Fierce Vulnerabilities with Kazu Haga

Event 1: Book Talk + Community Gathering
Friday, August 22 | 6:00–7:30pm

Event 2: Fierce Vulnerability Training + Lunch
Saturday, August 23 | 10:00am–4:00pm

Resource Center for Nonviolence • 612 Ocean St •  Santa Cruz
Wheelchair accessible


Resource Center for Nonviolence is honored to welcome author and activist Kazu Haga for two transformative events deeply grounded in his new book, Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse. These gatherings offer powerful opportunities to explore healing, resilience, and courageous community building. 

Friday’s event, Book Talk + Community Gathering, will be an evening of reflection, Q&A, and conversation centered on the themes of Fierce Vulnerability.

Saturday’s event, Fierce Vulnerability Training + Lunch will be an immersive daylong workshop with Kazu Haga, offering practical tools for healing trauma, embracing vulnerability, and building resilient movements.

Redistribute Wealth: Wealth Redistribution as Repair, Return, Solidarity & Love

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!

Redistributing White Wealth Santa Cruz County (formerly known as Reparations Santa Cruz) is a collective political education and wealth redistribution project that acts from the belief that collective liberation depends on the liberation of wealth and resources that have been accumulated and hoarded by generations of European-descended colonizers in the US. This anti-capitalist redistribution project seeks to address not only the legacy of historic anti-Black racism but also the contemporary reality of the racial wealth gap. As a project of SURJ Santa Cruz County, we provide a platform for those benefiting from racial capitalism or experiencing class privilege in some way to use a reparations lens to facilitate wealth redistribution to Black individuals and communities with no strings attached. Further, we are working to strengthen a solidarity economy that celebrates our interdependence as our greatest asset.

We acknowledge that no amount of money received can heal the enduring trauma of anti-Black racism. We acknowledge that no amount of money given can absolve non-Black people of the responsibility to practice anti-racism. And, we acknowledge the crucial role of wealth redistribution in Black liberation and, indeed, in the liberation of us all.

Ready to move money for redistribution? You can contribute directly via RWW’s Chuffed platform. Email redistwhitewealth@gmail.com if you’d prefer to mail a check or contribute via a channel other than Chuffed. RWW plans to distribute proceeds contributed through RWW’s Chuffed platform as of August 31, 2025 to local Black-led organizations/projects that serve, uplift and directly support Black residents of Santa Cruz County as well as to the GoFundMe Campaign for Thairie Ritchie. 

“Since I Been Down” Film Screening and Discussion – TWO SHOWINGS

Tuesday • August 19 • Capitola Library • 2005 Wharf Rd • Capitola
Wednesday, August 20 • Resource Center for Nonviolence • 612 Ocean St • Santa Cruz
Doors open at 6 pm, film at 6:30 pm
Wheelchair accessible • Donation • RSVP requested

Gilda Sheppard’s film Since I Been Down brings to life the praxis of abolition within but not confined by prison walls. To be down, as this film shows, is not just to be locked up but to bear the power of knowledge and transformation in ways that in the words of a teacher/student “transcends this cage.”

“The more that we begin to educate ourselves, the more empowered we become, the less manipulated we can be, the less oppressed we can be.” —Kimonti Carter

There will be light refreshments before the film and community discussion following the screening. Watch trailer HERE


RSVP for the Capitola showing HERE
RSVP for the RCNV showing HERE

Updated: Actions for Gaza

Jewish Voice for Peace – Power Half-Hour for Gaza: M-Th • 12:00 – 12:30 PM Location: Click here for info and to register
Sponsor: Jewish Voice for Peace
Description: After two years, the genocide in Gaza continues, we are overwhelmed with sorrow and outrage yet we are steadfast in our commitment to Palestinian liberation. There are no words to describe the devastating pain of the past year in which the Israeli military has killed over 70,000 Palestinians – probably more like 300,000 -in Gaza, including more than 20,000 children. We know these numbers are not accurate — thousands more are being found under the rubble and so many more will perish due to lack of medicine and medical treatment, food, water, and shelter. The International Court of Justice has declared that Israel must stop the genocidal acts being committed against the Palestinian people. And yet the U.S. government is actively supporting the Israeli military as it wreaks devastation on the over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

Join us as we take collective action to demand an arms embargo on Israel, an immediate end to the genocide and to stop starving Gaza. We add to our actions the demand to Melt ICE and stop the kidnapping of immigrants and protestors. All are welcome. All are needed. ASL Interpretation and Closed Captioning provided daily Register one time to attend whenever you can; unsubscribe whenever you wish


Financial Support for Gaza • (suggested by Students for Justice in Palestine at UCSC)
Palestinians in Gaza are facing the final and most horrific stage of starvation. Children and adults are suffering organ failure, brain injury and sudden cardiac arrest. Palestinians are reliant on our donations to provide food and water to their families and communities. Please donate now, and sign up to be a monthly donor so that Palestinians in Gaza can continue to live.
Hot meals 4 Starved Palestinian Kids in north Gaza
The Sameer Project

Book Launch, Emile Suotonye DeWeaver

Friday  • July 18 (NEW DATE)  • 6-7 PM
Institute of Arts and Sciences • 100 Panetta Ave•  Santa Cruz
Wheelchair accessible  • Free
Join author Emile Suotonye DeWeaver for a book talk and signing of his first book, Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine: Reform, White Supremacy and an Abolitionist Future. 

