Dear Friends,
You are invited this Wednesday, Nov. 12 at 12:30 p.m. to an emergency memorial service and day of action in Washington for the mainly unarmed 1,000 Black victims of state-sanctioned murders since 2007. Organized by the SpiritHouse Project, the memorial service will take place in Freedom Plaza at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Each of 1,000 names will be read aloud in a public roll call by a representative of our community of activists, pastors, artists, practitioners, workers, students, parents, and seniors.
RSVP to the Day of Remembrance via Facebook
 Participants will include:
- Sarah Collins Rudolph, survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham AL in 1963
- Ruby Sales, founding director of the SpiritHouse Project and survivor of a murder attempt that killed seminarian Jonathan Myrick Daniels in 1965
- Rev. Dr. C. T. Vivian, Southern Christian Leadership Conference co-president and lifelong Freedom Struggle leader
- Rev. Dr. Susan Smith, UCC minister and leader in the movement to end state-sanctioned killings
- Rev. Traci Blackmon, pastor of Christ the King UCC in Florissant, Missouri and community leader of the Ferguson Movement
- Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman, scholar/activist and founder/president of WomanPreach! Inc.
- Taylor Branch, bestselling author of America in the King Years & chronicler of the civil rights movement
- Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm, Advocacy Corps Coordinator at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, representing the Fellowship of Reconciliation
SpiritHouse Project will also open up the circle of scroll readers to include voices of other volunteers among those in attendance.
 Family members who have lost loved ones to these murders will also lead us in a procession. This is a call to the living that we keep our eyes on the prize of racial justice.
It is urgent that we gather as a community. The loss of hundreds of lives in communities across the nation touch us all. Some of these names have become known more broadly -- Oscar Grant in Oakland CA, Trayvon Martin in Sanford FL, Marissa Alexander in Jacksonville FL, Renisha McBride in Detroit MI, Mike Brown in Ferguson MO, John Crawford in Beavercreek OH -- but countless others are unknown beyond their families and close circle of friends.
Let us name the dead and stand up to proclaim an end to the state-sanctioned killing of black and brown people by police, security forces, and white vigilantes.
RSVP to the Day of Remembrance via Facebook
For more information, contact Ruby Sales or call 404-228-7794.
Seeking justice and reconciliation,
Ethan, Gretchen, Kristin, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation team
Bottom photo: Brett Myers/Youth Radio from Ferguson MO protest on August 23, 2014. |
