Rev. Sekou & Tracy Howe, March 4th at The Haven

Rev. Sekou is joined by the Nashville blues band, The Freedom Fighters on his national tour celebrating the release of his live album, Live At The Shell, recorded last July in Memphis, TN.  Monday March 4th will bring to life a sacred convening in Charlottesville, VA, a city where Sekou lived and trained people during the infamous summer of hate, 2017. The show will start with a set by local artist Tracy Howe, releasing her album, Things That Grow.  Things That Grow is a project born out of movement work and radically changing life circumstances of the last 5 years. This evening of music will be sure to fill listeners with healing, fire and courage, and call us all to sing and fill the streets.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $20 at the door.  Attendees are also encouraged to give to ongoing work in the area through donating to any or all of the following:

The Haven, Charlottesville's low barrier day shelter for people experiencing homelessness, offering direct connection to rehousing and social services.

Hands Off Maria, support the life and work of Maria Chavalan Sut living in Sanctuary in Charlottesville.

The Charlottesville Resilience Fund, making economic reparations to meet the needs of people who face undue hardships imposed upon them due to structural oppression, including but not limited to, through the criminal legal system.

Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice, supporting resistance to the degradation and exploitation of creation and helping sustain pipeline resistance and address intersecting issues of racism and indigenous sovereign land rights throughout Virginia.

Tandem Speaks!

Friday, March 8 | 7pm | PVCC Dickinson Center | $35-125

Tandem Friends School has launched a new community event, TANDEM Speaks!, featuring Dahlia Lithwick, a past Tandem Friends parent, former Charlottesville resident, and current senior editor at Slate; and Khizr Khan, a Muslim-American U.S. Gold Star Parent as well as a lawyer and constitutional rights advocate. Mr. Khan and Ms. Lithwick will offer their unique perspectives on the issues of social justice, human rights and constitutional interpretation in a conversation moderated by Risa Goluboff, Dean of the UVA School of Law and Tandem Friends parent. The event will be held on Friday, March 8, 2019 at 7 pm at The Dickinson Fine and Performing Arts Center at Piedmont Virginia Community College.

Goals of the event include:

• to build on our Speaker Series model to foster community through participating in a compelling conversation.
• to forge partnerships with local businesses and organizations.
• to raise funds to support the school’s financial aid program.

“A Tandem Friends’ education, which emphasizes the Quaker values of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship, is in perfect alignment with the work being done in Charlottesville, and elsewhere, to take care of each other, speak out against injustice, and integrate our values into the choices we make every single day,” says Deborah Arenstein, event co-Chair and Tandem Friends parent.

We expect this event to sell out quickly! Benefactor tickets priced at $125 per person include a pre-event cocktail reception, with event speakers, held at Tandem Friends, as well as preferred seating and recognition at the event. Please consider purchasing a Benefactor ticket! General admission tickets are $35 in advance.

We appreciate the generous support of our corporate sponsors, including: S.L.Williamson Co., Inc., Martin Horn, Inc., Tucker Griffin Barnes P.C., Attorneys at Law, Downtown Dental and Picante Creative. Additional support provided by Nest Realty, Crutchfield and Johnston & Co., LLC.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW (click here)

$35 General Admission
$40 At Door (if available)
$10 Tandem Friends and PVCC Students and Faculty
$125 Benefactor

Corporate Sponsorships available now - please contact Event Co-Chair Larry Goldstein for details. If you are unable to attend, but would like to support this event with a donation, please use the ticketing page to make your gift.

We look forward to seeing you on March 8!

Hard Conversations: Introduction to Racism

March 26-April 26
Live Seminars on April 2, 9, 16, and 23

This is a month-long online seminar program hosted by authors, speakers, and social justice activists Patti Digh and Victor Lee Lewis, who was featured in the documentary film, The Color of Fear, with help from a community of people who want and are willing to help us understand the reality of racism by telling their stories and sharing their resources.

There are two learning spaces for this course: An online classroom and our weekly live seminars. Content and course details will be delivered to your email daily. The live seminars that take place from 8-9:15pm Eastern via telephone conference begin one week after the course begins. The calls will be recorded, should you not be able to participate live.

