John,

This Black History Month, I’m grateful for the long history of solidarity between Black and Palestinian activists.

Black-led movements for justice have long stood with people facing racist imperialism and oppression around the world.

Civil rights leaders who supported Palestinian liberation include Angela Davis and other Black Panther Party members, Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali.

During Black Lives Matter uprisings, Palestinians shared tactics for evading state violence, and Black-led groups spoke out for Palestinians’ equal rights. Now, the Movement for Black Lives is leading organizing for Palestinian liberation.

A coalition of over 1,000 Black pastors, representing hundreds of thousands of congregants, is demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the occupation of the West Bank. Many of the pastors described identifying with Palestinians as oppressed people.

In order to maintain the unjust status quo of racism in Israel and the United States, Israeli forces and U.S. police regularly train with one another—including collaborating on how to use state violence to suppress protest movements for Black and Palestinian rights.

Sign on to demand an end to racist policing, from the U.S. to Palestine. No more holding people without trials or charges—whether through administrative detention in Israeli jails, or by locking up people indefinitely in the U.S. if they can’t afford bail.

South African leaders who helped bring down that country’s apartheid have long compared their experiences with Palestinians’ struggle under Israel’s apartheid regime.

Subjected to a different legal system from Israelis, many Palestinians are locked up in jails for months or years without ever being charged.

As with South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, Palestinians have called for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions to sway Israel’s government to change. Boycotting was also an important tactic used by Black civil rights leaders to end Jim Crow segregation, such as the year-long Montgomery bus boycott which led to the desegregation of public buses in the U.S.

But U.S. lawmakers have tried to block these modes of political expression to silence people advocating for change. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to criminalize our free speech right to political boycotts.

State legislatures around the country are also attacking bail funds, which community groups use to bail out protesters and others who can’t afford bail.

Georgia’s legislature just passed a law that would expand the unjust program of cash bail, which keeps people behind bars for months and years before trial, separating families and destroying lives.

This cruel bill would also criminalize community bail funds—in the same state that has demonized and killed #StopCopCity activists.

Add your name if you agree: We must end racist policing everywhere! No more holding people without charges—whether indefinitely caging Palestinians through administrative detention in Israeli jails, or locking up people who can’t afford bail in the U.S.

I won’t back down in the fight for equality and dignity for all people. Our struggles and our oppression are linked. Together, we’ll keep striving for collective liberation.

Thank you so much for being by my side.

In solidarity,

Rashida