Save the Date for Refresh & Recharge 2025, July 19, 1-4pm

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Join a host of CT environmental organizations for the second annual Refresh & Recharge. In these times, it is good to gather with friends old and new to discuss important issues, how to move forward and gain momentum. The afternoon will begin with networking and lunch followed by a panel discussion about how to extend our reach. The fantastic panel will include:

  • Attorney Cynthia Jennings (a civil rights and environmental lawyer and longtime activist in Hartford)
  • Christine Palm (founding director of Active Voice and former 3-term state legislator)
  • Alycia Jenkins (an organizer for Sierra Club CT and an author)
  • Pramod Pradhan (community engagement librarian and liaison to the West Hartford Human Rights Commission and co-founder of the Nepali Association of CT)

Following the panel, participants will have a choice of activities (beginner Pilates, poster-making, or advocacy mini-workshop). REGISTER

—
Deb Roe, Program Manager

Peace Activists Attend Yale Commencement 2025

by Susan Klein and Henry Lowendorf, New Haven peace activists

On Monday, May 19, Yale University’s commencement procession filled several blocks of Elm Street with over 4000 graduates in caps and gowns, while their happy families and friends in colorful spring attire lined the sidewalks. Led by a marching band and black-gowned dignitaries of the Yale administration and Yale Corporation, students from each of Yale’s colleges streamed from Cross Campus on High Street to the upper Green on College Street before entering Old Campus through Phelps Gate for the commencement ceremony.

Everyone had to pass half-dozen keffiyah-clad community activists from the Greater New Haven Peace Council, Veterans for Peace, and Jewish Voice for Peace, along with one Yale student, standing at the intersection of College and Elm.

We held posters reading “Celebrate Yale Grads with Moral Clarity to Demand Ceasefire and Divestment,” “Yale Divest from War” with QR codes linking to the Hunger Strikers, and “I Stand Against Genocide.” The response was overwhelmingly positive, many of the students also wearing keffiyehs, with resounding cheers, call and response chants and thumbs up from both graduates and families.

On the previous day, five seniors chosen by their fellow students on the Class Day Committee had highlighted campus free speech and activism, according to this article in the Yale Daily News: https://tinyurl.com/2drctn84.

After the undergraduates had passed, we moved up Elm Street to greet the postgraduate degree recipients from the Yale School of the Environment, many wearing keffiyehs and whimsically decorated caps as they entered Old Campus through Battell Chapel. Their response was equally enthusiastic.

Some of us had stood at commencement in 2024, just after university police violently dismantled Yalies4Palestine’s encampments. This year’s graduates may have been even more responsive to us, after Yale’s continued repression of pro-Palestine student activism and of caving to the Trump regime’s suppression of free speech and academic freedom. The repression led to a group of pro-Palestine Yale students entering a hunger strike on May 10. The QR code links to their demands on Instagram.

Schools Protest at Capitol Ends with Arrests

by Mona Mahadevan, May 21, 2025, New Haven Independent

Ten public education advocates, including five New Haven teachers and one student, were arrested at the state Capitol Wednesday [May 21] afternoon during a sit-in outside Gov. Ned Lamont’s office. ….

Chief among their demands: raising the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) foundation amount and adopting a higher weight in the ECS formula for students with special needs.

The demonstration — organized by the New Haven Federation of Teachers, AFT Connecticut, and Connecticut For All — took place as New Haven Public Schools Supt. Madeline Negron considers laying off 129 employees, including 56 teachers and all 25 librarians, to close an anticipated budget shortfall of $16.5 million for the 2025 – 2026 school year. …

Included among those arrested as part of Wednesday’s act of civil disobedience were New Haven teachers union President Leslie Blatteau and Wilbur Cross student John Carlos Serana Musser, a student representative on New Haven’s Board of Education.

[To read the article in its entirety, please go to www.newhavenindependent.org/article/teacher_arrests]

June 8th – Rally to Defend Civil Liberties

Come to the New Haven Green on June 8, 12:30 p.m. for a legal, peaceful, mass demonstration!

• Free Mahmoud Khalil and all targeted activists
• Hands off Rumeysa Ozturk
• Stop all attacks on the rights to protest, organize, and due
process
• Stop all deportations, return Kilmar Abrego Garcia and all
other CECOT prisoners
• Stop passport confiscations
• Stop all attacks on queer and trans people
• Stop RFK’s Autism Registry
• Protect and expand healthcare and social services
• Protect and fund our schools and universities
• Hands off our unions

Our civil liberties are clearly under attack.

The Trump Administration is kidnapping activists, revealing private information of people of color, and waging a rapidly escalating war on our most basic rights to silence its critics.

