Mobilizing the Community in Response to Hate: How SOMA Action helped create the SOMA Against Hate Collective

By Mindy Schwartz Brown

In addition to the direct actions created by our issue committees, SOMA Action recognizes the value of collaborating with other like-minded organizations at the local and state level. By combining our voices and sharing resources, we can enhance our impact in accomplishing common goals. One example of such cooperation was our role in the creation of the SOMA Against Hate Collective. 

The group was created in response to leafleting by a white supremacist organization, the New Jersey European Heritage Association. This hate group distributed their propaganda around Maplewood and South Orange on December 16, 2019. The leaflets, posted on public bulletin boards, urged residents to “Reclaim your nation, Reclaim your heritage,” and were reminiscent of the language used in Charlottesville in 2017 demonstrations.   

Local police and the Department of Public Works were notified, and the leaflets were removed. Publicity was muted by design to avoid fulfilling the goals of the white supremacists.

The response by elected officials and representatives of local agencies, religious and community groups was swift. But despite the quick and unified outcry, some community members expressed a need for a more public, sustained community-wide effort to counter hate and recruitment to hate groups in SOMA. A call to local clergy resulted in the first meeting on December 18, 2020 of what became the SOMA Against Hate Collective. 

Representatives from several houses of worship and community organizations attended. Barbara Velazquez, Co-Chair of SOMA Action’s Racial Justice Committee, and Marcia Bloomberg, Co-Chair of SOMA Action’s Religious Justice Committee, served as liaisons to member organizations. From the meeting discussion, Lisa Davis, author of the "Journal of the Plague Years" blog and Velasquez’s Co-Chair on the Racial Justice Committee, crafted a statement for the new coalition that was published in the Village Green and read at the Community Coalition on Race's 2020 MLK Day program.

Bloomberg and Mindy Schwartz Brown reached out to the Western States Center, a non-profit devoted to fighting white supremacy in the Pacific Northwest that works with communities confronting hate groups. The idea of printing and distributing lawn signs was discussed as a visible statement that white supremacy and other forms of hate are not welcome in South Orange and Maplewood. Solidarity and inclusion would be the message. 

Within days, designer and SOMA Action member Libby Clarke accepted a request to design two signs based on copy chosen by Collective members.

The Community Coalition on Race was designated the fiscal agent for the collective, and a site for donations created on their website for funding of the signs. Through the remarkable, combined efforts of administrators, funders, and vendors, 1000 signs were ordered and produced on short notice. They were revealed and distributed at the same MLK Day program. 

Member organizations took signs to distribute to their congregations and members. Schwartz Brown, Bloomberg and Velasquez responded to hundreds of requests for signs by posting them on their lawns.  

The recent BLM response to the murder of George Floyd created a resurgence of requests for signs. Today, on a drive through virtually any part of our two towns, one sees these bright and welcoming signs standing alongside BLM and Rainbow signs on many lawns. 

“This indicates that there are potentially many people who are willing to work to become Anti-Racist” adds Velazquez. “I know that people in SOMA, our beloved community, will play a role in this. Every one of us must work earnestly and tirelessly to disavow and destroy the racism and bias that lie in the very soil in which this nation was founded.”

Members of the SOMA Against Hate Collective are:

Prospect Presbyterian Church

St. Joseph’s Catholic Church

Sisterhood of Saläam-Shalom -Essex.        

SOMA Action

SOMA Community Coalition on Race

SOMA Justice

South Mountain YMCA

Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel

Council on American Islamic Relations of NJ   

Congregation Beth El                                           

Durand Hedden House & Garden                      

First Baptist Church of South Orange

First Presbyterian & Trinity Church              

Kol Rina                

Morrow Memorial Methodist Church          

North Jersey Pride                

Oheb Shalom Congregation