Show up for Black lives on June
19-21
Friend –
Next Friday is Juneteenth, a day that honors Black freedom and
Black resistance and centers Black people’s unique contribution to the
struggle for justice in the U.S.
That weekend, June 19-21, the Movement for Black Lives is
asking us to show up in the streets to continue the fight for Black
lives with three demands: defund the police, invest in Black
communities, and call for the resignation of Donald Trump. Bend the
Arc will be there.
- Learn more at www.sixnineteen.com
- Sign up for M4BL’s text alerts about the weekend: Text
DEFEND to 90975.
- Spread the word. You
can share this post with more information.
History and the present moment are colliding:
Juneteenth is a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States
when on June 19th, 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation
Proclamation, the news of abolition finally reached Galveston,
Texas.
In the present day, Trump just announced he is restarting
his campaign rallies on Juneteenth in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where
almost 100 years ago mobs of white people massacred hundreds of Black
people.
Trump’s choice represents one direction for our country — a
path of white nationalism, violence, and racial brutality.
The other choice is rising with a Black-led movement “to
proclaim in one voice that Black Lives Matter, and that we won’t
tolerate anything less than justice for all our people.”
In cities all across the country,
this movement is forcing an urgent conversation about shifting massive
spending away from policing that doesn’t keep us safe and reinvesting
it in a shared vision of community safety, living-wage jobs, schools,
housing, and healthcare. With Trump continuing to perpetuate white
supremacy from the White House and calling for violence, we must continue rising up for Black
lives.
Next week we’ll share more details
about this mass mobilization, including Juneteenth actions organized
by Black Jews. In the meantime, sign up for updates on
the Movement for Black Lives’ Juneteenth
mobilization website.
In solidarity,
The Bend the Arc team
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