Social Justice Walks

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Social Justice Walks uses walks as a medium to dig beneath the surface of what people walking the streets of New York regularly see – and in the process we come to understand the incredible challenges New Yorkers have taken on, connecting with the city's proud and creative histories of resistance. We offer monthly public programs to local New Yorkers and visitors seeking to engage in radical, place-based, visceral and emotional self-education. Our intrinsic focus is on engaging people in critical dialogue about the past, present and future of our city from the perspective of both well-known and underappreciated social movements. And our ultimate aim is to assist in movement building; that is to spread information, expose injustice and highlight inequality in a digestible, understandable way to encourage thought and inspire action.

Our next upcoming in-person walk

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REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM IN LOWER MANHATTAN
a walk led by Cindy Cooper
SUNDAY August 14th
@ 1pm

Activist Cindy Cooper shows us the long and complicated struggle for reproductive freedom, something that is about more than just abortion but bodily autonomy for everyone. You'll visit locations reflecting diverse aspects, hear the words of historic figures, and discuss the nuances of this far reaching issue.
As Cindy wrote in a recent review of Lisa Link's photos of pro-choice protests in the 1990's: "Roe v. Wade has been under assault for many years --decades -- and now that Roe is gone, recouping and advancing reproductive freedom will require new determination and action. But we've been here before, and we can do it again."

Read the Reproductive Freedom Walk Description

Learn how far the fight for reproductive freedom and justice has come,
and get inspired to continue the fight!

This walk traces the people and places in New York that have been instrumental in the fight for reproductive health, rights and justice, and the adversaries that they’ve encountered along the way. Led by activist Cindy Cooper, this walk through old New York, Tribeca, Soho and Greenwich Village connects the past and the present. Focusing on the 100 years from the end of the Civil War to the 1970s, the tour also looks at the universal desires for reproductive freedom and the struggles that still exist today.

We find ourselves in a moment of crisis with the direction the supreme court has taken, when action but also knowledge is more important than ever. From Cindy: "This is the beginning of what will be a huge backslide on Constitutional rights. And while I and other people have been trying to say this for years, now it's here. It's going to be a long road back."

To sign up, please click the link below.

Click here to book a spot on this tour

Latest episode of Social Justice Tours Pandemic Podcast

Episode 4: In part two of our conversation about how Covid has affected reproductive freedoms in NY, we chat with Neelu Shruti. Neelu is a birth justice advocate in NY, and our conversation focuses on the challenges that pregnant and birthing people face, how their issues have been exacerbated due to insufficient action during COVID-19 and a vision for a better birth future.

Music Credit: Archduke Redcat, @ArchdukeRedcat on instagram/twitter/facebook

Social Justice Tours Podcast

Contagion: When Xenophobia is a disease that spreads
Episode 2: In this week's episode we discuss the ways throughout New York's history that disease has been placed in the bodies of certain populations to exploit racist or xenophobic ideas. We go back to the European colonists, move forward to the cholera epidemic of the 1830's and the backlash against the Irish, and discuss some implications for the Covid-19 pandemic of today.

Contagion: Xenophobia is a disease that spreads

"Xenos": from the Greek root, meaning stranger, guest, or host. Phobia: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something. Panic: sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior.

Click here for access to our Digital Tour

Tour description

"Ask China", repeats the man who calls himself our President. It's a timeworn distraction tactic: Displace responsibility for your failures onto an "enemy-Other". There is nothing new, either, about his coded language: Viruses are a metaphor for so-called "foreigners", the body is a metaphor for the "nation", and our "body" is being invaded by "viruses". But what might be new, along with the comprehensive revelation of America's structural weaknesses, is the widespread realization that extreme xenophobia in America is not a thing of the past.

Our amnesia is subsiding. With the spread of the Coronavirus has come an emergent public interest in tracing the origins of xenophobia. But can we actually locate the origins of American xenophobia, the way we now locate the epicenters of mysterious diseases, and stay far, far away? The answer is not in tracing xenophobic tendencies to "other" parts of the country, but to look around and within. How have our own particular ancestral communities been impacted by, and/or implicated in, the xenophobia that spread alongside epidemics in the past?

The drive to trace the movement of incurable diseases with mysterious causes is a natural one. But when you decide to close off and protect your country, your state, your city, your tribe, your family, some issues that may have seemed settled, arise again: Who was "here first"? Who has a right to travel, and who has a right to remain? When Sioux tribes recently refused to take down their checkpoints in South Dakota, all this came up once more. When you decide to close your borders, whose borders are you really talking about, and where do you draw the line?

SJT walk leader Rebecca Manski offers you "Contagion: Xenophobia is a disease that spreads" as a kind of roadmap to that history, starting with Lower Manhattan. "

NYC Mass Rent Strikes, Past and Present; Interview with Lucy P.

Social Justice Tours Pandemic Podcast - season 1

Episode 1: NYC Mass Rent Strikes, past and present.
In this time of pandemic, millions of people across the country are feeling increased pressure to be able to make rent. In response, tenant organizers are organizing rent strikes. We talk with guide and activist Lucy P. about the history of rent strikes in NYC, and the women who led them, from the early 1900's to today.

Digital Tour: Tenant uprisings and the women who led them

A History Lesson for Today's Rent Strike Movement