Social Justice Committee
Promoting equity, inclusion, and diversity within our club and throughout our community
WHAT WE DO
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We touch sometimes difficult subjects
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We learn about ourselves, each other, and especially how and why injustice impacts everyone
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And, we grow as individuals and a community that is dedicated to living in a more equitable world.
The Activities that Keep Us Engaged
Diversity, Inclusion & Equity
Diversity, inclusion and equity begins with our club. We are developing a plan to Increase the diversity of our membership and promote inclusion and equity in Club operations.

Workshops, Dialogues & Conversations
We offer Club members and their guests special programs that engage, inform, educate and that challenge self-reflection and the capacity to listen to understand.

Online Resource Library
Our resource library provides suggestions on readings, viewings, and music that promote the understanding of social justice issues. Visit our resource library and join the conversation.
Book Club
We stretch ourselves to read books that support and counter our beliefs, and provide an opportunity to participate in discussions that broaden our knowledge of social justice issues.
PROMOTING SOCIAL JUSTICE WITH YOUTH
STUDENT OF THE MONTH PROGRAM
For many years, the Portland Pearl Rotary Club has supported Lincoln High School in many ways, including our Student of the Month Program. We have begun a NEW relationship with Madison High School and will present an award to one student from each school monthly during the school year.
Highlights from Past Speakers and Events
Tuesday, 14 September 2021
Social Justice task force discusses nuclear disarmamentPortland Rotarians from the Portland Pearl Rotary Club gathered yesterday evening to hear a presentation by John Pearson about eliminating nuclear weapons. John provided a brief history of nuclear weapons, the current worldwide arsenals, risks posed by the existence of nuclear weapons, and current attempts to reduce or eliminate the weapons. As you can see, […]
Read More Sunday, 6 September 2020
Restorative Justice ResourcesBooks Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York. The New Press. 2012. Book Link Davis, Fania E. The Little Book of Race & Restorative Justice, Black Lives, Healing, and US Social Transformation. Sky Horse Publishing. 2019. Book Link Diangelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about […]
Read More Tuesday, 2 July 2019
Our Summer Social Justice Committee Book Club Read: Flight Behavior by Barbara KingsolverTrying to figure out what you should read this summer? Check out the Social Justice Book Club's choice for September, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver. What does education, global warming, and rare monarch butterflies have in common? All convene in this Women's Prize for fiction tale.
Read More BOOK CLUB - September 2020
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER
MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE WINNER
HEARTLAND AWARD WINNER
DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The New Yorker • The Washington Post • The Economist • Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago
Tribune • Entertainment Weekly • Philadelphia Inquirer • The Guardian • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Christian Science Monitor
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

Upcoming Social Justice Events
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