Orange County Justice United

Close to 90 Justice United leaders gathered at our Countywide Leaders Meeting Thursday night to ratify the launch of our listening campaign, pledging to engage 1,000 members of their institutions over the next four months. The purpose of the campaign is to strengthen the relationships within and between our institutions, and to identify the top pressures impacting our communities countywide. 

The Listening Campaign has two parts: 

1) Face to face conversations between 200 Justice United leaders in March for the purpose of building public relationships, trust, and understanding between our many diverse institutions and communities.

Turnout Goal: 15-20 members from each participating institution to one of two relational meeting events in March (see below).  

2) A training series in April that will equip all participants with the ability to organize a series of listening sessions in their institutions: small group conversations of 10-15 people, for the purpose of identifying the top pressures facing our communities and surfacing shared interests and concerns.

Turnout Goal: 5-10 members from each participating institution to attend training in April (see below). 

Relational Meeting Events

Justice United will organize two virtual relational meeting events to bring our members together in conversation. Events will open with brief training, and then participants will be broken out into groups of two several times over the course of the evening. Turnout Goal: 15-20 members from each participating institution

The relational meeting events will be the same -- choose the day that works best for you!  

Relational Meeting Event 1
Thursday, March 4, 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Please Register in Advance Here

Relational Meeting Event 2
Tuesday, March 9, 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Please Register in Advance Here

Listening Session Training

The listening session trainings will be the same -- choose the day that works best for you!  

Justice United has organized two workshops in April to teach leaders how to organize and facilitate a listening session in their community. Turnout Goal: 5-10 members from each participating institution

Listening Session Training 1
Tuesday, April 13, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Please Register in Advance Here

Listening Session Training 2
Monday, April 19, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Please Register in Advance Here

Close to 90 Justice United leaders joined gathered on Zoom Thursday night during our Countywide Leaders Meeting to hear progress reports from our issue campaigns and to shape and ratify a vision for making change in 2021. Progress reports from our active campaigns are listed below. 

Campaign to Increase Teacher Diversity and Bi-Lingual Staff at Orange County Schools

Dr. Monique Felder, OCS Superintendent, and key OCS staff attended our meeting to report progress increasing teacher diversity and bi-lingual staff across the school district. A few key takeaways: 

- hiring of African American teachers is increasing slowly, but steadily;
- bi-lingual staff, by raw numbers, has significantly increased from 2019-2020 to 2020-2021;
- funding for beginning teacher support programs has helped increase retention. 

The full report from OCS is available here. 

Campaign to Improve Conditions in Local Mobile Home Parks

Increasingly, Orange County mobile home parks are being purchased by out of town hedge funds and investment firms, who then raise the rent, charge outrageous fees and fines, and neglect infrastructure. Mobile home parks are the last, largest class of affordable housing left in the county. 

With the support of Justice United, neighborhood leaders in three local mobile home parks have been able to hold the owners of their mobile home parks accountable to resolving substandard conditions and unfair treatment. See a chart here with updates on what we have accomplished together. 

Leaders have committed to developing long term neighborhood associations to continue this work, are attending organizing training, and are working with Justice United in a new partnership with ROC USA to identify potential opportunities to buy their parks and run them as cooperatives. 

2020 Individual Donor Campaign

Justice United exceeded our 2020 Individual Donor Campaign goals, raising $22,826 (goal = $20,000). The funds raised will support Justice United's general operating expenses incurred during the training and development of local leaders with the capacity to act effectively and address injustice across Orange County. Justice United will organize a 2021 Individual Donor Campaign in the late spring, early summer. More information about this will be available soon. 

For the last year, Justice United has supported neighborhood leaders in three local mobile home parks in organizing their communities and holding the park owners accountable to address serious concerns including failing septic systems, failing wells, dangerous trees, and excessive rent hikes, fees, and fines.

We've made promising progress! See the chart below for a summary report of improvements made in each park this year.

With your support we have been able to continue to this important work and help win real, tangible progress on concrete issues. THANK YOU!

This work is not yet over, and Justice United remains committed to monitoring this progress in the new year.

Click on the chart below to view and download the updates as a PDF file.

Across the nation, the COVID-19 epidemic and killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor unveiled what we have always known: that America is not working for all of us. It is working only for some of us at the expense of
somebody else. In the midst of these crises Justice United leaders answered the call to build and exercise our collective power from the bottom up, and to begin to create a new political and economic reality that ensures equity for all.

This year we have organized and delivered hundreds of members from our institutions and won significant investment in our community. Download our mid-year report below to learn what we have accomplished together so far!

Here are the latest updates from Justice United's campaign to improve conditions in three local mobile home parks. 

