Around March 1860, 52 years after the abolishment of the transatlantic slave trade and 40 years after amending the Piracy Act of 1819, Captain William Foster, funded by his co-conspirator, Timothy Meaher, set sail for Africa. Foster would set sail with 110 of the Africans he had purchased aboard the Clotilda. Upon his return to Mobile, he avoided customs agents, towed the Clotilda up the river, and put the enslaved Africans on the Steamboat Czar, owned by Timothy’s brother, Byrnes (aka Burns) Meaher. The enslaved Africans would then be transported to John Dabney’s Mount Vernon plantation and hidden in the swamp. Timothy Meaher, his brothers Byrnes and James, John Dabney and Foster were all given enslaved people from the Clotilda. Timothy Meaher and his co-conspirators used a sophisticated plan to hide the Africans who were on board, moving them from plantation to plantation while burning the Clotilda. Within two weeks of their arrival in America and over the next several months, court cases were opened (e.g., U.S. vs. William Foster and Richard Sheridan, U.S. vs William Foster, U.S. vs. Burns (Byrnes) Meaher, U.S. vs. John Dabney, etc.). In her book, Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Last Africans Brought to America, Diouf details the events leading up to these cases including the sophisticated plot to hide these illegal actions. We know that Timothy Meaher was arrested and accused of having “illegally imported negroes.” However, the presiding Judge over the case, William G. Jones was a friend of Timothy Meaher. Diouf writes, “Judge William G. Jones was such a friend that Meaher had given his name to one of his steamers. Everyone knew that when it came to importers of Africans Judge Jones was as lenient as he possibly could be.” This leniency is evident in other related rulings during the same time period. Also, the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of Alabama, Augustus Julian “A.J.” would become an attorney of the Confederate states and a confederate poet. Despite the evidence, Jones cleared Timothy Meaher of all charges. In addition, the courts were after Foster, not because he was a pirate, but because he avoided customs officials upon arrival from his voyage. Judge William G. Jones also issued orders to have Byrnes Meaher and Dabney appear at the next regular term of his court. On January 10, 1861, the U.S. vs. Burns Meaher and the U.S vs. John Dabney were dismissed by Judge Jones. Since the 110 Africans could not be found, no crime could be proven. On January 12, 1861, only two days after his ruling, Judge Jones resigned. Alabama broke away from the Union, and Judge Jones would eventually serve as a judge of the confederate district court for the district of Alabama from 1861 to 1865. Finally, Foster’s case would eventually be thrown out too. Records for several of the cases mentioned above reside at the National Archives in Atlanta and provide an account of the times. In May of 2019, Search Inc. prepared a report entitled “Archaeological Investigations of 1Ba704” for the Alabama Historical Commission summarizing their findings from the discovery of Clotilda. They confirm they have located the Clotilda and provide an investigative report that lays out the case for how the U.S. government turned a blind eye to the Meahers, Foster and all parties involved. It also draws the conclusion that “US government officials were perhaps less than diligent in seeking to find the Clotilda or the people brought aboard it against their will...” Just this month, the National Geographic released an article entitled “America’s Last Slave Ship is More Intact Than Anyone Thought.” In that article, Vice President of Search Inc., Jim Delgado, stated “this is the most intact slave ship known to exist in the archeological record anywhere. There’s actual direct physical evidence not just of the ship and its use, but also of the changes done by Foster and his crew to make it a slave ship.” Over 160 years later, evidence of the crime has now been uncovered. The cover-up of illegal activity is as bad as the smuggling crime. The finding of Clotilda should initiate an investigation into previous court cases and new cases should be opened where warranted. In the words of William Goldstone, “justice delayed is justice denied, “and we deserve justice. Crimes were committed and all involved should be held accountable.

