Programs

Community Of Justice Black Collective

A prioritizing ethos of the Church of Justice involves our promise to ourselves, and the community we serve, that “we must seek and find justice”. This seek and find justice mandate comprises from the base principles of our mission, strategies, policies, practices, service delivery, and actions, to our relationships within the community and with the public private sector. Having this purview at the forefront; the work we are proposing for this project will set and lay a foundation for the Black African American/ BIPOC community members, in the South Seattle area, to establish a permanent communal foundation, location, and atmosphere to develop and exact long-term justice actions, dialogue, awareness, and education that produce healing, equity, justice for all. We call this project the Community of Justice Black Collective.

We at COJ believe it is overdue time for our communities to have a venue designed and dedicated to creating justice community-led agendas to address the gentrification impacts, education, police and other issues of inequity that plague the Black community. Our project will first address the lack of a dedicated location, that is available on a weekly basis, for the community to come and have the dialogue and develop the organization for solutions to the issues. This location and the activities will be autonomous and not owned by any one group but led by the people themselves.

The Community of Justice Black Collective (COJBC) will be strictly volunteer/ community-led, driven and self-governed. Another example of this leadership and structure governance is how twelve step fellowships, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, are run and governed. They are self-led, autonomous, no one owns them. In this structure the community brings forth the issues at hand, share facilitative leadership, decides on what actions to address and in what manner. The volunteers appoint meeting leaders, agenda, and functions.

We have dedicated community volunteers who are ready to help create and develop this type of community structure, leadership, and opportunity for social justice and equity. The team is prepared to support our project by helping to facilitate dialogue, initial meetings, provide justice education, policy and systems change processes, volunteer recruitment community organizing, and support to create actions, on topics such as equitable education practices, and support voter registration and education, racial equity, and other justice issues.

COJBC Team recruits and initiate basic training to volunteers to assist in education and awareness of Justice and Equity issues such as racial equity, Church of Justice will be able to provide this venue and atmosphere to create community access to address social justice issues.

Utilizing this awareness and education approach to the meanings and practice of Justice the community will be able to better identify inequities and create the framework to effectively address each issue at hand. This creates a unified mindset and effort in the work and assists in generating a sense of directed purpose and unity to the participants in the work they are doing. The communal outcomes even more so create the opportunity to bring forth the healing to a fractured community in the form of self- empowerment and self-determination actions that produce caring results through acts of justice and healing.

COJBC is taking a pattern from our neighbor in the South in Tacoma, WA. The Tacoma Black Collective. They began as the Concerned Black Citizens in the immediate aftermath of the Mother’s Day Disturbance of May 11, 1969. They have been making inroads to racial injustice and inequities for over 50 years in Tacoma. Harold Moss, Tacoma’s first Black city council member in (1970), said, “The great strength, endurance, and influence of the Black Collective is not its structure or lack thereof, but it is in its autonomy and commitment to the mission of empowering and bettering the conditions of the black community.” There is always room for advancing and duplicating successful ideas that lead to justice and healing in our communities. We thank the Tacoma Black Collective for their dedication, perseverance, and fortitude, being an example to COJBC and to all those who support overcoming racial injustices.

Restore Assemble Produce (R.A.P.) with Liberated Village

The Church of Justice (COJ) is a direct partner with the community based non-profit organization Restore Assemble Produce, (R.A.P.)working in collaboration with the Liberation from Healing and Systemic Racism (LHSR) initiative through Best Start for Kids (BSK). RAP has invited COJ into the Liberated Village as that partner to utilize their resources and or expertise to reach a collective goal promoting successful education strategies for our Black and Brown scholars.

The model that R.A.P. proposes is comprised of working collaboratively with the Liberation Village (LV) partners to assist in the creation of the Parent Coalition for Equity and Youth Agents of Change that creates system and policy change to bring healing and liberation from structural and institutional racism in our schools’ practices, policies, and personnel.

To successfully complete the task and align with RAP and Liberated Village collective practices and principles, Church of Justice will:

Partner with Liberation Village members and seek collaboration and empowerment, providing experts in the area of policy systems change, local and statewide change specific training to youth, and parent/caregivers leading with racial justice, and political science that will promote healing and developed community and family- level engagement

Attend and provideYouth and adults to meetings such as Liberated Village Scholar Academy; Parent Leadership Committee; Youth leadership Committee and Learning and Action Cohort.

Partner/Church of Justice; Artis Martin Pastor; Seattle area, will provide space for R.A.P. Liberated Village meetings and activities as needed in Seattle

Dr. Gabriel Brooks, COJ, Author, “So You Say You’re a Teacher”, Retired Educator and innovator of successful education strategies for our youth, and Speaker

R.A.P. with COJ resources and partnership will advance the mission to liberate our youth from Systemic racism and internalized oppression through policy and systems change

Prioritizing Seeking His Kingdom and His Justice (Righteousness)

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Community Of Justice Black Collective

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