SURJ Boston
Actions & Updates
April 17, 2022
A βοΈ indicates new or updated content.
π = Education, π₯ = Show up, βοΈ = Call,
βοΈ = Email, π£ = Social Media, π΅ = Donate,
π = Sign a petition, π = Victory.
Click on any green text to follow links.
βοΈ βοΈ SUBMIT TESTIMONY FOR AN ELECTED BOSTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE
It's not too late to make sure that the Mayor and City Council hear your voice! Let them hear that restoring democracy is too important for half-measures.
π₯ 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
π WHY WE CANβT ALLOW THE FAR-RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC SPACE
A new article from βItβs Going Downβ analyzes recent trends in fascist organizing and anti-fascist responses in Boston. Read more about our local far-right groups on the New England White Supremacists website.
βοΈπ₯ UNITED VISION PROJECT HUDDLE
Join SURJ National and the United Vision Project in reaching out to people across the country through text.
Prison Abolition
π΅ Tax Refund Re-distribution for Cambridge HEART!
If you got a tax refund and it is surplus for you, please consider redistributing to Cambridge HEART, the brand-new, Black-led, community-based alternative public safety program. Cambridge HEART is raising $550,000 to hire 10 community members as first responders. And the SURJB HEART support team has set a goal of raising $50,000 through our SURJ community. Use this form to pledge some (or all!) of your tax return.
βοΈ π΅ Corporate giving for Cambridge HEART
Do you work for a large corporation? If so, does your company engage in corporate giving? Ask your Director of Corporate Giving and Director of Charitable Donations to give to Cambridge HEART and help us to pay for salaries of community responders! Unsure what to say or how to ask? Email soscia21@gmail.com and we will help you.
Indigenous Solidarity
βοΈ βοΈ URGENT: BLOCK CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT ON SACRED NATIVE TAINO SITES IN BORIKEN (PUERTO RICO)!
Contact members of the Puerto Rican Senate and UNESCO before the vote on Tuesday April 19! More information, sample language, and email contacts can be found at the end of this website. (We suggest BCCβing all the contacts on the email to send them efficiently!)
βοΈ π UAINE & NAICOB 2022 INDIGENOUS LIBERATION SPEAKER SERIES PRESENTS: WE ARE THE LAND. WE ARE THE WATER.
Thursday, April 21, 7:00PM
Register at this link. Speakers Include: Julie Richards (Oglala Lakota), aka Mama Julz, is a frontline water protector and land defender; Big Wind Lott (Northern Arapaho), a frontline water and land protector in MA, WY, and elsewhere; and Justine Teba, from Santa Clara and Tesuque Pueblos, an organizer with the Red Nation.
βοΈ βοΈ Ask the Barre Museum Association to return sacred objects!
Email the Museum or call (978) 355-2533 and express your desire for the Native American artifacts, spanning around 100 pieces, including human remains like scalps and locks of hair, to be returned to their rightful owners, the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Peoples. Article about the current situation.
Contact us with any questions
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.
βοΈ 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.
βοΈ βοΈ 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.
Immigration Justice
βοΈ π΅ Contribute to the Beyond Bond & Legal Defense Fund
The Beyond Bond & Legal Defense Fund, which helps provide legal support and pay bonds to release our immigrant neighbors from detention and incarceration, needs our financial support . Donate here to help free our neighbors from immigration jail so they can fight their cases from the outside and be with their communities.
Public Education
βοΈπ₯π£ BRAVE SPACE -STATEWIDE CONVERSATIONS WITH BIPOC EDUCATORS
Monday, April 25, 6:30-7:30PM
Activate your voice in supporting the change we must see in our schools with the Coalition for Anti-Racist, Equity and Justice in Education. Register here and share with your networks!
βοΈπ Receivership: Latinx Schools in the Crosshairs
April 27, 7:00-8:30PM
With Citizens for Public Schools. Dr. Domingo Morel describes how state policies like receivership impact historically marginalized populations.
βοΈ π₯ Take Action Now to Keep Schools Safe from COVID!
Urge Mayor Wu & BPS to keep the mask requirement and improve ventilation.
- Send emails to city officials in a few clicks
- Join BPS Families for COVID Safety meetings on Fridays - FMI & Zoom link
Mutual Aid
π₯ π΅ Help us redistribute resources to our neighbors!
Our partners continue to value our support through volunteering, and food and monetary donations. Please help where you can <3
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.
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.
- βοΈ Volunteers to teach English as a second language
- Volunteers to help with the food pantry on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. More information here.
π΅ If you would like to donate funds to our partners as well/instead: (weβd appreciate an email at surjbmutualaid@gmail.com to let us know you donated!)
π΅ π Fundraisers and Petitions
Give what you can and share with your networks:
- Marina, a worker leader in Mass Coalition of Domestic Workers, has won her pathway to citizenship after a hard fight and wage theft. Pledge to contribute funds and a SURJB member will be in touch with details.
- Donate to Boston Youth Organizing Project (BYOP): BYOP is committed to building youth power by creating youth-led spaces, with membership made of 60% of immigrant families. Please contribute through Paypal.
- Support activist Wayland X. Coleman get safe food while in prison!
Sign your name in support:
- 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.
- Petition to terminate Harold Adams' 50 year old life sentence
π 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!
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 problemβ, 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.
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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.