May 10 Lobby Day in Albany

May 10th Day of Advocacy and Action

Please join Challenging Incarceration and New Yorkers struggling for justice statewide for our May 10th lobby day in Albany, Unite for Parole and Prison Justice: A Day of Advocacy and Action. This legislative action and advocacy day will focus on amplifying our message of an end to mass incarceration, state violence and torture, and identity-based oppression, and the promotion of community empowerment. Our May 10th legislative advocacy will place a particular emphasis on bringing people home through a more humane parole system.

Unitarian Universalist Principles and Black Lives Matter

Black Lives of UU endorses #Vision4BlackLives Policy Platform

from the Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism Organizing Collective



Today The Movement for Black Lives released it’s #Vision4BlackLives Policy Platform which we whole heartedly endorse as an Organizing Collective. This truly visionary platform seeks to restore Black humanity and dignity through Black political will and power. It features as set of six demand categories each of which are deeply explored & researched on the policy platform website: https://policy.m4bl.org/
In response to the sustained and increasingly visible violence against Black communities in the U.S. and globally, a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of Black people from across the country have come together with renewed energy and purpose to articulate a common vision and agenda. We are a collective that centers and is rooted in Black communities, but we recognize we have a shared struggle with all oppressed people; collective liberation will be a product of all of our work. — from #Vision4BlackLives Policy Platform
While we certainly see a direct link between this policy platform and our own 7 Principles of Black Lives, the grounding of the #Vision4BlackLives in the goal of affirming Black humanity & dignity also show a clear connection to our Unitarian Universalist Principles.

The Movement for Black Lives is asking individuals and organizations to formally endorse the #Vision4BlackLives. Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism has already taken that step as an Organizing Collective. We encourage all UUs and all UUA entities to read, digest and endorse this critical step towards collective liberation.

May 1 March for Sanctuary

Celebrate International Workers' Day by making Poughkeepsie a sanctuary city.


On May Day, rally and march for workers' rights to sanctuary cities, public transit, education, and good jobs. As the Poughkeepsie Common Council introduces a sanctuary-inspired resolution on May 1st , show them how the Hudson Valley feels about defending our neighbors!

Monday, May 1st starting at 4:30pm.
4:30pm Gather at the Family Partnership Center in Poughkeepsie (29 N Hamilton St.),
5pm March to City Hall
5:30pm Rally at City Hall (62 Civic Center Plaza)
6pm Speak out on sanctuary-inspired resolution at Common Council meeting
RSVP here or contact Community Voices Heard, the coordinating organization for more details: jordan@cvhaction.org

Two-Year Vigil for Samuel Harrell



On April 21, 2015, correctional officers at our local prison beat to death Samuel Harrell.  Two years later, those same officers are not only free from criminal prosecution but are still on the job.

Please join Beacon Prison Action as we mourn Sam's death, call for accountability for this heinous crime, and organize toward systemic reform:

Two-Year Vigil Friday, April 21st 7pm Polhill Park, Beacon (corner of Main St & 9D in Beacon) Tell us you're coming on facebook

Please sign up to help on the 21st & 22nd! All throughout the day of the vigil and the following day, we'll be handing out information and helping people address postcards to the local prosecutor and the Governor's office.  Please sign up for a shift here or by emailing Kate at katherinegillieflanagan@gmail.com.

Two-Year Vigil Friday, April 21st 7pm Polhill Park, Beacon (corner of Main St & 9D in Beacon) Tell us you're coming on facebook

Please sign up to help on the 21st & 22nd! All throughout the day of the vigil and the following day, we'll be handing out information and helping people address postcards to the local prosecutor and the Governor's office.  Please sign up for a shift here or by emailing Kate at katherinegillieflanagan@gmail.com.

April 17 lecture on children and race relations at Vassar College

LECTURE: Wilma King, "'We are all bound together in one great bundle of humanity’: The Interconnected Lives of Enslaved and Emancipated Children in North America" (4/17)

Vassar, Rockefeller Hall, room 300
5:30pm

Wilma King is the Arvarh E. Strickland Distinguished Professor in African American History and Culture Emerita, University of Missouri. She has published examinations of slavery and freedom in nineteenth-century North America. This lecture focuses specifically on interconnections among black children, enslaved and emancipated, and attempts to answer questions about how and when they learned of legal differences among themselves and their contemporaries, black and white. 

Black Lives Matter presents "There is a Field"

Black Lives Matter Hudson Valley presents: There is a Field

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Black Lives Matter Hudson Valley and DonkeySaddle Productions PRESENT: There Is A Field, a play about a young Palestinian teenage boy who is shot to death by an Israeli Police Officer, based on the true story of the death of 17 year old Aseel Asleh in October 2000, written and produced by Jen Marlowe. Based on interviews and primary sources collected over fourteen years, the documentary-style play offers a uniquely personal lens for understanding inequality as the root of state violence and impunity.
This will be a reading of the play by local community members working in conjunction with DonkeySaddle Productions.