About

Image of a group of people standing in two lines with signs for Black Lives Matter and Louisville SURJ

We organize white people.

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) is a national organization that brings hundreds of thousands of white people into fights for racial and economic justice.

For too long, the Right has hoarded wealth and power by using strategic racism to convince white people that we have more in common with billionaires and corporate elites than with the people of color in our communities. At SURJ, we bring our folks in by offering a better alternative: a just, vibrant future where people of all races work together to win what we need. We do this work by building people power in multi-racial communities across our network — through campaigns, 200 chapters across the country, and deep local organizing projects.

Why white people?

In the midst of today’s crises– rising anti-democratic movements, racist murders, climate catastrophe– white communities have an important role to play. We’ve been bringing white people into fights for racial and economic justice since 2009, a long overdue answer to the call from Black leadership for white people to organize our own. We’ve stopped new jail construction, blocked deadly Sheriffs, and won better conditions for working people. Our members show year after year that white people have so much to gain in fighting to end racism.

Shared Interest in the fight.

The years ahead will be our generation’s time to either re-align millions of white people with communities of color fighting for justice for us all… or a missed opportunity with massive consequences. At SURJ, we organize of white people around our shared interest– what we stand to gain– in fighting alongside people of color. Right now, conditions in the United States threaten white people in immediate ways – from the dismantling of public education, to the criminalization of protest and freedom to decide what to do with our bodies. White people have a shared interest in fighting racism, and the current threats of authoritarianism are deeply rooted in racism.

Racism divides us.

For too long, white communities have been organized by politicians and corporate bosses who put profit and control over people. They maintain power by using strategic racism to make white communities feel like they have more in common with those at the top than other working people of all races. At SURJ, we bring our folks in by offering a better alternative: a just, vibrant future where people of all races work together to win what we need. We do this work by building people power in multi-racial communities across our network — through campaigns, over 150 chapters across the country, and deep local organizing projects.

Our Strategy to Show Up for Racial Justice

We need everyone in this work and have multiple on-ramps to join. We go deep in local community projects in rural places and small towns in the South– places that are targeted by the far-right f and key to breaking the right’s power. And we go big in our national programs: over 150 chapters across the US and Canada and a National Membership Program where anyone can join our work. 

Both parts of our strategy work to block the power of the right. Both parts of our strategy work to build the power of our movement in white communities.

Our small town projects out-organize the right in the majority-white small-town and rural communities they have relied on for political power, and are working to build a resilient base of working white Southerners aligned with justice. Our National Organizing Program mobilizes thousands of members to win state and federal elections and stop jails. At SURJ, we do it all with a spirit of belonging, love, and rigor.

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