1133 Rutledge Street, Madison, 5:30 P.M.

As a descendant of immigrants (Becca) and the daughter of undocumented immigrants (Jenny), we strongly oppose the current administration’s hateful anti-immigrant policies, practices, and rhetoric. We’ve joined with others in our community to respond to attacks on immigrant families by helping Voces de la Frontera and Centro Hispano, two important Latino organizations, hire a full-time immigration and workers’ rights organizer in Madison.

Members of Madison’s Jewish community and our allies have already raised one year’s salary for a Madison organizer. Co-hosts Jenny Pressman, Becca Krantz, Don Katz, and Mary Lang Sollinger are holding the next fundraiser to help fund the organizer’s second year. Our goal is to raise $30,000 – half the needed $60,000 – and we have personally committed to contributing $12,000 to match the first $12,000 raised!

Join us for tasty appetizers, desserts, and beverages at Jenny’s beautiful home and garden to learn from Latino/a community leaders how crucial your support is. Bring your family, your appetite, and, yes, your checkbook. But most of all, bring your desire to stand up for what is right.

Voces marching on Labor Day 2011 in Milwaukee

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney has set up a Memorial Avenue Commission to examine what to do with the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue – but he already has said the statues should stay where they are, just with some added “context,” like signage. The Richmond (Virginia) Defenders have been calling for the statues to come down since 2006, when they held a press conference on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert E. Lee at the Lee statue with King Salim Khalfani of the Virginia State Conference NAACP. The commission began its work July 31, 2017 and will hold public meetings on Aug. 9 and Sept. 13 to get community input. On July 29 an Open Letter was sent to the commission and to local, national and international news media. The letter demanded that taking down the statues be one of the options to be considered; that opponents of the statues be added to the commission; and that the commission invite New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to speak at the first public hearing to speak about why his city has taken down its Confederate monuments. Opposition has been reported on by national media such as NBC News, Washington Post, Washington Times, WTOP (D.C.), San Francisco Chronicle, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) and the New Orleans Advocate, as well as the Richmond TImes-Dispatch and Channel 12 news. We encourage everyone to be at both public hearings and demand that these white-supremacist tributes to the slavery-defending Confederacy be taken down.  Feedback is also being accepted online at monumentavenuecommission.org.

More than 300 activists registered for the “Stop the Wars at Home & Abroad!” conference hosted June 16-18 by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. They came from 29 states, the District of Columbia and 11 other countries. The conference brought together leaders in domestic struggles like Fight for $15; defense of immigrants, Muslims and LGBTQ rights; and opposition to the Atlantic Coastal Pipeline along with longtime opponents of U.S. wars abroad. Many people said the gathering also had the largest number of Black leaders at any anti-war conference in memory. On the final day, more than 100 people marched from the convention center to Richmond’s African Burial Ground to declare their support for the Community Proposal for a nine-acre Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park. All plenary sessions, some workshops and the gathering at the African Burial Ground were videoed and can be viewed on the conference website: www.unacconference2017.org. UNAC’s report on the conference can be read HERE. UNAC was founded in 2010 on the basic principles of opposition to all U.S. wars and interventions, support for the right of oppressed peoples to self-determination and independence from the two major capitalist parties. The Richmond gathering was UNAC’s fourth national conference and the first to be held in the South. The organizing was coordinated by the Defenders, a founding member of UNAC.

UNAC’s Odessa Solidarity Campaign staff members and friends have launched an important new project to keep the world informed about developments in Ukraine, a critical country in the developing crisis between the U.S. and Russia. The website Ukraine after Maidan: Right Wing Violence & State Repression tracks violence and intimidation carried out by right-wing radical groups in Ukraine, as well as repression against basic civil liberties and the persecution of the opposition by the Kiev government. The site features translations of articles, full or partial, from local Ukrainian media outlets. “Ukraine after Maidan” can be accessed from the Odessa Solidarity Campaign website under “Ukraine News.”

UNAC, along with other peace and justice organizations, has helped initiate a new coalition against US foreign military bases.  Please click the link below to read and endorse the Unity Statement:

For more information on the coalition: info@NoForeignBases.org

The coalition will also host a conference in January.  More information on the conference will be available soon.

