#Womens arch dc organizer how to#

Perhaps the biggest challenge that movements face is sustaining the hope that’s required for people to keep taking action over time. Protesting is always an act of faith, a gamble that action might spark more action, that inspira- tion will travel in unpredictable ways, that taking a bold public stand will set new forces into motion, that justice will prevail. But other times the arc of history does bend toward justice, and there are magical moments when-often quite suddenly-you win. There are occasions, of course, when you’re destined to lose whatever it is you’re fighting for, and a protest is just a cry of frustration. Their effects tend to be subtle, dispersed, and catalytic. The work that protests do often can’t be seen in the moment. They introduce friction where injustice depends on the illusion of harmony. They can put an issue on the agenda, or increase the urgency with which it is addressed. They can motivate people on the sidelines to step up and take action. When the odds are against you, protests can shift the terms of public debate or expand the sense of what’s politically possible. Protests do sometimes force direct concessions-smaller, sustained, targeted ones do so more effectively than mass mobilizations-but that’s far from the only way they can be effective. The trajectory of movements is long and slow and complex.

They were sending a different kind of signal. Part of the power of the Women’s Marches was that they never even pretended to be about applying direct pressure on the new president.

#Womens arch dc organizer how to#

The following excerpt, adapted from How to Read a Protest, sheds light on the power of protest and what’s politically possible. For the first time ever, more than 100 women have been sworn in to the House of Representatives, just over a century after the first woman was sworn in to Congress in 1917. 2019 marks two years of galvanizing and an unprecedented number of electoral victories for women in the recent midterm elections. Kauffman writes: “Protests works-just not, perhaps the way you think.” In just two years, the Women’s Marches have inspired hundreds of women to run for office, millions more to vote, and dozens to win elected positions. In her new book How to Read a Protest: The Art of Organizing and Resistance, longtime organizer and movement journalist L.A. Submit a pre-written letter to the editors of local, regional, and national online publications calling on President Biden to declare a national health emergency to protect abortion rights.Two years after more than 4 million women around the world took to the streets in protest of Donald Trump’s inauguration, demonstrators are once again coming together for the third-annual Women’s March. But what do these protests accomplish? We will be seen and we will be heard everywhere - from the streets, to the state houses, to the White House.

Share the links for online actions with others. Our Summer of Rage online actions are easy, impactful, and repeatable - you can submit lots of letters to the editors of local, regional, and national publications send tons of emails to elected officials and log multiple calls to their offices.Ĭheck the Summer of Rage Online Action Hub for new actions every week. OUR GOALSįlood digital spaces with letters to editors of online publications across the country with our message -įill the inboxes and call logs of our elected officials with our demands -įEDERAL AND STATE PROTECTION OF ABORTION RIGHTS.Ĭomplete 100,000 online actions before the Women’s Convention in August. We’re raging online this summer to fight for abortion rights and demand abortion protections. These are all things you can do right here to fight for abortion justice. Then you can do them again.