Oscar Rennebohm Park, Madison
6 pm Vegan Food by JustVeggies
7 pm Community Education
8 pm Vigil
Vigil for all Black Lives lost to white supremacy and police brutality, and to support recent victims of racist violence in our community. Meet neighbors and learn multiple ways to support Black people in our community.
We are still in a pandemic, so this will be a socially distancing gathering. Make your own best choice about risk. Please wear a face covering. Bring a candle (in glass won’t blow out). Extra masks and candles will be provided.
Speakers include State Senate Candidate Nada Elmikashfi, pastor Jeffrey Jackson, and others!
Powerful Analysis, to better understand the current places in our society where connections across movements can be made and where we should be acting in the US, now.
An exploration of justice-based frameworks so that we can make connections based not just on similarities but understanding critical differences and working at the systematic roots of change.
Connections with movement leaders to learn about actions you can take now to support justice movements from the US to Palestine, with an emphasis on how to show up NOW in the US.
Leave with a toolkit of actions you can take immediately to work towards Collective Liberation – freedom for all!
Saturday, June 27
Local Letter Campaign to End Violence Against Black People
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
Damita Brown, Restorative Justice Director for the Dane County Time Bank’s Restorative Justice Program, will lead this action opportunity via Zoom.
Sponsored by Building Unity, Dane County Time Bank, Freedom Inc. and Wisconsin Network for Peace, Justice, Sustainability (WNPJS). For more information see the Facebook page or register here.
NOTE: The sponsors are looking for people or groups to host similar sessions. You can get a Co-conspirator Toolkit that shows you step by step how to host your own letter writing party for friends, neighbors, colleagues, family, co-workers and others. For more information, write to Damita Brown: damita at danecountytimebank.org
Sunday, June 28
Counter CUFI with FOSNA
6 PM CDT
Christian Israeli lobbies like Christians United For Israel (CUFI) leverage their political power to ensure the US gives moral and political cover to Israeli colonization, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.
This Sunday, June 28th, Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA) is launching a nationwide effort to counter this deadly lobby and challenge its undue influence on American politics. Join us for a powerful day of action as we raise our voices in opposition to CUFI’s annual summit!
Sunday, June 28
Livestream: Singing Out for Refugees with Peter Mulvey
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM CDT
Peter Mulvey returns to the Threshold stage, this time virtually, to share his music, his insights, and his generosity with Open Doors for Refugees, an all volunteer not-for-profit organization that welcomes and supports refugees coming to the greater Madison area.
The Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington will be the largest digital gathering of poor, dispossessed and impacted people, faith leaders, and people of conscience … The increasing urgency of a broad movement led by the poor and most impacted is more apparent every day. Now is the time to organize towards collective action to enact a moral agenda for the nation. As our ranks grow in the coming months due to COVID-19 and the ongoing crisis of poverty, building a platform for the plight, fight, and insight of the poor is even more urgent.
We are marshalling our collective voices to demonstrate the power of our communities. We demand that both major political parties address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism by implementing our Moral Agenda.
Madison Juneteenth Rally
Olin Park, 1156 Olin-Turville Ct
Madison [Map]
12 Noon – 7 pm
Juneteenth events are being held this year all across the country, not only as the traditional celebration of Black culture and emancipation from slavery, but with a renewed focus on the fight against police brutality, racist violence, and systemic institutional racism.
The horrific police murder of George Floyd, caught on a cell phone by a teenager who then posted the harrowing footage on social media, is only the latest reminder that the civil rights struggles of the past century have not translated into safer streets—not even safer homes–for Black people in the USA. Yet in this deeply painful moment, there is also a sense of cautious hopefulness, as Americans of all races, but also as people globally, are taking to the streets with one message: “Black Lives Matter.”
And from Ramallah to Haifa to the Gaza Strip, Palestinians in the homeland are joining the global denunciations of the system of racial supremacy that has too long held down an oppressed people who taught the world that justice is indivisible, and that none of us can breathe until Black people can breathe. This video compiles some of their statements of solidarity, including “We see you,” “your pain is our pain,” and affirming the belief that justice will prevail.
The Black Lives Matter slogan, “Defund the Police,” is also resonating in all corners of the globe, along with denunciations of the blanket criminalization of Black people, and of the racist underpinnings of American law enforcement, which has always placed property over humanity. A much-needed discussion is taking place in homes, on social media, and in the streets, about the very identity of the police institution, with its beginning as slave patrols. As I wrote elsewhere: “With their origin as runaway slave patrols—always prioritizing the property of whites over the lives of African Americans, the US police forces have been racist for centuries […]Their behavior today, as they form a weaponized wall protecting banks and shopping malls, rather than the protestors rising up against centuries of injustice, is a direct evolution of their initial mandate—to protect the privileged and their wealth, from the violently dispossessed, those who have been looted of their land, and the fruit of their labor.”
This is why the Black Lives Matter demands are not accommodationist, asking for body cams or a better accountability system. Rather, the message is clear: “Defund the Police” is about dismantling a system that is so essentially racist it cannot be reformed.
Arab Americans, themselves no strangers to law enforcement violence, are also expressing their solidarity with the Black struggle, in individual statements, in works of art honoring Black lives, and in hosting fundraisers to benefit the Movement for Black Lives, and It is our duty to defend Black lives,” a “rebellion of love” is afoot.
For now, we must make sure this is a movement, not a moment. So let us keep taking to the streets, joining in the rebellion of love against racism. The police, today’s enforcers of racial supremacy, must be abolished, because (as the contributors in this video affirm): Black Lives Matter.
Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation have long dealt with the kind of brutality being enacted by some US police officers against African-Americans.
Israeli police officers detain a Palestinian protestor during scuffles outside the compound housing al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City March 12, 2019. (Reuters)
A now infamous image of a white police officer kneeling on the neck of an African-American man, who would later die, has caused global outrage and violent unrest across the US.
Caught on video, George Floyd’s death was seemingly the straw that broke the camel’s back in that it came after several other high profile killings of several other African-Americans either by police or suspects who did not face immediate legal consequences.
For one community, the disproportionate violence faced by black people at the hands of US police forces has special resonance as it reflects their own experiences with the authorities.
Israeli police officers detain a Palestinian protestor during scuffles outside the compound housing al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City March 12, 2019. (Reuters)