Each month SURJ Santa Cruz County suggests a local organization that is doing excellent work strengthening racial and economic justice in our county. If you’re able, please consider making a donation– healthy for you, healthy for our community. Thank you!
Campesina Womb Justice and YARR have set up a countywide collaboration focused mutual aid for families whose lives have been significantly impacted by fear and the threat of deportation.
Sunday • March 2 • Doors at 5:30 • FREE • Wheelchair Accessible
Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV) • 612 Ocean St • Santa Cruz
What REALLY makes a community safe? Filmed on an iPhone, Reimagining Safety challenges the idea that more police and prisons create safer communities. Featuring powerful voices like LA County DA George Gascón and USC Law professor Dr. Jody Armour, this award-winning documentary asks tough questions and invites viewers to see beyond traditional policing and prisons to explore what really works.
Change starts with conversation. The film screening will be followed by a discussion with Director Matthew Solomon and Santa Cruz community members.
“Reimagining Safety” is an era-defining documentary. With the increased tension between local police agencies and the people they should be “serving and protecting,” many people have become disillusioned with not only the police, but the system they represent. Matthew Solomon has captured the angst and despair of the people perfectly, as well as offering solutions many have been afraid to embrace…until now.
Register here.
The SURJ Action Alert List is for everyone who cares about showing up for racial justice in Santa Cruz County, especially for people who might not have time to join a SURJ working group or committee, but who want to be connected and support SURJ’s work in this county. SURJ Action Team members will receive action alerts via email with local calls to action, i.e. for Board of Supervisor or City Council meetings, rallies, actions, or invitations to sign on for public letters, etc. We will share a brief overview of the situation and details on the action. You are encouraged to join in for as many of these as you’re able to, and it’s totally up to you to determine which ones you feel moved to participate in. To get to know each other better and hear updates on our work, Action Team members are invited to attend SURJ general membership meetings, and encouraged to join at least a few times a year. Members will receive notice of opportunities for more training and skill-building, like getting training with YARR (Your Allied Rapid Response) or Rainbow Defense Coalition, or to participate in one of our upcoming Study and Action series.
To join the Action Alert List, please sign up here.
Spring 2025 • April-June
While reparations from the government may take a long time, individuals and groups across the country are innovating ways to make repairs and redistribute/return resources from White folks to Black (and Indigenous) communities as an essential step on the path of dismantling white supremacy culture and its wide-reaching repercussions while building a new culture of community care, shared healing, collective liberation, and kinship.
Here in Santa Cruz County we are launching SURJ’s Redistributing White Wealth Santa Cruz County (formerly known as Reparations Santa Cruz). RWW will be hosting its fourth giving circle in Spring 2025 (April – June).
To sign up: Giving Circle Participant Registration or for questions contact: redistwhitewealth@gmail.com
Sunday • March 22 • 3 – 5 PM • FREE • Wheelchair Accessible
Quaker Meeting House • 225 Rooney St • Santa Cruz
Our next in-person Community Meeting where we gather to reinforce our vision and strengthen community will be from 3-5 pm on March 22 at the Quaker Meeting House, 225 Rooney St, Santa Cruz.
Register HERE
The Struggle for Black Liberation: Past & Present
February 27 – April 3 • Tues and Thurs • 3:30 – 5:30 PT • ONLINE
FREE (donations accepted)
Our Freedom Can’t Wait! The Struggle for Black Liberation: Past & Present is a course for organizers and revolutionaries that is focused on the history and global struggle for Black liberation, its central role in the fight against capitalism and imperialism, and the key lessons that we can apply for our movement today.
Through bi-weekly classroom sessions, discussion, and developing a practice of revolutionary study, participants will strengthen their methodology to analyze the past and present, build capacity for organized struggle by studying examples of revolutionary processes around the world, and clarify a collective vision for the future. This program is based on the methodology of popular and political education, and on the politics of working-class internationalism. It’s a chance to meet new friends and comrades, exchange, study, discuss, and put theory into practice!
Study & Action – Spring 2025
April 17 – May 29 • Every other week • 6 – 8 PM • ONLINE
A free training for white people ready to unlearn white supremacy and take action.
The Spring 2025 Study and Action series is a virtual, live program on Zoom starting on April 17, 2025. This is a learning/unlearning space on the history of white supremacy, race and racism in this country. Join a supportive cohort of people who want to share their experiences and learn from each other. By the end, you’ll have better tools to talk about these topics with friends and family, a deeper understanding of your own personal stake in the fight for racial justice, and more confidence to take action. This series also offers a great foundation to be well-equipped to dive in with our Care Not Cages work with MILPA and other chapter campaigns. The more we know and understand our history, the more we are able to make sense of the present. Through Study & Action, you can find purpose, joy, community, and power in learning our history and fighting for collective liberation.
For more details and updates about these events, please visit our registration page:
tinyurl.com/surjsccstudy
Six Performances • Feb 21-23 & Feb 28-March 2 • 6:30 PM
Wheelchair accessible • Free for students
UCSC Theater Arts Center Mainstage • Santa Cruz
The UCSC African American Theater Arts Troupe presents the musical “Paradise Blue” written by Dominique Morisseau and directed by Don Williams. It’s 1949 in Detroit and trumpet-playing club owner Blue has a tough decision to make. Should he sell his jazz joint as gentrification is banging on the door? Attend this dynamic and musically-infused drama to find out what Blue decides.
Click here for more information
Saturday • Feb 15 • 6:30 PM • Wheelchair accessible • Ticketed event
High Street Community Church • 850 High St • Santa Cruz
An Evening of uplifting music benefitting the local branch of the NAACP Scholarship Fund.
Tickets here
Friday • Feb 14 • 8 PM • Wheelchair accessible • Ticketed event
Museum of Art and History • 704 Front St • Santa Cruz
n addition to a delightful evening of soulful music and small delicacies, this performance of Musical Soulmates is amplifying awareness about Santa Cruz Black, a local organization dedicated to Black initiatives through community engagement. Their focus is on closing the racial wealth gap, developing affordable housing opportunities, empowering youth, and creating community events for Black residents in Santa Cruz County. This is also a chance to support Spontaneous Confections, a Black & Veteran owned pastry shop, operating here in Santa Cruz. Performers include Gina René, Ariel Thiermann, Anthony Jones, Michelle Nash, and introducing, direct from the East Bay, Candace Y. Johnson.
Advance tickets available here. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Showing Up for Racial Justice-Santa Cruz County, CA
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