About SDARJ The Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice

In the Spring of 2015 a group of Sussex County Delaware people organized a study group to read and discuss The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, a book by Michelle Alexander. The group, founded by Charlotte F. King and Jo Klinge, got the idea from other groups formed around the country to deal with the issue of mass incarceration, and how the American criminal justice system disproportionally targets and punishes African American men.

The book group met every other week beginning in March, 2015 in Lewes, Delaware — with more that 50 people attending each meeting. And with each assigned reading, members of the group became more enlightened and enraged about how mass incarceration had replaced slavery of the 1800’s and post-emancipation Jim Crow laws as a way to continue enslavement of African-Americans today.

Called “The Bible of a social movement,” by the San Francisco Chronicle, The New Jim Crow galvanized people around the country to form study groups that morphed into social movements dedicated to addressing the racially-biased criminal justice system.

So out of collective concern and desire to take action, The Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ) was formed in June 2015. Support came from the Delaware Coalition to Dismantle the New Jim Crow located in Wilmington, Delaware. That group’s leaders, the Reverend Paula Maiorano of the First Unitarian Church of Wilmington, and Reverend Lawrence Livingston of the Mother African Union Church, gave us technical and organizational assistance.

In June 2015 a group of The New Jim Crow study group leaders led an effort to create the organization’s vision, mission statement, and goals — and committees were formed to begin the organization’s work.