Defend bail reform in 2020!

We need your help to defend bail reform in 2020! We have been hearing from legislators that many people have been contacting their offices in opposition to bail reforms that were passed last year. We need you to contact your legislators and let them know that you support these crucial reforms. Please take this action and send this along to your networks. We need lots of voices to ensure that the legislature doesn’t roll back what we’ve achieved in the upcoming session.

Please call or email your representatives now

Senator Sue Serino
Phone: 845-229-0106
Serino@nysenate.gov

Assemblymember Jonathan Jacobson
Phone 845-763-7011
jacobsonj@nyassembly.gov

Assemblymember Didi Barrett
845-454-1703
barrettd@nyassembly.gov

Resilience is in our DNA

Because it's time for a glimmer of light, here is a dazzling group of black students from Tulane University School of Medicine in front of former slave quarters at Louisiana's Whitney Plantation museum - proof of improbable distances traveled and what Russell Ledet calls a heart-lifting "collective vision for the future." ...

"As physicians in training, we stood on the steps of what was once slave quarters for our ancestors," noted Sydney Labat, a classmate who grew up in rural Mississippi, likewise rarely saw black people in positions of authority, and posed looking unapologetically determined to "embody the strength of the people who lived on those grounds." Her message: "For our entire community, keep striving. Resilience is in our DNA."

https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/12/19/yo-we-going-about-shining-resiliency

Police Accountability Jan 28 in Kingston

SAVE THE DATE - A Community Forum

We started the struggle for Police Accountability in March of 2018. Since then, we've made great strides. But there is still work to do. On January 28, we are hosting a community forum as a lead up to passing our Police Accountability legislation through the Common Council and on to the Mayor's desk. Join us to have all of your questions answered about Police Accountability in Kingston, and to use your voice to pass our legislation into law. We need to YOU to make Police Accountability happen!

Take Action!

While we await news of the new members of the Laws and Rules Committee, we want to continue the momentum of Police Accountability here in Kingston. Call Mayor Steve Noble and tell him:

“I support Rise Up Kingston’s Police Accountability Platform!”

call: (845) 334-3902
email: mayor@kingston-ny.gov

Have you signed our letter of support?

Sign-On

David Carter-El

David Carter-El, a major part of building two African Roots Libraries

in the Hudson Valley, joined the Ancestors today 12/20/2019

Colin Kaepernick

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5TSedzHmnZ/?hl=en

ENJAN meeting schedule

Note atypical ENJAN meeting schedule: ENJAN typically meets every two weeks, the second and fourth Wednesday of each monoth.However, our last ENJAN meeting was 3 weeks after our previous meeting. It was decided at our last meeting to cancel our usual fourth-Wednesday ENJAN meeting on Nov. 27, because it falls on Thanksgiving Eve. Thus, our next meeting is 4 weeks after our last meeting. We also decided to cancel December's fourth-Wednesday meeting, because it falls on Christmas. This cancellation causes another 4-week interval. We'll have meetings two weeks apart in January, but then it will still be 3 weeks after that until our first February meeting. In summary, between late October and early February, we'll have only one 2-week interval between meetings. The rest will be 3 and 4 week intervals.

The Whole Damn System Is Guilty As Hell: Taking Control Of Police

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance

November 24, 2019

The entire system of policing in the United States is in crisis. Police murdering civilians has become a too common nightmare across the United States. The police murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, Eric Garner in New York City, Walter Scott in Charleston, SC, Tamar Rice in Cleveland OH, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, MD, Laquan McDonald in Chicago, IL and so many more have spurred a movement to transform policing.

The power relationship between police and the community is out of balance. Militarized policing of black and brown communities resembles an occupying force. While many police departments use the slogan “protect and serve,” in too many communities, people do not feel protected or served. They feel threatened, harassed and abused by police.

The relationship between police and the people needs to change. While there have been some positive reforms like police body cameras, special units to investigate police and increased prosecutions of police, these are insufficient. The most promising transformational change is to put in place community control of police through a democratically-elected police accountability board.

ENJAN PAGES