Created By: Brooke Cohen
Realities of racial injustice and inequity have dominated recent headlines, leaving many White people asking “What can I do?” However, White evangelicals who are moved by their biblical convictions to pursue justice and resist oppression often lack clear direction on how to seek these aims in concrete and tangible ways.
This resource is designed to be a launching pad for White evangelicals to learn how to use their time, talents, and treasures for civic engagement, in service of justice and reconciliation.
We invite you to live out your faith by engaging civically to confront and fight racism in all its forms through these five pathways: local government, legislative advocacy, voting, service, and donations.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Participation in democracy is an important way for Christians to love their neighbors and seek justice through policies and leadership. Just as Paul utilized his status as a Roman citizen to promote the Kingdom of God, so too can Christians use their citizenship to influence our governments (Acts 22:26-29; see also Paul’s appeal to the Emperor in Acts 25). While voting is the most commonly discussed way of participating in the democratic process, there are a number of additional ways to make your voice heard locally.
Let us keep in mind the principle of subsidiarity, which grants freedom to develop the capabilities present at every level of society, while also demanding a greater sense of responsibility for the common good from those who wield greater power.
Laudato Si’ (“Praise Be”), Pope Francis, 2015, Chapter 5, #196.
Practical Examples
· Attend a community meeting in your neighborhood.
o Community meetings are held in various neighborhoods around the city to provide a forum for residents to discuss developments and plans for improvement in that area. This is perhaps the most direct way to have a voice in the affairs of your community.
· Observe a city council meeting.
o City council meetings are regularly scheduled gatherings of elected representatives of various geographic districts. Officials discuss and vote on matters of public interest. Generally, meetings are required by law to be open to the community, and a public comment period is included to allow residents to ask questions or opine on relevant topics.
o The Boston City Council hosts meetings to provide a space for residents, community leaders, and other stakeholders to provide feedback and hold their elective officials accountable. This is a great way to encourage local officers to consider racial justice in their policies, and to make sure that they are focusing on the priorities they have committed to.
· Attend a local training on community development and community organizing, such as those offered by the Mel King Institute.
o In the words of the Christian Community Development Association, organizing “is the act of mobilizing voices around an issue that directly affects that group’s community… Organizing seeks to build influence and power, and then mobilize this power to mount campaigns to bring substantive systemic change on issues defined by the people.” Community organizing provides a framework by which activists can leverage the voices of community members to drive the advocacy goals and priorities presented to elected officials.
· Learn about educational inequity in the US, and attend a School Board/Committee meeting to advocate for reform.
o Learn more about the responsibilities of the Boston School Committee and how you can get involved. Consider attending a meeting and participating in the public comment period to advocate for equity through budgetary, hiring, or policy priorities.
LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY
Christians are commanded to amend our ways in order to practice justice, oppose oppression, and avoid the shedding of innocent blood (Jer. 7:5-7). Our pursuit of Christ’s Kingdom on earth is no passive endeavor. As the woman in Luke 18:1-8 demonstrates, seeking justice requires sustained and committed advocacy that persists in the face of opposition or apathy. The Bible is clear that laws and other political decisions play an important role in facilitating cultures of justice or oppression (Is. 10:1). State and national legislatures are tasked with forming and approving policies that affect racial justice in a number of ways. Examples include allocating funds for police reform, creating remedies for civil rights violations, committing to resettling refugees and asylum seekers, and creating affordable housing and healthcare opportunities.
Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people…
Isa. 10:1-2
Practical Examples
· Research reforms advocated by leaders/politicians of color. Because these individuals represent the individuals and interests of communities of color, they are best equipped to understand the policy and reform priorities of their constituencies. One way you can do this is through the work of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus.
· Follow local community organizers that are committed to hearing the voices of the community and amplifying them to work towards change. For example, click here to research legislative organizing updates from the Massachusetts Community Action Network. MCAN is an interfaith grassroots network that advocates in Massachusetts for racially just policies rooted in communal power and accountability.
· Call or write your state legislators to encourage them to make racial justice a priority.
· Advocate for criminal justice reform that seeks to reduce racial inequities in incarceration.
o There are a number of organizations advocating for reform from a faith-based lens, including The Center for Church and Prison, Healing Communities, and Prison Fellowship.
· Encourage your state to require racial impact statements for all criminal justice legislation. These statements would force legislators to consider the impact of a given piece of legislation on people and communities of color before signing it into law.
· Read, sign, and share this statement by the Prayer & Action Justice Initiative. Explore the Partner Organizations committed to advocating for racial justice with biblical conviction.
VOTING
We know we have the right to vote, but what difference does it really make? Christians have an incredible opportunity to steward their political participation to choose candidates and policies that will promote racial justice. While national politics dominate the news cycle, most policies arise at the local and state level. State legislatures and city councils craft laws and regulations with widespread impact, particularly in housing, education, and criminal justice. Furthermore, given their smaller constituencies, they are usually more accessible and responsive to advocacy efforts.
Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.
Deut. 1:13
How?