Activists and community members are building a fightback in defense of democratic rights. Union leaders, rank-and-file workers, and community organizers have formed the CT Civil Liberties Defense Committee.

https://tinyurl.com/46yhbza4

Join I Heart New Haven Day, Saturday, June 7

by Jane Hendrickson, Exec. Director, Bridges of Hope

Bridges of Hope is a group of diverse New Haven area churches from across denominational, social, and cultural lines that have agreed to come together as one to serve the New Haven community as members of the community.

This year, we are organizing our tenth annual “I Heart New Haven Day,” which will take place on June 7, 2025. The goal is to serve the city through over 29 different projects with over 400 volunteers participating from Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church, Church on the Rock, Vox Church, Vertical Church, Trinity Baptist Church, Christ Presbyterian Church, All Nations Church, Shoreline Community Church, St John’s Episcopal Church, CT Korean Presbyterian Church, and several other churches. This is our tenth anniversary of coming together to build partnerships, serve immediate needs and give back to the city our volunteers know and love. People know these volunteers as the “blue shirts,” but they are also residents, public servants and leaders in the city. The day will begin at 9 a.m. on the New Haven Green with words of encouragement from the pastors of the churches, and then the volunteers will be sent off to their projects to serve from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

2025 Walk to End Alzheimer’s, Sept. 28

The Alzheimer’s Association Walk to End Alzheimer’s® is the world’s largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s care, support and research. Held annually in more than 600 communities nationwide, this inspiring event calls on participants of all ages and abilities to join the fight against the disease.

The walk will take place on Sunday, Sept. 28 at Lighthouse Point Park, 2 Lighthouse Road in New Haven. There is the option of a one- or two-mile walk.

The event opens at 9 a.m., followed by a ceremony at 10 a.m. The walk begins at 10:30 a.m.
To register, go to https://bit.ly/43yz7ZP.

For more information, contact Caroline Kachmar, 860-362-0936, ckachmar@alz.org.

History of Blake Street Cemetery

by Ben Ross, First Unitarian Universalist Society

The First Unitarian Universalist Society New Haven worship committee invites you to hear our guest speaker Sherill Baldwin on June 8, 2025. The service begins at 10:30 a.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven, 608 Whitney Avenue, New Haven.

Family historian and genealogist Sherill Baldwin will share her research on the history of Blake Street Cemetery and some of the people buried there. Blake Street is a small “paupers’ cemetery” for indigent burials adjacent to the larger Westville and Mishkan Israel Cemeteries. Over 2100 people were buried at Blake Street from about 1881 to 1931. For the last year Sherill has been uncovering and sharing the stories of New Haveners buried at Blake Street online at her website “Buried Stories,” including the fascinating stories of John Bray, Edward Ditymus, Matilda Fitch, and Charles P. Geyer, Jr. Also buried at Blake Street Cemetery is Lois Tritton, a formerly enslaved woman who was sold in the last known auction of enslaved people ever to happen in New Haven (and possibly the state of CT) on March 8, 1825 on the Green.

If you cannot join us in person, here is our link: bit.ly/43g4fym.

No Kings! National Day of Defiance! June 14

Saturday, June 14, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Connecticut State Capitol, 210 Capitol Ave., Hartford.

In America, we don’t put up with would-be kings. NO KINGS is a national day of action and mass mobilization in response to increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption from Trump and his allies. We’ve watched as they’ve cracked down on free speech, detained people for their political views, threatened to deport American citizens, and defied the courts. They’ve done this all while continuing to serve and enrich their billionaire allies.

On Saturday, June 14, we’re taking to the streets nationwide. We’re not gathering to feed his ego. We’re building a movement that leaves him behind.

The flag doesn’t belong to Donald Trump. It belongs to us. We’re not watching history happen. We’re making it.

On June 14th, we’re showing up everywhere he isn’t—to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings. Check out nokings.org for more information.

A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values.

[From the website www.mobilize.us/nokings/c/no-kings/event/create. Also see www.nokings.org and www.fiftyfifty.one.]

Anti-Avelo ICE Deportation Flight Protests Spread from New Haven

by Mark Zaretsky, May 18, 2025, New Haven Register

It’s not just a few dozen people in New Haven or Connecticut anymore who are upset about Avelo Airlines running deportation shuttles for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It’s grown into a national movement, with its own newly-minted national coalition, which recently held its first national online meeting.

On Monday [May 12], the day Avelo began running ICE charters from Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa, Ariz., more than 100 people rallied outside Tweed New Haven Regional Airport, Avelo’s oldest and largest East Coast base.

At the same time, about 30 people gathered on a road leading to the Mesa airport, holding signs that denounced the Trump Administration’s deportation efforts, according to the Associated Press.

[To read the New Haven Register article in its entirety, please go to https://bit.ly/4jeRjxz. For additional coverage and photos, please see Lucy Gellman’s article of May 13 in Arts Paper at bit.ly/4dw4mJJ.]

