We Stand with the Families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery

We stand with the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and millions of Black people in America who are subject to racial oppression, violence, and murder at the hands of police. We demand peace and safety for Black people.

From the beginning, Wall Street has been a vehicle for redistributing wealth upward: out of the pockets of people who are Black, Indigenous, and of color – especially if they’re also women – and into the hands of rich white men.

This system has always depended on racial violence to enforce that redistribution. Our vision of an economy for working people, whatever their race, can only be realized in a society that does not criminalize, incarcerate, disenfranchise, deport, and kill off Black people.

Not only was Wall Street physically built by enslaved people (to keep Indigenous people from reclaiming their land), but Wall Street’s wealth would not exist without 40¢ of every cotton dollar going to New York businessmen to finance, ship and insure it.

The “market value” of enslaved Africans when the Civil War began was greater than that of banks, factories, and railroads combined. The free labor of enslaved people created 48% of the South’s total wealth in 1860.

It is our responsibility to lift up these stories, because we know there is no such thing as race neutral economic justice. We won’t stop training activists until everyone knows the truth of our history, because we can’t build a brighter future on lies.

Racist practices and policies built this country’s wealth, and we need to make it right. We will fight for a financial system, an economy, and a democracy that is finally and actively anti-racist.

Read up on how to be an anti-racist here.

And check out statements from our coalition and allies:

ACRE Statement: Police Force Must Be Defunded to Protect Black Lives, Resist Heightened Fascism Taking Hold in the United States

Statement by American Federation of Teachers Officers on the Killing of George Floyd

AFR Statement: We affirm that Black Lives Matter and that anti-Black racism is unacceptable and must be eliminated

APWU Statement on the Killing of George Floyd and the Continuing Struggle for Justice

Americans for Tax Fairness: The horrific murder of George Floyd by police has once again laid bare the systemic racism that has plagued our country for hundreds of years

Beneficial State Foundation: We stand in solidarity with Black communities demanding an end to police violence

Color of Change: New Charges In The Death of George Floyd Are a Step Toward Justice

Statement from the CWA Executive Board on the Need to Dismantle the Racism that Plagues Our Communities

Words Alone Are Not Enough, Says Democracy Initiative

Enviro. Groups Stand in Solidarity with Movement for Black Lives Demands / Week of Action