Grace Aheron

This weekend, three Black people were murdered in Jacksonville, Florida by a white person influenced by racist ideology. Our hearts are broken and we are holding the impacted families and broader community in our hearts as they grieve.  

Racist political violence, especially against Black people and trans people, is escalating in this moment. It’s being stoked by the highest levels of government down to grassroots groups and radicalized young people, like the shooter this weekend.  

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other authoritarian politicians enshrine white supremacist ideology into law, banning teaching about racism and attacking efforts to increase diversity in schools and workplaces. While he is publicly “condemning” the violence that took place this weekend, he has blood on his hands as his rhetoric and policy drive this kind of thinking from the governor’s mansion. At the local level, Moms for Liberty and other groups organized around white scarcity become foot soldiers for these racist ideologies.  

This weekend’s heinous act of racist violence did not happen in a vacuum in Florida, but was rather a product of intentional efforts. Our organizing work can’t bring back the lives lost. But we can recommit to the work today to ensure that we shift the political climates that allow racist killers to be emboldened. I spent my early organizing life in Florida, and I’m proud that SURJ is doing our part to stop DeSantis’ rise to power nationally.  

In May, we took action with the Dream Defenders, Florida Rising, Hope Community Center, Florida Immigrant Coalition and others to blockade Governor DeSantis’ office, protesting the multiple vicious attacks on marginalized communities in the state.   

And our chapters across Florida and the country are fighting back in their local communities– organizing support for trans kids, combating racist policies, taking on work at the school board level, and supporting the work of our partners.

SURJ is part of a thriving ecosystem of racial justice organizations in Florida who are building power and fighting back against DeSantis and his policies. Recommit to fighting racism and authoritarianism in white communities with SURJ today:

• Are you Florida? Join SURJ FL to get involved on the ground.
• Join an upcoming New National Member Orientation to deepen your commitment to this work
• Join one of our upcoming national phone banks
• Follow and support the work of our partners at Florida Rising, Dream Defenders, and the Florida Immigrant Coalition.  

With gratitude–

Julia Daniel
SURJ Assistant Director

The second prong of SURJ’s three year strategy to block authoritarianism and build a base of white people to win is to grow our work in poor and working class white communities in the South.

The South is key to stopping an authoritarian takeover of this country and building an enduring progressive base to win things we all need.

For the last fifty years, the ultra-conservative GOP has targeted the South and relies on this region to stay in power. Out-organizing them in white communities there cuts their base from beneath them. 

One way we’re doing that is through our project, Southern Crossroads, that organizes poor and working class white people in small towns and rural areas in the Deep South. Learn more about this part of our strategy.

Southern Crossroads (SCOPE) brings folks into our work by meeting them in their day-to-day struggles around issues like housing, healthcare, and wages. After launching local listening projects, winning city-wide renters protections, and winning local elections, we’re growing our work to launch new small town, statewide, and regional projects.

Bedford County Listening Project (BCLP) was formed after the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in 2017, when white supremacist came to Shelbyville, Tennessee. Community members came out to counter-protest and recognized that there were so many people in this small, majority-white town that wanted their community to stand for justice. 

Six years later, we have elected a BCLP member to city council who ran on an anti-KKK and tenants rights platform, won changes to tenants rules, and won a renters committee to advise the city. 

Tennessee for Safe Homes (T4SH) launched this year out of the BCLP. T4SH is a statewide initiative where we’re contacting thousands of poor white renters across the state to bring them into campaigns like the ones BCLP has won. 

Last month, 17 BCLP members and allies (and kiddos) gathered for two days of mass door knocking to reach out to neighbors about how the growing housing crisis in Tennessee is affecting families in rural areas. We knocked 500 doors in 10 housing complexes to talk to renters about issues they’re facing. Over the last two months, we’ve called 2,000 renters and have had 500 folks in rural TN take action with us. 

Last month, 17 BCLP members and allies (and kiddos) gathered for two days of mass door knocking to reach out to neighbors about how the growing housing crisis in Tennessee is affecting families in rural areas. We knocked 500 doors in 10 housing complexes to talk to renters about issues they’re facing. Over the last two months, we’ve called 2,000 renters and have had 500 folks in rural TN take action with us. 

