Read our 2022 Annual Report
THANK YOU FOR READING!
While progress is very seldom linear, the day-to-day work of helping communities create the change they believe in is, in fact, monumental progress. In 2022, all of us–from national allies to grassroots partners–struggled with the backlash against hard-fought progress. But we knew this was coming.
Our Power & Democracy team continued the work to ensure every eligible citizen, including those returning from incarceration, could exercise their voice at the ballot box, despite voter suppression tactics that arose from the record turnout of voters of color during the 2020 presidential election. Our 23 years of fighting to protect access to the ballot rests on an even longer history that stretches back to Reconstruction, and history has shown that we can always expect attacks when communities of color begin to build power.
Our work uplifts the stories and power of Black and Brown people whose voices were targeted by laws meant to silence them forever.
Our Justice Project continues to fight the deeply entrenched narratives that obscure any conversation about common sense changes and the opportunity to reimagine community safety and justice. This past year, with the help of Board Member Jesse Williams, we launched How Cops Get Off, a three-part video series detailing the structural factors built to help police evade accountability. We were excited to learn the series has been nominated for a Webby Award for Public Service & Activism, demonstrating its impact.
Our Opportunity to Learn program has long been on the vanguard of the struggle to remove police from schools, bringing young people and families into the fight to prevent the criminalization of Black and Brown youth. The partners in our national Police Free Schools campaign saw a number of wins over the last 2 years, but 2022 saw a lot of those districts roll back their commitments as students returned to in-person school. Instead, the districts increased the number of officers in schools and added to the school police budget while removing resources from other student supports or not investing in them at all. This year, we supported local partners to defend their wins in light of this pushback. We are now leading the charge to bring young people into the fight for a right to a quality education.
It’s not just our programmatic work that I’m proud of, but the way we support the movement at large. We actively expand the practice of movement lawyering and were thrilled to play a prominent role in the 2022 Law for Black Lives Conference, Lawyering for Liberation: Defending Black Lives, Building Black Power. I was even able to close out the first day of the conference along with our Board Chair, Ash-Lee Henderson.
Contesting power is not easy, but it’s necessary to build the future that we all deserve. As Advancement Project approaches its 25th year, we look forward to continuing to stand side by side with our partners.
Through it all, we remain committed to the same vision: a future where people of color are free – where they can thrive, be safe and exercise power. Thank you for standing with us! Please continue reading to see how we made bold impacts in 2022.
