SOMA Action is a left-of-center advocacy group focused on the towns of South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey, that supports a variety of left-of-center to far-left state and local policies concerning racial and economic issues. The organization also campaigns on behalf of Democratic candidates in New Jersey, often focusing on helping Democratic candidates in competitive congressional districts in northern New Jersey. The organization supports reparation payments to Black Americans and the expungement of many drug charges. ¹

SOMA Action has worked with the United Panther Movement, which claims to be a successor organization to the Black Panther Party, to conduct advocacy efforts. ²

Background

SOMA Action is a nonprofit organization that operates as a 501(c)(4) advocacy and lobbying group. The group focuses on promoting left-of-center to far-left state and local policy positions in the northern New Jersey cities of South Orange and Maplewood, from which it took its SOMA name. The group also focuses on promoting left-of-center and far-left policies and candidates in surrounding areas as well as statewide in New Jersey. ³

SOMA Action’s stated activity areas include educating and informing activists within the organization; residents of South Orange, Maplewood, and the surrounding areas; and elected officials and candidates. The group conducts canvassing efforts, staffs phone banks, organizes protests, and endorses candidates with the stated goal of “exert[ing] policy and electoral influence to gain more progressive representation at every level of government.” ⁴  

Activity

Examples of campaigns and projects completed by SOMA Action have included briefing Essex County Freeholders on voting machines which led to “the county’s purchase of hand-written paper ballots with optical scanners.” ⁵  

The group also locally organized an “official sister march of the DC March for Racial Justice” and “Marched against the Essex County’s contract with ICE, and sent dozens of members to speak against the contract at Freeholders meetings.” Also, regarding immigration, the organization claims that it “Led the effort to help South Orange become a Sanctuary Town and worked with Maplewood police on shaping similar immigrant-friendly policies.” ⁶  

The organization’s pollical campaigning has included sending “hundreds of volunteers to canvass in nearby 2018 Congressional races (NJ-3, NJ-7, NJ-11) and 2019 State Legislature races (LD26).” ⁷

Policy Stances and Affiliated Organizations

SOMA Action has supported the implementation of expungement of cannabis offenses. ⁸

The group has also worked with the United Panther Movement, a claimed successor organization to the Black Panther Party that claims to have “revived the Panther’s [sic] original 10 Point Program” and worked with the United Panther Movement in Newark to support a food drive. ⁹

Concerning the operation of local high school swimming pools in South Orange and Maplewood, SOMA Action called on the towns to “offer a reparative solution for the multiple generations of those who did not learn to swim, or who drowned due to structural racism” and to “find a local and reparative solution to this legacy of oppression and take deliberative action to right the harm that has resulted.” ¹⁰

The organization has endorsed state legislation to “establish a Reparations Task Force to research and propose policy recommendations for reparative justice” and worked with local town leaders to pass resolutions calling on the state legislature to adopt pending legislation. ¹¹

1.   “About.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.somaaction.org/about
2. “United Panther Movement.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.somaaction.org/blog/united-panther-movement
3. “About.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.somaaction.org/about
4. “About.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.somaaction.org/about
5. “About.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.somaaction.org/about
6. “About.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.somaaction.org/about
7. “About.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.somaaction.org/about
8. “Social Equity & Expungement Event to Address the Disparate Impact of Cannabis Arrests.” SOMA Action.” Accessed July 26, 2023.  https://www.somaaction.org/blog/social-equity-amp-expungement-event-to-address-the-disparate-impact-of-cannabis-arrests
9. “United Panther Movement.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.somaaction.org/blog/united-panther-movement
10. “SOMA Racial Justice Committee’s Take on the Columbia High School Pool.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023.  https://www.somaaction.org/blog/soma-racial-justice-committees-take-on-the-columbia-high-school-pool
11. Velazquez, Barbara. “Maplewood and South Orange to Support Reparations Task Force.” SOMA Action. Accessed July 26, 2023.  https://www.somaaction.org/blog/maplewood-and-south-orange-to-support-reparations-task-force