcerated friend and organizer with the #DeeperThanWater coalition, needs letters of support for his upcoming parole hearing. These letters from the community are important for letting the parole board know that Truth has support outside the walls. Write and mail your letter today!
Indigenous Solidarity
⭐️✉️ TELL YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS TO PASS THE NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AND HISTORY EDUCATION BILL OUT OF COMMITTEE!
On Sept. 13 at 11 AM, the MA Joint Education Committee is holding a hearing on H.651/S.382 - An Act relative to celebrating and teaching Native American culture and history. It's past time for Massachusetts public schools to educate students about Native American cultures, histories and current issues. Click here to write a letter to your legislators and the Joint Committee to pass this bill! You can listen in to the hearing or sign up to testify at this link.
🍎 📋 💵 Support Indigenous People’s Day Newton
Write or call the Boston Athletic Association and demand they include a land acknowledgement as part of the Boston Marathon event. 1. More info. 2. Petition here. 3. GoFundMe page for financial needs.
✉️ 📋 SAVE CRANE LEDGE WOODS
Take these local actions below for environmental and racial justice:
- Submit comments to the BPDA opposing the project & demanding full conservation of Crane Ledge Woods. Be sure to select “oppose” from the drop-down menu.
- Sign the petition to Save Crane Ledge Woods.
✉️ 🍎 2021-2022 MA LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
From United American Indians of New England: Take action for the MA Legislative Agenda. Please fill out our short form and get involved! Help us spread the word across the state.
Contact SURJBIndigenousSolidarity@googlegroups.com with any questions for our group. See our document for more info and further ways to take action.
Housing Justice
Housing Justice is Racial Justice. Join us in solidarity with neighbors fighting displacement and evictions.
✊ STAND FOR SENIOR HOUSING: RALLY ON SEPTEMBER 18th
Join us in rallying on Saturday, 9/18, to defend affordable housing for working-class seniors and El Embajador Restaurant! The rally starts at 11am at 3377 Washington St, Jamaica Plain. Find more details on the event’s Facebook page.
📋✊ #DRAINTURTLESWAMP #DROPITMONTY
If you can’t make it to the Stand for Senior Housing Rally on 9/18, there are still many ways to show your support. Take action here with CLVU! → 1. Sign the petition 2. Sign up to flyer 3. Write a letter.
☎️ ✉️ CALL/EMAIL YOUR LEGISLATORS IN SUPPORT OF THE COVID HOUSING EQUITY BILL
Advocacy from the housing justice movement encouraged the state house to hold a hearing for the COVID Housing Equity Bill! View highlights from the hearing and keep calling and emailing legislators to express your support.
Confronting White Supremacists
📣 🍎 CONFRONTING WHITE SUPREMACY IN NEW ENGLAND WEBSITE
Open white supremacists are building power in New England. Visit this website to learn and share knowledge to disrupt their organizing!
✊ RALLY AGAINST FAR-RIGHT HATE GROUP AMERICA BACKS THE BLUE
Wednesday, September 15, 5PM
Holy Name Rotary in West Roxbury
Join the SURJB contingent by signing up here
“Back the Blue” claims to be an “apolitical” stance despite developing in opposition to Black Lives Matter. At America Backs the Blue rallies, attendees have attempted to strike opposing demonstrators with flagpoles and shouted racist comments at passing Black drivers. Demonstrate that hate is not welcome in West Roxbury and Massachusetts.
Public Education
📋 Get involved with the campaign to have an elected School Committee for Boston!
✊ Get involved in your child’s school site council (Boston Public Schools)
- Click here for more information about School Site Councils and to get involved through the Boston Education Justice Alliance (BEJA)
- Help BEJA campaign for education equity on your school site council!
Mutual Aid
💵 Help us redistribute resources to our neighbors!
Our partners continue to value and need our donations as we enter another phase of the pandemic.
We have porches set up as donation drop off sites; we cannot publish porch addresses here for security reasons. From there, volunteer drivers bring the goods to our partners. Please email us to get the address for a drop-off site of your choice: Belmont, Cambridge, Jamaica Plain (this is a NEW porch location - please email us for it), Medford, Somerville, and West Roxbury.
Urgent needs:
- VietAID: In need of funds to support their fresh produce program (it costs ~ $1,000 a week and they are losing funding).
