Blog / Racial Justice

Bread for the City’s Advocacy Director, Aja Taylor, participated in a teach-in on anti-racism at Catholic University on September 21st. Below is an excerpt from the National Catholic Reporter on the event.

Bread for the City’s Chairman of the Board, Paul R. Taskier, reflects on poverty, racism, food justice, the wealth gap, and why Bread for the City does what we do.

In the face of dangerous rhetoric like that we have seen from white supremacists in Charlottesville, we must be intentional and explicit in speaking out. Good people must get involved and mobilize.

On April 25, Dr. Yanique Redwood, CHF’s President/CEO, testified at the D.C. Council Committee of the Whole’s Budget Oversight Hearing on racial equity and the role of local governments. Mr. George Jones, Bread for the City’s Chief Executive Officer, joined Dr. Redwood in calling on the D.C. Council to apply a racial equity lens in policy making. Please see Mr. Jones’ testimony here.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that an undocumented woman was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a courthouse in El Paso while she was seeking a protective order against a boyfriend she accused of domestic violence. This action, like the Executive Order that supports it, undermines public safety, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and the tireless efforts of organizations like Bread for the City to make our country safe for all people.

On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order banning all refugees from entering the country for 120 days — or even indefinitely, in the case of Syria — while barring citizens of a select group of predominantly Muslim nations from traveling to the U.S. for 90 days.

In the midst of a housing, homelessness and displacement crisis, the DC government is spending about three times as much on jails and policing as it is spending on housing. Bread for the City organizers and community members demand the council prioritize funding for affordable housing in the city.

Every day, three women are lost to intimate partner violence (IPV). Almost half are killed while in the process of leaving the relationship.

It is unlikely that Bresha Meadows knew these grim statistics the day she took action to protect herself and her family from the violent actions allegedly perpetrated by her father. What she did know was her father had terrorized her family and controlled her mother’s every move.

Bresha was 14 years old when she was arrested for allegedly killing her abusive father in Warren, Ohio on July 28, 2016. In an interview conducted shortly after her arrest, her mother, Brandi Meadows, described Bresha as “her hero”. She went on to say, “I wasn’t strong enough to get out and she helped us all.”