“When ‘I’ is replaced with ‘we,’ even illness becomes wellness.” – Malcolm X
The Vermont Racial Justice Alliance (VRJA) is a Black-led organization committed to dismantling systemic racism through focused organizing, rigorous learning, and strategic advocacy.
We exist to secure sustainable power, ensure agency, and provide security for American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) in Vermont. Rooted in historical truth and community accountability, we build systems and strategies that enable our people not just to survive—but to shape the systems that define their future.
We do this with clarity, commitment, and an unshakeable belief in what must be done.
Systemic racism didn’t happen by accident. It was engineered. It was written into the laws, institutions, and social fabric of this country, beginning with slavery and sustained through generations of policy, violence, and silence.
The result: deep, intergenerational trauma and widespread racial disparities in health, education, housing, income, policing, and beyond.
But we are not defined by trauma. We are defined by our capacity to heal, to organize, to transform—and to thrive.
At VRJA, we take a holistic and strategic approach to dismantling systemic racism and building a more just, joyful, and unified Vermont. Our work spans wellness, cultural empowerment, education, initiatives, policy and data – all grounded in the strength of community and vision our youth.
Wellness Working Group – Healing Is the Foundation
Wellness is not secondary to justice—it is justice.
Our Wellness Working Group leads our highest-priority work: advancing mental health, cultural wellness, and trauma recovery for ADOS and BIPOC communities. We create Black-led, culturally grounded solutions that disrupt dominant mental health frameworks and build long-term wellness systems that work for us.
Through our ongoing collaboration with the Richard Kemp Center, we hold community conversations on health and wellness, creating brave spaces where healing begins and hope is cultivated.
We approach wellness as if our lives depend upon it – because they do.
Cultural Empowerment
First African Landing Day – A Day of Commemoration
The Vermont Racial Justice Alliance established First African Landing Day on August 24, 2019 by inspiration of the 400 Year African American History Commission and the 1619 Project. Vermont First African Landing Day was established to recognize and highlight the resilience and contributions of African-Americans since 1619; to acknowledge the impact that slavery and laws that enforced racial discrimination have on the United States and to educate the public about the arrival of Africans in the United States”
The Governor has proclaimed on August 24, 2019 that the 4th Saturday of August “shall be henceforth recognized and commemorated as First African Landing Day in Vermont”
Education – Teaching the Roots to Heal the Future
We are committed to teaching the root causes, impacts, and solutions to systemic racism across Vermont. Through hundreds of hours of outreach, workshops, and trainings, we educate communities and institutions on the historical architecture of racism and equip them with tools to understand, confront, and mitigate it.
This work builds bridges—between people, across sectors, and within systems—and it empowers communities to move from awareness to action.
Our trainings invite participants to think critically, feel deeply, and act boldly.
The Truth and Justice Series is a yearlong public education journey that explores the historical roots, lasting legacy, and lived realities of systemic racism. We invite Vermonters into honest dialogue around This nation’s history of slavery, patriarchy and genocide, its institutionalization and and ongoing perpetuation. Acknowledging the harm and trauma enables us to acknowledge resilience and focus on repair – so we can build justice on a foundation of truth.
Initiatives
Raise Up Justice
The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and all other federal civil rights divisions have been decommissioned, gutted or politically repurposed.
There is nothing more important in the fight for the soul of this nation than the fight for our civil rights – The fight for JUSTICE.
Raise Up Justice is multiracial, gender neutral intergenerational, interfaith, multi-abled, politically nonaffiliated, moral, fusion civil rights movement focusing on truth and justice and centering the legacy of slavery. We are grounded in the Golden Rule, focused on civil rights, oriented to human rights, based on nonviolence and directed towards the beloved community.
This is a National emergency!
We need a State Emergency Response!
When the federal government fails to provide civil rights and protection for the people of Vermont, officials of the state of Vermont must take decisive action.
We call on the elected and appointed officials of the state of Vermont to take immediate actions to enhance equal protection and civil rights and laws addressing disparate impacts of systemic racism (and other forms of oppression) and shift the budget to fund the transformation. We ask that immediate steps be taken to provide effective oversight to ensure transparency and accountability in our justice and other systems of state government.
Go here to read more about our civil rights national emergency and Raise Up Justice!
Policy – Structural Change, Rooted in Community
We pursue policy that dismantles racist systems and centers ADOS voices and priorities. From Vermont’s constitutional abolition of slavery (Proposal 2), to Burlington’s Reparations Task Force, to the Health Equity Advisory Commissions—Our policy work is driven by truth, data, and healing. Our Justice Agenda is no exception.
We also lead multi-stakeholder coalitions, engage local leaders, and support institutions ready to evolve.
Racial Equity Data Dashboard – Data for Liberation
We maintain a living system of racially disaggregated data that exposes disparities and tracks progress toward justice. Our data is not abstract—it’s actionable. It fuels policy, shapes community response, and holds systems accountable.
Our data principles are intentional about avoiding the objectivity that normalizes the biases produced by the legacy of slavery that inform the data. Our principles therefore focus on baselining, measuring and informing mitigation strategies as opposed to “proving disparities exist.”
Our Junior Associates are more than youth—they’re co-visionaries. These committed teens and young adults embody VRJA’s mission and lead with clarity, creativity, and courage. Trained in advocacy, wellness, and cultural leadership, they are already shaping the systems we’re rebuilding.
They don’t inherit trauma—they inherit power.
Yes, we confront systems of oppression. But we do so while healing and living fully.
We don’t just resist—we restore.
We don’t just expose harm—we create wholeness.
We are shifting the ground beneath systemic racism, and building power through wellness.
Juxtaposition is the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance Monthly Production, aired live from CCTV, Center for Media and Democracy.
Juxtaposition (VRJA-TV) –”Issues affecting Black folks. Black folks effecting change.”
