Welcome to the Action Center Weekly Update. Each week, we will provide a brief analysis of critical issues in this political moment, share immediate actions you can take, and provide helpful resources to deepen knowledge and practice of our collective work to side with love.
Nothing is inevitable. All justice movements are powered by ordinary people who come together to defeat oppression and build a loving world. You are not alone. We have power. Together we can practice and win a just and loving world where all of us thrive.
Remember we build strong movements when we take action together. Organize teams and networks that can take these actions together. For support on practical organizing skills and support check out our Organizing School and Skill Up resources.
Democracy
We are witnessing the consolidation of power in the hands of the few instead of the many. Democracy is a process and practice grounded in our values of interdependence that affirms the inherent worth and dignity of all. We are the majority, but we must organize our communities to build the power to defeat authoritarianism and build a truly multiracial democracy.
The Update:
In North Carolina, where an attempt to overthrow the 2024 election of a supreme court judge is still ongoing (but looks likely to fail) judges denied the latest in a series of attempts by Republicans to seize control strip of the State Board of Elections by revoking the governor’s authority to appoint members.
The Trump regime is now brazenly attempting to intimidate judges. Last week the FBI arrested a Wisconsin judge for allegedly delaying ICE from seizing a man attending his court hearing in Judge Hannah Dugan’s courtroom. Liberation News reports here.
An independent and free press is essential to enable democracy, which makes the resignation of ‘60 Minutes’ producer Bill Owens a clear warning that people must pressure media to resist accommodating fascist demands. Owens resigned in protest against Paramount corporation, which owns CBS News, meddling with content. The meddling was interpreted as part of an attempt to appease Donald Trump and grease the wheels for a lucrative corporate merger.
Act:
We are making progress in turning public opinion against the federal assault on our liberty...and it’s time to redouble those efforts. Massive protests have helped fuel resistance, but don’t throw those signs in your closet after a march! Consider planting them in a window or on your lawn. Street chalk, buttons, and stickers are among the many other ways to let others see the anti-fascist majority is gaining power. Choose one new thing this week you can do to build our momentum.
Listen:
We The People [But Not So Much] Women This recent episode of Us and Them, a podcast produced by West Virginia Public Radio, provides interesting background and insights on the movement for women’s rights.
Wired Magazine’s podcast explores How Americans Are Surveilled During Protests
Learn:
The surveillance explored in the Wired podcast informs their helpful guide: How to Protest Safely: What to Bring, What to Do, and What to Avoid
Gender & LGBTQ Justice
Every body is sacred. Side With Love unapologetically affirms that trans people are divine, that abortion is a blessing, and that no one is disposable. Attacks on identity is a part of a divide and conquer tactic that relies on the belief that one group's safety comes at the expense of another group's safety. Solidarity is the moral and strategic mandate of our time, and we must rise to challenge these attacks and build communities of care and safety for all.
The Update:
In the current moment, support is encouraged through donating to pro-trans organizations, staying informed about state-level resistance to federal attacks on trans rights, learning about the realities of abortion healthcare, and engaging with trans and non-binary artists like ALOK, who is touring internationally. Additionally, attention is drawn to ongoing legal battles, such as Trump's attempt to reinstate a ban on transgender people in the military.
Act:
Donate to these pro trans organizations
Read:
Maine and Minnesota Lead Charge Against Trump Administration’s Attacks on Trans Children and Adults: Late last month, Maine Department of Education officials — as well as the Maine Principals’ Association, and many other faculty members from Maine schools — stood up against the Trump administration by refusing to follow the executive order that aims to keep young trans people from participating in school-sponsored sports programs. According to statements given by Maine’s Governor Janet Mills, following the administration’s new guidelines would go directly against the Maine Human Rights Act and other state laws designed to protect trans people and their rights as residents of the state.
