Redlands United Church of Christ

09/07/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

A new initiative from the NAACP focuses on closing the racial wealth gap and building generational wealth for Black families. The organization emphasizes that racial justice is not only about protecting rights but also about expanding economic opportunity — ensuring that families have access to the resources, capital, and stability needed to thrive.

The effort highlights how economic inequality remains one of the deepest roots of racial injustice. While policy debates often center on voting rights or policing, the wealth gap shapes everyday life: access to education, homeownership, healthcare, and the ability to weather financial crises. By investing in community programs, financial literacy, and structural reforms, the NAACP argues that closing this gap is essential to achieving lasting racial equity.

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Today, the NAACP announced the launch of a national campaign, the Roadmap to Generational Wealth, an initiative dedicated to dismantling the systemic barriers that fuel the widening racial wealth gap in America.

09/02/2026

08/31/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

A voting‑rights and racial‑justice march in Washington, D.C. this week, drew hundreds of people to the Lincoln Memorial to protest recent changes to voting laws and redistricting that civil‑rights groups say weaken Black political representation. The rally — called “Defend the Vote” — was organized by Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III and intentionally echoed the 1963 March on Washington. Speakers warned that a recent Supreme Court decision has allowed Southern states to redraw congressional maps in ways that dilute Black voting power, making this year’s march feel especially urgent.

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Hundreds of protesters have rallied on the National Mall for a march in support of voting rights and racial justice ahead of the midterm election.

08/24/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

In Missouri, a bipartisan bill will restore voting rights to more than 40,000 formerly incarcerated residents, driven in part by lawmakers who witnessed disenfranchisement firsthand while campaigning. In Virginia, the governor’s administration has already restored voting rights to 66,000 people, while also pushing a constitutional amendment that would make restoration automatic upon release.

Together, these developments show how racial justice is not only about resisting harm — it is also about expanding civic belonging, repairing exclusion, and strengthening democratic participation for communities historically targeted by disenfranchisement.

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Featured Campaign Second Look Network Ending mass incarceration requires taking a second look at extreme sentences. Learn more about our coalition of legal professionals providing direct representation to incarcerated individuals seeking relief from lengthy or unfair sentences.

08/17/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

"The overwhelming majority of women accept patriarchy unquestioningly and even protect it, working out the resultant frustrations not against men but against themselves in their competition for men as sons, lovers and husbands. Traditionally the violated wife bides her time and off-loads her built-in aggression on her daughter-in-law. So men dominate women through the agency of women themselves.”
- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Anti-apartheid activist

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"You strike a woman, you strike a rock." Those powerful words have inspired women of all ages and from all walks of life - and have epitomised the strength of South African women through time.

08/10/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

While nine states have apologized for their past involvement in slavery, only the municipality of Evanston, Ill., has funded a tangible program that provides up to $25,000 in housing and property grants to eligible Black descendants affected by local housing discrimination.

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Inside the debate over Black American reparations in New York, where advocacy groups offer competing visions for historical justice.

08/03/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

If we can go back and revisit Wong Kim Ark, we can go back and revisit Brown versus Board of Education.” That decision in 1954 ruled illegal the separate but equal clause that created segregated public schools.

Dahni Tsuboi, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice SoCal, shared a sense of relief but also expressed concern that more justices didn’t support birthright citizenship.

“I think, actually, it should have been 9-0, but 6-3 is what’s unfortunate because this is one of those cases where the language, the spirit, the intention of the Constitution, what we say in the 14th Amendment, is absolutely clear,” said Tsuboi. “That if you are born here on American soil, you are an American.”

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Asian American legal advocates describe relief and lingering concern after the Supreme Court’s 6–3 ruling, highlighting anxiety families faced.

07/27/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

A deal to bring Colorado River water to Native American communities in northern Arizona, where a third of homes lack running water, is being blocked by neighboring states, caught up in a broader battle over how to divide the dwindling river.

The largest tribal water rights settlement in U.S. history—the product of decades of negotiations to secure water for the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe and San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe—was on the verge of being realized before Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming stepped in to oppose it being codified by Congress.

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But Four States Are Stalling the Deal

07/20/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

A coalition of major civil‑rights organizations — including the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and LatinoJustice PRLDEF — issued a public condemnation of a newly proposed federal rule that would give presidential political appointees expanded control over federal grantmaking. According to their statement, the rule would allow agencies to restrict funding for hospitals, schools, food banks, domestic‑violence shelters, and other essential services if those organizations engage in racial‑justice advocacy, voter‑registration work, or litigation challenging discrimination. The groups warn that this change would disproportionately harm Black, Latino, immigrant, and other marginalized communities by tying basic community support to political compliance.

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For Immediate Release Tuesday, July 14, 2026 Media Contact:

07/13/2026

Racial Justice reflection of the week:

In the United States, felony disenfranchisement laws serve among other things as relics of a past defined by racial hierarchy. After the collapse of Reconstruction, white supremacist groups’ terror campaigns, and policies aimed at excluding Black voters, rose in tandem. States implemented poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests at the same time the modern-day US prison system was growing due to Black Codes, laws that targeted newly freed Black Americans. These policies, including felony disenfranchisement, have been credited with making way for Jim Crow, a legal order based on white supremacy that was akin to a caste system and lasted nearly a century in some states. While the nearly-destroyed 1965 Voting Rights Act outlawed many of these suppressive policies, the disenfranchisement of those with felony convictions remains law in 48 states.

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In recent weeks, several US states have taken steps towards restoring the voting rights of people with felony convictions.