Take Action
Protest Safely
- Learn your rights as a protester from the ACLU
- Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: Protest Graphic
- 26 Ways to Be in the Struggle Beyond the Streets (from 2014) “People seek justice and support liberation in an array of ways, yet their bodies, their spirits, and their lives may not allow them to be in the streets.”
- 7 Ways to Protect Activism Online
- How to protest safely during COVID-19
- Advice for a new protestor
- Some information on DC BLM protests
Take Immediate Action
- Sign the petition from Color of Change to End the War Against Black People
- Sign the petition from Color of Change for #JusticeForFloyd
- Sign the petition from Color of Change for #JusticeForAhmaud
- Sign the petition from Color of Change for #JusticeForBre
- REGISTER TO VOTE.
- Act to release youth from juvenile detention
- Write to your councilmember about defunding police
- DC residents write to Charles Allen, Committee on Judiciary & Public Safety
- Reps. Ilhan Omar (MN-5) and Ayanna Pressley (MA-7) have introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives condemning police violence. Call your representative and demand that they co-sponsor the resolution and speak out publicly about the need for the House to pass it without delay.
- Are you a New York State resident? Senator Bailey and Assemblyman O’Donnell’s bill (3695-Bailey/A2513-O’Donnell) calls for a repeal to 50-a, a NYS law that has been interpreted to shield police disciplinary records. Call your representatives and ask for Bailey and O’Donnell’s bill to be passed.
- What to do instead of calling the police
- Follow and Join DC Peace Team events including online nonviolence trainings
- Pace E Bene online Nonviolence Trainings
- Metta Center
Support Minority-owned Businesses
- Minority-owned businesses hit hard from protests in Minneapolis fund
- New York’s black-owned restaurants that could use support right now
- List of black-owned businesses to support
- Thread of small black businesses destroyed by protests with GoFundMe links
- Black-owned business relief fund for various cities that have been affected by the protests
- Buy Black Atlanta: help brown & black businesses damaged by the protests
As you are donating: Bailout and mutual aid (COVID relief) funds will benefit most from big donations especially for right now. If you are making a donation to an community-engaged organization, what do you need to do in order to commit to a recurring, monthly donation to that organization?
Donate to Support Black Lives Matter and Protestors
- As protesters are arrested, if you are able to contribute financially, consider organizations on this spreadsheet which lists the websites of bail funds and resistance movements throughout the country.
- DC does not have a cash bail system, but you can donate to the National Lawyers Guild and the DC chapter of Black Lives Matter.
- Interested in splitting your donation across multiple bail funds in need? Use this website.
Donate to Community-based Organizations in Minneapolis
From list of Minneapolis solidarity donations (via Twin Cities DSA):
- Verified GoFundMe for George Floyd’s family
- CTUL: Labor organizers focusing on BIPOC and immigrant workers. Their office is half a block from the site of George Floyd’s murder and they have been a core site of suppies and relief efforts to our neighbors in the streets.
- North Star Health Collective: They do a number of things and in this moment they are providing rock solid street medics.
- MPD150: To support the ongoing institutional struggle to defund/abolish the police in Minneapolis and beyond.
- Reclaim the Block: Another excellent police abolition group with a particular focus on shifting municipal budgets away from the state and towards truly needed social services.
- Black Visions Collective Donations & Supporters: believes in a Minnesota and a country in which ALL Black lives not only matter but thrive. BLVC is dedicated to Black liberation, collective liberation, and to radical and ongoing investment in healing.
- MN Healing Justice Network/Spiral Collective: long haul care, ongoing trauma response, immediate funds to healers on site at Cup Foods and Moon Palace Medic Relief.