Learn:
A factsheet about abortion healthcare: This resource highlights how limits on abortion care tie the hands of providers and interfere with people’s ability to make decisions about their own bodies and futures. The factsheet compiles evidence showing that people need abortion care throughout pregnancy, pregnancy is too complicated to legislate, abortion care later in pregnancy is safe, limits on abortion later in pregnancy open the door to criminalizing patients, and people have better outcomes when they get the abortion care they need.
Join:
ALOK is going on tour, see if they will be near you this year: ALOK (they/them) is an internationally acclaimed poet, comedian, public speaker, and actor. ALOK’s literary works “Beyond the Gender Binary,” “Femme in Public,” and “Your Wound, My Garden,” have garnered global recognition. Their dynamic presence has captivated audiences in over 40 countries, with sold-out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Netflix is a Joke Festival. ALOK's first comedy special BIOLOGY! was executive produced by Christopher Guest. They are the subject of the docu-short “ALOK” executive produced by Jodie Foster and directed by Alex Hedison, which made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. On screen, they can also be seen in Complicated Order, The Trans List, and Absolute Dominion (forthcoming).
Watch/Listen:
Trump asks Supreme Court to lift block on transgender military ban
Decriminalization & Immigration
Criminalization and dehumanization are a political and spiritual project. We must dismantle the false idea that safety for some must come at the expense of safety for others. As people of faith, we cannot affirm the worth and dignity of all while privileging the well-being of a chosen few. We proclaim a future where care and safety are abundant because our relationships are cultivated through mutuality, not domination.
Migrant detention and deportation. The school to prison network and mass incarceration. Unceasing police violence toward Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities. Bills making protest and resistance movements illegal. Laws criminalizing poverty, gender identity and expression, sex work, abortion, accessing and providing health care. All of these forms of criminalization are used by the state to disrupt, disempower, and dehumanize our communities.
The Update:
Criminalization is a repressive tactic that threatens everyone – how do we orient to that reality? This week on her Movement Memos podcast, Kelly Hayes said, “We read that someone has been targeted or kidnapped by the state, and we look for the ways that they’re not like us. We look for the transgressions, the missteps, or other differences between their circumstances and ours, in order to feel like maybe we’re still safe—in a world where people are being snatched off the street, in unmarked vehicles, and sent to nightmarish prisons in El Salvador without any due process. It’s a natural thing to feel inclined to do, to try to imagine …we can just lay low, and maybe not be directly impacted. But those illusions are only going to delay the very real work we need to do to create as much safety as we can for ourselves and others during this incredibly dangerous time.” As we see the expansion of arrests, abductions,and involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations, it is our moral responsibility not just to resist, but to work towards a world where all people are safe and have their needs met rather than criminalized.
Act:
Support Mohsen Mawdawi: We join our beloveds in Vermont and beyond in supporting Mohsen Mahdawi, the latest university student to be imprisoned for his courageous opposition to the war in Gaza. Mahdawi’s story is deeply rooted in his Vermont community, including his relationship with the First Universalist Society of Hartland. Join MPower Action Fund in urging your congressmember to sign onto a letter for his release.
Make a plan to show up for May Day at an action near you (or learn more at this call Tuesday April 29th @ 8:00ET
Donate to Mama’s Day Bail Outs, where we bail out as many Black mamas and caregivers as we can so they can spend Mother’s Day with their families where they belong! Donate
Read:
The United States is witnessing the return of psychiatric imprisonment by Jorydn Jensen in The Guardian
“These proposals [to expand involuntary confinement] share a common function: expanding the state’s power to surveil, detain and “treat” marginalized people deemed disruptive or deviant. Far from offering real support, they reflect a deep investment in carceral control – particularly over disabled, unhoused, racialized and LGBTQIA+ communities.”
Learn:
Don’t Be A Copagandist: Migration Edition
Interrupting Criminalization and Migrant Roots Media created this new guide in the context of the ongoing and rapidly intensifying criminalization of migrants in the U.S. Immigrants to this country, particularly those who are racialized as Black and Brown, have been criminalized and targeted for detention, deportation, expulsion, and eradication for decades, to the point where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checkpoints, raids, and indefinite detention of migrant adults and children under abhorrent conditions have become normalized.