My family and I contracted COVID-19 around the holidays. A few days after Christmas, my body began to feel as though it was literally shutting down. It began with some minor coughing that led to fatigue, fevers of over 102 F, shortness of breath, and body aches. I couldn't even walk without feeling pain on the soles of my feet. While dealing with the physical impact of getting sick, our family decided to drive to the closest drive-thru testing site every three to four days until we each tested negative, since we could not afford to spend thousands of dollars on private testing. Packing up my family while trying to "quarantine,” driving, and then sitting and standing in some of the longest lines we had seen up to that point was the worst feeling and situation any family could endure. There was a Walmart only minutes away from my home in Broward, Florida. We should have been able to buy affordable at-home COVID-19 tests there, but leaders like Walmart CEO Dough McMillon and Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen decided to take advantage of the high demand for tests by pushing the prices up by over 40%. No family should have to choose between spending money on necessities like food and bills, and spending money on tests that help us stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. That’s why I’m calling on Walmart and Kroger to sell their COVID-19 testing kits at cost! In September 2021, the Biden administration announced that it made a deal with retailers like Walmart and Kroger to ensure that COVID-19 at-home tests would be sold for no more than the cost of production at $14. But as soon as the deal ended in December, both chains pushed the price of the kits up, in some cases as high as $80. When I tried to buy tests from Walmart over the holiday season, each one cost $40. That meant testing all five people in my household using the at-home kits would have cost $200. Spending that much money every time we needed to test would have been a huge financial burden on us. With the cost of living increasing in my city, the prices of COVID-19 test kits were simply too high. Now, as the Omicron variant continues to spread through our communities, these companies continue to charge obscene amounts of money for test kits, in a moment when so many people like me are just trying to make ends meet. COVID-19 tests should be affordable, if not FREE. Walmart and Kroger are making the decision to push test prices up knowing full well that what they are paying their own workers is not keeping pace with the higher prices of basic necessities. In November, inflation reached a four decade high of 6.8%, while hourly-workers only received an increase of 4.8%. In the meantime, our hospitals are still overwhelmed. Patients are still being forced to delay life-saving treatment and surgeries. And we are still seeing some of the highest rates of deaths due to COVID-19 since the height of the pandemic in 2020. It’s not right. Walmart and Kroger could easily sell COVID-19 test kits at cost and still make some of the highest profits of any company in this country. Instead, they are exploiting our desperation to keep ourselves and our families safe. Tell Walmart and Kroger they must provide affordable COVID-19 test kits, today!

On 09/20/21, I looked at the Wake County Public Schools website to find information about the number of COVID Clusters in Wake County Public Schools. The site was down and read as follows: We are updating based on the State of Emergency declared by Governor Cooper. This means there is a continuous rise of cases in the state and it is showing up in the schools and hospitals. Our schools are not safe places for our children. It is a known fact, there are not enough teachers, lunchroom staff, maintenance workers, or bus drivers to keep them safe. Our front-line workers are constantly put at risk without the basic protection of unmasking in Wake County. Since this pandemic started 1 in 9 people in Wake County have been affected by COVID, we’ve had 121,290 reported cases in our community alone. We already see that sending students into schools without masks will lead to even more people getting sick. We the parents from Black and brown communities can not attend Board meetings due to the many barriers that prevent us from attending. We are showing our concern through the signing of this petition. We never want it said that we don't care about our children and all children’s safety. We must adhere to the CDC’s guidelines to socially distance and implement a mask mandate to protect everyone in Wake County. We should not be listening to the ignorance of anti-maskers who bully and threaten board members to intimidate them from supporting mask mandates. It's our right to be safe and keep our children safe without intimidation. We the members of the Wake County Community Equity Leadership Team and the community ask that the Wake County School Board consider the cost when making your decision. We must put the safety and needs of our community at the center of our decision-making when it comes to the health and our students and families. WE WANT A MASK MANDATE

