pRESS rELEASE: Project Freedom Takes Direct Aim at Project 2025
Social justice juggernauts Until Freedom, Faith for Black Lives, Live Free, MPower Change, Woke Vote, and KAIROS DEMOCRACY PROJECT have joined forces to launch Project FREEDOM, the people-focused answer to conservatives’ startlingly bleak and unabashedly racist Project 2025.
The recently concluded Republican National Convention paid incessant lip service to unity, but even a cursory reading of Project 2025 reveals the brutal gutting of personal freedoms on tap for anyone daring to exist outside the conservative bubble.
“We have an opportunity to regain control of the narrative and remind U.S. voters that – despite what they hear on Sunday morning talk shows or read in their social media feeds – that casting their ballots is still the only way to determine the outcome of this election,” said Tamika Mallory, co-founder of Until Freedom.
Created to mobilize communities of color to vote, Project FREEDOM leverages an issue-based platform intended to excite the base and demonstrate a clear alternative to Project 2025. By engaging with voters through town halls, community events, digital campaigns in partnerships with influencers from respective communities and phone banks and canvasses, the democracy-focused initiative centers our Freedom to Live, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Vote and Freedom to Thrive.
Voters unclear on how the conservative manifesto will impact their lives should consider what our nation will look like:
Without access to safe, effective reproductive care.
Without the U.S. Department of Justice.
Without the U.S. Department of Education.
Without the institutional knowledge of some 50,000 apolitical civil servants replaced en masse by Trump loyalists.
Without the expertise of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Without the foundational education support of the federal HeadStart program.
Without the life- and livelihood-saving protections of the Affordable Care Act.
Without accountability for law enforcement overreach and brutality.
Without African American studies and other educational programs that highlight the cultural roots, influences and accomplishments underpinning the Great Experiment that is America.
“Protecting our right to exist freely in this nation is the only objective, and that begins with stopping Project 2025 before its blueprint for dismantling Democracy becomes policy,” said Rev. Stephen A. Green, who leads St. Luke African Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City and serves as chairman of Faith for Black Lives, a faith-based social justice organization.
Targeting seven states – Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Nevada, Ohio and New York – the collaborative movement will work to mobilize communities of color to not only Get Out the Vote but also boost their civic engagement through canvassing, calling, bombarding digital media with pro-democracy talking points and rallying influencers with the reach to meaningfully change hearts and minds.
“There is absolutely no question that our Democracy is under siege and by a man and political machine that put themselves above all those in whom they detect ‘otherness. We cannot afford to forget the pain inflicted on our people throughout Donald Trump’s administration, and we certainly cannot afford the destructiveness a second term would normalize,” said Michael Blake, founder and CEO of KAIROS DEMOCRACY PROJECT.
Make no mistake: Communities of Color are the frontline communities targeted by the poison that is Project 2025’s Christian Nationalist vision for the future, and Project FREEDOM is the antidote.
“When people show you who they really are, you have a responsibility to speak your Truth. Project FREEDOM is our opportunity to speak in one collective voice and say, ‘This will not stand,” said Rev. Michael McBride,co-founder of Black Church PAC and the National Black Brown Gun Violence Prevention Consortium, which work to center Black and brown gun violence prevention practitioners and scale up life-saving interventions related to urban and communal violence.
About Until Freedom: Until Freedom is an intersectional social justice organization rooted in the leadership of diverse people of color to address systemic and racial injustice. The organization’s leadership believes that those closest to the pain are closest to the solution, therefore, Until Freedom focuses on investing in those who are the most directly impacted by cyclical poverty, inequality and state violence.
About Faith for Black Lives: Faith for Black Lives, founded during the dual crises of the 2020 global health pandemic and the racial justice uprising following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, is a leading grassroots movement dedicated to racial justice, reproductive justice, and democracy reform. Established by Rev. Stephen A. Green and a coalition of faith leaders, the organization champions Kingian nonviolence and empowers communities to engage in advocacy, activism, and the arts. Committed to building a beloved community, Faith for Black Lives continues its mission through radical love in action.
About Woke Vote: Woke Vote's mission is to invest in activating, engaging, training, and developing new organizers, and mobilizing historically disengaged voters of color. The organization’s aim is to engage registered voters through a multifaceted approach that includes strategic social media outreach, impactful campus and faith-based initiatives, social impact demonstrations, and intense GOTV (Get Out The Vote) efforts.
About Live Free: Live Free is a national organization dedicated to ending gun violence and the mass incarceration and criminalization of our communities. Since 2011, the nonprofit has developed a thriving network of thousands of faith leaders, directly impacted leaders and movement partners working to bring peace and healing to our cities.
About MPower Action: MPower Action is the 501(c)(4) political and lobbying arm of MPower Change, created to empower American Muslims to realize their faith values and translate it into local, state and national policies that safeguard the freedom to move, work and be Muslim.
About KAIROS DEMOCRACY PROJECT: KDP is a first-of-its-kind program created to mobilize and engage young voters and voters of color by centering issue advocacy and amplifying the benefits of democracy on daily life. The nonpartisan initiative, created in partnership with Future Majority, is intended to boost voter participation among these two voting blocs through coordinated communications, influencer engagement, surrogate deployment and grassroots organizing.