Becoming an Ally: Advocate, Donate, Protest, Volunteer, Vote

“Hate killed Mr. Floyd,” one said. “This kind of conduct has been allowed for far too long against people of color. And enough is enough.”

Listen to everything from what "defund the police" really means to how the world views these protests.

If you’re taking to the streets to demand justice for the victims of police brutality and homicide, you may want to leave your phone at home. No matter how peaceful your behavior, you are at risk of getting arrested or assaulted by police. Cops might confiscate your phone and search it regardless of whether or not they’re legally allowed to, or they might try to break it, especially if it contains photos or video of their violent or illegal actions. At the same time, it’s a good idea to bring a phone to a protest so you can record what’s happening and get the message out on social media. Filming police is completely legal and within your rights, and it’s one of the few tools we have against police brutality. It’s also important to be able to communicate with others in real-time or to find your friends in case you get separated. To reconcile this tension — between wanting to protect your privacy and wanting to digitally document protests and police misdeeds — the safest option is to leave your primary phone, which contains a massive amount of private information about you, at home and instead bring a specially-prepared burner phone to protests. The Intercept's Micah Lee discusses how to do this at length in the video above. Read the article at theintercept.com

Learn how to protest safely and effectively, and contribute to shape the right to protest.

NEW YORK (AP) — Until a year ago, Stephana Ferrell's political activism was limited to the occasional letter to elected officials. Then came her local school board meeting in Orange County, Florida and an objection raised to Maia Kobabe’s graphic novel “Gender Queer: A Memoir." And the county's decision last fall to remove it from high school shelves.

Republicans argue the 'Back the Blue' bill supports law enforcement. Democrats say it will punish protesters, protect police who commit wrongdoing.

Outcry after Minnesota police detain, pepper-spray journalists covering protests over the killing of Daunte Wright.

The naked Portland protester who became known online as Naked Athena was wearing only a face mask and a stocking cap while she was facing the police.

Exclusive: Internal NYPD documents shed new light on the Strategic Response Group, or SRG, the heavily militarized police unit behind the crackdown on George Floyd protesters.

Some states have recently increased the severity of criminal penalties for protesters along political lines.

States have recently passed laws targeting a range of protest actions. How exactly do these statutes work and what constitutional questions do they raise?

As protests continue throughout the region and the world for the Black Lives Matter movement, one aspect of them is apparent: a lot of the people involved are young.

The US Protest Law Tracker, part of ICNL’s US Program, follows initiatives at the state and federal level since November 2016 that restrict the right to protest. Click this link to see the full Tracker.

The term ‘accountability’ in anti-racism work holds an array of understandings, as well as criticisms, and is heavily contextual in nature. Deemed a necessity by nearly all within anti-racism work due to the socialized racial superiority of whiteness and white culture, in general accountability aims to minimize oppressive manifestations of this internalized superiority experienced by white people and expand white racial identity awareness with the intent to work non-oppressively and collectively towards racial equity and justice. This qualitative research aims to more concretely conceptualize ‘accountability’ within white anti-racism work to provide clarity around such a laden, nuanced and often overused term. The research intended to focus on personal accountability, which I identified as individual practices of accountability in relation to oneself, and interpersonal accountability, which I identified as the understanding and practice of accountability in relation to others. However, as evidenced in the findings, the approach and framing of the research in such a way came with its own issues and critiques. This study contributes the voices and opinions of ten white anti-racism organizers and educators who were interviewed on their understandings of accountability, as well as the criticisms and challenges that surface in their work in its conceptualization and application. Although both literature and participants emphasized the importance of self-examination, mutual accountable interracial relationship building, and collective focus towards a shared analysis and macro-level goal of systems change to enact real change, participants highlighted further complications and challenges in the nature ‘accountability’ has been used in the work, including tokenizing people of color, reducing diverse social identities into one monolithic concept, the concept and directional flow of power, as well as an awareness of one’s underlying motives in this work. The research identified significant challenges in the application of accountability, further highlighting the complexity that white people navigate in anti-racism work.

We know that just like working out, civic activism can feel intimidating at first.  We're here to help you get started!

WITNESS is an international nonprofit organization that trains and supports people using video in their fight for human rights.

The police murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020 was the one major act which sparked American and global civil unrest during 2020 relating to institutional and systemic racism, police brutality, and unsettled issues from the era of colonization and the African slave trade. The Protests Against Racism Web Archive contains a selection of websites documenting protests and activism sparked by the murder of George Floyd, where Mr. Floyd was the “tipping point,” the “last straw;” the web archive also includes websites documenting earlier killings of victims of racism and police brutality. Coverage encompasses protests against racism and police brutality against Blacks, police reform (both the liberal and conservative reactions to police brutality); critical grassroots movements (i.e. local Black activism, multiracial activism). This project covers “Black Lives Matter” protests and protests named in the idea of "Black Lives Matter" but not organized by the Black Lives Matter organization; the impact of these protests in various aspects of society: police reform; racism in sports, business/corporations, legislation and legislative-related activism, educational institutions, religion; reaction of Conservative America (i.e. local, regional, and state groups); other areas of society impacted by these nation-wide and global expressions, etc. This is a highly selective collection that primarily focuses on U.S. sites, and includes a small global component. Social media platforms were out of scope for this collection.

Virtually all the experiences in your daily life are affected by laws enacted by state legislatures--from roads and local services to criminal justice, women's autonomy, individual privacy, funding...

Given how many legislative attacks there are on transgender people's lives and existence, allies need to take the time to speak up on Transgender Day of Visibility, which is March 31 each year, to defend the lives and experiences of trans and nonbinary people.

"Industrial toxic emissions on the South Baltimore Peninsula are among the highest in the nation. Because of the concentration of factories and other chemical industries in their neighborhoods, residents face elevated rates of lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses in addition to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular disease, all of which can lead to premature death. 'Fighting to Breathe' follows a dynamic and creative group of high school students who decided to fight back against the race- and class-based health disparities and inequality in their city. For more than a decade, student organizers stood up to the proposed construction of an incinerator and to unequal land use practices, and initiated new waste management strategies. As a Baltimore resident and activist-scholar, Nicole Fabricant documents how young organizers came to envision, design, and create a more just and sustainable Baltimore"--

"The beginning of the 21st century brought forth a number of social media platforms that have allowed activists to increase their audience exponentially and with relative ease. Under hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo to the Arab Spring and the Occupy movements, digital social activision mobilized people and movements like almost never before. In #HashtagActivism: Networked Counterpublics in the Digital Age the authors examine how and why Twitter hashtags have become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations to advance counter narratives and advocate for social change. We contend that members of these marginalized groups, in the tradition of counterpublics, are using Twitter hashtags to build diverse networks of dissent and shape the cultural and political knowledge fundamental to contemporary identity-based social movements. Given shifting understandings and ongoing conversations about the role of social media in 21st century democracy, and considering recent high-profile public debates about racial violence, feminist inclusivity, and sexual identity, #Hashtag Activism will provide readers with a model of how to study political identity and meaning-making processes within digital spaces while highlighting compelling cases of counterpublic activism and dissent"--

In the summer of 2020, federal law enforcement launched a broad, and until now, secret strategy to infiltrate racial justice groups.

The Working Group is an Oakland-based nonprofit that combines documentary and multimedia with outreach and organizing. Our efforts have started dialogue and sparked civic engagement in hundreds of communities nationwide, starting with the 1995 public television broadcast of Not In Our Town. This documentary followed the story of the citizens of Billings, Montana who joined forces to resist anti-Semitic and racist bigotry in their town. After an unprecedented national outreach campaign, communities around the country began to use the story as a model for anti-hate work. Today, NIOT is one of the country's leading resources for community organizing to prevent and respond to hate crimes. Please note that comments that include profanity or personal attacks, disrespectful language, hate speech, or other inappropriate material will be removed. Learn more: niot.org Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/notinourtown twitter.com/notinourtown

Philadelphia city officials have announced a $9.25 million settlement with hundreds of people in lawsuits challenging the police response to protests in 2020 that followed the police custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

"The book focuses on a strategic choice by the North American wing of the global climate movement: to ally themselves with place-based interests, including Indigenous groups, to block new coal plants, coal port expansion, fracking, and more recently, oil sands pipelines. The strategy by climate activists to target fossil fuel infrastructure has been effective at movement building and driving policy forward, but it might also indirectly threaten the clean energy transformation needed to address the climate crisis"--

Pride is both a party and a protest. It’s also a necessary reminder that there are critical issues that allies need to act on with their votes, voices, and wallets.