Who are we? Part I: Join us on Juneteenth

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CCR is proud to be a presenting partner of "Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America" at New York's Town Hall tomorrow, June 19 at 7:00pm. On Juneteenth, CCR Executive Director Vince Warren will provide a welcome address for Jeffery Robinson's examination of the secret history of our country. "Our history," Robinson tells audiences, "has been stolen from us." Weaving heartbreak, humor, passion, and rage, Robinson, who is deputy legal director of the ACLU, takes us through this stolen history, showing us how the legacy of slavery and U.S. imperialism impacts every aspect of our society. Join us for a revelatory evening of music, performance, and poetry that will lift us up and shake us to the core. Directed by Gbenga Akinnagbe ("The Wire," "The Deuce"). With Alfre Woodard, Amy Ryan, Denis O'Hare, Jay O. Sanders, and others. 

To purchase tickets and for more information, visit the event website.

Photo credit: Devin Allen

Who are we? Part II: The Activist Files Episode 3, They've Got Next - Our Legal Fellows Stephanie, Britney, and Noor Approach the Bench (Mic)

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If you know CCR, you're probably familiar with some of our groundbreaking cases. But who are the people working at the Center for Constitutional Rights? In the third episode of The Activist Files, we talked to our Bertha Justice fellows Stephanie Llanes, Britney Wilson, and Noor Zafar—three young radical lawyers who have worked with CCR for the past two years on cases challenging government misconduct, racial injustice, indefinite detention at Guantánamo, and Muslim profiling. They talk Cardi B, people they admire, and what brought them to social justice lawyering. Listen here and subscribe and rate us on iTunes!

Also, if you're in New York this week, join us to celebrate The Activist Files and its official launch on iTunes! Enjoy wine and hors d'oeuvres, mingle with change makers who have been featured on The Activist Files, catch up on any past episodes with special listening headsets, and win big with our subscription raffle! Register here—we'd love to see you.

Come see us in New Orleans at Netroots Nation August 2-4

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With 3000 attendees, 175 sessions, and 400 speakers, Netroots Nation is gathering activists from across the country to team up, learn, and strategize. It’s not too late to register. CCR has been a part of Netroots for the last decade, and this year we're presenting twice:

Fight Pipelines, Fight Racism: Louisiana’s #NoBayouBridge Fight Is About More Than a Pipeline. The #NoBayouBridge short-film series and panel discussion will detail how a fight to stop a 162-mile oil pipeline is about more than resisting the oil industry in Louisiana. It's also about more than just stopping ETP/Sunoco—pipeline companies with some of the worst environmental records in the U.S.—from endangering 700 waterways and 50 miles of the Atchafalaya Basin. It’s even more than a fight to stop private and public security forces from repressing activists. While it's all of these, #NoBayouBridge continues the struggle against economic and political elites in Louisiana—whose decisions perpetuate racial and environmental injustice, and land and cultural dispossession—that links back to white settler colonization and slavery. CCR Senior Attorney Pamela Spees will be joined by Cherri Foytlin, and Anne Rolfes.

And The Race Paper and Other Secret Documents: How the FBI And DHS Are Surveilling and Criminalizing Black Protest. In 2017, under court order, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI turned over hundreds of pages of emails, reports, policies and other documents to the Center for Constitutional Rights and Color Of Change. These documents reveal government surveillance of the Movement for Black Lives, and Black activists and organizers. They show how federal agencies characterized protesters as "Black Supremacist Extremists" and portrayed protected First Amendment protest activity as inciting violence to justify surveillance. These documents also reveal for the first time the existence of a report produced by the DHS Intelligence and Analysis office called the "Race Paper" and that is entirely blacked out in reliance on the National Security Act. We must refocus attention on law enforcement's historic and current suspicion and targeting of Constitutionally-protected political speech and call for accountability. Join CCR's Omar Farah leading the discussion.