Voting it not a once-every-four-years endeavor. Local and state elections occur with greater frequency, providing voters with numerous opportunities to leverage their voices to promote the cause of racial justice.
· Register to vote.
· Find your Massachusetts polling place.
· Check out Ballotpedia for information on local elections, both initiatives and candidates. Additionally, learn more about proposed ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments in Massachusetts.
· Election dates and deadlines in Massachusetts.
Which elections matter for racial justice?
· District Attorney (DA)
o The District Attorney is the chief prosecutor for a given county in the Commonwealth, and arguably the most powerful player in the criminal justice system. Following an individual’s arrest, the DA decides whether or not to charge them with a crime, and what crime(s) they should be charged with. A DA who is committed to racial justice will be more willing to hold police accountable for discriminatory or abusive practices, and can request alternatives to incarceration for young offenders. They can also work to ameliorate racial discrepancies in sentencing, and reform cash bail guidelines to avoid over-incarceration of low-income communities. See a video that further explains the difference a DA can make in fighting racial inequities and mass incarceration.
· Attorney General (AG)
o The Attorney General is the chief lawyer for the Commonwealth. The Office of the AG handles civil rights complaints, enforces health care laws, holds government officials accountable, and seeks community engagement throughout the state, among many other responsibilities.
o The Governor’s Council, or Executive Council, is comprised of eight individuals representing geographic districts. They provide advice and consent to the Governor on pardons and commutations, judicial appointments, and appointments of public administrators and members of the Parole Board, among others. Racial bias can often lead to disparate outcomes in a criminal defendant’s sentence or opportunity for parole. Electing individuals who will advocate for racial equity in criminal justice presents and important opportunity for reducing grave inequalities in incarceration.
· Massachusetts General Court (state legislature)
o The Massachusetts legislature is tasked with forming and approving a wide variety of policies and laws that affect racial justice – police reform, allocating budgetary funds to schools and community centers in neighborhoods of color, forming task forces to investigate racial disparities in health outcomes, and promoting housing stability.
· Sheriffs (appointed or elected depending on county)
o County Sheriffs are responsible for enforcing the law in their jurisdiction. These officials have incredibly wide-ranging power over policing in their jurisdictions, and have very little accountability and oversight outside of periodic elections. This critical position is often overlooked – an estimated 60% of sheriffs (who are 90% White men) run unopposed. In Massachusetts, sheriffs oversee the county jail and house of correction, and are tasked with the transport of inmates.
Read a four-part 2020 WBUR investigation on prison deaths in Massachusetts, to learn more about how the decisions of county sheriffs can dramatically impact the life outcomes of prison populations – which are disproportionately people of color.
· City Council
o City Councils create, pass, and amend local laws. Boston has thirteen councilors, four of which are elected at-large, while the other nine represent geographic districts. City Councilors speak into issues including civil rights, education, housing, public health, criminal justice, and small business development. A list of Boston City Council’s committees.
SERVICE
One of the most important ways Christians can learn to love their neighbors as themselves is through becoming proximate to their realities, needs, and desires. Getting involved in your community provides a crucial opportunity to facilitate relationship building among individuals of varied life experiences. Service is also a direct Biblical mandate: we are called to care for the poor and oppressed (Isa. 1:17), to visit the incarcerated (Heb. 13:3), and to look out for the orphans and widows in their distress (Js. 1:27).
“Injustice is not something to be aware of, it is something to engage, because to know is to do.”
Michelle Ferrigno Warren, The Power of Proximity: Moving Beyond Awareness to Action
Local Opportunities
· One legacy of racial injustice is the segregation of communities and fracturing of societal bonds. Open and trusting relationships and conversations are a necessary prerequisite to achieving racial reconciliation.
o Apply for a mini-grant to fund a community development initiative. Grant awardees receive funding from the city to create beautification projects, community gardens, mini free libraries, and other improvements alongside their neighbors. (Learn about ongoing beautification projects throughout the Boston area).
o Host a people’s supper to bring together individuals from different backgrounds and walks of life to engage in a discussion about race. This series of guided conversations is intended for established multiracial communities to come together at a shared table to break down barriers, lament injustice, and work towards collaborative solutions.
o Attend a Neighborhood Dinner through Unite Boston. Unite Boston is a non-profit that seeks to connect Christians from different congregations to build bridges across the work God is doing in Greater Boston. Neighborhood Dinners are opportunities to fellowship with other Christians in your neighborhood through the breaking of bread and sharing of conversation.
o Join with neighbors in neighborhood clean-up days happening twice annual city wide through Love Your Block Neighborhood Cleanups.
· Volunteer at a Massachusetts prison.
o As a tutor.
o Through programs sponsored by the Commonwealth.
o With the Alternatives to Violence Program.
o With the Concord Prison Outreach.
· Serve as a facilitator of restorative justice circles. Restorative justice seeks to move beyond punitive or retributive models of justice and to focus on restoring personal or communal relationships damaged by crime. These processes can be an alternative to lengthy periods of incarceration.
· Join a diversity committee at your workplace – or start one! Diversity committees are a great way to advocate for diverse hiring and cultural competency initiatives.
