Say No To Prison Privatization
Honoring the Legacy: Rev. Addie Wyatt
“Behold,
I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed- in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For
the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall
be changed.”
1
Corinthians 15: 51-53
In Memory of Rev. Addie Lorraine Wyatt:
We celebrate the life of Rev. Addie Lorraine Wyatt and the gifts she has given us. To those who believe in social justice, human and 
women’s rights, and the struggle to make the lives of the invisible come into focus, Rev. Wyatt has been a visible and tangible reminder that there is power and strength in a simple idea. Her idea was to insist that workers had rights, fair wages and safe environments in which to work.
We thank God for the life of Rev. Wyatt, for she truly blessed the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc. (SDPC) with revered guidance, consistent prayers and sage advice, helping to shape the heart and soul of SDPC’s labor work and justice programming. As a charter supporter of SDPC, she was truly a guiding star and inspiration for our work with national labor unions and the ongoing fight for equality.
In 2005, SDPC formed the Addie Lorraine Wyatt/Bill Lucy Institute. During the organization’s Legislative Days on Capitol Hill, hundreds of young seminarians, youth lay leaders and college students gathered to learn at the feet of two civil rights giants who transformed the country’s labor union landscape. Rev. Wyatt was truly a pioneering prophet who became the first African American woman elected as vice president of an international labor union, the Amalgamated Meat Packers. During a tumultuous and turbulent time in this nation’s struggle for human rights and racial equality, her activism gave hope to countless laborers who suffered daily under the unyielding weight of discrimination and Jim Crow laws.
The SDPC presented Rev. Wyatt with our Beautiful Are Their Feet Award in recognition of her work as a committed activist who marched in Selma, Ala. and Washington, DC with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. defying the nation’s power structures. Her lived-commitments to justice are profound: Rev. Wyatt was appointed by Eleanor Roosevelt to the United States Labor Legislation Committee, she also served as labor advisor to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a founding member of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Additionally, with spirit-led power, Rev. Wyatt unapologetically erased the lines between the sacred and secular by nurturing the prophetic impulse of the faith community as she and her husband Rev. Claude Wyatt co-founded the Vernon Park Church of God.
The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference family celebrates the life of Rev. Addie Lorraine Wyatt. Her enduring spirit reminds us to be faithful to our following, committed to the cause and steadfast in the work, trusting God to lead and guide us through each and every season. We give her now to the ancestors for she has run the race and finished her course.
Amen and Amen.
God’s Peace,
The SDPC Team
Trayvon’s Murder & Our Response
Dear Family:
Today, we will not be silent. Please take action with us on behalf of our beloved son, Trayvon Martin, who was killed on February 26th 2012.
Please utilize the following 4 resources for awareness and advocacy as we s
tand together for justice:
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Use: A Litany For Children Slain By Violence
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Distribute the Facts: Truth in Black & White
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Sign the Petition from Trayvon’s Parents: Petition
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Reach Out to President Obama: Template Letter
“Use this tragedy to start a broader conversation in your school, your place of worship, your workplace, or your community center, about what is necessary to end this new Jim Crow system — a system that our nation keeps pretending doesn’t really exist.”
- Michelle Alexander
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes
Rallys Held Across the Country
FLORIDA- THURSDAY, 3/22 @ 7pm
The Rev. Al Sharpton is
holding a Community Rally
First Shiloh Baptist Church
700 S. Elm Ave.
Sanford, FL
_______________________________________
FLORIDA- MONDAY, 3/26 @ 4PM
Community Rally
First United Methodist Church
419 S. Park Ave
Sanford, FL
_______________________________________
D.C- SATURDAY, 3/31 @ 12PM
Demand Justice Rally
for Trayvon Martin
Judicial Square, Washington D.C
On the corner of 5th & F St NW
Join the Movement:
Contact us Today
Stay Connected:
CCA OFFERS 48 U.S. GOVERNORS MONEY AND TERMS
Human Trafficking and For-Profit Prisons:
The issue of privatization of prisons has reached a new and intolerable level of risk for state and local governmental complicity in human
trafficking. The offer by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to public entities, local, state and federal, to buy their prisons under certain terms and conditions as a strategy to address budget deficits, undermines fundamental
principles of democracy and human rights. The conditions include a 20 year management contract plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90% full.
This proposal strikes at the heart of a democracy grounded in human rights and compassion within our criminal justice system – our beliefs in fair and just punishment, rehabilitative and restorative justice, death and dying with dignity. We must act strategically and collaboratively.
Click On These Links For More Information:
ACLU Press Release on CCA Offer
A Message From the General Secretary: SDPC Celebrates: UMC Divests from Private Prisons!
