By Sarah Harris
White people have a duty to speak out against racism and a role to play in the civil rights movement, according to an organization that is stepping up its presence in Connecticut.
A new local chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), founded nationally in 2009, has been established in New Haven and is targeting suburban communities. Members gathered recently for an event at the public library in Milford, whose population is 83.8 percent white.
“We are committed to moving more white people for collective action,” according to SURJ’s website.
The event consisted of showing a documentary about Anne Braden, a white civil rights activist. The documentary focused on Braden’s efforts to desegregate a neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky in 1954. Braden died in 2006 leaving a significant mark of the civil rights movement, according to AnneBradenFilm.com.
SURJ believes it’s important to have white role models to look up to when it comes to civil rights activism.
The group broke up into discussion groups after the movie where terms such as “reverse racism” and “micro-aggressions” were discussed and debated. Attendees argued over whether reverse racism existed, and in what forms; if Ferguson rioters should have expressed the way they felt in a non-violent way; and more.
Gina Roussos joined SURJ in January and led one of the discussions. She is getting her Ph.D. at Yale in social psychology.
“I wanted to be involved in the resurgence of the civil rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement,” she said. “So I found SURJ and felt like it would be a good opportunity because I knew that as a white person, my place is to be helping educate other white people, and the black people can organize the black people.”
SURJ works with other activist groups in the area that are led by people of color and doesn’t exclude anyone from being a member.
Deirdre Thomas had never been to a SURJ event before but plans on coming back again.
“I don’t feel that the third Monday of January is just a black people holiday. It should be for everybody. Every year my family and I attend the interfaith ceremony. It’s at a different church in Stratford every year,” Thomas said. “I love that because you see everybody there. All the different churches are there. You see a rabbi, a congregational church priest, pastors, it’s great.”
Jennifer Griffiths, a leader of the SURJ Connecticut branch, explained the group’s mission.
“One of our initiatives is to go into suburban Connecticut and New Haven County, and just initiate these conversations, meet with the community in their space, and bring the film in,” she said.
Griffiths mentioned the Milford Public Library might hold more events such as reading groups focused on all sorts of social justice issues.
More information of the group and the events can be found on its facebook page and its website.
Sarah Harris is a senior journalism major at Quinnipiac University. She is writing about structural racism this spring. She can be reached at sarahanne.harris@quinnipiac.edu.
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