Rutgers Presbyterian Church Condemns Police Killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Murder of Ahmaud Arbery

Rutgers Presbyterian Church joins with those across the United States and the world in condemning the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as the murder of Ahmaud Arbery by white vigilantes in Brunswick, Georgia.

These tragic deaths, like countless others before them, are the consequence of racist systems, forged throughout our long national history of racial violence and terror. In this system, twin evils of epidemic police violence and infectious Covid pandemic claim a vastly disproportionate number of Black lives.

We confess that we have too often been silent as systemic racism has claimed the lives and livelihoods of our Black sisters and brothers. We have too often acted as if their lives did not matter. And so, we stand in solidarity with those calling for justice for George, Breonna, Ahmaud, and the many others who have been robbed of life.

As the fires of rebellion and righteous indignation burn in our city and across the nation, we remember the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who observed that “riot is the language of the unheard.”

As people of faith and Christian members of a Peace Church, we condemn police violence and all forms of racial terror, and we recommit ourselves to transformative justice and the creation of a city, nation, and world free of racism and violence.

Adopted by the Session on the 30th of May 2020