My White Perceptions, Silence, and Fragility
A SURJ Cville Discussion Group        
 

Who is the group for?

This discussion group is targeted at people who identify as white or as having race and/or class privilege. Participants should be interested in asking questions like:

• How does my racial identity impact the way in which I view and move through the world?

• How will a deeper understanding of my racial identity impact my behavior?

• How can I get better at talking about privilege, oppression, and what to do about it?

What are the goals of the discussion group?

• Participants will be able to define white supremacy and racism (multiple levels) and explain the ways they see these forces operate in themselves and the world around them.

• Participants will reflect on their level of understanding of the myriad ways white supremacy impacts them, and those around them, and design a plan for how to continue to develop this lens. This plan will include potential blindspots and how they will be combated.

• Participants will reflect on their evolving engagement with antiracist work and design a plan for deeper involvement. This plan will include identified obstacles that might cause participants to avoid antiracist work and how they will overcome them.

How is the group structured?

Each week, participants  prepare by reading 1-2 short articles (approx. 20 - 30 minutes worth of reading). Then, they meet and discuss during in a 90 minute facilitated session, leaving with an action that they commit to for the following week, aiming to disrupt patterns of behavior that preserve white supremacy. These disruptions can be as simple as breaking a pattern of silence between two friends who know they share liberal ideology, but who avoid talking about whiteness, privilege, oppression, etc.

What is the content of the group?

The eight sessions are organized into three sections. The first focuses on the ways in which white racial identity impacts perception of privilege, racism, and anti-racism work. The next focuses on how these perceptions influence what we say (or don’t say) and do (or don’t do) in the face of racial injustice. The final sessions are informed by the very helpful concept of white fragility, which is the notion that because white people are so insulated from race-based stress, when we are exposed to any racial tension we are unprepared and overly defensive. Common to all weeks is the goal of better understanding ourselves, so we can more fully and effectively participate in anti-racism efforts.

More details are available about the working group membership and its charge here: https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/uva/members-of-ryan-s-town-gown-working-group-named/article_1ac011c0-d32c-11e8-b9fe-73b0cbac5632.html 

The Working Group seeks feedback from community members, organizations, and coalitions to identify the highest-priority issues where the university and the community can work together over the next five years to promote a healthy community for all.

With this survey, as well as through face-to- face conversations across our community, the Working Group is asking community members, organizations, and coalitions to help prioritize these focus areas worthy of our collective effort in the next five years.

Emmett Till’s Murder, and How America Remembers Its Darkest Moments

By: Audra D.S. Burch, Veda Shastri and Tim Chaffee | Original Publication: New York Times | Published February 2019

"MONEY, Miss. — Along the edge of Money Road, across from the railroad tracks, an old grocery store rots.

In August 1955, a 14-year-old black boy visiting from Chicago walked in to buy candy. After being accused of whistling at the white woman behind the counter, he was later kidnapped, tortured, lynched and dumped in the Tallahatchie River.

The murder of Emmett Till is remembered as one of the most hideous hate crimes of the 20th century, a brutal episode in American history that helped kindle the civil rights movement. And the place where it all began, Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market, is still standing. Barely.

Today, the store is crumbling, roofless and covered in vines. On several occasions, preservationists, politicians and business leaders — even the State of Mississippi — have tried to save its remaining four walls. But no consensus has been reached..."

“We were makers as a way of life,” says German, the 2018 recipient of the $200,000 Don Tyson Prize, which recognizes “significant achievements in the field of American art.”

'My earliest memories of joy and knowing and understanding a sense of euphoria in being alive was through making things—the joy of gluing lace to cardboard and realizing I could make a separate reality in a story different than what existed in living reality. That is the way we came to know ourselves...'"

Each weekday in February we are releasing a new episode of "Race and Place in Charlottesville," which follows UVA Professor Louis Nelson as he gives a tour of the history of race and racism in Charlottesville, starting with Jefferson's era on Grounds and leading toward the Downtown Mall, site of the August 11-12 rallies. The research-based tour is motivated by Jesus' command to love our neighbors.

Please feel free to share the tour with your community! You can use this link: https://www.studycenter.net/race-place-cville