Dear Members, 

This project, shaped by data scientists, is laser-focused on influencing voter participation in 6 key states: Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The national office is seeking phone banking volunteers willing to make 20 calls each day over the next 2 weeks. The goal is to help identify potential volunteers who will influence people in their communities to vote in primaries and the upcoming national elections in November.  

For more background and training information, please see the webinar slides HERE

If there ever was a year that underscored the importance of collective action, and the significance of civil rights activism, it is the year 2020.

After months of protests, online petitions, campaigns, and boycotts, we’ve seen firsthand the power we have to bring about systemic change if only we demand it. And although we’ve made some progress, we can’t stop now.

In commemoration of the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington, the NAACP will lead a virtual March on Washington on August 28, 2020 alongside civil rights leaders, activists, and families of those who died at the hands of law enforcement, to call for police accountability reform and mobilize voters ahead of the November elections.

THE CALL: Thursday, August 27, 8-10pm ET: There will be virtual programming carried on television networks and key social media platforms, including musical performances, remarks from young activists and emerging organizations, and other entertainment.

THE MARCH: Friday, August 28, 11am – 3pm ET: Convened by Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, the Commitment March will gather at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to restore and recommit to the dream Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. defined in 1963. The March will be streamed across multiple social media platforms.

THE CHARGE: Friday, August 28, 9-11pm ET: The event will conclude with a night of virtual programming, including a major keynote address and musical performances by award-winning artists.

The 2020 Virtual March on Washington is about asking everyone — from protesters in the streets to elected officials at all levels of government — to commit to pursuing a new agenda that prioritizes equity, justice, and equal opportunity for all. As we approach the November elections, we must mobilize to vote we’ve never done before.

This is our opportunity to set forth a bold new Black agenda. On August 28, we will make history, the question is, will you be a part of it?

In Solidarity,

Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP  

Late last night, I received the terrible news that Congressman John Lewis, one of the most inspiring civil rights heroes of our time, had passed away.

Today, the NAACP family, and the entire nation mourn his passing with sorrow in our hearts, but a conviction in our knowledge that his legacy will live on for generations to come. 

Often called “one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced,” John Lewis dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he calls “The Beloved Community” in America. By 1963, Lewis was dubbed one of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. At the age of 23, he was an architect and a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963. He went on to become a United States Congressman and had served as U.S. Representative of Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District since 1986.
 

John Lewis is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize. He received the NAACP Spingarn Medal in 2002 and the NAACP Chairman’s Award in 2020.

We are deeply saddened by his passing but profoundly grateful for his immense contributions to justice. A national treasure and a civil rights legend for the ages, he used every waking moment of his 80 years to push this country toward more representative democracy and left behind a remarkable model. It is up to us to pick up his mantle and carry on, and we urge the entire nation to join us. As people of all colors are in the streets seeking racial justice, we urge all that can to speak louder and stay a little longer to honor the best warrior for democracy our nation has ever known.
 

The NAACP extends our sincerest condolences to the family of Congressman Lewis and sends prayers of comfort and strength now and always.

 

“Every generation leaves behind a legacy. What that legacy will be is determined by the people of that generation. What legacy do you want to leave behind?” -- John Lewis
 

In Solidarity,

Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP

To our Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz communities,

This letter is an official, direct response regarding the hanging of a noose at the base of the UC Santa Cruz campus (Coolidge Road and High Street) found on July 6th, 2020.

In light of the recent racist action that involved the hanging of a noose at the UCSC campus, The UCSC NAACP is appalled both by the boldness of people to intimidate Black lives by echoing the racial violence of past lynching, and by the following complicit nature of our institutional systems to not communicate effectively to the populations which may be directly impacted, such as our Black student leaders.

We know that these events echo past actions that found nooses across campus. For example, in 2011, a Black student leader was targeted and interviewed as etchings of nooses were discovered throughout the campus; she spoke to uplift and amplify the power and voices of the Black students on campus and within the Santa Cruz community. This racist action serves as a reminder of how often racist acts are practiced on the campus. In 2018, it took about 2,000 students to sign a petition to have a Jack Baskin professor suspended (and the University decided to suspend with pay) for making racist and sexual remarks about a student who was of Arab and Muslim background. In October of 2019, White Supremacist propaganda were distributed throughout campus lined with razor blades intended to harm students who tried to remove them. Clearly, a mere reporting made by the Hate/Bias Report Team is not enough to change the institutionalized racism that is distilled throughout the campus. 