I’ve owned my own construction company in North Carolina for the past 9 years. My family has been in the construction industry since the early 70s and I have always viewed my work as a way to build generational wealth and create economic mobility for Black people. However, I’ve suffered at the hands of huge contracting corporations like Archer Western who have a history of financially exploiting small Black-owned businesses. This has made it extremely difficult to support my livelihood and my family. I’ve lost a majority of my income from dealing with contracting giants like Archer Western and it is time for them to be held accountable! Archer Western refusing to pay its debt to Black subcontractors shows how systematic racism continues to impact our people. As a result of Archer Western’s debt to my small contracting business, I’ve been unable to pay important medical bills and have even delayed important medical operations. I’m also unable to reinvest in my community by providing employment opportunities to people of color. Enough is enough and big corporations like Archer Western should be held accountable in how they treat small, local minority contractors like me. Archer Western has a history of late payment and non-payment to over 20 of its Black and minority-led subcontractors that we know of. There are likely many more that have been put out of business. I’ve been fighting to stop this financial exploitation and my pleas are constantly ignored. Join me in telling Daniel Walsh that it’s time to do right by its Black subcontractors. We demand that Archer Western release all records of its late and non-payment of Black subcontractors, pay all of their outstanding contracts, and conduct an audit of their racial equity practices. This is the first step in ensuring that small contracting businesses like mine never go under due to corporations' prejudicial, unlawful, and dishonest business practices. Daniel Walsh is the president and co-chairman of Archer Western and has the power to begin rectifying the wrongs Archer Western has committed against small minority businesses. Sign this petition and tell Walsh to begin paying Black subcontractors what they are owed!

For the past five weeks, I have endured the water crisis. Jackson is over 80% Black and we went without vital water access for weeks. While white folks in other counties had running water in their homes, I watched the direct impact that neglect has had on my community. Jackson’s water crisis is not only a health problem and an environmental problem -- it’s undeniably a race problem. Thousands of Black people have caught rain to flush the toilet and stacked cases of water to wash their hands and brush their teeth, while simultaneously trying to survive a global pandemic that disproportionately affects Black people. I’m starting this petition to ensure that my community gets the help they desperately need and deserve. The city of Jackson has a history of being disenfranchised in Mississippi. This isn’t the first time that we’ve been overlooked, and we need action. Join me in telling Stephen McCraney to do right by Jackson. My community demands continuous water testing to assess whether it is safe for consumption, proper damage assessments, and a long term plan in ensuring that water consumption is safe without the threat of a state takeover of the Jackson community. Stephen McCraney is the Executive Director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and he has the power to speed up the process of assessing the damage to Jackson’s water system. Speeding up the process will secure important federal funding for our water systems recovery and help my community heal together. Sign this petition and tell McCraney to prioritize damage assessments in Jackson while providing resources that restore trust for Black Mississippians now!

The child welfare system traumatizes children and rips families apart. Far from helping, law enforcement only makes things worse. Their partnership must end now. Los Angeles County is home to the largest locally-run foster care system in the country, run by the Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS). The system disproportionately targets Black, Brown, and Indigenous children for surveillance and removal, actions that, even when well-intentioned, terrorize and traumatize families of color. While Black children are 10% of LA County’s population, they represent 40% of the young people in the child welfare system. DCFS works in direct partnership with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and LA Sheriff’s Department (LASD). Approximately 25% of DCFS referrals come from law enforcement. DCFS and law enforcement agencies work together to enter homes and remove children. Police presence during DCFS investigations further traumatizes children and escalates the situation. Removing law enforcement from the child welfare system is the first step to curb the racist practices that break up families of color. We must demand an end to systems that separate families instead of supporting them. The REIMAGINE CHILD SAFETY campaign is supported by: Black Lives Matter LA; ACLU of Southern California; Alliance for Children’s Rights; Black Los Angeles Young Democrats; Dignity & Power Now; JusticeLA; La Defensa; Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers; Movement for Family Power; National Coalition for Child Protection Reform; Public Counsel; The RightWay Foundation; Trans Lifeline; and White People 4 Black Lives.

