⭐️ 🔥 🍎 Register for December’s prison abolition action hour
Monday, December 20, 2021, 6 pm EST
Come learn with Jewish Voice for Peace and SURJ Boston about abolition work in Massachusetts and Palestine and take action in community for a brighter 2022.
💵 SEND HOLIDAY GIFTS TO THE MOST INCARCERATED CORRIDOR OF MA!
Support Families for Justice As Healing’s holiday toy drive! Drop off gifts weekdays through 12/23 from 10 - 4 at FJAH’s office: 100R Warren St Roxbury, MA 02121. Or, donate online or by texting “FreeHerHolidayGiftDrive” to 844-412-1599. Or, choose gifts from their Target registry.
🔥 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!
Mutual Aid
💵 Help us redistribute resources to our neighbors!
While many of us have had our lives return to “normal,” this pandemic is harming our neighbors, particularly those of color, more than ever. Please lend support where you can!
We have porches set up as donation drop-off sites please email us to get the address for a drop-off site of your choice: Belmont, Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, Medford, Somerville, and West Roxbury.
Donations have been extremely low as of late. Please help us pick it up if you can!
Urgent needs: The Cape Verdean Association of Boston (CVAB):
- Food & essential supplies are still GREATLY needed, please give what you can: See the full updated list of needs here.
⭐️ Food and supplies to stay safe from COVID-19 are in the greatest demand
If you would like to donate funds to our partners as well/instead (We’d appreciate an email at surjbmutualaid@gmail.com to let us know you donated!):
Prison Abolition
💵 Holiday love for incarcerated community members: Donate to Black & Pink’s drive
B&P aims to deposit $50 in all their 150 incarcerated members’ accounts for the holidays. Help spread the holiday love by donating. And/or, spread the love by sending holiday cards.
⭐️ 💵 Home for the Holidays: Give to Mass Bail Fund’s Bailout 2021
Loved ones in our community could spend the holidays in prison simply because they can’t afford to pay bail. Donate to Mass Bail Fund to give the gift of freedom.
🍎 Want a campaign update for the prison and jail moratorium?
Register online for the weekly town hall on Mondays at 6pm to learn about events and actions to stop the new women’s prison and other new jails or prisons.
Indigenous Solidarity
✉️ Email President Biden - Release Leonard Peltier!
Leonard Peltier, an Indigenous activist, has been in prison for 44 years (America’s longest serving political prisoner!) on charges and a trial that have been widely disputed. Email the White House to urge President Biden to release Leonard Peltier! See this doc for suggested language. For more information: Additional background info and a clemency request from 11 members of Congress.
🔥 ADVOCATE FOR THE MA INDIGENOUS LEGISLATIVE AGENDa (MILA)
Ongoing support needed to advocate for MILA's 5 bills. Please assist us by completing our form, simplified and updated 11/17 with clearer asks, including if you want/need our support. Join Knapsackers gathering to check in and get support for this effort on Wed. 12/22, 6-7pm.
Contact us with any questions for our group. See our document for more info and further ways to take action.
Confronting White Supremacists
📣 🍎 CONFRONTING WHITE SUPREMACY IN NEW ENGLAND WEBSITE
Before the end of 2021, share this resource about local far-right groups on social media and email us at surj@communitychangeinc.org to let us know that you’ve shared it!
🍎 SURJ National Webinar: “Organizing White People to Stop Another Jan 6th”
Thursday, January 13 8:00PM
We know that the majority of actors in the January 6, 2020 insurrection were white and were motivated by a white nationalist and far-right agenda and these groups are continuing to recruit and build in white communities. We are organizing to stop the rise of white supremacist violence and build political power for justice.
Housing Justice
No fault evictions should never happen, especially during a pandemic. Mutual aid is standing with neighbors facing evictions — join us to stand in solidarity with neighbors across the city.
☎️ ✉️ CALL, EMAIL, AND RECORD TESTIMONY FOR THE COVID HOUSING EQUITY BILL
Over 24,000 eviction cases and counting have been filed in our state during the pandemic. Let your legislators know how urgently we need protections from evictions and foreclosures in this continuing pandemic and economic crisis!
📋 🔥 ✉️ #DRAINTURTLESWAMP #DROPITMONTY
Take action here to defend affordable housing for working-class seniors and El Embajador Restaurant! → 1. Sign the petition 2. Sign up to flyer 3. Write a letter.
Immigration Justice
⭐️ 💵 Support MA Jobs with Justice
Support Massachusetts Jobs with Justice by donating to their end of year fundraiser, with a goal of $2,022! Funds will go towards sustaining the organization’s work organizing with essential workers, supporting the Fair Share Amendment, and other campaigns impacting local workers and immigrant communities. You can read about the 2021 successes of this Women of Color-led organization in their annual report.
Public Education
☎️ ✉️ Join Families for COVID Safety to demand Boston Public Schools Protect Students and Staff from COVID-19!
Send emails using this template to the School Committee, Superintendent Casselius, BPS Officials, and the Mayor. Make phone calls to:
- Superintendent Casselius: 617-635-9050
- School Committee: 617-635-9014
- Mayor Wu: 617-635-4500
Need guidance on what to say? See the phone script.
Let the Families for COVID Safety campaign know that you took action at bit.ly/CallReportFamCOSA.
For more information, see this background piece about Families for COVID Safety.
Sign up for their listserv at bit.ly/CallReportFamCOSA.
💵 📋 Fundraisers and Petitions
Give what you can and share with your networks
- Support a Cambridge resident!
- Donate to support Justice 4 Housing's Re-entry Program
- SUPPORT MS. ANGIE’S DAUGHTER SHANITA!
Continue to support the rematriation of land to Nipmuc and Massachusett tribes! Use the password AT1234 when prompted.
Sign your name in support
🍎 Dig Deeper
Boston KNAPSACK ANTI-RACISM GROUP
Engage with us as we discuss: Whiteness Hurts (study group), books, and more.
See our upcoming Zoom discussions/meetings; RSVP if you can attend.
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.
WHITE PEOPLE CHALLENGING RACISM
Moving From Talk to Action: Find workshops and sign up on the WPCR website.
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 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.