· More opportunities to serve.
DONATIONS
As Christians, we are admonished against storing up treasures here on earth, and commanded to be openhanded with our resources (Mt. 16:19-21). Christians can also promote economic justice by investing in communities and institutions that have been historically under-resourced and oppressed through racially discriminatory practices like redlining. Giving of our financial resources enables non-profits and initiatives to continue with their justice-seeking work, whether that is through empowering under-resourced communities, supporting the local church, or fighting discrepancies in access to justice or other resources. This is particularly important in the COVID-19 pandemic, as communities of color have borne a disproportionate burden.
But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the LORD their God. He made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He keeps every promise forever. He gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The LORD frees the prisoners.
Ps. 146:5-7
Practical Examples
Please note that RCCI does not necessarily endorse all of these ministries and/or all that they may advocate or believe. Rather, we seek to provide opportunities for your further exploration and reflection. Please do your own research before giving.
· Support Black and immigrant churches that have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Check out the Massachusetts Council of Churches One Church Fund and the Churches Helping Churches fund.
o One Church Fund aims to provide financial, practical, and relational support to churches doing essential ministry in communities which have borne the brunt of systemic inequities since long before COVID-19. One Church Fund will raise resources for immigrant, Black, poor, unhoused, and unaffiliated churches.
o Churches Helping Churches encourages affluent churches to donate to lower-income churches who are at risk of closure, in order to stabilize them and enable them to support their communities as they deal with the economic and health fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
· Donate to Commonwealth Kitchen - Boston's Food Business Incubator.
o Their mission is to build a new food economy grounded in racial, social and economic justice by strengthening the capacity, connections, and collective power of diverse entrepreneurs to start and grow successful food businesses.
· Donate to the Massachusetts Bail Fund.
o In the US, over 60% of the population of local jails are pre-trial detainees – individuals who are legally presumed innocent. An estimated 9 out of 10 of those people are incarcerated because they cannot make bail. Even short-term incarceration can have disastrous results – loss of employment, child custody, or housing. Given that Black adults are incarcerated at six times the incarceration rate for Whites and nearly double the rate for Hispanics, conditioning one’s liberty on their ability to pay further exacerbates racial inequities in the criminal justice system. Contributing to bail funds helps ensure that the accused, which are disproportionately people of color, are not forced to remain incarcerated because of a lack of access to financial resources.
· Support the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF).
o The LDF uses litigation, advocacy, and education to promote racial justice in a number of spheres: criminal justice, economic justice, education, and political participation. LDF has been a key player in securing and protecting voting rights for African Americans, desegregating public schools, and fighting racial disparities in the use of capital punishment.
· Give to the Equal Justice Initiative.
o This organization, founded by noted author and attorney Bryan Stevenson, represents innocent and unjustly sentenced detainees, with a special emphasis on the death penalty and juvenile offenders. Additionally, EJI works to educate the public on the legacies of slavery, racial terror lynching, and mass incarceration through reports, digital experiences, museums, and memorials.
· Further the mission of Historically Black Colleges and Universities through The Thurgood Marshall College Fund(TMCF).
o TMCF provides college scholarships and internship opportunities to students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). HBCUs provide top-tier educations at more affordable prices that historically White institutions, as well as a context in which Black students are empowered to thrive. Additionally, TMCF lobbies for educational justice on Capitol Hill to increase funding for HBCUs and students of color in higher education.
· Partner with the National Urban League (NUL).
o NUL is a nonpartisan civil rights and urban advocacy organization seeking to enable “African Americans and other underserved urban residents to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.” NUL helps register people of color to vote and protects their ability to exercise their civic rights, provides civil engagement curriculum to students of color, and helps empower individuals to secure employment, homeownership, and quality healthcare, among other initiatives. NUL has local offices that serve the needs of particular communities, as well as a central Washington Office that advocates on Capitol Hill for policy and legislative change.
· Support the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA).
o The CCDA empowers Christians to live out the three R’s of community development: relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution. CCDA members live, work, and worship in marginalized neighborhoods, adopting a holistic approach to empowerment that is church-based and community-based. Additionally, CCDA organizes and advocates in Washington D.C. to fight injustice, with a focus on three initiatives: Immigration, Mass Incarceration, and Education Equity.
Additionally, consider seeking out opportunities to support Black-owned businesses in Boston. Business ownership is an important avenue for wealth accumulation and job creation. Black-owned businesses have been particularly hurt by COVID-19, with an estimated 41% closing their doors in the economic shutdown. (Additionally, some Black business districts have historically been targeted for destruction, further preventing economic growth in these communities. Learn about the burning of “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, OK). Purchasing from Black-owned businesses is a tangible way of supporting communities where injustice is occurring and promoting a more equitable distribution of wealth.
Brooke Cohen is a San Diego native who moved to greater Boston in 2017 to attend law school. Brooke studied Political Science and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and loves to explore the complex relationship between mercy and justice in legal systems and in society. She and her husband, Justin, worship at Aletheia Church in Cambridge and reside in Downtown Crossing.