Our Partners
SURJ Atlanta looks to Black, Indigenous, and people of color-led organizations doing racial justice work in the community to guide our actions. We continually work to build relationships with and take direction from organizations, individuals, and campaigns locally in the greater Atlanta and Georgia area. Though we consistently follow the lead of multiple BIPOC-led groups, we collaborate regularly with our partners listed below.
Community Movement Builders
Community Movement Builders (CMB) is a Black member-based collective of community residents and activists serving Black working-class and poor Black communities. CMB emerged out of a need to respond to encroaching gentrification, displacement and over-policing. CMB organizes to bring power to Black communities by challenging existing institutions and creating new ones that our people control.
CMB has been instrumental in the fight to Stop Cop City, the movement to prevent the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Foundation, and the Atlanta Police Department from clearing nearly 100 ares of the Weelaunee Forest to construct a $90 million dollar police training facility in the heart of a working class Black community just east of Atlanta. Read CMB’s statement on Cop City and the police murders of Tyre Nichols and Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán here.
Community Partners
Working Families Party
The Working Families Party is regular people coming together across our differences to make a better future for us all. They’re is building their own party on top of the two-party system in the United States. They organize outside the two parties, and then recruit and train people-powered candidates up and down the ballot and run them to win.
Community over Cages
A ground breaking, local campaign dedicated to divesting from Atlanta’s unjust criminal legal system and investing in our communities by closing the extra City Jail (ACDC), repurposing the facility into a Center for Wellness & Freedom, and reallocating the $32.5 million dollars spent annually to services and supports which help our people thrive. The Community Over Cages Campaign was co-launched and co-led by Women on the Rise and the Racial Justice Action Center with the support of over 40 organizations comprising the Campaign Alliance. In January 2021, Women on the Rise will lead the campaign with the support of a 5 -organization Anchor Team.
Other Local Partners
New Georgia Project Action Fund
NGPAF exists to increase the civic participation of underrepresented & under-served communities of color in Georgia through engaging in local and state campaigns.
Black Voters Matter
Black Voters Matter’s goal is to increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities.
Aligned Organizations
ACLU of Georgia
The ACLU of Georgia enhances and defends the civil liberties and rights of all Georgians through legal action, legislative and community advocacy, and civic education and engagement.
Top image photo credit: Atelier Teee