“When ‘I’ is replaced with ‘we,’ even illness becomes wellness.” – Malcolm X
The Vermont Racial Justice Alliance (VRJA) is a Black-led organization committed to dismantling systemic racism through focused organizing, rigorous learning, and strategic advocacy.
We exist to secure sustainable power, ensure agency, and provide security for American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) in Vermont. Rooted in historical truth and community accountability, we build systems and strategies that enable our people not just to survive—but to shape the systems that define their future.
We do this with clarity, commitment, and an unshakeable belief in what must be done.
Systemic racism didn’t happen by accident. It was engineered. It was written into the laws, institutions, and social fabric of this country, beginning with slavery and sustained through generations of policy, violence, and silence.
The result: deep, intergenerational trauma and widespread racial disparities in health, education, housing, income, policing, and beyond.
But we are not defined by trauma. We are defined by our capacity to heal, to organize, to transform—and to thrive.
At VRJA, we take a holistic and strategic approach to dismantling systemic racism and building a more just, joyful, and unified Vermont. Our work spans wellness, cultural empowerment, education, initiatives, policy and data – all grounded in the strength of community and vision our youth.
Wellness Working Group – Healing Is the Foundation
Wellness is not secondary to justice—it is justice.
Our Wellness Working Group leads our highest-priority work: advancing mental health, cultural wellness, and trauma recovery for ADOS and BIPOC communities. We create Black-led, culturally grounded solutions that disrupt dominant mental health frameworks and build long-term wellness systems that work for us.
Through our ongoing collaboration with the Richard Kemp Center, we hold community conversations on health and wellness, creating brave spaces where healing begins and hope is cultivated.
We approach wellness as if our lives depend upon it – because they do.
Cultural Empowerment
First African Landing Day – Celebrating Our Legacy
Each August, we gather for First African Landing Day—a statewide annual commemoration of Black resilience and contribution, established in 2019 with the support of a gubernatorial proclamation. It is a space of reflection, tradition, and pride.
Education – Teaching the Roots to Heal the Future
We are committed to teaching the root causes, impacts, and solutions to systemic racism across Vermont. Through hundreds of hours of outreach, workshops, and trainings, we educate communities and institutions on the historical architecture of racism and equip them with tools to understand, confront, and mitigate it.
This work builds bridges—between people, across sectors, and within systems—and it empowers communities to move from awareness to action.
Our trainings invite participants to think critically, feel deeply, and act boldly.
The Truth and Justice Series is a yearlong public education journey that explores the historical roots, lasting legacy, and lived realities of systemic racism. We invite Vermonters into honest dialogue around This nation’s history of slavery, patriarchy and genocide, its institutionalization and and ongoing perpetuation. Acknowledging the harm and trauma enables us to acknowledge resilience and focus on repair – so we can build justice on a foundation of truth.
Initiatives
Raise Up Justice is a civil rights movement committed to restoring and expanding Equal Protection under the law. In the face of unprecedented federal civil rights rollbacks, this movement calls all Vermonters to organize, educate, and act. We are rooted in moral values, nonviolence, and the vision of the Beloved Community—a society grounded in truth, justice, and mutual care.
This is a multiracial, gender neutral, intergenerational, interfaith, multi-abled, politically nonaffiliated fusion moral movement:
Policy – Structural Change, Rooted in Community
We pursue policy that dismantles racist systems and centers ADOS voices and priorities. From Vermont’s constitutional abolition of slavery (Proposal 2), to Burlington’s Reparations Task Force, to the Health Equity Advisory Commissions—Our policy work is driven by truth, data, and healing. Our Justice Agenda is no exception.
We also lead multi-stakeholder coalitions, engage local leaders, and support institutions ready to evolve.
Racial Equity Data Dashboard – Data for Liberation
We maintain a living system of racially disaggregated data that exposes disparities and tracks progress toward justice. Our data is not abstract—it’s actionable. It fuels policy, shapes community response, and holds systems accountable.
Our data principles are intentional about avoiding the objectivity that normalizes the biases produced by the legacy of slavery that inform the data. Our principles therefore focus on baselining, measuring and informing mitigation strategies as opposed to “proving disparities exist.”
Our Junior Associates are more than youth—they’re co-visionaries. These committed teens and young adults embody VRJA’s mission and lead with clarity, creativity, and courage. Trained in advocacy, wellness, and cultural leadership, they are already shaping the systems we’re rebuilding.
They don’t inherit trauma—they inherit power.
Yes, we confront systems of oppression. But we do so while healing and living fully.
We don’t just resist—we restore.
We don’t just expose harm—we create wholeness.
We are shifting the ground beneath systemic racism, and building power through wellness.
Juxtaposition is the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance Monthly Production, aired live from CCTV, Center for Media and Democracy.
Juxtaposition (VRJA-TV) –”Issues affecting Black folks. Black folks effecting change.”