During his twenty-one years in prison, DeWeaver covertly organized to pass legislation impacting juveniles in California’s criminal legal system; was a culture writer for Easy Street Magazine; and co-founded Prison Renaissance, an organization centering incarcerated voices and incarcerated leadership. DeWeaver draws on these experiences to interrogate the central premise of reform efforts, including prisoner rehabilitation programs, arguing that they demand self-abnegation, entrench white supremacy, and ignore the role of structural oppression.

SCB Film Series: The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution – TWO SHOWINGS

Tuesday • July 15 • Capitola Library • 2005 Wharf Rd • Capitola
Wednesday, July 16 • Resource Center for Nonviolence • 612 Ocean St • Santa Cruz
Doors open at 5:30, film at 6 pm
Wheelchair accessible • Donation • RSVP requested

In an era of intensifying civil rights struggle and as a global movement against imperialism was on the rise, Black Power entered the scene and shook the status quo in the United States. As cities were burning, people took to the streets in response to anti-Black police brutality and youth protested en masse against the genocidal U.S. war in Southeast Asia. 

During this historic juncture, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense emerged in Oakland, California, seizing the global imagination and forever transforming the landscape of radical organizing. Please join us for a screening of Stanley Nelson’s documentary, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, which sheds light on the Black Panther Party from the perspective of its members, its supporters, and those who sought to bring it down. 

Community discussion to follow the screening.  Watch trailer here

RSVP for the Capitola showing here. 
RSVP for the RCNV showing here.

Upcoming Showings:

SURJ Protest Basics & Solidarity Training

(hosted by SURJ Santa Clara County)
Wednesday • July 9 • 7 – 9 PM • ONLINE

It’s summer and things are heating up in the streets. Learn how to keep your cool while turning up the fire at protests and direct actions in our community. We’ll face our fears and uncertainties while talking through potential scenarios and practical strategies you can use right away– like coming face-to-face with an ICE agent. 

Long-time SURJers Meredith Hurley and ren renaud will present this two-hour training. Seasoned organizers and experienced protesters, ren and Meredith will share potential scenarios and practical strategies you will be able to use at your next protest. 

Sign up HERE

Redistribute Wealth: Community Action Board (CAB) of Santa Cruz County

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!

CAB’s mission is to partner with the community to eliminate poverty and create social change through advocacy and essential services.  And they’ve been doing just that exceptionally well for 60 years!! 

Learn more in this 10-minute video with CAB CEO, MariaElena De La Garza

“Now more than ever we need to coordinate our response; . . .What we’re facing today is an emergency—just like COVID was, just like CZU fires, just like the floods—this is an emergency and it requires an emergency response.” — MariaElena De La Garza
 

PLEASE DONATE GENEROUSLY HERE

Protest for Community in Defense of Immigrants 

Saturday • July 5  •  3 – 6 PM  •  Free  •  Wheelchair accessible
Begins at Watsonville Plaza • 358 Main St, Watsonville

-flyer and text from Campesina Womb Justice’s Instagram feed

SHOWING UP for RACIAL JUSTICE is all about just that: SHOWING UP.
Join Campesina Womb Justice for this community rally and march to support the people who work so hard providing our essential needs. Let’s put our time, heart, and resources to work in a tangible way for the safe and equitable world we all want. Build true community by getting to know our neighbors. This as an important opportunity to center, listen to, and follow the lead of those most impacted. 



We hope to see you there!

SURJ Santa Cruz County – Summer to Grow Mass Meeting

Saturday • August 2 • 2-4 PM  • Mingling 4-5 PM
Santa Cruz • Wheelchair accessible  • Free

SURJ National is making the call to use this Summer to Grow and to Turn up the Heat!

Summer 2025 is heating up—and so is the fight for our communities and our democracy. As Trump and the far right double down on attacks—from slashing Medicaid to targeting immigrant families—the stakes keep rising. But so does public outrage.

Research shows that movements can succeed when just  3.5% of the population is actively engaged in sustained, collective action. We’re not there yet—but Summer 2025 is our chance to grow our slice of that 3.5% and build the people power we need. Let’s turn up the heat—and grow something powerful together. Join us to in a community meeting to get grounded together, get clear on our analysis of how we got here – and then get organized for the work ahead.

Sign up at tinyurl.com/surjsccmeet