“Common Ground” is a meeting between sponsoring and invited organizations that is open to individual progressives. Please join us to hear from our special guest speaker, Ryan Winkler (potential MN Attorney General candidate), and to talk about the issues that we can organize around as progressives! The format will allow each organization to describe their mission statement, discuss what issues are at stake, and offer solutions to these problems. … Continue reading »
Join Justice 4 All every Tuesday in March, where we’ll discuss our liberation, how to win and end the cycle of laws trying to oppress our communities, and weave it all into powerful conversations we’ll be having on the phones!
We’ll call statewide to talk about issues we care about, and give strength to bills we want to see become a reality, like the restoration of voting rights for 60,000 formerly incarcerated and convicted Minnesotans. We’ll also call to fight back! We’ll resist harmful bills like one that aims to criminalize pregnant women battling addiction.
Join Justice 4 All every Tuesday in March, where we’ll discuss our liberation, how to win and end the cycle of laws trying to oppress our communities, and weave it all into powerful conversations we’ll be having on the phones!
We’ll call statewide to talk about issues we care about, and give strength to bills we want to see become a reality, like the restoration of voting rights for 60,000 formerly incarcerated and convicted Minnesotans. We’ll also call to fight back! We’ll resist harmful bills like one that aims to criminalize pregnant women battling addiction.
Join Justice 4 All every Tuesday in March, where we’ll discuss our liberation, how to win and end the cycle of laws trying to oppress our communities, and weave it all into powerful conversations we’ll be having on the phones!
We’ll call statewide to talk about issues we care about, and give strength to bills we want to see become a reality, like the restoration of voting rights for 60,000 formerly incarcerated and convicted Minnesotans. We’ll also call to fight back! We’ll resist harmful bills like one that aims to criminalize pregnant women battling addiction.
Join Justice 4 All every Tuesday in March, where we’ll discuss our liberation, how to win and end the cycle of laws trying to oppress our communities, and weave it all into powerful conversations we’ll be having on the phones!
We’ll call statewide to talk about issues we care about, and give strength to bills we want to see become a reality, like the restoration of voting rights for 60,000 formerly incarcerated and convicted Minnesotans. We’ll also call to fight back! We’ll resist harmful bills like one that aims to criminalize pregnant women battling addiction.
We are frightened of what a Trump administration might mean for our daily lives. Help us build our power by making connections with fellow activists and organizers, and hopefully by inspiring new folks to join our ranks!… Continue reading »
Join us on January 21st 2017 as we march in solidarity with those marching in Washington D.C. and more than 300 sister marches happening simultaneously around the world.
Why are we marching? Because the rhetoric of the past election cycle has insulted, demonized, and threatened many of us. We will march in numbers too great for administration to ignore on their first day in office. We march and stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families — recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.… Continue reading »
Sponsored by: Waite House, MN Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC), Our Revolution MN, Isuroon.org, KRSM – The Southside Media Project, Navigate MN, NAACP MPLS, Mesa Latina, TakeAction Minnesota, Native Lives Matter, ISAIAH, MN350, and GoodSpace Murals.
After the daytime events on Inauguration Day, come join community members and organizations from all around the Twin Cities as we gather to recognize and explore the incredible strength, resourcefulness, creativity, and resilience of a connected, collaborative community.
There’ll be music, powerful stories, community resources, and opportunities to learn and become connected with initiatives that will help support a more fair, just and sustainable life for all.… Continue reading »
Sponsored by the Resistance from Day One Coalition and the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee.
(Español abajo)
RESIST FROM DAY ONE!
Twin Cities Mega-march against Trump’s racist agenda on inauguration day. The march details were set at a meeting Dec. 11 attended by representatives of 26 organizations in the Twin Cities area. All are welcome to participate and bring your own signs, banners and issues. There will be many activities of resistance to Trump’s agenda throughout the day, and we support all efforts to show… resistance from day one. We will all converge at 5:00 pm at City Hall in downtown Minneapolis!
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RESISTIMOS DESDE EL PRIMER DIA
MEGA MARCHA en las Ciudades Gemelas contra la agenda racista de TRUMP en el dia de su inauguración. Tod@s bienvenidos a participar y traer sus pancartas, mantas y temas a la marcha. Decidimos los detalles de esta marcha en una reunión el 11 de diciembre con representantes de 26 organizaciones en las Ciudades Gemelas. Habrán varias actividades de resistencia a la agenda de Trump atraves del dia, y nosotros apoyamos todos estos esfuerzos para mostrar resistencia desde el primer dia de su administración. Tod@s vamos a juntarnos a las 5:00 pm en City Hall en el centro de Minneapolis.… Continue reading »
We can no longer afford to ignore the problem of mass incarceration, because it is coming for us all. The voiceless must be heard in 2017, and we have a unique opportunity to resist, get our stories (the truth) out there, and build together.
