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.
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.
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!
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.
Join SURJ National and the United Vision Project in reaching out to people across the country through text.
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.
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.
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!)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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!)
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!
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.
Moving From Talk to Action: Find workshops and sign up on the WPCR website.
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.
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.