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AART Staff AART Staff

Statement from the Community Power Coalition on the Murder of Samuel Sharpe

The Community Power Coalition (CPC) is a collective of Black and Southeast Asian social justice organizations across Wisconsin. Founded in 2018, CPC members have worked tirelessly to improve the material conditions of most impacted communities through statewide civic engagement initiatives and rapid response resource mobilizations. As trusted community leaders, we feel it is our duty to shed light on the unconscionable actions in Milwaukee that took place today.

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AART Staff AART Staff

African American Roundtable Relaunches LiberateMKE Campaign for Sixth Budget Cycle

The African American Roundtable (AART) recently relaunched its LiberateMKE campaign, which advocates for police divestment and community investment. The campaign was relaunched in conjunction with AART’s Leadership Development Cohort (LDC) fellows who will lead the campaign once it sunsets in 2025 and becomes a community-owned campaign.

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Markasa Tucker Markasa Tucker

African American Roundtable Launches Participatory Budgeting Program

Today, the African American Roundtable (AART) announced that it is launching a participatory budgeting program. This comes after rallying since 2019 for the City of Milwaukee to establish a participatory budgeting process, which would give residents a say in how city resources are spent.

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News AART Staff News AART Staff

‘This is Pathetic’: AART Rips City of Milwaukee Leadership for 2023 Budget, Continues Fight for Participatory Budgeting

Milwaukee’s 2023 budget was finalized yesterday, and the African American Roundtable (AART) ripped city leadership for a “status quo” budget that funds police at the expense of every other city department, as well as at the expense of the people of Milwaukee. Milwaukee police received a $20 million increase.

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News AART Staff News AART Staff

AART Releases Statement on Mayoral Preliminary Budget Hearing

As the mayor continues to talk about Milwaukee financial problems meaning less services for residents, he fails to mention the pension report we released last year with sensible solutions. Instead the mayor left residents with unanswered questions, a faulty process and no solutions.

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News AART Staff News AART Staff

AART Awarded $500,000 Grant from Public Welfare Foundation

Public Welfare Foundation, the country’s only endowment fund dedicated to catalyzing new transformative approaches to youth and adult criminal justice, today announced that Milwaukee’s African American Roundtable (AART) was awarded a prestigious True Reformer institutional grant.

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Resources

The Story of LiberateMKE 2025 Toolkit

A toolkit to help you launch an invest-divest and participatory budgeting campaign in your community- and win

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My Community Member Was Arrested by ICE. What Can I Do?

Here is a checklist from the National Immigration Project.

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Shop The Hood

Shop The Hood is all about supporting small businesses, prioritizing Black Owned and protecting the Black dollar. Knowing who NOT to shop with is just as important and knowing who to shop with.

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GrassROOTS Community Foundation

GrassROOTS Community Foundation (GCF) is a training organization with an emphasis on public health and social action. We invest in our community members’ collective well-being, and teach them how to use their healthy energy to transform themselves, their families and communities

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Transformative Justice: A Curriculum Guide

Project NIA kicked off a series of transformative justice-focused discussions, film screenings, an art exhibition, and other activities to raise public awareness about transformative justice and to think critically about the practice of mass incarceration.

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Burnout Prevention Tools

This presentation, Burnout Mitigation: Stress Management for the Workday, by Kris Mereigh includes six evidence-based strategies for completing the Stress Response Cycle. Two other related tools: Burnout Prevention Workbook and book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.

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2024 LiberateMKE Toolkit

This toolkit was created by the African American Roundtable (AART) for its partners and supporters who are interested in helping amplify the efforts of its 2024 LiberateMKE campaign.

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In It Together: A Framework for Conflict Transformation In Movement-Building Groups

This toolkit provides a step-by-step diagnostic tool to assess conflict in movement-building organizations and groups and provides strategies, tools, and resources to transform that conflict.

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Me Too Healing Room

This digital space features guided meditations, healing playlists, journaling, and activities to support you in your healing.

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Mapping Community Ecosystems of Collective Care

This toolkit offers some resources, responses, and additional questions to consider for organizing around community-based approaches to building safer communities free from the violence of policing.

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What’s Next: Safer and More Justice Communities Without Policing

This guide will empower you to begin building a police-free future in your community and provide you with some strategies for ensuring this.