Disconsolately, we point out that the response to this hanging of a noose released by Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Diversity Officer Teresa Maria Linda Scholz and Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Success Jennifer Baszile, falls short of describing what will be done to ensure tangible support and bolster resources for the Black community on campus. It simply encouraged students to “reach out for support” (support is not necessarily the only issue at hand here) and proceeded to list a campus-based service center (CAPS) that Black, Brown, Indigenous, POC and LGBTQA+ students may not be comfortable reaching out to. How can students who are impacted by this action be expected to reach out and contact CAPS during the summer, when CAPS is appointment-based and that offers a limited viewpoint of support for students of color that CAPS staff may not have previous experience with? Why are students expected to reach out for support when support for students should be a priority for the University, for the Hate/Bias Response Team, and the UCPD? The response goes on to state that this "[event] invalidate[s] some members of our community". This act surpasses invalidity, and merely suggesting for folx to reach out for support is not nearly enough of an action-based reaction on behalf of the University.

The response begins its closing statement with a muting, generalized call to action that serves to generalize the hanging of the noose on the UC Santa Cruz campus. “Every day we must all work toward a more just and equitable country". There are a plethora of student-led organizations and non-profit organizations who are working tirelessly each and every day to ensure the social, economic, and political empowerment of our Black and Brown communities. What steps will the University take to ensure that these students are held accountable and made an example of? How can the University claim that we all need to take steps towards a more just and equitable country when individuals who perform such racist, violent acts can simply walk and claim that they intended no harm, as was the case for the students who drew the “Diego Lynch” nooses were not punished? Is that all it takes for actors of such violating, racist, or White Supremacist happenings to be tolerated and dismissed?

The lackluster of such a response is juxtaposed with longer yet distorted statements released by local news channel Kion (“concerns over rope found at UCSC”) and by independent U.S. local news and information platform Patch (“Police Investigating Noose-Shaped Rope Hanging Near UC Santa Cruz”). To be clear, this was not a “noose-shaped looped rope” (as labeled in the response by the University); it was a noose. This did not take place “near” campus, it was on campus; it was no accident that these four students chose a location that intersects the City of Santa Cruz and the UC Santa Cruz campus. We wish to encourage and bolster our reader in initiating and continuing a calling out of the various intersecting forms of racial injustice that haunt and envisage a complicit, omnipresent oppressive system of injustice forcibly embedded within the Black and Brown communities across the nation. For an educational institution that has existed over 150 years, and as an embedded facet of that institution, students of color and folx of color attending UC Santa Cruz and within the overall Santa Cruz community deserve far more than just eight sentences in a sparse response letter. 

Therefore, the UC Santa Cruz NAACP are calling for a complete and full investigation into the perpetrators of this racist act, the University to utilize its given resources allocated to hate crimes, a full mantle of justice to question the inherent, implicit racist motives that exist in the larger Santa Cruz culture, a direct and correlated response from UC Santa Cruz and the UCPD (as there is a lack of clear investigation and communication about information about the incident), and for Black and Brown leaders and organizations (such as the UCSC NAACP and BSU) to be notified immediately, to have access to case details (when, where), all so that we can communicate with our community and protect ourselves. If a lack of accountability, transparency, and collaborative effort from the City of Santa Cruz (as this is a City issue just as much as it is an institutional issue) continues, the City of Santa Cruz, the UC system, and our allies should move forward with a community refund on institutions that don’t invest in investigatory powers for racial justice to invigorate the multi-ethnic student organizations on campus as well as Black folx within the Santa Cruz community. 

As the NAACP UC Santa Cruz chapter, we aim to build a collective movement using intersectional approaches to multicultural problems that underline the success and liberation of our Black, Brown, Indigenous, and LGBTQA+ allies, families, and friends. Whether on campus, at the Santa Cruz level, at the statewide conversation, or in the national debate, nothing will hold back the collective passion of this group to fight back against the oppressive forces that internalize injustice. 

