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​Dear Friends and Supporters of Peace & Justice

Each day brings more images and reports of devastation from Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, and Iran. WAR is a fixation of our President. We can look away, but there it is again. The good news is that, together with our comrades and fellow activists, we have filled the sidewalks and streets by the thousands with dissent.

Demonstrations and rallies organized by diverse groups happen every week, and regularly new demos pop up as needed to address each new concern, atrocity, and hateful administrative action. Clever signs and chants ring out, and another cool t-shirt debuts. We are rising up, watching out for ICE, rapidly responding as a community, dropping banners on overpasses, informing and educating the public, boycotting corporations and their products, and calling out politicians and oligarchs. We are busy!

We are so busy that many of us are tired and burning out from our efforts. Yet we keep at it, because this moment calls for a persistent effort, conviction, and loyalty to the values of humanity and solidarity that are essential to building the better world we envision. The Peace & Justice Center is all in for the fight, supporting all the activists we can, spreading information, getting the word out about what you can do and where the next meeting or rally is.

The PJC is grateful to welcome two new board members, Kim Caldeway and Fran Carbonaro, and a new advisory member, Chris Castillo. Their presence has already brought a welcome sense of renewed energy and perspective. Their ideas, commitment, and collaborative spirit have created a greater camaraderie, strengthened our team, and our capacity to do this work.

Meanwhile, more groups than ever are utilizing the center, and the building is buzzing. Groups use the space for training, planning, singing, meditations, sign-making, book and study groups.
Our website, calendar, and the Peace Press are also resources for these groups to educate, post upcoming actions or meetings, and inform the public on how to get involved. Activists in our building, who are transforming it into a true hub for movement-building and mutual support, this is what we are about.

In January, the PJC and the activist community found ourselves in a very reactive moment – responding to that urgency, something took root. Together with individual allies and grassroots organizations, over 40 groups came together to form Community United to Resist Fascism (CURF). Proudly, we worked across differences and personalities, and we discovered hope that emerges when movements align. At times, it was gloriously messy – so many voices, so many leaders – but also energizing to be a part of the fire and creativity of activists rising up together, and finding allies.
Months of work together culminated in May, and CURF co-organized five powerful days of action. From May 1st through the 5th, it brought focus to a wide range of intersecting issues, and the organizing was a testament to what is possible when we unite.

CURF was supportive, and we leaned into collaboration. We created tentacles of resistance, a movement growing and reaching out in all directions in Sonoma County. The resistance is alive and well! The PJC hopes to strengthen the coalition, do more with CURF and its members, and build our collective resources.

Supporters have written to us saying, “I’ve never felt this horrible about the state of the world.” and “WAR is a fixation of the President – not just in the bombs dropped abroad, but in the relentless assaults here at home: executive overreach, the dismantling of our democracy, the crackdown on immigrants, the targeting of dissent, the gutting of science and education, the mass firings of federal workers under DOGE, and the rollback of LGBTQ+ rights.”

We share your outrage and the grief is collective. The rage is righteous. But despair cannot be where we end. The violence is not distant – funded by tax dollars, sanctioned by silence, perpetuated by fascists and happening in our names. The PJC’s mission is to be a resource for all of us who are channeling that heartbreak into action – demanding accountability from those in
power, supporting grassroots efforts and actions, and standing unflinchingly beside those most vulnerable. But we cannot do it without your support.

This is not a time for passive sympathy. It is a time for courageous solidarity.

Please consider making a donation today to strengthen our capacity to organize, educate, and mobilize. Every contribution is an act of resistance and of hope, a declaration that human life and
dignity matter, a way to remind this world that we have not gone numb, and we will not stay silent.

With you in solidarity,
Robin Latham, for the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County

Built with the words of fellow activist friends by Robin Latham

Read the September Peace Press online

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