⭐️ 🍎 SURJ Brunch: Class Identity and the Poor People's Campaign with MA & KY guests
Sunday, March 13th, 12:30 - 2:30
Join us for a dive into our class identities and a conversation building toward the June 18 national march of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. We'll be joined by Savina Martin, tri-chair of the Massachusetts Poor People's Campaign, and Pam McMichael, a founder of SURJ National and former tri-chair of the Kentucky Poor People's Campaign.
Register here to receive a Zoom link to the brunch. You must register in advance to attend. Contact Amelie Ratliff with questions.
We hope you'll join us Sunday, March 13, 12:30-2:30.
🔥 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
⭐️ 🍎 STAY INFORMED ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACISTS IN YOUR AREA
Read and share the New England White Supremacists website.
See white nationalists and neo-Nazis in your area? Take whatever steps you need to stay safe, then tell them they’re not welcome. See how others have responded:
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.
⭐️ 📋 PETITION: DORCHESTER BAY CITY SHOULD BE FOR US!
Join Dot Not 4 Sale in pushing back on a multi-billion-dollar private development on public land. Sign the petition.
⭐️ ✉️ EMAIL LEGISLATORS: PASS THE TENANT OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE ACT (TOPA)
TOPA would require landlords to give tenants the first notice when they plan to sell and give them time to make the first offer or designate a nonprofit on their behalf, allowing them the best chance to stay in their home. Email your legislators to pass TOPA today.
⭐️ ☎️ CALL LEGISLATORS: SAVE SUBSIDIZED HOUSING IN BOSTON LONG TERM WITH H.4229
Help save affordable housing at the Forbes building in JP, the Babcock Towers, and other subsidized housing in Boston long term. Ask legislators to co-sponsor State House bill H.4229.
☎️ ✉️ 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.
Indigenous Solidarity
🍎 Watch webinar recording - Kyle Mays: "Afro-Indigenous History & Urban Experiences"
Prof. Mays is Afro-Indigenous (Saginaw Anishnaabe) and is an Assistant Professor at UCLA. See this link for a recording of this webinar, part of UAINE and NAICOB’s 2022 Indigenous Liberation speaker series.
🍎 TONIGHT! Webinar: Visionary Organizers Fighting Colonization from Turtle Island to Palestine to the Philippines
Sunday, 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
Saturday, 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.
📋 Demand community voices in the Emergency School Review
Boston Public Schools will publish an "Emergency School Review" of Mission Hill School very soon. Join Boston Education Justice Alliance and Boston Teachers Union to demand that community members be included in any and all decisions about the school’s future by signing on to this letter to key administrators and local elected officials.
Immigration Justice
⭐️ ✉️ ☎️ 💵 The Work & Family Mobility Act is Moving Forward!
Last week Massachusetts House of Representatives passed the Work & Family Mobility Act, moving Massachusetts closer to becoming the 17th state to allow undocumented community members to access driver’s licenses! Take action to help it pass the Senate by asking your State Senator to support the bill and taking your State rep!
Prison Abolition
🔥 ABOLITION ACTION HOUR
Monday, February 28, 6:00 PM on Zoom
Join us to support abolitionist campaigns from stopping prison construction to creating community alternatives to policing. Register: tinyurl.com/surjbaction
☎️ 🔥 PHONE BANK AND CANVASS FOR PRISON MORATORIUM BILL
Phone bank Thursdays 5-7pm to help pass the Prison and Jail Construction Moratorium Bill and stop the new women's prison! More details: http://bit.ly/nonewprisonvolunteer
💵 Cambridge HEART virtual fundraiser!
Tuesday, March 1, 7-8:30 PM, RSVP and Donate here.
The Black Response is launching Cambridge HEART, a new alternative public safety program. Support by attending the fundraiser or donate online! (And help SURJB track our donations by filling out this form!)
⭐️ ✉️ Ask Cambridge to fund HEART with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)
Cambridge is getting $88 million in COVID relief funding from the ARPA, let’s pressure the city to use some to fund HEART! We’ve written a strong proposal for funding. Tell the City Manager and City Councilors to use ARPA funding to support HEART. Join our letter writing action!
💵 📣 ALERT: Mouse Infestation at MCI Shirley - Read & Give
On 1/10, #DeeperThanWater organizers broke the news of a rampant rodent infestation at MCI Shirley. 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:
- 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"
On Saturday, March 26 from 1-2:30, 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.