JOIN THE FIGHT at our next Justice 4 All Community Member Meeting!
This week the Justice 4 All Program went back to work calling Formally Incarcerated and Convicted Minnesotans. We completed over 7,000 dials and have built a statewide list of eligible voters who have been through the Justice system. These voters are headed to the polls on Tuesday and we hope they will follow us to the Capitol in January to fight for voting rights restoration. Join us on Election Day by signing up to share our message on Social Media.
The following is a reflection I wrote after brave words from a powerful young woman.
During a recent J4A political education session at one of our phone banks, an Ethiopian High School student brought up immigration as the primary system that has impacted her life. She talked about the threat of deportation and worrying about how filling out the wrong form could result in her family being torn apart. This is a big problem often seen as separate from the issue of criminal justice, but they not separate, they are the same problem.
The same prisons that detain Black and Brown folks for drug crimes are the same prisons that detain Brown and Black Immigrant folks before they are deported.… Continue reading »
JOIN US as we come together to DEMAND JUSTICE as a powerful community to get TakeAction endorsed candidate Lindsey Port elected in Burnsville (District 56B). This Saturday we’re throwing down in a big way, and WE NEED YOU!
Join us for a phone bank for Take Action-endorsed candidate’s Dan Wolgamott, Zachary Dorholt, and Abdi Daisane! On October 16th we are encouraging PCA’s, home health workers, and their allies to join us for a door knock as we support the candidates who support care providers!
Join us for a phone bank for Take Action-endorsed candidate’s Dan Wolgamott, Zachary Dorholt, and Abdi Daisane! On October 16th we are encouraging PCA’s, home health workers, and their allies to join us for a door knock as we support the candidates who support care providers!
Join women volunteers calling women voters in support of TakeAction-endorsed candidate Alberder Gillespie in District 53B. Training and snacks will be provided. Sign up here.… Continue reading »
On Sunday October 2nd, join Take Action Minnesota’s endorsed candidates Dan Wolgamott (State Senate) Zachary Dorholt (State House) and Abdi Daisane (City Council At Large) for a Sunday brunch and door knock!
Today, there are at least 20,000 incarcerated people across the country on strike demanding fair wages, better work conditions and humane treatment. This is the largest prison strike in the history of our country.People are risking their safety, being thrown into isolation and cut off from their family members just to make sure their voices are heard.
What are you risking to make this world more humane?
Today, many people sat glued to their phones as another unarmed Black Man was gunned down in Tulsa, Oklahoma and videotaped for all of us to watch. Another family has lost one of its own to state-sanctioned violence. Let the outcry and demand for Justice begin as another person transitions from a living man to a hashtag.
What are you demanding?
This past weekend, we saw the community of Saint Cloud, MN torn apart by an individual’s senseless acts of violence.… Continue reading »
Join us to knock doors in support of TakeAction-endorsed candidate Alberder Gillespie in 53B. Training and snacks will be provided. Sign up here.… Continue reading »
Join us for our monthly J4A Community Member Meeting. Building stronger community and voices in the fight for criminal justice reform to create a fair Minnesota.
We don’t have a Justice System, we have a crime and punishment system. One that protects the profits and property of the wealthy, and divides and controls the rest of us. If we do nothing, this system, steeped in racism, sexism, and built to enhance corporate power, will continue to target and dismantle our families. All over the country, people are standing up and demanding justice. Here is what the Justice 4 All program has been up to this month, and what we have coming up.
The Leaders of the Justice 4 All Program repeatedly joined BLM, AFT and allies in the streets, shutting down highways and taking arrests. We supported artists who were weary from marching and therefore decided to take their heartfelt expressions to the Minneapolis streets by painting a powerful mural. J4A Leaders continued our work on Voting Rights restoration and met with the Secretary of State’s office. Lastly, we brought our partners together for an event in North MPLS focused on fun and supporting our family members who are incarcerated.
