Our Statement on Racial Equity and Black Lives Matter

Over the course of many years, we Democrats have taken steps to make our party more racially inclusive. We have banished racist rhetoric from our campaigns and have championed policies designed to create an equitable system for all. We have made progress towards creating a party that reflects the needs, desires, and dreams of our nation’s richly diverse peoples, but these strides, while commendable, have not been enough.

For that reason, the Melrose Democratic City Committee pledges to substantively and methodically engage our members in the struggle to dismantle systemic racism in our city and beyond.

In the months to come, we will hold our members elected to public office to a high standard of anti-racist behavior, and will neither endorse nor financially support candidates who fail to use their office to allocate resources and promote reforms to end systemic injustices against Black, indigenous, and other people of color.

We will seek out the counsel of Democratic organizations representing people of color to learn their policy priorities, and make them our priorities, consciously and continually keeping ourselves accountable to communities of color.

We commit now to support the ten-point plan to address systemic racism and police brutality endorsed by the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, including its local provisions, which call for our city to declare racism a public health crisis and to establish a civil review board to investigate cases of law enforcement wrongdoing.

Finally, we recognize that our white members can do more to recognize and support the political causes, careers, and daily struggles of Democrats of color in Melrose. In election cycles to come, we will prioritize the cultivation, recruitment and election of candidates of color to local, state, and national office, to do our part to transform government at all levels to reflect the diversity of the people it serves.

As Democrats, we have in the past declared that Black Lives Matter. In the coming months and years, we believe that our actions will show that we truly mean it.