In anticipation,

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, UC Santa Cruz

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Santa Cruz

Applications will be accepted July 13th- July 24th

The Economic Development Department of the City of Santa Cruz is partnering with Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Inc. (CAB) to market and administer an Emergency Eviction Prevention Program. The program is funded with HOME funding and CDBG-CV funding.

Grant funds may be used to assist with payment of past due rent, incurred on or after April 1st, 2020. A maximum of two month’s assistance is available for those who need it and are eligible with a monthly limit not to exceed $2,500 or a total limit of $5,000 total per household. The emergency housing assistance will be paid directly to the landlord on behalf of the household.

By NICHOLAS IBARRA | nibarra@santacruzsentinel.com | Santa Cruz Sentinel
PUBLISHED: June 23, 2020 at 6:25 p.m. | UPDATED: June 24, 2020 at 10:21 a.m.

SANTA CRUZ — After fostering the development of predictive policing technology a decade ago, Santa Cruz on Tuesday became the first city in the U.S. to approve a ban on its use.

Both predictive policing and facial recognition technologies are set to be barred from use by Santa Cruz police under a closely watched ordinance unanimously approved by the City Council, which will return to the council Aug. 11 for final adoption.

By: Brenda Griffin and Peter Gelblum

The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many other Black people at the hands of the police have sparked a long overdue reckoning over how our country approaches policing, and by extension, surveillance. As protests continue across the country, every community, including Santa Cruz, has a responsibility to listen to the calls for reform.

Right now, our city has an opportunity to take immediate, decisive action by banning two of the most dangerous surveillance technologies out there: facial recognition and predictive policing. Both of these technologies facilitate the exact type of intrusive and racially discriminatory policing that people are protesting against.

Facial recognition would give the police unprecedented reach into our private lives during a time of extraordinary activism. Even if used with the best of intentions, facial recognition would usher in a world where we couldn’t go to the doctor’s office, a place of worship, or a protest without knowing that our face, movements, and even expressions were being tracked and captured by the government.

Such invasive, intimidating surveillance poses a direct threat to our constitutional rights, including the right to peacefully protest. How would you feel about going to a rally if you knew the government could identify every person in the crowd, and then track them as they go from the march to their home? This isn’t a hypothetical – during the protests of the killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, police reportedly ran the faces of protesters through facial recognition and then arrested people.

Facial recognition is also less accurate for people of color. A recent comprehensive government study conducted by the National Institute of Science and Technology found that African American and Asian people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white men, depending on the algorithm used.  Given the epidemic of police violence against Black people, any misidentification could prove deadly. Even prominent developers of facial recognition technology, including Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft have realized its danger and recently announced they won’t sell to police for the foreseeable future. But many companies remain willing to profit from the surveillance of our communities.

By banning facial recognition, Santa Cruz would join the ranks of its Northern California neighbors, including San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, all of whom recognized that there are no acceptable half measures for this dangerous technology. If we leave the door open to facial recognition, we are planting the seeds for a future where we are all less safe, and less free.

Likewise, “predictive policing” is deeply flawed software that promises to alert police to likely crime spots, but in reality often replicates racially discriminatory policing patterns and misdirects resources by relying on biased data. Our city’s leaders, including Police Chief Mills, agree that it should be banned. If passed, Santa Cruz would be the first city in the country to formally ban this technology.

Both of these bans, originally introduced by Mayor Cummings as part of a wider surveillance law, have widespread support – from the community, from a host of racial justice and civil rights organizations, and from the City Council’s own Public Safety Committee.

Banning these technologies is an important first step toward passing wider surveillance accountability legislation, among other needed police reforms. We have the chance to protect the people of Santa Cruz by taking two dangerous technologies off the table for government use. Now is the time for action – we urge all Santa Cruz residents to reach out to our City Council members in support of the bans.

Brenda Griffin is the President of the NAACP Santa Cruz County Branch and a Board Member of the Santa Cruz Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California.

Peter Gelblum is the Chair of the Santa Cruz Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California.

We—you and the NAACP—earned a landmark victory at the Supreme Court today.

Just a few hours ago, the Court ruled in our favor in NAACP v. Trump, blocking Donald Trump’s attempt to throw immigrant lives into chaos by rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The Court’s decision to keep DACA in place shields an estimated 700,000 DREAMERS many of whom are from the African Diaspora, some of whom are NAACP members—from risk of deportation, allowing America to uphold its promise to protect them.

