Showing Up for Racial Justice-Santa Cruz County, CA

Care Not Cages County Budget 101

Thursday • May 28 • 6:00 – 8:00 PM • Wheelchair accessible • Free
In-Person • Branciforte Branch Library • 230 Gault St • Santa Cruz

A THRIVING community is a SAFER community!

You’re invited to come learn about the Santa Cruz County budget for 2026-2027, and how you can help decide how Santa Cruz County spends your taxes.

Care Not Cages, a collaboration between MILPA and Showing Up for Racial Justice Santa Cruz County, has been working to advocate for an investment in prevention, community-based solutions, housing and public health services in our county.

When: Thursday, May 28, 2026, 6-8pm (doors open at 5:45pm)

Where: Branciforte Branch Library, 230 Gault St., Santa Cruz CA 95062

Snacks will be provided!

We also encourage you to attend the upcoming county budget hearings and review the county budget website: santacruzcountyca.gov/VisionSantaCruz/Budget.aspx

Register here!

Hosted by Care Not Cages, a collaboration with MILPA and SURJ Santa Cruz County

All This Safety is Killing Us

Saturday • May 23 • 2 – 3:30 pm • Free
Institute of the Arts and Sciences • 100 Panetta Ave • Santa Cruz

Join the UCSC Institute of the Arts and Sciences for a conversation between Aminah Elster, Jennifer James, and Carlos Martinez on the intersection of prison abolition and healthcare. In 2025 Martinez co-edited All This Safety Is Killing Us: Health Justice Beyond Prisons, Police, and Borders to which Elster and James contributed the chapter “Medical Neglect as Carceral Violence.”

This event is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Everything is Going Right and as part of Visualizing Abolition, an arts-based initiative that reaches across prison borders to contribute to the unfolding collective story and alternative imagining underway to create a future free of prisons.

Little Singer — Dinétah (Arizona), Santa Cruz Premiere

Friday • May 22 • 6:30-8:30 PM • Doors open at 6 • sliding scale
RCNV • 612 Ocean Street • Santa Cruz

RCNV is proud to collaborate with Science and Nonduality (SAND)—an organization exploring our interconnectedness and humanity’s place within the web of life—to host the Santa Cruz Premieres of the Wisdom of the Ancestors film series. These films hold transformative power, and we believe viewing and contemplating them together can help disrupt cycles of violence and nurture Beloved Community.

Amidst the wide horizons of Diné land, the legacy of historical trauma echoes through generations. At the center, a medicine man and a small school, where grief and resilience meet in song, teaching, and k’é (kinship). Little Singer is rooted in the land; carrying the vision and medicine of k’é for those yet to come.

Everyone is welcome.Ticket sales support both RCNV and SAND’s vital work, and 50% of proceeds after film production costs directly fund Indigenous-led initiatives in the featured communities. Complimentary tickets are available to ensure no one is turned away for lack of funds. Click here to secure your complimentary ticket.

Special thanks to our promotional partners:
The Center for Spiritual Living, The Romero Institute, The Center for World Networking, and SURJ Showing Up for Racial Justice—Santa Cruz County

Get Tickets

Redistribute Wealth: Grupo Nauhcampa Conchero Aztec Dance Community

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!

“Grupo Nauhcampa is a grass-roots, indigenous organization dedicated to the preservation of our ancestral Danza Azteca Chichimeca de Concheros tradition. The term Azteca Chichimeca refers to the indigenous Otomí and Nahuatl-speaking peoples of central Mexico, a region known as Chicomoztoc and Anahuac. Concheros is in reference to our dance society, which combined ancestral dance practices with Catholicism as a way to preserve our traditions and resist Spanish colonisation as far back as 1531. For us, danza is not a hobby, it is a deep life-long commitment to our cultural preservation and identity.

“As our greater community faces severe and unprecedented racial injustice and economic hardship, it is more important than ever that we resist the latest onslaught of colonialism by honoring the ceremonial obligations of our tradition, staying rooted in brown joy, and praying as we have for generations. As our people say, LA CULTURA CURA (culture cures). We hope that by offering our heart and history, that you consider supporting our work.

“This year, we are raising money for our annual Ceremonia de la Abuela Santa Ana Tlazolteotl. Our ceremony begins on July 31st for a night-long private vigil, and continues into August 1st for the public ceremony for la Abuela Santa Ana Tlazolteotl at Las Animas Park in Gilroy.

“Gracias, tlasohkamati, thank you!–-Grupo Nauhcampa”

Please consider supporting this fundraiser by making a donation. No donation is too small!
All donations will be entered into a raffle to receive a handmade medicine bundle and artwork — be sure to include SURJ, your name, and phone number in the note to enter.
Venmo your donation here

Cultivating Care

4th Monday of the Month • Next Meeting April 27 • 5:30-7:30 PM • Free •
Branciforte Library • 230 Gault St. • Santa Cruz • Wheelchair accessible

Our Purpose
In the spirit of collective, interconnected liberation, the intention of Cultivating Care is to actively build anti-racist culture by understanding and dismantling white supremacy as it exists in ourselves and our culture. While we are clear that we must also work in relationship with Black and BIPOC humans to create new systems where all people are valued and thriving, this group is for being in compassionate relationship with each other to address our whiteness. This container is for all of us, wherever we are on our racial justice journey, to have courageous, vulnerable conversations that foster belonging, healing, calling in and showing up.

This space is for:

White people who are new to anti-racism work and want a place to begin learning responsibly
White people who have been engaged in this work and want to continue deepening their practice
People who are willing to be challenged, reflect on their impact, and take accountability for harm
Participants who understand that this space is about learning, not perfection
People who understand this is ongoing work, not a one-time learning experience

Why is this space centered on white people? Are you centering whiteness?
For decades—and longer—Black and BIPOC leaders have called on white people to “get your people”: to take responsibility for organizing within white communities and addressing racism there. Because of racism, white people often have greater access to and influence with other white people, and therefore, have a responsibility to engage their people and communities in this work. This space is one response to that call.

Is this space only for white people?
No. Everyone is welcome to attend. However, the content, focus, and structure of the group are designed primarily to support white people in their anti-racism learning and organizing.

Register here for Cultivating Care