Peace-building work, regular public assembly & collective rituals all strengthen our ability to take meaningful action for the protection & regeneration of a living antiracist culture, and in doing so move us closer to realizing Beloved Community. The arrows guide us to understanding that this process may be cyclical and happen iteratively. In all likelihood, some work will be happening in each area at any given moment in time.

From the King Center’s website, Beloved Community is “[a] term coined by philosopher Josiah Royce to denote an ideal community, used frequently by Dr. King to describe a society of justice, peace and harmony which can be achieved through nonviolence. In his sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 2, 1957, Dr. King said, ‘The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community.’”

Glossary of Nonviolence

Kazu Haga has spent most of his adult life studying and practicing Kingian Nonviolence and recently published a book about it: Healing Resistance. On page 106 of the book he says, “In nonviolence, when we talk about building a world where all people can achieve justice and fulfill our potential as human beings, we really mean all people. That is Dr. King’s vision of ‘Beloved Community,’ where all people can live in peace. Beloved Community is an acknowledgement that the only way for a peace to ever be sustainable, the only way that our people can always be safe, is if all people are free. One of the hardest concepts to fully commit to is the idea that there is no one outside of Beloved Community. No one.”

This is a term Fenix, Director of Programs, was introduced to through Resmaa Menakem’s books My Grandmother’s Hands & The Quaking of America. Resmaa uses the language of a “Living Embodied, Antiracist Culture.” He has spent much of his career developing an embodiment framework known as Somatic Abolitionism. You can read more about that on his website. On page 329 of The Quaking of America he describes a Living Embodied, Antiracist Culture, saying “I don’t know what this vision will ultimately look like. But here is what it needs to be:

  • profoundly positive–much more than the simple eradication of white-body supremacy
  • Embodied
  • both individual and communal
  • tied to creation and the creative energy that flows through all of us (and all of the universe)
  • an expression of our humanity that is timeless–a returning to and remembering of what we have always been
  • vivid and compelling enough to engender a sense of belonging
  • expansive enough to include all aspects of human experience
  • fluid and flexible enough to be manifested through science, art, music, education, law, activism, literature, communal policing, and most other important human endeavors.”

If this feels like an abstract definition, that’s okay. Culture is abstract. It for the most part operates subconsciously. In order to do cultural work, we have to surface our assumptions about “reality” and think critically about the kind of world we want to live in. Our work often begins in an abstract dream-like place and becomes more tangible as we test it out. As the Peace & Justice Center begins to execute our new vision for our work, we will have many opportunities to further clarify and hone our idea of what a Living Anti-Racist Culture is and we will keep you updated on our learnings.

Read more about Resmaa’s work and Somatic Abolitionism here: https://resmaa.com/movement/

The Three Currents of Our Ground Work

We believe that our greatest social problems cannot be solved unless our communities readily have access to spaces to assemble. When we gather we can begin to get to know our neighbors and hear about their most pressing problems & most valuable solutions. In order for these public spaces to function well, it is also important to have facilitators present to help hold the container. Otherwise, we can quickly slip into debate, rather than truly listening to each other and being in generative dialogue.

The Peace & Justice Center recently held a two part public workshop & facilitated conversation on race & racism in Vermont. Twenty-seven people attended and the event happened on the outskirts of town in Montpelier. We received numerous requests to offer public workshops & conversations about race & racism again.

We also have ongoing monthly public events happening in Burlington. We are currently offering a history series where we talk about various historical figures, events, and concepts that made our current world and how we can utilize their lessons to make a different and better world. You can stay up to date on our monthly offerings by subscribing to our newsletter or checking out our Events Calendar.

We know it’s important to continue to assemble to learn together and be in conversation about race and racism. That has been a core part of our work for many years and it will continue. We also want to create space to hear our communities most emergent & pressing needs, especially in the wake of the 2023 & 2024 floods. We are actively working on securing sustainable funding to open the way for us to regularly hold space for community to gather in the heart of Vermont’s rural communities and cities. Please reach out if you have venue space or financial resources that could support our work.