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Mental Wellness Resources for Black People

Black Space is a new organization normalizing therapy for Black and Brown people. They’re for us by us.

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AART General Fundraising Toolkit

This toolkit was created by the African American Roundtable (AART) for its partners, influencers and supporters who are interested in helping amplify the organization’s fundraising efforts. 

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AART General Participatory Budgeting Toolkit

This toolkit was created by the African American Roundtable (AART) for those who are interested in sharing information about the organization’s Participatory Budgeting Program or implementing a PB program in their community.

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Abolitionist Strategy Binder

This binder includes organizing resources that cover basic principles of abolitionist strategy, as well as tips, guides, frameworks and lessons learned from organizing for prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition.

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Let This Radicalize You: Reading & Discussion Guide

This is a practical and imaginative resource created by Rachael Zafer for activists and organizers building power in an era of destabilization and catastrophe.

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Let This Radicalize You Workbook

Created by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, this workbook features resources, helpful books, essays, wisdom from veteran organizers.

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Defund the Police – Invest in Community Care: A Guide to Alternative Mental Health Crisis Responses

The primary purpose of this guide by Interrupting Criminalization is to serve as a pragmatic tool for individuals and communities organizing and advocating for non-police mental health crisis responses, and to offer key considerations for what can be a complex, costly, and long-term intervention strategy.

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Abolition and the State: A Discussion Tool

As movements to defund and divest from policing and invest in community safety expand, abolitionist organizers are increasingly grappling with questions around the role of the state in abolitionist futures. This Discussion Tool by Interrupting Criminalization helps readers move beyond existing analyses and frameworks.

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In Our Own Hands: Tools for Talking Abolition & Transformative Justice with Little Ones

This guide was developed by artist, organizer, and social justice educator Rania El Mugammar and provides tools for starting conversations about policing, prisons and transformative justice with children, families and the broader community.

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Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox

Here are some everyday resources for a punishment-free world from Interrupting Criminalization.

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Don’t Take the Bait

We all deserve freedom, safety and protection, and this guidance from All in Wisconsin shows how to combat divisive language from the opposition.

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ARPA/ Participatory Budgeting Toolkit

This toolkit was created by the African American Roundtable (AART) for its partners and supporters who are interested in helping amplify the efforts of its 2023 ARPA/ Participatory Budgeting campaign.

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Improving Community Safety Through Public Health Strategies

This report offers early lessons and recommendations from work the Annie E. Casey Foundation is supporting in Atlanta and Milwaukee to prevent gun violence.

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LiberateMKE Toolkit

This toolkit was created by the African American Roundtable (AART) for its partners and supporters who are interested in helping amplify the efforts of its 2021 LiberateMKE campaign.

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Don’t Call the Police

Dontcallthepolice.com is an online directory of local resources available as alternatives to calling the police or 911. It was founded to provide easy access to alternatives to calling the police when faced with a situation that requires de-escalation or intervention, not violence.

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Publications

Reimagining Public Investment: AART’s Participatory Budgeting Work and the Future of Community-Led Governance in Milwaukee

In a city where Black residents have been systematically excluded from budgetary processes, AART’s PB work offers a radical reimagining of democracy where those most impacted are closest to the solutions. It is not just about divesting from harm, but reinvesting in care, community safety, and collective power.

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2024 Annual Report

In 2024, not only did our base grow, but also the opportunity to clearly define and deepen our organizing model to support our mission to build power in service of Black liberation. Here’s how we responded to this invitation.

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2023 Annual Report

2023 was a year of tremendous growth and impact. We invite you to learn more about the African American Roundtable’s accomplishments.

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2023-2025 Strategic Plan

This is a multi-year plan for the next phase of AART’s organizational development.

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2022 Annual Report

2022 was a year of strategic growth where we focused on the sustainability and future of the African American Roundtable.

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Milwaukee Police Pension Impacts in FY2023 and Beyond

This report provides an estimate of the decreases in revenue for city functions in Milwaukee that will result from a planned increase in the city’s pension obligation in 2023 and beyond as a result of the decision by the Annuity and Pension Board.

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2021 Annual Report

AART experienced transformational changes in 2021. Our staff tripled in size, we expanded our programming, and we moved into our new office on the Northwest Side of Milwaukee and have already begun making an impact.

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