$30,000 Victory at Mobile Home Park B!

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Over 50 Justice United members supported neighborhood leaders from Mobile Home Park B during their negotiations with the park owner.

We have great news! Neighborhood leaders won commitments from the owner to forgive all arrears and debts for residents: a total value of at least $30,000! The debts had accumulated from inadequate park management and miscommunication. 

Orange County Schools Board of Education Chair Will Atherton, Superintendent Dr. Monique Felder, and HR Director Connie Brimmer attended Justice United's Internal Assembly on March 2 to report on progress increasing teacher diversity through alternative licensure programs that Justice United first asked the Board to strengthen in 2018. They were joined by OCS teachers Wanda Rittenhouse and Monique McAdoo who shared testimony on their experiences with these programs. The full report from the OCS leadership is available here.

The bottom line: Orange County Schools has more than quadrupled the hiring of African American teachers from the 2018/2019 hiring season to the 2019/2020 school year.

Justice United leaders have invested over two years of effort in this campaign to increase teacher diversity within Orange County Schools; a campaign that has now delivered real, tangible results. We are proud to celebrate this success and will continue to monitor progress on this issue over the long term.   

Close to 50 leaders from 12 institutions across Orange County met on Thursday, December 5 to report on progress with house meetings, and to ratify our vision for building relational power in 2020. House Meeting progress report here.

Leaders ratified a strategy for spring 2020 centered around two events: an Internal Assembly on March 2 where we will launch our relational canvassing campaign, and our 2020 Friends of Justice United Individual Donor Campaign Breakfast Kickoff on March 11 (see below).

Justice United Internal Assembly
Monday, March 2, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Hillsborough (Location TBD)
Confirm your attendance here

Leaders have already pledged to turn out over 100 members of their institutions for an important internal assembly on Monday, March 2.

At the Assembly we will launch a relational canvassing campaign to engage hundreds of local residents in key neighborhoods where Justice United has been invited to help neighbors connect, identify their top concerns, and organize for change.

New OCS Superintendent Dr. Monique Felder and Board of Education Chair Will Atherton have committed to attend this assembly and report on progress addressing racial hiring disparities within teaching staff. 

Friends of Justice United Breakfast Kickoff Event
Wednesday, March 11, 7:30 am - 9:00 am
Church of the Holy Family
210 Hayes Rd, Chapel Hill
Confirm your attendance here

Justice United’s 2020 individual donation goal is to raise $20,000 to build our power to make change and deepen our presence across Orange County. We will kick off our 2020 Friends of Justice United individual donor campaign on Wednesday, March 11 at an 7:30 AM breakfast event. 

The event will include testimonials about our accomplishments, with featured speaker Luke Bretherton, a Duke Theologian who studies the intersections of religion, democracy, and organizing. 

The proposal is for every institution to commit to bring at least one table’s worth of people (eight people) and to nominate a table captain who will liaise with the money team leading up to the event. Everyone in attendance will be asked to consider making a gift in support of Justice United's work. 

This spring Justice United organized five public actions and won hundreds of thousands in public investment to launch a new affordable housing pilot program (master leasing) and to increase teacher diversity in Orange County. You can read our mid-year report here.

On Thursday August 22, 46 Justice United leaders met at Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church to shape and ratify a strategy to continue addressing these important issues. Leaders pledged to send 31 members to attend IAF University (see dates and times below), and to engage over 200 members of their community in house meetings between August 22 and December 5. 

What’s Next for Justice United? 

Justice United’s fall agenda is focused on holding candidates for the Orange County Board of County Commissioners and the OC Board of Education accountable to our grassroots agenda for change.

Both elected bodies have significant decision making power and impact on the everyday lives of Orange County residents. The County has the ability to expand our pilot master leasing program to more quickly house homeless families, and the Board of Education can do more to advance our campaign to increasing teacher diversity and bi-lingual staff at Orange County Schools.  

Candidates will be running in the spring 2020 primary elections, which will be held far earlier than normal. North Carolina is now a Super Tuesday state, and will hold primaries on March 3 (early voting starts February 12). If we want to be ready to take advantage of this primary election cycle we have to get ready now, before the holiday season arrives in late November - December.

IAF University and House Meetings

With this in mind, JU leaders have committed to develop or strengthen Core Teams of leaders within our institutions. This fall, these Core Teams will organize a series of house meetings designed to: 1) brief members on our current issue campaigns and the primary, and 2) surface new pressures facing our communities today. These house meetings will build our base of support for our public action in February.

These workshops will be held in Hillsborough on September 12 and September 19, and in Chapel Hill on October 17. Please confirm your attendance today! 

Questions? Email [email protected] if you have any questions.