Join:
Fourth Amendment Workplaces Training – Tuesday April 29th, 7-8:30pm
Learn to put in place measures that reduce the risk of unconstitutional entry by federal agents, and support employers and employees to understand their rights in the event of an unexpected visit by law enforcement. Join the training to learn how you can expand community defense with Siembra NC’s Fourth Amendment Workplaces strategy.
May 6th Webinar: Black Anti-Fascism for Collective Liberation by the Catalyst Project 3:00 - 4:30 PM Pacific / 6:00 - 7:30 PM Eastern
This powerful panel will focus on Black-led movements confronting systemic racism, state violence, and the far-right agenda—rooted in a long legacy of Black liberation struggle and visionary resistance with Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson (Highlander Center) Cat Brooks (Anti Police-Terror Project), and Khury Petersen-Smith (New Internationalism Project, Institute for Policy Studies). From defending Black lives and building abolitionist futures to challenging militarism and white supremacy globally, this panel will explore the roots, realities, and radical possibilities of Black resistance.
Watch/Listen:
Climate Justice
A just and loving world is a flourishing world. If we are to realize a world with no fossil fuels, where clean energy is a human right, and all beings thrive, we need new systems, norms, approaches, and ways of being to bring that world into existence.
The Update:
Elon Musk’s latest supercomputer, Colossus, is emitting more pollution than it claims in the historically Black community of Memphis, Tennessee. In a race to get the world’s largest supercomputer built before anyone else, Musk’s firm xAI “‘removed whatever was unnecessary’ to complete the build,” according to a report from Ars Technica. Colossus is but a recent addition to the environmental racism and disproportionate pollution burdens Black communities in Memphis have had to endure for decades. The firm xAI filed permits with Shelby County, where Memphis is located, for 15 methane gas powered turbines, and that is what the firm disclosed with the Mayor of Memphis. However, investigations confirmed that the supercomputer is in fact running over 30 turbines. Thermal imaging from aerial photographs provided the evidence of “33 turbines giving off significant amounts of heat.” Meanwhile, Musk’s xAI has been conducting propaganda war tactics to leave “Memphians in the dark about what is being pumped into the air they breathe every day.” Prior to the construction of Colossus, the firm dropped anonymous leaflets in multiple Black neighborhoods, spreading claims about xAI’s low emissions. The majority African American Shelby County was already “in violation of the eight-hour ozone standard that protects public health” even before xAI’s construction of Colossus. The county’s health department held a public hearing this past Friday April 25, and the community showed out with demands to the city and county for better action and accountability. “All of us are suffering,” said KeShaun Pearson of Memphis Community Against Pollution. State representative Justin J. Pearson said, “We deserve clean air, and our lungs are not for sale to xAI or Elon Musk.” “38109 is not the trash can of Shelby County,” University of Memphis student Orion Overstreet said.
A Personal Note from Climate Justice Fellow, Anastasia Yarbrough: This is the community I grew up in. I grew up in the zip code 38107, and the air pollution was high three decades ago. As a child, I got pneumonia three times - the third time almost killed me. My grandfather died from pneumonia before I was born after years of working in a factory. I haven’t lived in Memphis for nearly a decade and a half, but I still carry the chronic upper respiratory infections and occasional asthma attacks that plagued my childhood. Not to mention, the mental health toll of getting sick like this and my family members who remain in Memphis still managing. The struggle against environmental racism is real, and capitalists like Elon Musk know to come to majority Black areas for their polluting industries.
Act:
Get involved with Southern Environmental Law Center.
Read:
Thermal imaging shows xAI lied about supercomputer pollution
Elon Musk’s xAI accused of pollution over Memphis supercomputer
Boisterous crowd makes xAI concerns heard during public hearing: “We deserve clean air”
Learn:
Explore Aspen Institute’s Environmental Justice Resources.
Watch/Listen:
Listen to SELC’s Broken Earth podcast season 5: How Memphians Defeated a Pipeline.