in the past, BLACKS could NOT own Property. Then, when the laws appeared to change, the BANKS RED-LINED Ownership. Now - the City Governments are Creating FALSE CASES to take BLACK PROPERTY OWNERS and ILLEGALLY TAKING their Properties. In the case of Ms. Kihagi, the smear campaign that represented her as Black Slumlord is so far from the truth. Yet - knowing most people would NOT get past that PR Machine - the City derailed the Truth. The San Francisco City Attorney made more than 20 misrepresentations to the Court with full knowledge of the actual facts. This is total abuse of power - and should be stopped! In fact, the TRUE MOTIVE for such conduct was to RACIAL DERAIL a successful, black landlord. More than $25million is at stake. It is clear that the 2 major cases in San Francisco have been against successful, BLACK Landlords - is this a Coincidence? They spent over 70% of their resources fighting one lone, black landlord and lied to the public that she was a slumlord. Yet the BUILDINGS are in better condition than 90% of S.F. Condo. EYES DON'T LIE. STOP DIRTY CITY ATTORNEYS - see more articles at annekihagisf.com

Implicit, explicit, and diagnostic bias in the Military and Veterans Healthcare Systems ensures limited treatment options and compensatory benefits for Wounded/Ill/Injured Black and Brown Uniformed Service Members relative to non-White Service Members, women relative to men, and Reserve Component (Reserve/ National Guard) Members relative to Active Duty (AD) Members . MILITARY DATA REVEALS DANGEROUS REALITY FOR BLACK SERVICE MEMBERS AND VETERANS by Zachary Cohen and Janie Boschma, CNN UPDATED 11:52 AM ET, SUN JUNE 14, 2020. A CNN review of data provided by the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs reveals the stark reality that black service members are less likely to become officers and, as a result, are MORE LIKELY TO BE SERIOUSLY INJURED SERVING THEIR COUNTRY THAN THEIR WHITE COLLEAGUES. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT REVEALS MILITARY OCCUPATIONS WITH HIGHEST SUICIDE rates by Seth Robson | STARS AND STRIPES Published: April 28, 2020, The suicide rate for reservists was 22.9 deaths per 100,000 while the rate for the National Guard was 30.6 per 100,000, the report states. That compares with a suicide rates for American adults ages 17-59 of 18.2 per 100,000 in 2017, according to the report. PHYSICIAN BIAS AND RACIAL DISPARITIES IN VETERAN HEALTH: Shari Eli, Trevon Logan, Boriana Miloucheva 20 August 2019 The mortality gap between blacks and whites in the US has been well documented, but there is still considerable debate over why the gap has remained so large and why it has persisted over the last century. This column explores these questions using unique data on black and white Civil War veterans to measure one of the earliest known incidences of PHYSICIAN BIAS AGAINST AFRICAN AMERICANS. It shows that PHYSICIAN BIAS had large effects on INCOME AND LONGEVITY of blacks relative to whites and considers the ways in which doctor attitudes STILL CONTRIBUTE TO THE RACIAL MORTALITY GAP TODAY. The war in Congress over rape in the military, explained By Emily [email protected]@vox.com Jun 8, 2016, 11:10am. Sexual assault is a huge problem in the US military. And for many victims, the process of reporting their crime and seeking justice can be as traumatic as their assault. The US Senate is expected to vote this week on the Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA). Advocates, who have been pushing for the MJIA since 2013, say the reform would make the process of prosecuting sex crimes a lot easier and smoother for victims and help victims feel more empowered to come forward and report the crimes against them. On or about October 28, I spoke with yet another Black Woman Veteran that was not only the victim of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) while serving her country, but the victim of systemic retaliation after reporting her rape. She was involuntarily separated from the military and forced to repay all enlistment bonuses. Homeless female veterans: Out of sight, out of mind Angela M. Rogers, November 18, 2019 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Female veterans are the fastest growing demographic among the homeless population in the United States and face a double hurdle of distance and invisibility in getting the health services they need from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to research conducted by Penn State graduate student and U.S. Air Force veteran Elizabeth Elsea. Physician implicit, explicit, and diagnostic bias in the Military and Veterans Healthcare Systems ensures limited treatment options and compensatory benefits for Black and Brown Wounded/Ill/Injured Uniformed Service Members relative to non-White Service Members, women relative to men,; and Reserve and National Guard Members relative to Active Duty (AD) Members . Black Veterans' Lives Matter! Women Veterans' Lives Matter SUPPORT ALL of THE TROOPS!

