ADL and National Urban League Launch the Community Solidarity & Safety Coalition

The Community Solidarity & Safety Coalition will make American spaces safer by establishing a standing non-partisan leadership forum of key leaders to coordinate on critical community solidarity and safety issues.

Introduction

From Buffalo, New York to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Atlanta, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, Oak Creek, Wisconsin and far too many cities across the United States, we have seen that domestic violent extremist movements pose mortal threats to the American people. The Community Solidarity & Safety Coalition (CSSC) is a group of organizations across sectors who have come together to advocate for and support our communities, with a particular focus on community-based and nonprofit organizations, houses of worship and educational spaces.

Domestic violent extremist movements target and threaten all Americans, from the Jewish community to HBCUs, Black churches, members of the AAPI community and people simply shopping in grocery stores. The Jewish community and African American community have spent decades building different elements of an infrastructure to document violent threats and advise on how to mitigate them, from attacks on synagogues to the burning of African American churches. ADL and the National Urban League (NUL), two of the nation’s oldest civil rights organizations focused on the Jewish and African American communities respectively, seek to invite other aligned organizations to work in common cause to develop a set of best practices, policies and active programming related to combating domestic violent extremism.

By creating the CSSC, founding partners will: promote a broader national recognition of the threat of domestic violent extremism; enable participating organizations to speak in concert against domestic violent extremist movements and together advocate for needed policy solutions; prompt an assessment of the safety posture of private and nonprofit sector organizations and institutions to address the threat posed by domestic violent extremism; call for specific policies that strengthen the capabilities of organizations and institutions across sectors to be prepared to confront hate-fueled violence; disseminate best practices related to hate-fueled violence; and encourage planning and training that strengthens our collective solidarity and safety. As a result of the work of the CSSC, organizations across American life – from houses of worship to nonprofit organizations, mom and pop businesses to large national retailers and more – will have access to national leadership representatives from a broad and diverse spectrum of communities united together to collective advance the solidarity and safety of communities impacted by extremism and hate.

CSSC members will range from CEOs and Executive Directors of prominent organizations to faith leaders from a broad selection of interfaith partners as well as executives from pertinent communal institutions and private sector organizations. Consistent convening and an avenue for relationship-building at the senior most levels of these organizations can help facilitate collaboration to address hate-fueled violence through information sharing, incident reporting, best practices and engagement with policymakers.

Membership

ADL and the NUL will serve as founding co-chairs, alongside other founding members of the CSSC. The CSSC would be managed by an Executive Committee comprised of a small subset of members. Values Partnerships will serve as secretariat for the organization.