Breathing is Life, Freedom, Love and Truth
Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.
Support the Restorative Sentencing Act
The Restorative Sentencing Act is a measure born out of the inspiration of a group of men confined at the Kewanee Life Skills Re-entry Center, located in Kewanee, Illinois. The measure started as a quest to abolish Truth-in-Sentencing laws. Please urge your legislators to support this Act.
Educational Programs for White Church Members to Change Structural Racism
The Justice and Witness Ministry of the Chicago Metropolitan Association of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ has put together educational programs plus other resources.
Inhale and Exhale.
We must breathe to keep our hearts beating and blood flowing. But, so many of life’s challenges threaten to or actually do suffocate us.
We Must Breathe and Support the Breath of Others
Community Renewal Society is essential to the eradication of systemic racism in the United States because we must breathe.
132 Calls — A Story of Love and Indifference in a Chicago Jail
View the first in a series of animated videos about Cassandra's fight to get justice for Nickolas Lee, her husband who died after contracting COVID-19 in Cook County Jail.
What We're Reading
Necropolitics: The Religious Crisis of Mass Incarceration in America By CRS board member, Christopher D. Ringer
We Must Come Together
Just as God gave us the breath of life, we must express our gratitude by giving to the work that minister to the needs of others.
Holy Spirit, Breathe on Us
We are those whom God breathed on; who breathe because of God; and whose breath is continually being choked off. We are those who are suffocated by marginalization, degradation, dehumanized and demoralized due to the color of our skin.
Lift Every Voice and Sing: Hope, Resistance and Freedom
Community Renewal Society congratulates President-elect Joseph Robinette (Joe) Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Devi Harris.
Introducing Our Bayard Rustin Fellow, Rev. Jason Carson Wilson
CRS welcomes Rev. Jason Carson Wilson as our Bayard Rustin Fellow.
Commentary: Chicago’s police must do more to protect human rights
When the city of Chicago rejected the vast majority of the recommendations of the Use of Force Working Group for reforming the policies of the Chicago Police Department, it once again chose to rely on the status quo rather than engage in meaningful reform.
A Post Election Devotion
It is said that peace is not the absence of conflict or strife, but the ability to cultivate calm in the midst of chaos. As a leader in the American civil rights movement, Thurman surely felt the chaos of his time, as we so acutely feel ours now.
THE COURAGE TO BE: Voting Courageously and with Conscience
“Try to think bigger than you ever have or had courage enough to do: that blackness is not where whiteness wanders off to die: but that it is like the dark matter between stars and galaxies in the Universe that ultimately holds it all together. Here it is.” —Alice Walker
Jason's Story
Illinois incarcerates thousands of people like Jason every year—not because they're guilty of a crime but because they can't afford to pay a money bond.
Otis' Dream
This short film follows Otis Moss, Sr. through his day long journey to cast his ballot in rural Georgia.
We Must Breathe
We Must Breathe affirms the sanctity of life. There is no place for poverty and racism in our society. Together, with a collective breath, we can transform society toward greater justice, greater good, and greater love. Together, as a Beloved Community, we must breathe.
What about Native Americans and Indigenous peoples?
As Illinois prepares to celebrate Columbus Day, a state and federal holiday commemorating the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas back in 1492, we must acknowledge a population whose narrative predates Columbus’ time, Native Americans and Indigenous peoples.
GAPA Statement from Alderman Sawyer and Alderman Osterman
Alderman Roderick Sawyer and Alderman Harry Osterman released a statement on GAPA.