Together with C.E.O. (Change Equals Opportunity), Mad Dads, the Office of Black Male Student Achievement, we hosted a 3 on 3 stop-the-violence basketball tournament along with our J4A Community Member Meeting.… Continue reading »
My name is Ben Whalen. I’m a white guy who grew up middle class from the suburbs. I’ve lived a fairly privilege life. For a long time, I was ignorant of the systemic injustices present in our justice system. I bought into the dominant narrative that only “bad guys” go to jail and get what they deserve for the crimes they committed. It wasn’t until I moved to the Twin Cities after college and got involved in advocacy and community organizing groups that I started to question that narrative. I now have multiple friends with criminal records who’ve told me about the challenges they face to find housing and jobs long after they’ve served their time. I’ve listened to the stories from my friends who are people of color about how police arrested them, beat them, and assumed they were criminals because they “fit the description.” I’ve had friends who were exercising their right to protest, advocating for police accountability, who’ve been met with similar treatment from the police. I’ve now read about and listened to experts on mass incarceration explain how it perpetuates systemic racism. After all of this, I cannot remain silent.
In college, I had the opportunity to visit South Africa and learn about its history and culture.… Continue reading »
Session is over, and for the past nine weeks, J4A Leaders set out to change who decides and who benefits. We put in hours of volunteer work, we told our stories boldly and came together in powerful and meaningful ways. We repeatedly proclaimed that we believe in a Minnesota where people have the power to make the decisions that affect our communities, our lives and our futures. Here is a sample of what we did together.
We Won Some Stuff: Shoulder to shoulder with allies, we supported a modest sentencing reform package that will reduce the prison population significantly over the next five years. We continued our fight for the restoration of voting rights and while it did not pass as a law, due to a variety of dynamic and strategic work done by allies, the bill did advance in the Senate for the 3rd time. Finally, we fought side by side with allies to prevent a privet prison from opening in Appleton MN and were successful.
We Built: This Session, J4A Leaders connected our work to Minnesotans across the state. We started out the year at Lino Lakes Prison building with our partners at Voices for Racial Justice and the brave men incarcerated at Lino Lakes Correctional Facility.… Continue reading »
Angela Davis said “If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you at night.” A reminder that none of us are safe from systems steeped in ideas of racial, gender and economic oppression. Not white folks, black folks, not other people of color, not men, women or transgender folks. Not poor or middle class, we all stand to lose from a crime and punishment system designed to protect the profits and property of the wealthy and divide and control the rest of us, so we better come together. The only way to create the change we seek is to build a statewide multiracial movement.
The Justice 4 All Program (J4A) has been working on building our part of the movement during the month of April.
We started things out at Saint Cloud State University. J4A Leaders led a powerful discussion on the impact of the Justice System, and students left ready to take this work to the streets. Much more to come in Saint Cloud.
James Badue is a member of the Justice 4 All Program at TakeAction Minnesota. He is helping to lead the fight to remove barriers to employment, housing and democracy for Minnesotans impacted by the Justice System. As J4A members gear up to take on new fights, James offers this powerful reflection on the announcement from Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman that there will be no indictment in the shooting of Jamar Clark.
As I sat at the table of Muddy Waters in South side MPLS with Tommy Franklin (Justice 4 All Organizer), Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman’s announcement played live on his laptop. The aggravation of knowing the results before he announced it sat in my chest as I recalled the murder of a friend of mine who was shot and killed by the police on his graduation day. Then Trayvon, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, and all the other unknown brothers and sisters who have been murdered by the police with no justice.
In this city, there is no justice, it is just “us”.
Having recently been freed from the walls of imprisonment in 2014, I, like many of us, know what being held accountable for our actions means.… Continue reading »
J4A is hitting the phones again to restore the voting rights for 47,000 Minnesotans. Join us! Register by clicking here.
Questions? Need childcare? Email our Justice 4 All Organizer, Tommy Franklin at Tommy@takeactionminnesota.org or call him at 651-500-8503.… Continue reading »
This week the Justice 4 All Program went back to work calling Formally Incarcerated and Convicted Minnesotans. We completed over 7,000 dials and have built a statewide list of eligible voters who have been through the Justice system. These voters are headed to the polls on Tuesday and we hope they will follow us to the Capitol in January to fight for voting rights restoration. 
We don’t have a Justice System, we have a crime and punishment system. One that protects the profits and property of the wealthy, and divides and controls the rest of us. If we do nothing, this system, steeped in racism, sexism, and built to enhance corporate power, will continue to target and dismantle our families. All over the country, people are standing up and demanding justice. Here is what the Justice 4 All program has been up to this month, and what we have coming up.
