This ministry is funded solely through the generosity of people like you. If you would like to support REJ, please go to the giving site and click on "Racial Equality and Justice" when prompted.
Racial Equality and Justice (REJ)
What is REJ?
REJ stands for Racial Equality and Justice. We are a student led organization that focuses on finding ways to bring awareness about the issues surrounding social justice in the United States. Our hope is that students become more aware of the issues that surround them everyday while providing opportunities to understand and realize how they are affected by these issues. Beyond bringing attention to these issues we offer a unique opportunity to see first hand how these issues play out everyday in the lives of others.
REJ's Mission: We care about racial issues because God has called us to. We will host events where students can ask deeper questions about racism, what it is, and how it affects us. We seek specifically to learn about how race is a power struggle as well as the existence of racial privilege, which can impact how we interact with one another if we don’t understand it. REJ seeks to begin dialogue about race, racial incidences, and racial reconciliation because we recognize the serious danger in not talking about race.
Vision: As part of the body of Christ, we are committed to being an organization that is God-centered. We are striving to help make our campus and other communities reflect God’s Kingdom, and we are passionate about taking seriously the call that Lord has given us:
Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
REJ will continue to seek to expose racial injustices in a manner that isn’t condescending, but instead is full of the grace that was given to us. We want to begin empowering people to address racism primarily by educating those around us about racism.
During spring break we travel to Jackson, Mississippi to volunteer at the John Perkins Foundation. John Perkins is a major civil rights activist who combatted the issues of inequality, racism and establishing the movement for Christian Community Development. Over the week, we participate in several work projects and join in daily bible studies focused on social and racial justice. We also take a day trip ito Birmingham, Alabama to visit key Civil Rights locations and the Civil Rights Institute.
This year, students may register for REJ as a seminar and receive G.E. credit for Serving Society and Enacting Justice. Please contact the department for more information (icp@westmont.edu or
805-565-6132). Check out the syllabus here: REJ Seminar Syllabus
Office: Kerr Student Center
Phone: 805-565-7119
Email: rej@westmont.edu
Apply to be part of REJ: Application
Update on this year's 2011 service project in Mississippi and Alabama:
Last Saturday (3/20/10), we returned from a week long service learning project with a group of Westmont students. We worked with the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation (www.jmpf.org) in Jackson, MS and visited the Civil Rights sites in Birmingham, AL (www.bcri.org, www.16thstreetbaptist.org) . We even met slain civil rights leader, Medger Ever's daughter and his brother (http://en.wikipedia.org/wi ki/Medgar_Evers) as well as one of the "Little Rock Nine" who integrated the high school in Arkansas (http://www.nps.gov/history /nr/travel/civilrights/ak1 .htm). We visited Tougaloo College which was instrumental during the Civil Rights Movements http://www.tougaloo.edu/.
Students worked on projects around the foundation's grounds as well as traveled to help at a thrift store near the delta. They had early morning bible studies on oppression, social and racial justice with John Perkins and Lowell Noble. Students were also able to connect and converse with peers from Grace University (Nebraska) and Bethel University (Minnesota).
"...John Perkins emphasized that reconciliation happens through human agency and that each person is responsible to live intentionally. Because of this, I will strive to take responsibility for the way I live so that I can be an agent of reconciliation and of God's grace wherever I am. I'm not entirely sure what this will look like yet, but my starting point is to train my eyes to see all people as beautiful and significant because they are made in God's image." ~ Participant