- We are looking for interested folks to make recurring monthly donations (which is easy to set up through PayPal).
- One time donations are also helpful! Please email us if you donate so we can keep track of donations!
- The Cape Verdean Association of Boston
- CVAB really needs school supplies ASAP! Shop the CVAB’s registry at Target.com here! CVAB is still in need of many backpacks and school supplies for their summer program and for the fall semester - See the full list of needs here!
- Food needed: rice, beans (black, kidney, lima), and olive oil. Please see the full updated list of needs here.
If you would like to donate funds to our partners as well/instead, please click here:
- Community For Us By Us (urgent funds needed to cover community housing costs!)
Immigration Justice
⭐️ ✊MARCH & RALLY TO SHUT DOWN PLYMOUTH
September 23rd, 5:30 PM
Join the Boston Immigrant Accompaniment Network, Never Again Action Boston and AMOR RI at Plymouth County in support of those detained in the final ICE detention center in Massachusetts. As people from all over the country are being transferred to Plymouth and COVID-19 cases are rising sign up here and demand #ReleasesNotTransfers.
☎️ SUPPORT THE FAIR WORK WEEK BILL
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the issues working families have been facing for decades—unpredictable work schedules, fluctuating paychecks, and underemployment. Call on your legislators to support the Fair Work Week Bill to give restaurant, retail, and hospitality workers more control over their schedules and lives.
🍎 Dig Deeper
sign up for updates on specific issue areas
Sign up to receive communications directly from SURJ Boston groups around political education opportunities and ways to take action.
SURJ Brunch
September brunch cancelled. Keep an eye out for updates about our fall schedule.
Boston KNAPSACK ANTI-RACISM GROUP
Each week, we offer a number of options for discussions on Zoom. See our upcoming meetings on Knapsack’s Meetup page; RSVP here if you can attend
We need FEEDBACK: is an "upcoming meetings" list (and Knapsack) useful to you?
Knapsack Facebook discussions are an alternative to the Knapsack Meetup group; it is not required to join this FB group to join/attend the Meetup group. All are welcome in both.
WHITE PEOPLE CHALLENGING RACISM
Moving From Talk to Action: Find workshops and sign up on the WPCR website.
💵 Fundraisers
Give what you can and share with your networks
- For formerly incarcerated women, help make a house a home -- contribute to the registry for New Beginnings reentry services
- Support the Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers
- Become a supporting member of the Muslim Justice League!
- Support the Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network’s Beyond Bond & Legal Defense Fund
- Support the Mass UndocuFund for community members who did not receive stimulus checks or other forms of relief during this crisis
- Support CCI: give to honor the past and fuel the future!
- Community Change Inc, SURJ Boston's parent org and sponsor, makes our work possible. Their 52+ years of experience working on the white problem of racism grounds all that we do. We've raised $2350 of our $8500 goal! Your donation will fuel their programs this coming year.
- Save the date: Laughing for Liberation Sun, 10/31, 6-9pm
📣 📋 Petitions and Organizational Sign-ons
Sign and Share:
- Sign the pledge to fundraise for 40 Acres and a School: DiDi Delgado and #DoneforDiDi have launched 40 Acres And A School, a campaign to build a Black Liberatory Epicenter on colonized lands in New England.
- Change name of Myles Standish Hall
- Tell the MA Ways and Means Committee: Vote to Move S.2493 out of committee, with the language intact, to the Senate floor for a vote
- Sign to keep families connected with no-cost calls for incarcerated folks (organization sign-on here) - Sign and share!
- Cancel Trump's ICE Contracts
SURJ Boston is a project of Community Change Inc (CCI), a Boston-based organization promoting racial justice and equity by challenging systemic racism and acting as a catalyst for anti-racist
learning and action.
In 1968, as a result of the Civil Rights Movement and in response to the Kerner Commission which named racism as "a white problem”, CCI was birthed. CCI promotes racial justice and equity by challenging systemic racism and acting as a catalyst for anti-racist learning and action. CCI accomplishes its mission through education, advocacy and working in solidarity with others to organize for change.
Feeling overwhelmed?
Commit to doing just one thing this week.
We can do this.
Read more about SURJ Boston and ways to get involved on our website.