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About the Defenders
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The
Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality is an organization of Virginia residents working for the survival
of our communities through education and social justice projects. Founded in June 2002, many of us had relatives in the Richmond
City Jail or state prisons and were concerned about the physical conditions of these institutions. As we worked around these
issues, we learned more and more about the connections between jails, jobs, poverty, racism, sexism, class, war and political
representation. We began to organize around these issues as well. We now have a quarterly, statewide newspaper; a weekly radio
program; and a website. Our members meet monthly to discuss issues and plan actions. We are affiliated with the Virginia People’s
Assembly, the Virginia Immigrant Peoples Coalition and the United National Antiwar Coalition. If you agree with our principles
and want to work to make these ideals a reality, we invite you to join us. Together, we can make a real difference in the
lives of our communities.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
We believe in Freedom – We believe
that all people must be free to develop to their full potential as human beings. We must be free from hunger, from preventable
diseases, from homelessness, from ignorance. We must be free to work and to provide for ourselves and our families. We must
be free to pursue our education and to develop ourselves culturally and spiritually. We must be free from fear of the arbitrary
use of police power and from the physical and cultural attacks of white-supremacist organizations. Women must be free from
physical, cultural and emotional oppression. Children must be free from dangers like lead poisoning, asthma and sexual exploitation.
Our youths must be free both from police harassment and the mindless violence of the streets. We must all be free from unjust
wars fought in the interest of the wealthy few at the expense of the struggling many.
We believe in Justice – We believe that every human being has the right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we believe that these rights are meaningless unless we also have the right
to a job at a living wage, to decent housing, to adequate health care, to a meaningful education. We believe that all people
have the right to stand equally before the law, to equal and fair treatment by the police, by the court system and in jails
and prisons. And we believe that the death penalty is the ultimate exercise in injustice.
We believe in Equality – We live in the richest country in the world. But it’s
a country that owes its tremendous wealth to the barbaric oppression of Black lives on a historic scale, as well as the theft
of American Indian and Mexican lands, the cruel exploitation of Asian labor and the labor of waves of poor European immigrants.
This country does not belong to the wealthy few who have claimed it for their own. As human beings, we all have an equal right
to its resources. As descendants of those whose blood, sweat and tears paid cruelly for its development, we have a right to
collective reparations. And as people who struggle every day with ongoing inequality, we have the right to affirmative action.
We believe that for any one of us to be free, we must all be free. We believe that for any one of us to have justice, we must
all have justice. We believe that equality for anyone is impossible without equality for everyone
As members of The Defenders, we pledge ourselves to defend
our community, its men, its women and especially its children, from all forms of oppression. We pledge to fight for a world
where all people can live in dignity, freedom and peace.
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WHAT WE DO
Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project – Founded in 2004, this
is an ongoing campaign to reclaim and properly memorialize Richmond's rich Black history. We helped lead a 10-year struggle
that forced the removal of a commercial parking lot that for more than 30 years had desecrated Richmond's African Burial Ground,
the city's earliest cemetery for free and enslaved Africans. We are currently fighting a third attempt to build a for-profit
baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom, once the site of the country's second-largest slave market. We have helped revive the
memory of the great Virginia slave rebellion leader Gabriel, executed on Oct.10, 1800, at the site of the African Burial Ground.
The Virginia
Defender – In 2005 we began publishing The Richmond Defender, a monthly community newspaper with a circulation
of 10,000. Now called The Virginia Defender, the paper has expanded statewide with a quarterly press run of 15,000. Centered
on the Black community, it also covers immigrant struggles, labor and international issues.
DefendersLIVE Radio – Also launched
in 2005, our weekly radio program uses news, analysis and guest interviews to publicize issues and perspectives often neglected
by the commercial media. (Mondays, noon - 12:30 pm on WRIR, 97.3 FM and via live stream at www.wrir.org.)
Police Abuse & Court Watch Project
– We have mobilized many times to pack Richmond courtrooms to defend the wrongfully accused or to demand justice against
abusive police officers. Working with the Virginia State Conference NAACP and other organizations, we organized against a
wave of fatal police shootings in the first decade of the 2000s. From our beginning, we have continued to work to expose and
change abusive conditions in the Richmond City Jail and the Virginia Department of Corrections.
Virginia Immigrant People's Coalition
– As a founding member of the VIP Coalition, we have supported struggles by immigrant communities to defend the rights
of the undocumented in Prince William County, Charlottesville and Richmond. This included organizing security for a march
of 8,000 in Prince William during the height of right-wing attacks in that Northern Virginia county.
Virginia Alliance for Worker Justice
– We were an active member of this labor/community/religious coalition which fought for a raise in the minimum wage
and opposed legislative attacks on local living-wage ordinances and state unemployment benefits.
Other Community Issues
– We worked with United Parents Against Lead to pressure the city administration to improve its program charged with
preventing lead poisoning in the city's children. We carried out a successful campaign to prevent winter heating gas cut offs
by the City against the working poor. And we have played supportive roles in struggles initiated by other organizations, such
as the 2011-12 Occupy Richmond movement and the heroic fight for women's reproductive rights in 2012 at the Virginia State
Capitol.
Antiwar
Work – In 2005 we co-founded the Virginia Anti War Network (VAWN), which for five years promoted
statewide antiwar campaigns, supported local organizing and mobilized Virginia participation in national actions. In 2007
we organized the five-person People's Peace Delegation to Iran, which became the basis for our book "In Defense of Iran: Notes
from a U.S. Peace Delegation's Journey through the Islamic Republic." In 2010 we were a founding member of the United National
Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), the largest and most active antiwar coalition in the U.S., in which our members serve on both the
Administrative and Coordinating committees. Virginia People's Assembly – In 2009 we co-founded
the VPA, an annual conference of progressive activists from across Virginia. Under the banner of “Jobs, Peace, Justice,”
this networking event helps build a multi-issue, multi-racial movement based in the working-class and committed to the right
of oppressed peoples to self-determination, both here at home and in other countries. The VPA provides a space for all of
us – young and old; women and men; Black, Latino, Indian, Asian and European; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer
and straight; immigrant and native-born; able and physically and mentally challenged; union and unorganized; veterans; homeless;
cultural workers – all of us – to come together and build a movement that can fundamentally change this society
for the better.
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Also visit DefendersFJE.blogspot.com
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