Our longtime sister organization, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) has merged into Causa Justa. As of January 1, 2015 Causa Justa :: Just Cause now includes the staff, members, campaigns, and amazing history and legacy of POWER as we have become one, more POWERful organization. With the merger, POWER staff have joined us – as you can see from the staff page, and several POWER board members joined the CJJC board as well. Check our Board of Directors, here.
With the newly merged organization, our work expands! We will continue to fight our Housing Rights and Immigrant Rights Campaigns, as well as bring in the Black Priorities Project and Youth In POWER from vibrant projects at POWER.
Our united membership includes many POWERful leaders from the Bayview, Mission, East and West Oakland. Meet some of them here. The uniting of two Black and Brown organizations has meant powerful relationships and parallels being drawn, like between Bayview and West Oakland and more powerful campaigns, as members from both organizations merge their work. POWER’s amazing youth immigrants rights members have POWERed up Causa Justa’s Immigrant Rights committee, for example.
Our members have spent the first few weeks of the year deepening their relationships at our New Year’s merger party, in committee meetings and out in the streets. Our first big action together as one organization was Monday at the #ReclaimMLK march in Oakland (link). As the #blacklivesmatter movement continues to grow, Causa Justa’s Black Priorities Project, is excited to be strategizing with our African-American members about how to sustain this movement, and how to build a regional black organizing campaign against displacement.
We want to celebrate this merger and the POWERful work coming in 2015, so please SAVE THE DATE for our big anniversary event on May 28th, 2015 at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Tickets will be available in February — we’ll send you more info then!
We are looking forward to an inspiring year, for our organization and for working class people of color in this country. As the 96 hours of #reclaimMLK actions wrapped up this past weekend, the chants were still ringing in our ears, and we recommitted ourselves to offer this merger between Causa Justa and POWER as a gift to the movement, an asset that we can all share and shape together. Here’s to a POWERful 2015!