Want to join this work? Help us contact more rural renters on June 13.

Georgia Healthcare Listening Project (GHLP) is our newest SCOPE project launching this month.

Hospitals are closing in rural areas across the South, making accessing healthcare services even more difficult. We’re calling people in majority-white, working class communities across the state to learn about how this issue is affecting them and to invite them into our work. 

You can join our first phone bank on on June 12.

SCOPE’s efforts are not only blocking far right radicalization in working class, white, Southern communities, but we’re bringing people into our work to change their communities for the better. Here are three ways to support SCOPE:
1) Make a donation to grow our Southern organizing
2) Join us to call renters in Tennessee on June 13
3) Help us launch the Georgia Healthcare Listening Project on June 12

In solidarity, 
Showing Up for Racial Justice

“SURJ has taught me the practice of hope as a joyful discipline. To resist the pacifying, demobilizing culture of doom scrolling, cynicism, resignation, and passive critique.”- Shea, a SURJ member on our mass call

What is the role and responsibility of white people who care about racial justice, right now under these conditions?

Last night at our webinar with over 900 SURJ members and friends, we shared our answer to that critical question: Block and defeat the forces driving us towards authoritarianism and build the majorities needed to secure transformational change by growing our movement.  

If you missed the call, you can watch or review the recording and transcript from last night. 

And you can join the work ahead by:
Signing up to join our organizing work in your local community or critical battleground state
Making a meaningful donation to ensure we can carry out our plan 

I am so proud that SURJ is at a moment in our organization’s evolution where we are poised to make a big impact. Over the next week, we’ll be sharing more about each piece of our strategy– from our electoral swing state plans in 2024 to the Southern, small town organizing we’re kicking off this year. 

The millions of white people in the streets in the summer of 2020 and the big numbers that joined us last night confirmed: there are so many of us who care deeply about racial justice and who are ready to get to work. Join us! 

In solidarity, 
Erin Heaney

Today, we at Showing Up for Racial Justice are outraged and grieving in light of the Supreme Court ruling that overturns the right to an abortion in every state. Though it was expected, this is a heavy and difficult day amidst a series of many difficult days before it. Find a rally near you to join in expressing collective grief and rage– practices that are absolutely essential in these times of increasing fear and despair. When you’re ready, take action with us to continue the work.

This decision is one piece of a political agenda of the Far Right to establish a nation where a number of wealthy, white, conservative elites rule over the lives and autonomy of the rest of us– communities of color, immigrants, people who can be pregnant, poor people, women, trans people, and people with disabilities.

For those of us who are white, our work in the days ahead remains the same: to out-organize the Right in our communities and bring millions more white people into our movements for justice. So many white people– today, particularly white people who can get pregnant– have so much to gain by joining multiracial fights for justice.

Over the last forty years, the Right and those at the top have built a primarily white, conservative, Christian base around this issue through dog-whistle politics– racist messaging without explicitly naming race– lies, and scare tactics. And, in doing so, they have consolidated enough political power to enact the similar conservative rulings we have seen in the past few weeks– weakening existing gun legislation, increasing the ability of the state to kill potentially innocent people, and weakening police accountability– growing the wealth and power of the elite few at the expense of the many.

Part of our collective path forward to fight back against this ruling is working to shift power in Washington and at the state level. The representatives in Congress have the power to approve or reject federal judicial appointments. Governors can veto repressive laws inclusion those that would seek to punish people seeking abortions. State houses will be the gatekeepers of legislation to allow abortion, to criminalize those seeking abortion, and we must keep organizing for bold candidates in every state.

Here are four ways white people can show up today to take action for reproductive justice:

1. Find a rally near you.
2. Join our mid-term elections program– Block, Build, Grow– to organize white people to shift power around issues like abortion and healthcare. Our first action is a text bank in support of Stacey Abrams for the Governor of Georgia on July 13th.
3. Donate to people-of-color led organizations that fund and organize for abortion access like SisterSong and the National Network of Abortion Funds.
4. Watch our webinar with long time reproductive justice activist, Loretta Ross, to better understand why abortion is a racial justice issue and why white people have a key role in organizing to defend this right.

We join with others across the nation in grief and rage. And take today as an opportunity to recommit to the work of justice.