It’s happening again. Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) is expanding in Detroit and has only agreed to commit $8.8 million in “community benefits” for a plant they are receiving a whopping $420 million in public tax abatements to expand. The worst part? This multi-billion-dollar company has failed to follow through on even the smallest commitments it has made thus far to the majority-Black community it claims to want to support. As part of the community benefits agreement it signed in April 2019 in order to receive the tax abatements, Chrysler agreed to renovate nearly 60 homes on Beniteau, the street closest to the project. Most of these homes are owned by Black, elderly, long-time residents. To date, they have renovated fewer than 5 of those houses. We must be clear about what this means. Not only does Chrysler think it’s acceptable to set aside less than 3% of the public funding it is receiving from the government for the benefit of the community, but it is refusing to be accountable to even the paltry promises its leadership has made to our people. Now, it is time for Chrysler to step up and work in cooperation with the people of Detroit to negotiate community protections that reflect the real health and environmental risks to Black Detroiters that Chrysler’s expansion has brought with it. We’ve long known that pollution takes its greatest toll on the health of Black communities, who are often left with few resources or recourse. That has never felt clearer than in the middle of a global pandemic, as politicians, corporations, and the healthcare system alike continue to make decisions that mean that Black people are contracting and dying of COVID-19 at higher rates than almost every other group in the country. Chrysler’s leadership, which has managed to find a way to offset increased emissions in its suburban plant, but has failed to provide a clear plan for how it will handle the increase in emissions in a neighborhood that is majority Black, is no exception. A national study links long-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality. In the U.S., Black children suffer disproportionately from asthma, and are seven to eight times more likely to die of asthma than white children. Communities of color face nearly 40% more exposure to toxic air pollution than white communities. From Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ to the recently discovered cancer cluster in Houston’s Fifth Ward, we know why mega-companies like Chrysler feel comfortable making decisions that place Black people in close proximity to pollution and other environmental hazards. Chrysler is counting on environmental racism to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. We can’t let them. After George Floyd was murdered, Chrysler CEO, Michael Manley, sent an email to employees claiming that he “emphatically rejects the prejudice and hatred” Black Americans still face in this country. But the fact is, Chrysler bears a huge responsibility for the environmental violence, harm, and discrimination against Black people in Detroit, and is still actively profiting from that violence to this day. We deserve more than lip service from a company that has relied on us as both workers and funders for generations. We, the people, say NO to corporations and CEOs that claim Black lives matter in one breath while supporting our destruction in the next. Residents closest to the plant on Beniteau Street and others across the Eastside of the city, along with Detroit People's Platform have worked hard to bring these critical issues to the attention of local officials and Chrysler leadership with no success. Now, we need your voices to make sure Chrysler knows they must deal with the community in order to benefit from our public tax dollars. Sign our petition today and make sure Chrysler knows they must deal with the real Detroit if they want to keep building in our community.