Update on Medicare for All CT

[Editor’s note: Medicare for All CT (M4ACT) has worked diligently in advocating for a rational and national healthcare system. Below is the notification we received from M4ACT. We wanted to share their list of other healthcare advocacy organizations, as well as the M4ACT email address, for readers who may want to contact them with their questions and concerns.]

For years, Medicare For All CT has advocated and educated around the need for universal health care in the state and the nation through canvasses, meetings with members of Congress, municipal resolution campaigns around the state, and more.

Now, however, due to relocations, health issues, and conflicting personal obligations, M4ACT’s leadership is unable to give this mission the full effort and attention it deserves.

We will therefore be on indefinite hiatus while we consider the best way to move forward.
You are welcome to contact us at our normal email address, info@medicare4allct.org, with any questions, comments, or concerns.

For those who want to remain active, check out these other health care advocacy groups:
Physicians for a National Health Plan https://pnhp.org

HUSKY 4 Immigrants https://www.husky4immigrants.org

CT Health Policy Project https://cthealthpolicy.org

Public Citizen https://www.citizen.org

Thanks, everyone, for all the time, attention, and ACTION over the years.

Medicare For All CT

CT Legislative Session Ends June 4

Many key pieces of legislation have not been decided at the time of our printing. Bills on education, labor, energy, the environment, housing, immigrants’ rights and healthcare were part of this session. To find out what passed, please go to Connecticut Citizen Action Group’s website at ccag.net.

[Editor’s note: Check the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven’s website for an update of what the federal funding cuts will mean for Connecticut: bit.ly/3SUNZg7.]

80th Anniversary of the US Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

An estimated 140,000 people died in the US bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Three days later, on August 9, an estimated 74,000 people perished in the US bombing of Nagasaki. Mostly all killed were civilians.

The bombing of Nagasaki was the last time nuclear bombs were used in warfare.

The United States is the only country to have used nuclear bombs in warfare.

This year, as in years past, on August 6 and 9, the New Haven peace community will gather to remember the dead, call for an end to war, and demand the abolition of nuclear weapons. On Wednesday, August 6 at 8 a.m., the commemoration will be by the flagpole on the New Haven Green to hear a statement from the Mayor of Hiroshima, voice our concerns, and share thoughts on the horrors of war and how to effectively work for peace. On Saturday, August 9 at 10:45 a.m., we will gather at the Amistad statue in front of City Hall, 165 Church St., to hear a statement from the Mayor of Nagasaki. There will be featured speakers from the peace community and time for attendees to address the audience. Please call Henry Lowendorf of the Greater New Haven Peace Council for additional events that will commemorate the bombings: 203-389-9547.

Advice from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center

All people in the United States, regardless of immigration status, have certain rights and protections under the U.S. Constitution.

Todas las personas en los Estados Unidos, independientemente de su estatus migratorio, tienen ciertos derechos y protecciones bajo la Constitución de los Estados Unidos.

You have constitutional rights:
• DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR if an immigration agent is knocking on the door.
• DO NOT ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS from an immigration agent if they try to talk to you. You have the right to remain silent.
• DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING without first speaking to a lawyer. You have the right to speak with a lawyer.
• If you are outside of your home, ask the agent if you are free to leave and if they say yes, leave calmly.

Usted tiene derechos constitucionales:

•NO ABRA LA PUERTA si un agente de inmigración está tocando la puerta.
•NO CONTESTE NINGUNA PREGUNTA de un agente de inmigración si trata de hablar con usted. Usted tiene el derecho a guardar silencio.
•NO FIRME NADA sin antes hablar con un abogado. Usted tiene el derecho de hablar con un abogado.
• Si usted está fuera de su casa, pregúntele al agente si tiene la libertad de irse y si le dice que sí, váyase con tranquilidad.

This is what you can say / Esto es lo que puedes decir:
“I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution.

I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door.

I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my 4th Amendment rights.
I choose to exercise my constitutional rights.”

At Coast Guard Graduation, Kristi Noem Talks as Protesters Gather

Emilia Otte and Lisa Hagen, May 21, 2025, CT Mirror

As Coast Guard Academy cadets and their families arrived on the New London campus Wednesday morning for graduation, protesters filled nearby McKinley Park to voice their opposition to the academy’s commencement speaker, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

“Congratulations!” the protesters called out to the cadets and their family members as they passed by on the sidewalk. Some of the graduation attendees thanked the protesters for their presence outside the academy.

The protesters carried signs calling out various actions by the Trump administration, including the unlawful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, the Trump administration’s cuts to veterans services, the recent federal budget proposal that includes cuts to Medicaid, the administration’s position on Ukraine and the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who played a strong role in pro-Palestinian protests.

[To read the article in its entirety, please go to https://bit.ly/3Fo3nyz.]

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