Photo: Pittsburgh neighbors grieve after eleven are killed at a synagogue in 2018
Not In Our Town Executive Director Justin Lock reflects on the importance of local engagement to respond to attacks targeting faith groups.
Blog
August 15, 2025 - 11:29am
Community Actions- Summer 2025
Sussex County, Delaware
On June 19, 2025, Speak Out Against Hate (SOAH) launched its "hate has no home here" Initiative featuring Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester as the keynote speaker. The message is coming across loud and clear through consistent signage on offices, public buildings, businesses, communities, and places of worship. For more information about SOAH activities, please visit soah-de.org.

June 16, 2025 - 10:40am
Ten years after the hate crime killing of nine people in Charleston: NIOT leader Pardeep Kaleka has a deep and personal understanding of the impact of hate violence. Here he remembers the Charleston AME Church massacre ten years later with reflections on the persistence of anti-Black racism and the complexity of forgiveness.

June 2, 2025 - 11:08am
UCSC Hosts Scholars, Dialogue, and Film Screening
Patrice O’Neill (Repairing the World Director and Not in Our Town Founder), Lauren Bairnsfather (CEO of Anne Frank USA), and Mehnaz Afridi (Professor of Religion and Philosophy and Director for the Holocaust, Genocide & Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan University) lead a discussion following the film screening.
April 10, 2025 - 11:12am
Reports from Pittsburgh, Illinois, and Ohio
In Pittsburgh, 250 students from 25 schools gathered at the Pittsburgh Steelers Stadium for a Youth Summit to report on and plan activities in their schools to counter hate. The Light Initiative, Eradicate Hate Global Summit, and Allegheny Schools convened the Summit, while NIOT was among the co-sponsors. The event was a follow-up to an annual youth event at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit to screen Repairing the World: Stories From the Tree of Life, learn from survivors, and engage with each other.
Stand For All Pittsburgh: A Hate and Bias Prevention Alliance is a newly formed group in Pittsburgh working with NIOT to improve hate and bias reporting, response, and prevention. Stand For All, Casa San Jose, and local city council members joined local groups to present a NIOT: Light in the Darkness screening to discuss how to support local immigrants at the Tree of Life Open Bible Church in Pittsburgh’s Brookline neighborhood.