UPDATE: On Tuesday, April 6th, the Manhattan Beach City Council voted against issuing a public apology to the Bruce Family for the unjust taking of their land in 1924 due to them being Black and bringing together Black patrons in Manhattan Beach. During a March 16th city council meeting, Mayor Suzanne Hadley said in response to the apology, “We do not want to ignore the past but we do not want it embroidered in a scarlet ‘R’ upon our chest,” later saying “I hear all of you who want an apology... I’m not litigious, I have not contributed to decades of case law around a single word. My hands are clean. But that word is a club that we can be handing to people to beat us with.” The majority of public comments and letters sent in during the council meeting showed support for a public apology. Still, the city council voted in favor of not apologizing, passing 4-1. Despite all of the voices who showed up to support the apology, despite the importance of an apology for reparative measures and true acknowledgment of harm done, the city of Manhattan Beach and its council members decided to recommit to racism and anti-Blackness with their own votes. When something as simple as an apology cannot be given, we have to ask ourselves “why?” And “who does this benefit?” We know that communities protect one another by voting in favor of repairing relationships and histories, yet Manhattan Beach refuses to condemn racism, to apologize for its racist past, or to acknowledge the ways in which racism and white supremacy continue to show up in Manhattan Beach today. Black joy, Black pain, Black experiences deserve a place in this community who has now, for almost 100 years, made intentional efforts to silence and erase us. We will stay put until the work is done. Until there is restitution for years of civil and human rights violations against the Bruce family, and restoration and return of their land. Original message: Manhattan Beach owes the Bruce family much more than an apology. Once the owners of one of the few thriving beach resorts that Black Angelenos were allowed to patronize in the early 1900s, Willa and Charles Bruce were not only subjected to escalating racist attacks from the city’s local Klu Klux Klan, but were eventually forced off their land by Manhattan Beach’s own Board of Trustees. Although the Board of Trustees claimed at the time that they needed the land to build a park, we know the real reason the Bruces lost their land. From Tulsa to Forsyth County, Black people’s attempts to build economic security for themselves in this country have been haunted by white terrorist violence. The land that the Bruces were forced off is no different, and represents just a tiny fraction of the nearly 11 million acres of land that Black people once had, but lost, due to fraud, deception and outright violence during the Jim Crow era. Now, after a recent acknowledgment from the Manhattan Beach City Council of the injustice the Bruce family has faced at the hands of the city for generations, some residents are proposing that a boutique hotel be constructed on the land as a form of restitution. That’s not right. That’s why Justice for Bruce's Beach is partnering with Black Lives Matter to let Manhattan Beach City Council know that if they want to rectify the harms of the past, they must meet the full demands of Manhattan Beach’s Black residents for restoration, restitution and reparations today. The Bruces’ land and business should have been the foundation of their family’s ability to build wealth, and to take care of themselves and each other. Instead, it became a source of riches for others. Not only did the city of Manhattan Beach take the Bruces’ land in order to preserve the neighborhood’s whiteness, but they vastly underpaid them and other Black property owners like them for the value of the land and the businesses that were taken from them. Today, with Manhattan Beach’s inflated and unaffordable housing, Black people make up just about 0.8% of the city’s population. That’s why the proposals for the construction of a boutique hotel that will likely remain out of the reach of most of its Black residents as a form of restitution for the city’s history of violence is a slap in the face. The fact is, Manhattan Beach won't be able to make amends for its racist past without restoring the land back to the Bruces, paying the Bruces restitution and paying reparations to its Black residents for blatantly discriminating against our community and making it impossible for us to own land in the area. Now more than ever, institutions like the Manhattan Beach City Council need to make good on their commitment to Black communities, and we’re starting by demanding that they meet our residents’ full demands for restoration restitution and reparations today. As protests against police violence continue, more and more institutions are coming out with statements to denounce racism. Many of those institutions are the exact same ones who have orchestrated the erosion of Black wealth and property for decades, if not centuries. Sign now to let Manhattan Beach City Council that fighting for racial justice is so much more than an anti-racism statement. It requires dedication and action behind those words. Declaring support of Black people isn’t enough and task forces and modified street signs won’t pacify us. If the city council truly believes Black lives matter, it must meet the full demands of its Black and Indigenous constituents for restoration, restitution and reparations in Manhattan Beach immediately. Thank you, Kavon Ward Founder, Justice for Bruce's Beach Chief Duane ‘Yellow Feather’ Spokesman and Historian for The Bruce Family Patrisse Cullors Co-Founder, Black Lives Matter Ronald Clinton Co- Founder, MBUSD Community Panel for Equity (MB4E)

