White allies of Black Lives Matter to hold rally in Tucson

A group that organizes white allies for the Black Lives Matter movement will hold a rally Thursday evening in response to recent police shootings of black men.

Becky Renfrow, a volunteer organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice, or SURJ, said she is privileged that as a white person she doesn’t worry every day about police violence toward her or her family.

“I was in tears when I realized that we were updating the list of people of color who have been killed by police in recent times,” said Renfrow, a 33-year-old somatic therapist.

Racism is more than just saying the wrong thing, SURJ organizers said at a meeting Monday evening at Southside Presbyterian Church. Instead, it is embedded in institutions and culture.

Rather than feel “white guilt,” the group urges more white people to help end racism by attending their organizing meetings, protesting racist attacks and donating to social movements led by people of color.

The Tucson SURJ chapter is part of a national network that has accountability relationships with several movements and organizations led by people of color, SURJ organizers said. Black Lives Matter national leaders, for example, requested SURJ hold events Thursday as part of a national day of action.

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People of color also participate in SURJ, but the organization is modeled after times in history when black-led movements asked white people to organize themselves, as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee did during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

In 2008, black-led organizations asked that SURJ form when a rise in white-supremacy groups followed the election of President Obama. The goal was for white people to organize other white people against white supremacy. Then more chapters joined, especially after the shooting death by a police officer of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The purpose of Thursday’s rally is to “amplify the demands of the movement for black lives, to end police violence against black people,” said Leah Jo Carnine, a 32-year-old volunteer SURJ organizer and physicians assistant.

The rally begins at 5 p.m. at the Evo A. DeConcini Federal Courthouse on the corner of West Congress Street and South Granada Avenue downtown. Afterward, the group will walk to Mercado San Agustin to do outreach about racism at the Thursday farmers market.

Learn more details at SURJ’s Facebook event: Rally and Outreach in Solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives.