Hi, I’m Chevara Orrin.

I’m a global justice strategist, storyteller, and lifelong student of history, power, and possibility. My work lives at the intersection of memory and movement. I explore how the stories we inherit shape the systems we live inside, and how truth, when told honestly, can become a catalyst for change.

I am raising funds to create a professional proof of concept for a documentary film titled Why Is Washington [Still] Burning? This film tells a true and largely undocumented story from 1968 that I did not learn until adulthood, and that I began filming in 2019.

Two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., as Washington, D.C. faced widespread fires, military occupation, and mass arrests, a group of 100 white and Jewish physicians, nurses, lawyers, and faith leaders organized emergency medical care, legal defense, and political strategy in direct support of Black communities. My mother, Susanne Orrin Jackson, and Arthur Waskow were the lead organizers of this effort. I was just weeks old at the time.

Arthur Waskow was an acclaimed Jewish theologian and public intellectual. In 1969, he founded the Freedom Seder, a groundbreaking cross racial Passover ritual that explicitly linked Jewish liberation to Black freedom struggles in America. He died just a few months ago, making the preservation of this history especially urgent.

I discovered this history when my mother sent me the original typewritten documents they created in the immediate aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination. These were not reflections written years later. They were strategy documents. Emergency plans. Evidence of disciplined organizing in real time.

When I asked my mother how they were able to mobilize so quickly, she told me they had already spent the previous year organizing against the Vietnam War. The networks, trust, and infrastructure were already in place before crisis arrived.

Why Is Washington [Still] Burning? documents this hidden history through original archival materials, government testimony, and living witnesses, including my now 82 year old mother. It asks why the structural conditions that led to the 1968 uprising remain unresolved today, and what real solidarity has required across generations. The film explores what happens when ordinary people build parallel systems of care, governance, and accountability in the absence of justice.

The proof of concept is being created in collaboration with filmmaker Kyle Dorrell, a credited director and editor, and my film partner Matteo Colaciello. This reel is essential for securing foundation funding and completing the documentary. Contributions support editing, archival integration, and professional post production so this story can be told accurately and responsibly while those who lived it are still here.

Thank you for supporting this work and helping bring this history into the public record.