Dear Family, Laura Markle Downton, Criminal Justice Grassroots Coordinator with the United Methodist Church, has wonderful news to share:
“I am writing with the great news that as of last week, the United Methodist Church has divested from both CCA and GEO Group, and the UMC’s Board of Pensions, which controls the investments of our church, has permanently put into place a screen that will not allow us to invest into any corporation in the future that has gross revenues of 10% or more from private prisons.” SDPC celebrates with the UMC as they courageously stand for justice! SDPC is honored to have the UMC as a partner in our To Be Free At Last movement to address mass incarceration and prison injustice. During our 2012 conference, SDPC will be hosting denominational representatives to further our shared agenda and strategies around divestitures. As faith communities in this country and world hold the power to change the direction of our nation, the UMC serves as a model exemplifying the collective power within our churches to tip the moral compass of this century- our voices do matter! The UMC is calling on all other institutions and organizations of conscience to do the same- please see their Press Release, and please join us in spreading the word. The following report is for your special attention: ACLU: Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration Please explore the To Be Free At Last website to purchase The New Jim Crow Book & Study Guide. “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”Dr. Iva E. Carruthers and The SDPC Family |
We look forward to seeing you at theSDPC 2012at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, ILFebruary 6-9, 2012Reckoning with Power:DESTROYING CASTE AND RESTORING COMMUNITY *Venue Change:
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General Secretary’s Message – New Beginnings!
Beloved,
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the home of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” (Is 2:3, NRSV)
As we enter the Holy season of Advent, The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference (SDPC) joins you in steadfast proclamation that God is with us. 2011 has been replete with many injustices and challenges all around us, so much suffering in the land of plenty and the
materialistic distractions and distortions of this Holy season. Yet, we believe God is with us! 
For the past several months, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference staff and board have been blessed to partner with Michelle Alexander, legal scholar and author of the ground breaking book The New Jim Crow, to continue in the spirit of Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement.
In partnership with Alexander, and many others around this nation, our collective work has crystallized into a clear vision and plan to expose the many injustices, racial and class bias embedded in America’s criminal justice system- the To Be Free At Last Movement.
The To Be Free At Last Movement is a human rights movement committed to breaking the cycle of division, exclusion, racism and caste in America and indeed the world.
With vision…By Faith…Through Action…we continue to move forward. We are especially empowered by this season of Advent and the legacy of Rosa Parks to broadly share our vision on the To Be Free At Last Movement, this day, December 1, 2011.
Please take time to read and distribute the To Be Free At Last covenant & brochure. Explore our website (www.tobefreeatlast.net) to
sign on to our covenant, and let us know how we might work together to carry forth our fight for global justice and human dignity for all.
God is with us!
“We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”
We hope to see you at the 2012 Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference!
Register Online today!
Dr. Iva E. Carruthers
General Secretary
Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III
Chair, Board of Trustees
General Secretary’s Message – 2012 Conference & New Jim Crow
The Proctor team of staff and volunteers have been working faithfully to plan our 2012 conference and lay a strong foundation to launch our human rights campaign to dismantle the prison industrial complex.
Please meet us at the 2012 conference in Chicago, February 6– 9th. Register now at a reduced rate and let us know you are coming so we can better plan for your participation.
We have just hosted two strategic summits on The New Jim Crow in an effort to build our network of collaborating partners to organize and mobilize against the mass incarceration and its consequences on our communities. Clergy and lay leaders, students from HBCU’s, community based activists, civic organizational heads, and representatives from the legal and foundation communities met in Chicago and Dallas to plan a national rollout of our collective efforts. (See video links)
In partnership with Atty. Michelle Alexander, author of the powerful book, The New Jim Crow, we have announced our plans to launch the To Be Free At Last Movement. Our website is launching soon. We have presented our plans and successfully received initial support from several foundations to begin this long-term effort of transformative ministry, moving beyond policy reform to also truly targeting the very values that undergird America’s increasing callous disregard and marginalization of people of color, the poor and working class. Those values were named decades ago by The Rev. Dr. Martin L. King as racism, materialism and militarism.
Our time to educate our people away from the media hype and strategically organize our capacity to be heard and change this country’s direction is now. We pledge to faithfully work on your behalf and provide you with resources and additional opportunities to join others in this battle for justice towards real freedom.
With God’s Grace
Dr. Iva E. Carruthers
Prophetic Conversations: Mourning for America
I am the mother of a murder victim so I know something about mourning and profound loss. I remember, too, the James Byrd murder. I remember that his daughter tried to get George W. Bush to sign a hate crimes bill in the state of Texas and that as she did she cried,
as only the loved one of someone dead cries. As Molly Ivins once reported, at that meeting, not only was there a refusal to sign, Bush never even offered Byrd’s daughter a tissue.
Prophetic Conversations: Murder Is Good Politics, Bad Justice
I don’t know if Troy Davis was innocent, but I do know that the evidence for demanding a re-examination of his conviction, including the recanted testimony of most of the witnesses against him, was overwhelming. But of course that is now beside the point, which is exactly what is so wrong about the use of the death penalty. No matter what evidence of innocence might be produced in the future, it is of consequence no longer.
Prophetic Conversations: Troy Davis Is Dead; the Movement Continues
At 11:08 pm, Wednesday September 21, the state of Georgia killed Troy Davis. Just before he was executed, Troy maintained his innocence, urged people to dig deeper into the case to find the truth, and said “For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on your souls, may God bless your souls.” It’s a tragic day for Troy, for his family, and for equality, fairness, and justice.
