⭐️ 🔥 Join the I Have A Future Coalition for our 14th Annual Youth Justice Rally!
February 24, 11 AM at the State House & 2:30 PM on Zoom
Join us to learn more about how you can take action to support legislative advocacy across issues like youth jobs, education, housing, juvenile justice and more. Youth, young adults, and leaders across Massachusetts will present their perspectives on how to shift disparities young people experience across these issues and share demands that improve mental health, create safer environments, and uplift resources (both in our schools and in our communities). Lastly, we will dream forward to the other side of a carceral state as we pose vision and strategies for community-rooted collaboration.
We invite you to join us and take action with us! Register here!
⭐️ 🔥 BLACK TEACHERS MATTER COMMUNITY FORUM
February 21, 6:30 PM
What’s going on with Black teachers? Join the discussion with Black Teachers Matter on Monday, 2/21. Register by completing the google form.
🔥 ACTION HOURS
Every Wednesday 12-1 PM, as well as every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 7 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!
Confronting White Supremacists
⭐️ 📋 TELL THE ORPHEUM - NO PLATFORM FOR HATE!
The Orpheum Theatre in downtown Boston has decided to host a talk by Jordan Peterson, a transphobic and misogynist academic popular among the Alt-Right, on Feb 24. Take action with us and tell the Orpheum management: No Platform for Hate!
⭐️ 🍎 STAY INFORMED ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACISTS IN YOUR AREA
Read and share the New England White Supremacists website.
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.
☎️ ✉️ PUSH A HOUSING JUSTICE LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
Three important bills—which if passed could be major wins for housing justice—are still on the table at the state house. Call and email your legislators today to voice your support for 1) The COVID Housing Equity Bill 2) lifting the ban on rent control and 3) the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase (TOPA) Act.
🎉 🍎 VICTORY FOR 6 HUMPHREY’S PLACE!
After 4 years of organizing, the residents of 6 Humphrey’s Place in Dorchester won a huge victory: their building was bought by the Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust, ensuring permanent affordability and community control. Read City Life/Vida Urbana’s year end recap to learn about other updates.
Indigenous Solidarity
⭐️ 🍎 WEBINAR: KYLE MAYS: "AFRO-INDIGENOUS HISTORY & URBAN EXPERIENCES"
February 24, 7:00-8:30 PM
Prof. Mays is Afro-Indigenous (Saginaw Anishnaabe) and is an Assistant Professor at UCLA. Join for this event, part of UAINE and NAICOB’s 2022 Indigenous Liberation speaker series.
⭐️ 🍎 Webinar: Visionary Organizers Fighting Colonization from Turtle Island to Palestine to the Philippines
February 27, 5:00 PM
Come listen to, learn from, and be inspired by visionaries who have been organizing at the forefront of movements from the Philippines, to Minnesota, to Palestine. Register here.
☎️ ✉️ LEGENDARY NATIVE POLITICAL PRISONER LEONARD PELTIER, 77, IS SICK WITH COVID-19 #FREELEONARDPELTIER:
- Call the White House (202-456-1111) Tues-Thurs from 11-3 and say you support COVID release and the commutation of Leonard Peltier's sentence. You can also email.
- Sign the online petition.
- Please also email/call elected officials from your home district to let them know you support commutation & COVID release for #LeonardPeltier. Find reps here.
Contact us with any questions. See our document for further ways to take action.
Public Education
JOIN THE PUBLIC ED RAPID RESPONSE TEAM!
Can’t make meetings, but still want to hear about just-in-time actions you can take to support public education? Fill out our interest survey!
⭐️ 🔥 FAMILY2FAMILY CONFERENCE: UNITED IN HEALING AND HOPE FOR OUR STUDENTS
March 12, 10:00 AM - 3:30 PM
Are you a BPS educator or caregiver/parent? Join the Family2Family Conference to support family engagement, promote family advocacy, and strengthen family and educator collaboration. Interpretation available, can join in person or on zoom. Register here.
📋 SAVE MISSION HILL SCHOOL!
Boston Public Schools will publish an "Emergency School Review" of Mission Hill School very soon, and they need to hear from you. Join Boston Education Justice Alliance and Boston Teachers Union: fill out this form and add your own comments, which will be sent to key administrators and local elected officials.
Immigration Justice
⭐️ ✉️ The Work & Family Mobility Act is Moving Forward!
The Massachusetts House of Representatives has passed the Work & Family Mobility Act, moving Massachusetts closer to becoming the 17th state to allow undocumented community members to access driver’s licenses! The next step is for the bill to get passed by the state senate. Keep up with the campaign through the Driving Families Forward page and Cosecha Massachusetts, and send a thank you to your house representative!
Prison Abolition
⭐️ 🔥 ABOLITION ACTION HOUR
February 28, 6:00 PM on Zoom
The next monthly abolition action hour will be hosted by SURJ Boston! Join us to support incredible abolitionist campaigns from stopping prison construction to creating community alternatives to policing. Register here!
⭐️ ☎️ 🔥 PHONE BANK AND CANVASS FOR PRISON MORATORIUM BILL
Phone bank Thursdays 5-7 PM or canvass on weekends 12-2:30 PM to help pass the Prison and Jail Construction Moratorium Bill and stop the new women's prison! More details here.
💵 Cambridge HEART virtual fundraiser!
March 1, 7-8:30 PM, RSVP and Donate here.
After months of work, The Black Response is ready to launch Cambridge HEART, a new alternative public safety program. Support by attending a virtual fundraiser on March 1st - or just donate online! (And help SURJB track our donations by filling out this form!)
💵 ALERT: Mouse Infestation at MCI Shirley - Read & Give
On 1/10, #DeeperThanWater organizers broke the news of a rampant rodent infestation at MCI Shirley. Since then, the administration has taken minimal action to stop the health risks and loss of food rodents cause incarcerated people. Share the post and help #DeeperThanWater pay for a year’s worth of sanitary food for lead organizer, Wayland Coleman.
Mutual Aid
🔥 💵 Help us redistribute resources to our neighbors!
While many of us have had our lives return to “normal,” this pandemic is still negatively impacting 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.
- Volunteers to help with the food pantry on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. More information here.
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!)
💵 📋 Fundraisers and Petitions
Give what you can and share with your networks:
- Support the MassUndocuFund:
- MassUndocuFund is a fund that works to provide direct financial support to undocumented immigrants during the COVID-19 crisis. As families continue to be impacted by the Omicron wave, support our community members with limited access to relief during this crisis!
- Support activist Wayland X. Coleman get safe food while in prison!
Sign your name in support:
🍎 Dig Deeper
SOLIDARITY FOR RACIAL JUSTICE: STUDY GROUP AND ACTION CIRCLE
Join community members from across Massachusetts at Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council's Racial Justice solidarity study group Tuesdays at 6pm followed by action circle at 7pm, both virtual. We will push for reparations for slavery and racial equity from the War on Drugs municipality by municipality across Massachusetts Learn and apply with community standing in solidarity for racial justice for cities across Massachusetts today. Change can't wait. Register today!
COMMUNITY READ OF "HOW THE WORD IS PASSED"
The New Democracy Coalition and Massachusetts Peace Action are hosting a discussion of "How the Word is Passed" by Clint Smith and what actions anti-racist activists can take in response.
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.