Advocacy Team
Fighting for Justice Together: Updates and Opportunities
Access Living friends and allies:
Updates
It’s been a big week on many levels, and today we’d like to share a few updates and opportunities to get involved in advancing social change for all persons.
On the Breonna Taylor grand jury decision: On Wednesday, a Kentucky grand jury charged a former Louisville police officer with “wanton endangerment” for firing into neighboring apartments during the raid of Breonna Taylor’s apartment in March. No one was charged with fatally shooting her. This decision does not bring justice to Breonna Taylor or her loved ones, and on a broader scale, it is no justice at all. We all have a role to play in fighting systemic racism and building safer, more equitable communities. At Access Living, we re-affirm that Black lives matter and are dedicated to advancing race equity in our work each and every day. #SayHerName #BreonnaTaylor
Condemning non-consensual ICE hysterectomies: Yesterday, a range of national, state and local disability groups, in collaboration with immigrant and reproductive health rights and justice organizations, issued a public letter to express our unified outrage at the recent report on the alarming rate of non-consensual hysterectomies performed on immigrant women in custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia. Access Living joined the letter to amplify these actions as part of a long racist, sexist, and ableist history of forced sterilizations in the United States. Read more at this news story. You can read the public letter at this link.
Upcoming Opportunities
Upcoming webinar, Disability and Immigration Taskforce of Illinois: On Wednesday September 30, Access Living will kick off a free four part webinar series by the statewide Disability and Immigration Taskforce of Illinois (DITI). Registration for the initial webinar is at this link. The first webinar will focus on explaining the DITI and what it does. For more information or to request accommodations, please contact Access Living’s Immigration and Latinx Community Organizer Michelle Garcia at (312) 640-2194 or mgarcia@accessliving.org.
Multiday online forums for disability and racial justice: The Chicago-based group ADA25 Advancing Leadership will host a multi-day online forum series focused on disability justice in the fight for racial equity. These FREE events are open to anyone who wishes to register; registration is at this link. Each of the four series events will have a speaker panel as well as breakout sessions for participants to get involved in the conversation. Highly recommended as a way to get more involved in disability and racial justice.
Census extended till October 31: Late last night, a judge in California issued an order that the U.S. Census public counting process will be extended from September 30 to October 31. It is critical that the federal census effort count every person in the United States, because the census count determines certain kinds of government funding, as well as how many representatives every state gets in Congress. The census form is confidential and relatively brief. If your household has not completed the Census, please do so immediately at www.census.gov. Making sure your household participates in the Census is important to all of us.
Please share these updates with concerned advocates. Thank you for your commitment to advocacy during very complex, challenging times for us all.