The ruling is a historic victory for justice, in the spirit of the NAACP’s groundbreaking Supreme Court victory in Brown v. Board of Education, and it’s a major blow to Trump’s racist and xenophobic agenda.

When the NAACP fights, we win. I need you in this fight, and in that spirit, I am asking that you commemorate this monumental victory with a donation today!

We win because of the generosity of supporters like you who ensure that our organizing teams have the resources necessary to mobilize on the ground and that our attorneys have what they need to put up the fiercest defense possible in the highest court in the land.
 

As we look to the months ahead, we know that the fight is not over because Donald Trump, as he always does, will just find a new way to continue his disgraceful campaign against Black and Brown immigrants.
 

That’s why as we celebrate today’s win on DACA, I’m calling on you to not let up and keep supporting the NAACP’s efforts by making a generous donation right now. Your gift will immediately be put to use by our teams across the country that are fighting to protect the rights of immigrants. 

Black immigrants are part of our community, and as long as their rights are being denied, all of our rights are being denied. We must continue standing with them and remain ready to fight for our shared rights whenever and wherever they’re under attack.

So please, if you can, make a gift to the NAACP today and show that we can count on you to stand with us as we stand with our immigrant sisters and brothers.

Fighting forward,

Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP

Bookshop Santa Cruz and the NAACP Santa Cruz County Branch welcome Zach Norris, executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, for an online event to discuss his new book, We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities-a groundbreaking new vision for public safety that overturns more than 200 years of fear based discrimination, othering, and punishment. Norris will appear online with special guest Marlena Henderson, who is also featured in the book. They will share stories from We Keep Us Safe and discuss a framework to help us understand and transform the policies and practices that perpetuate intergenerational trauma and community suffering. Click the button below to register for this free Crowdcast Event.

Between 1920 and 1938 the NAACP flew a flag outside its offices that read “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday” to mark the lynching of Black people in the United States. It is a shame on our nation that almost a century later, Black people continue to be brutalized and killed by racists.  The murder of George Floyd by police is an unspeakable tragedy. Sadly, police brutality against the Black community has been an ever-present occurrence, dating back to its roots as a method used to preserve the system of slavery. The arrest of Officer Derek Chauvin is not enough. There are three other officers who are just as complicit in killing Mr. Floyd. We want them all charged for their role in this inexcusable death.

The uprisings taking place in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Kentucky, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and other locations across this country and world are a result of the anger, fear, sadness, and distrust that have manifested for years throughout our community. Enough is enough. We Are Done Dying.  These are NOT isolated incidents. They are directly related to the systemic racism that plagues our country at an even more alarming rate than the coronavirus. Our communities have been in a state of emergency long before the first COVID-19 case was brought to light.

We are calling for federal legislation similar to a Hate Crime bill to be developed, which would provide detailed procedures and penalties in cases of blatant police brutality. The unrest we are seeing today is what happens when the road to justice is too long and drawn-out. These uprisings are a result of our communities feeling as though, once again, nothing is going to be done. 

We watched as the President gave alt-right protestors in Charlottesville, VA the benefit of the doubt, even when videos showed them terrorizing innocent Americans. Yet in this moment of anger, sadness, and fear at the continuous death of Black lives at the hands of the police, this President choses to characterize people who are mourning the loss of Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Jr., Breonna Taylor and now George Floyd as “thugs”.  This President’s actions are disgusting, yet not unexpected. He has proven to be incapable of displaying the competency and compassion necessary in this moment to lead this country through a turbulent time – turbulence which has been largely orchestrated by his intentional marginalization of our communities.

Our recent national survey reported that 75% of Black people feel that Trump is the SINGLE greatest threat to the African American. That feeling was only amplified where he glorified violence against Americans stating that “When the looting starts, the shooting starts!”

Our communities are angry and saddened. But we must be strategic and measured as we battle this latest grave injustice. The NAACP will not rest until we see these officers charged and convicted for the murder of George Floyd. We must keep our focus on redressing the systemic racism against our community that led to this tragedy. We cannot afford to do so while losing more Black sons and daughters. We must protest peacefully, demand persistently, and fight politically. But most of all, we must vote in November.