In Hawthorne, California the police department takes 52% of the city budget. This means that the officers who do not live in our city take their average salary of $111,000/year, buy property in a whiter and wealthier neighboring city, and subsequently add more funding to the schools that already have the most resources. It is our personal responsibility to refuse enabling Hawthorne Police Department's violence through most of our city's funding. We must demand our city officials to invest in Hawthorne residents by defunding the police. Example(s): It was June 7th 2019 that a viral video brought disgrace- once again- to Hawthorne Police Department. On Prairie and El Segundo, across from Memorial Park where families gather and children play- almost a dozen officers draw their weapons on a young Black 24 year old. The brave woman livestreaming the traumatizing arrest sobs as she begs them not to shoot- and the nation, and our community, felt her pain and fear. That he could be anyone’s father, son, brother or friend, but as a Black man in America, he was a target of the oppressive forces of policing. We will never know what would have happened if she was not there, but one thing is certain. This type of escalation for someone Hawthorne Police admitted, “loosely matched” the description of an individual, was definitively not an isolated occurrence- but a product of a city, and country, that enables and militarizes first responders and rarely holds them accountable for the terror they wreak on BIPOC living in the communities they police. We encourage residents of Hawthorne to dig into the 2007 beating, and HPD’s fascination with shooting dogs. It is our personal responsibility to refuse to enable any more sociopathic behavior from the heavily funded HPD and demand our city leaders to a clear and understanding decision to invest in Hawthorne residents.

The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice is a call for us to transform our personal, institutional, and global thinking. We believe that culture moves before policy. We believe that culture endures beyond politics. We wrote this Call because our work in culture and arts is inextricably linked to larger social movements for change. We invite you to adopt and adapt this Call to your specific contexts to hold leaders, policy-makers, and institutions — and ourselves — responsible, accountable, and transparent in achieving equity and justice. In these unprecedented times, as justice movements converge, many of us have asked ourselves what the stakes are for the culture we want to advance. We concluded that we needed to change the conditions under which we artists and culture bearers labor and live. The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice points us toward new understandings of how we together can build a culture that is inclusive, sustainable, and leads us toward justice and freedom for all. We urge timetables that are immediate and demonstrate change that is not aspirational, but concrete, measurable and visible within 1-3 budget cycles. We offer this Call in the spirit of advancing accountability and collective responsibility, and urge you to activate these ideas within your work and our shared future. // El Nuevo Trato Cultural para la Justicia Cultural y Racial es una convocatoria para que transformemos nuestro modo de pensar personal, institucional y global. Creemos que la cultura cambia antes que la política. Creemos que la cultura perdura más allá de la política. Escribimos este llamado porque nuestro trabajo dentro de la cultura y las artes está inextricablemente entrelazado con los movimientos sociales para el cambio. Les invitamos a adoptar y adaptar este Llamado para sus contextos particulares para responsabilizar a líderes, creadores de políticas e instituciones, al igual que nosotres mismes, por lograr la equidad y la justicia de forma responsable y transparente. En estos tiempos sin precedentes, conforme convergen los movimientos por la justicia, muches de nosotres nos hemos preguntado qué está en juego para la cultura que queremos avanzar. Hemos concluido que tenemos que cambiar las condiciones bajo las cuales nosotres les artistas y portadores de cultura trabajamos y vivimos. El Nuevo Trato Cultural para la Justicia Cultural y Racial nos dirige hacia nuevos entendimientos sobre cómo, juntos, podemos crear una cultura que es inclusiva, sustentable y que nos lleva hacía la justicia y la liberación para todes. Exigimos cronogramas que son inmediatos y que demuestran un cambio que no es aspiracional y que, más bien, es concreto, medible y visible dentro de 1 a 3 ciclos presupuestarios. Ofrecemos este Llamado en aras de avanzar la transparencia y la responsabilidad colectiva y urgimos que activen estas ideas dentro de su trabajo y dentro de nuestro futuro compartido.