Friend, I participated in a millennial, faith organized rally over the weekend that reignited the fire to continue down freedom lane! I was convicted to adjust my language, my mood, my mindset, as required by ancestors and my G-d, to focus on my breath as a political act! Take one precious Lord-have-mercy-aint-gonna-let-nobody-turn-me-around-BREATH! And with that breath, I could feel the walls of injustice tumbling down... ...This weekend a majority of the Minneapolis City Council agreed to demands from Black grassroots organizations to begin a process that would end the city’s police department and create a new transformative model for safety in neighborhoods. They committed to start by shifting $45 million from policing to community-led health and safety strategies. Across the U.S. cities have agreed to demands to rewrite use of force policies that shield police from accountability, move funding from policing to more effective anti-violence programs and community services, and remove police from schools. These victories are just the start. At this extraordinary moment of protest we have an opportunity to win transformative change. The movement to defund policing is gaining steam because the path to peace in neighborhoods is jobs, mental health, housing, treatment and civilian violence intervention and community safety nets for formerly incarcerated people, not policing that controls and criminalizes Black and Brown bodies. A lot of people have asked us what more they can do to fuel change. In response, we want to share three concrete actions each person reading this email can take to support the growing movement to defund and transform policing. First, ask your councilperson, mayor and police chief to sign our #FireAllRacistCops pledge. This petition is a tool for focusing the conversation about police brutality on the anti-Black racism that makes police see Black men and women as threats, and for identifying who is with and against us in our struggle to end racist policing. Second, participate in weekly Bring the H.E.A.T. town hall meetings every Thursday at 4pm PST/5pm MT/6pm CT/7pm EST. Bring the H.E.A.T. is a proven framework developed in California by Pastor Ben McBride and clergy and leaders from LIVE FREE for making concrete demands that end police killings and begin to build a new system focused on safety and peace. Third, deepen your understanding of the police unions, White power groups, and other interests pushing back against change, what leverage we have to weaken their power, why we’d all benefit from defunding policing, and what a true approach to community safety could look like. To help equip you for this struggle we’re sharing Five Things to Know and Question as We Work for Structural Change in Policing in Our Communities. Over the coming days we’re committed to sharing popular education materials and stories of success. Please reply to this email to share what you are learning and winning, and any questions you have, so we can live up to the fierceness that God expects from us in this moment. | 
