Come for the week of June 24 - July 1 and stay for the summer
Image is green with black lettering. Week of Action come for the week Stay for the Summer Weelaunee Summer June 24th-July 1 2023 Atlanta Georgia
One of the most important battles for the soul of society is now being fought in Atlanta. Stop Cop City is Indigenous land defense, Black Lives Matter, Climate Justice with a dash of Occupy Wall Street. Your love, patience, presence, and solidarity are needed, on the ground, in June.
*There are no outside agitators on planet earth.*
After many rounds with the Atlanta City Council in which thousands of people testified against the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center (aka COP CITY) between both 2022 and 2023, it is clear that corporate cash is speaking louder to compromised elected officials. The people of Atlanta need you to support them and protect the Weelaunee Forest, also known as one of the "four lungs" of Atlanta. What can we do to support Atlantans after all the "right" ways to protest a project rooted in environmental racism for profit are exhausted? Join them in the forest and the city of Atlanta the week of June 24 to July 1.
How did we get here? We recommend this background via Scalawag Magazine
The struggle to Stop Cop City is not just a battle over the creation of a $90 million police urban warfare center. It's not just a fight to protect the 381 acres of forest land, known as one of the "four lungs" of Atlanta, currently under threat of destruction. It's not just a conflict over how the city invests the over $30 million it has pledged to the project, to be supplemented by at least $60 million in private funding.
The movement is all of those things. But even more fundamentally, the struggle to Stop Cop City is a battle for the future of Atlanta.
It's a struggle over who the city is for: the city's corporate and state ruling class actors who have demanded that Cop City be built, or the people of Atlanta who have consistently voiced their opposition and demanded a different vision for the city. It is a fight over who the city belongs to; over who Atlanta is run for and who it is run against; over who is welcome to live and enjoy life here, and who is expected to simply labor here for low wages and under constant surveillance.
In January 2023, Cop City claimed its first life when a joint task force of local and state police officers marched into the Weelaunee Forest and assassinated Tortuguita Terán, a 26-year-old queer, Indigenous-Venezuelan forest defender. The project has already claimed the lives of trees in the forest, as clear-cutting began in March 2023. Cop City has already also stolen the freedom of 42 people who have been charged with domestic terrorism and dozens more who were violently arrested while protesting the project. (read the full story)