Dear John,

We are now five weeks into a national wave of protests demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain, Layleen Polanco, and the countless Black folks and others lost to racist police and state violence.

We are four months into the COVID-19 pandemic, where Black folks are falling ill and dying at tremendous rates. We have depression-level unemployment and food pantry lines are stretching for blocks.

As a Black person, a father to a Black son, and someone who is raising a child with a Black woman who is a frontline healthcare worker, these past five weeks have been some of the heaviest of my life. I've found myself devastated, enraged, terrified and exhausted.

But I have also found myself exhilarated, humbled, moved, and overjoyed.

The uprisings we are seeing in every state, the tangible progress we are making toward reducing the power of the police and rethinking public safety in a growing number of communities, and the watershed electoral victories for Working Families Party candidates in recent days from New York to DC to New Mexico — all of this is proof that our politics are shifting right now in real and undeniable ways.

But protest moments don't last forever. Our duty right now is to continue to make our voices heard in the streets AND work to build the power that will deliver structural shifts in how we organize our economy, our society, and our government.

Forging unity and solidarity, reaching out across our differences, organizing a multiracial, cross-class coalition powerful enough to win power for the people — that is the hope and promise of the Working Families Party. And here at WFP, we depend on each other to build and maintain this political home — our political home — together.

Will you be a part of this? If you can afford it, please chip in $15.91 — our average online contribution this quarter — before tonight's midnight deadline. Together, we are meeting this historic moment by building the people power we need to win groundbreaking electoral victories across the country.

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While mail-in ballots are still being counted, a multiracial slate of WFP candidates — especially Black candidates — have won or are leading in recent primaries.

In New York, that includes Jamaal Bowman, an educator, dad and community leader who took on a 30-year incumbent in the 16th Congressional District. Mondaire Jones, a young, gay Black progressive in New York's 17th Congressional District. Jabari Brisport, a public school teacher and WFP-backed Democratic socialist running for New York State Senate in Brooklyn. And Khaleel Anderson, a young progressive activist from the Rockaways in Queens, who will at 24 become the youngest member of the New York State Assembly.

And In D.C. WFP helped Janeese Lewis George defeat an incumbent member of the City Council on a platform of diverting money from local police, despite an avalanche of scaremongering attacks against her.

These WFP champions and more aren't winning by distancing themselves from what is happening in the streets. They are running and championing the demands that are exploding from the grassroots — joining the protests — and their victories are rewriting what is possible.

Together, we're forcing decision makers to reduce funding for policing and prisons — and to invest in what really keeps our communities safe. And we're electing candidates who aren't just accountable to the movement, but part of it.

Let's keep this momentum going. If you can afford it right now, please chip in with a donation before tonight’s midnight deadline. Our average online donation is $15.91, and we rely on grassroots donors like you to help identify, support, and elect candidates like this across the country.

I am honored to be in this struggle with you, John. We are winning. This is only the first inning. We won't stop until we all can thrive.

In solidarity,

Maurice Mitchell
National Director
Working Families Party

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Paid for by Working Families Party National PAC (81 Prospect St., Brooklyn, NY).