Friend –

Since the nation's founding, the fabric of American society has been woven with deeply racist policies, practices, and attitudes that harm Black and Indigenous people of color – and give both implicit and explicit advantages to white people because of the color of their skin.

Such deep-rooted and longstanding damages must be addressed, and it's going to require all of us playing an active role in reconciling the past.

The ACLU is leading the fight in doing just that, and I'm reaching out today to call on supporters like you to join us. Help us reach our $500,000 goal with a donation that supports our most critical civil liberties work – including our Systemic Equality agenda, an expansive initiative aimed at addressing and dismantling the pervasive racism at the core of our country's systems.

ACLU Supporter, our goal deadline is in just a few days – midnight on March 31. When you make a generous gift between now and then, you'll be playing a crucial role in securing our teams with resources to push for policies that will help Reconcile the Past, one of the four pillars in our Systemic Equality agenda work.

Reconciling the past means addressing and repairing centuries of wrong, and that must begin with accounting for hundreds of years of brutal mistreatment of Black people during chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and the enduring structural racism endemic to our society.

That's why through our Systemic Equality agenda, the ACLU – alongside our coalition partners – is pushing for passage of H.R. 40, a bill that would establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, its legacy, and make recommendations to Congress for reparations.

We're also seeking to decriminalize school discipline by removing the physical presence of police from our country's schools. This issue is both symptomatic of and perpetuates the treatment of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other youth of color through a punitive, criminal lens. These students, like all students, deserve to be educated to become active participants in our democracy.

I know these changes might sound hard; they might seem too big. But they are absolutely necessary if we want a future free from the systemic racism that has defined our history.

You can be a part of these critical priorities by helping the ACLU meet our $500,000 goal. Please, make a generous gift now in support of our Systemic Equality agenda and other crucial civil liberties work today.

Thank you,

Jeffery Robinson
Pronouns: He, him, his
Deputy Legal Director and Director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality, ACLU