Dear LAAC Community:

Police brutality in the United States is a systemic and longstanding issue that disproportionately affects Black communities, resulting in state-sanctioned terror and death. This is not something LAAC feels neutral about: Black lives matter.

We are a collective of individuals who are committed to pursuing anti-racist work in our professional and personal lives. We support activists and organizers who put their lives at risk and push forward the message that these injustices against the Black community are wrong. 

In addition to physically protesting there are a number of ways to support sustainable transformation of communities during this time. Donate funds, sign petitions, call your local politicians, engage in and develop anti-racist practices. We include here a list of just some resources, some of which are archives specific and some of which are not. 

If you are documenting protest activity we strongly implore you to rely on ethical guidelines such as those put forth by Witness and DocNow, and employ tools that blur faces and identifiable traits. Do not put others' lives in danger in your pursuit of documentation- not everything needs to be archived the moment it happens. Our commitment is to that of our Black colleagues and neighbors first. 

As a collective, we will continue to use our skills and resources to seek and promote social justice. LAAC is committed to dismantling systemic white privilege and to advocating for Black lives.

In solidarity,
Los Angeles Archivists Collective Leadership + Founders

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RESOURCES

Organizations
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment: This grassroots organization aims to register voters and empower Californians to advocate and vote for economic, racial, and social justice.

Black Lives Matter- Los Angeles: Los Angeles Chapter “guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.”

Black Visions Collective: “Since 2017, Black Visions Collective, has been putting into practice the lessons learned from organizations before us in order to shape a political home for Black people across Minnesota.”

Tools
Dismantling White Supremacy in Archives: Content produced in Professor Michelle Caswell’s Archives, Records, and Memory class, Fall 2016, UCLA. Poster design by Gracen Brilmyer.

Image Scrubber: “This is a tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests.It will remove identifying metadata (Exif data) from photographs, and also allow you to selectively blur parts of the image to cover faces and other identifiable information.”

Activist Archivist Zine: Created by Kali Lawrie and Published by the LAAC Community Outreach & Advocacy Subcommittee, December 2016

Protest & Bail Funds Organizations 
The Bail Project: With locations in Compton, Van Nuys, and San Diego, as well as offices or partnerships in cities from coast to coast, the Bail Project is one of the largest and most established bail funds.

Los Angeles Bail Fund: Led by Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and supported by White People 4 Black Lives. 100% of donations go to the bail fund.

Local Budget Funds/Organizations
People’s City Council Freedom Fund: The L.A. activist group Peoples City Council stages protest actions on a variety of issues around social and economic justice. Recently, the local group has been lobbying for a city budget that reduces the share of public funds used to pay for the LAPD.

People’s Budget Los Angeles: An “alternative to the Mayor’s proposed 2020-21 budget. Our document and data both reveal a clear referendum: invest in universal needs (e.g., housing security, public health/health care, mental health and wellness, etc.) and divest from traditional forms of policing.”

Ways to donate directly to the families of those who have recently been victimized by the police: 
Ahmaud Arbery (GoFundMe, I Run with Maud)
George Floyd (GoFundMe, Memorial Fund) 
Tony McDade (GoFundMe, Memorial Fund)
Sean Reed (GoFundMe, Memorial Fund)
Breonna Taylor (Change.org, Petition, Louisville Community Bail Fund)