Read a paper on U.S. Foreign Military Bases delivered by UNAC at the Fourth International Seminar for Peace and the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases held in Guantanamo, Cuba:

http://nepajac.org/basespaper.htm

International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS)
Solidarity & Fightback: Building Resistance to US-led War, Militarism
August 5 – 8
Toronto, Canada
For more information, click here

An evening of music, culture and struggle to honor Palestinian icon Rasmea Odeh.  With keynote address by former political prisoner Angela Davis.  The event will be held at:

International Union of Operating Engineers
2260 S. Grove Street
Chicago, IL 60616

Space is limited. Buy your tickets today by visiting bit.ly/Rasmea1 or by calling (312) 899-6392

For more information: justice4rasmea.org or uspcn.org or stopfbi.org
Sponsored by the Rasmea Defense Committee

https://www.facebook.com/EndTheWars/

United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) Appeal:

The university town of Charlottesville, Virginia, has become ground zero in the fight against the post-election resurgence of white-supremacist organizations. A national gathering of “alt right,” neo-Nazi and other far-right groups is scheduled to take place there on Saturday, Aug. 12.

Local anti-racist organizations are calling for a national anti-racist mobilization. Charlottesville is one of the cities that has decided to take down its statues of Confederate figures, in this case generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. In response, national “alt-right” groups staged a torch-lit rally May 13 next to the Lee statue. The next day there was a large protest.

On July 8, about three dozen KKK members held a rally next to the Jackson statue – and were met by more than 2,000 anti-racist protesters.

Now hundreds of right-wingers are expected to come to the city for a weekend of activities, capped by a rally on Aug. 12 at Emancipation Park, formerly Lee Park.

UNAC strongly urges all its affiliates, allies and supporters to come to Charlottesville to support the local anti-racist movement.

A statement by Black Lives Matter-Charlottesville is HERE.

UNAC affiliate: Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality is helping to mobilize regionally. For more information, contact the Defenders at 804-644-5834 or DefendersFJE@hotmail.com.

UNAC affiliate International Action Center: www.IACenter.org will be sending forces to Charlottesville from Roanoke VA, Durham NC, Baltimore-DC, Philadelphia PA, and NYC.

The “Unite the Right: March on Charlottesville” rally on August 12, 2017 is slated to draw hundreds of members of white supremacist and white nationalist groups to Charlottesville, Virginia. These racists will spew hate speech and a number of them may also be brandishing firearms in an attempt to intimidate those who oppose them.

We invite allies of Black Lives Matter to once again #DefendCville and to say #NoNewKKK for an entire weekend of action (August 11th-13th, 2017) that will reject the hate flowing into our town. We invite you to choose to believe in the fight for justice and the solidarity of community. We invite you to take part and together face this consolidation of hate groups, and the risk of police use of excessive force, with nonviolent direct action.

America will be watching.

Be a part of history.

The “Unite the Right” rally is only the tip of the iceberg of white supremacy within this country. As a result, our plans are short- and long-term:

On August 12th:

• We will confront this group as we faced the Klan in July without fear or apology.
• We will demonstrate nonviolent direct action to combat hateful rhetoric.
• We will educate our community about these white supremacist organizations, beliefs, and their relationship with wider power structures before and after the rally .

On August 13th and beyond:

• We will continue to remind Charlottesville and the nation that Confederate monuments are beacons of hate, and their occupation in our city is a direct result of the frequent presence of white supremacists and white nationalists.
• We will continue the struggle against the continuing everyday effects of white supremacy by addressing the needs for affordable housing and a living wage, and by challenging oppressive law enforcement tactics which disproportionately target POCs, such as stop-and-frisk, militarized police units, and mass incarceration.
• We will continue to hold community events, such as our Real Talk on Race teaching panels, that promote discourse and strategies within our community for combating inequalities which result from white supremacy.

This is our chance.

The chance for our city and our nation to show that despite our racist past and present, we will not bow to white supremacist hate nor accept their hateful rhetoric.

August 12th presents us with an opportunity:

• To expose the systemic injustices of powerful institutions and structural racism.
• To challenge the rise of fascism and white nationalism, which is happening in our country before our very eyes.
• To expose and condemn the everyday aggression of the police in our cities, their attacks upon POCs, and lack of accountability to civilians whom they ostensibly serve and who finance their pay.
• To affirm and empower the members of our communities to believe that we can create change within our lifetime in our communities.
• To create and strengthen impactful connections with our townspeople.
• To align with, amplify the voices, and promote the liberation of people of color from physical, emotional, mental and political oppression.

We will continue to practice and promote a variety of actions including education, political organizing and action, disruption, protest and resistance to the vitriol that seeks to demean us as a people.

First and foremost, we persist for the preservation of life. We will come with the strengths of our principles, and the presence of our bodies, and our keen minds. We will not be deterred by fear. Our commitment is rooted in principles of a deep, unapologetic, abiding love for our community.

We persist to live another day.

We persist because our voice matters.

We persist because our very existence matters.

Black Lives Matter.

Always.

Please come and support us.

Starting now, through August 12th, and every day after.