Why I go to Delaney Hall
Why do I go to Delaney Hall in Newark every Monday night, to smell the same awful toxic smells, to leave with that tinny taste in my mouth and sometimes in my nasal passage, to hear essentially the same fiery speeches about the corruption and evilness of the for-profit prison system, and the inaction of the New Jersey Democrats in office (excepting Andy Kim and Analilia Mejia ) for not showing up to call these atrocities out? Why? I have two main reasons.
I am a social worker and a Unitarian Universalist. I have carried these affiliations proudly for the past 30 or so years of my 61 on this planet, and they comprise large parts of my overall identity. They both preclude my remaining silent or inactive on ICE, the GEO Group, and the daily abduction of our immigrant neighbors. They do not allow me to remain silent in the face of witnessing state police attack protesters and journalists for bearing witness to a modern-day concentration camp.
As a social worker assisting mostly Morris County immigrants, I have spent decades providing resources and advocacy to individuals from many countries; In the 1980s, most of my clients came from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In the 2010's and 2020s, most of my clients are from Honduras, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico. I work with parents of disabled children, and most of these children are first generation American citizens. Earlier this year a parent of two children who both have autism, while going about what many immigrants do when they have saved up the financial resources to do so-seeking citizenship with the help of an attorney-was arrested upon showing up for fingerprinting as per attorney instructions. My client had no criminal record. After three months at Delaney Hall, suffering unimaginable physical and emotional stress and devastation, she was deported to her home country after a sham zoom hearing with a Texas judge. She remains there now, unemployed in a rural part of the country, separated from her family. This is why I rally.
My other reason can be summed up in 2 words: the last names of two brave Unitarian Universalists murdered in 1965 in Selma- REEB AND LIUZZO. These Unitarians travelled to Selma from Boston and Detroit, respectively, to help support the voting rights campaign in March of that year. Both were responding to what UUs are called to take action on repeatedly from the pulpit-using our resources, whatever they may be, to fight for social justice. These individuals gave their lives. Reverend Reeb was beaten to death with clubs by white supremacists who ambushed him and fellow ministers after they had participated in a march and ate at a local black-owned restaurant. Viola Liuzzo, a UU and mother of 5 from Detroit, was shot in the head and killed by a carful of Klansmen, while shuttling civil rights workers and marchers between Selma and Montgomery AL. It is not lost on me, nor should it be by any student of history, that the evil behind these murders in March 1965, white supremacy, today still fuels the for-profit prison apparatus which we protest against today.
I am called to continue in the spirit of Reverend James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo by traveling 28 miles to Newark weekly with a cold sandwich and a soon to be cold coffee in my hand, to stand outside of Delaney with my friend Noelle, and with many new friends from all over New Jersey and bordering states, as we sing, pray, and loudly speak truth to power. The darker and colder it gets outside this fall, the more our bodies are needed to stand before something that no New Jerseyan of any denomination can in good conscience ignore. As Viola told her husband before leaving for the 800-mile drive to Selma, “it’s everybody’s fight”.
James Reeb Viola Liuzzo
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