In the United States, many of us have lost connection to cultural traditions that support us in collectively processing difficult emotions like grief, pain, rage, and despair. When we are unable to feel and process the depth of our emotions, it can lead to numbing. When we are numb, we are more easily distracted and it becomes more challenging to act in alignment with our values & deepest longings. Part of regenerating a living culture is collectively processing our pain, so we can return to ourselves and learn to respect the planet we live in as a living body rather than a resource to be used up.

The PJC is currently launching Wellspring – community of practice – made up of a cohort of facilitators who are training in the Work That Reconnects. The Work That Reconnects is an internationally practiced facilitation modality that offers collective rituals to process grief, rage, and despair in order to begin community healing. Wellspring gathers twice monthly and is preparing to offer the Work That Reconnects to the community at large in Spring or early Summer of 2025.

Ritual can also be as simple as creating places for people to freely gather and have a meal, rest, or just be. As a collective ritual, we are currently offering a rotating monthly series of prison letter writing events, art making events, and folk song singing. In our modern society in the US, we have lost access to the commons. For some of us, it is a normal aspect of daily reality to have to pay for something in order to be allowed access to a bathroom. We want to rebuild access to public spaces and each other.

We currently live in a society that is becoming more militarized daily. We live in a war economy, which means it is difficult to extricate any part of our lives from complicity in war. Those of us who go through mainstream schooling spend our formative years learning about the history of war and almost nothing about the history of peace. What would it take for peace to seem possible within our lifetimes? What would it take for peace to be within sight? We are working to answer these questions by studying peace-building and offering public education. In order to find collective solutions to the many issues at hand, the community needs the opportunity to learn important historical context that shapes our present reality and nonviolent ways of relating to one another.

As part of our commitment to learning about peace, we are running a program that meets in 10-12 week iterations to study/practice peace & nonviolence – Study Peace. We need support to keep this group going! The next round of this group will convene in the new year if there is community interest.

In our time together so far in Study Peace, one compelling framework that has found us is Kingian Nonviolence & Reconciliation. In the wake of Dr. King’s death, two of his closest collaborators – Dr. Bernard Lafayette Jr. and David C. Jehnsen – did a deep study of everything he ever wrote and wove his philosophies into a formal curriculum. To paraphrase author & practitioner Kazu Haga, nonviolence is not just about not being violent, it’s about doing something! Nonviolence involves taking creative, loving, and strategic action to interrupt harm. Folks have been training using this framework for several decades. We are collaborating with our friends at the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance to bring a public training in Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation to Vermont. We are also working with VRJA on upcoming public education on racial justice. We need funding support to make these offerings happen for our community.

Community Action

We love the communities we live in here in Vermont. Sometimes that love necessitates that we act on behalf of the lives that we love. The Peace & Justice center has a 45-year legacy of acting for the sake of nuclear disarmament, racial justice, and a livable wage, to name a few of the issues that have had our focus. The three currents of our focus aim to lay the groundwork for us to take more effective and unified action toward our collective goals. This work almost always happens in coalition, meaning that we are mobilizing & organizing with other individuals and groups across the state for the sake of a common goal.

Some groups that currently have our attention are the Just Recovery Coalition, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, the Richard Kemp Center, Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation, Migrant Justice’s Milk with Dignity Campaign, and FreeHer Vermont.

We also currently fiscally sponsor over 20 groups, including groups like The People’s Farmstand, the Rutland NAACP, and the Waterbury Area Anti-Racism Committee, providing them necessary organizational support and services so they can focus on their work. If you or your group is interested in fiscal sponsorship, please email Kason (kason@pjcvt.org), our Director of Operations, to discuss next steps. You can also find more info about our Allied Groups by clicking on the button below.

Allied Groups & Fiscal Sponsorship Info

As our political landscape shifts and changes, so does our focus. Climate disasters, mostly in the form of flooding so far in Vermont, are also a pressing concern that demand more energy and attention from all of us. We are in the very beginning stage of seeding a movement, the Lifeways Project, to address Vermont’s current water crises – annual flooding and the Lake’s status which is in violation of the Clean Water Act. As a community organization, we are always striving to respond to emergent needs as honestly and effectively as possible. We welcome & appreciate feedback from our community about where we need to put the heart of our focus in any given moment. Please use the contact form to get in touch with us or reach out to staff directly.