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Atlanta

National Conference For Black Self-Determination And Pan-African Unity

From June 23rd to the 25th, a historic gathering of Black radical organizers will take place in the city of Atlanta, hosted by Community Movement Builders . The National Black Radical Organizing Conference will serve as a rallying point for individuals dedicated to our collective liberation struggle. Under the theme of "Unity in our Lifetime: Connecting the National Black Struggle for Self-Determination with Pan-Africanism," this conference aims to propel our movement to new heights and reaffirm our unwavering commitment to dismantling systemic oppression. During conference keynotes, panels, plenaries, workshops, and screenings, a diverse array of critical topics will be explored, ranging from base building and mass work to ideological positioning, the non-profit industrial complex, political prisoners, policing, gender, incarceration, and the vital role of students and youth in our liberation struggle.

Cities Across The US Are Mobilizing To Honor Tortuguita’s Birthday

Supporters of the fight against Cop City in so-called Atlanta, Georgia are planning solidarity demonstrations, educational events, benefit concerts, and solidarity events to mark the birthday of anarchist and forest defender Tortuguita. This call for continued action comes after forty-two people now face “domestic terrorism” charges for simply “their participation in the movement, with arrest warrants citing the flimsiest grounds, including protesters having mud on their shoes and the number for a legal support group scrawled on their arms.” Moreover, the call for continued solidarity comes as the Dekalb County Medical Examiner has released the damning results of their autopsy, which directly contradicts claims made by law-enforcement that Tortuguita fired upon them, causing them to fire back and kill them in mid-January of this year, when police carried out a raid on protest encampments in the Weelaunee forest.

Why Did Chase Bank Cancel This Cop City Protester’s Accounts?

Teresa Shen, a 31-year-old therapist living in Brooklyn, checked her mailbox earlier this month and found some perplexing correspondence from Chase Bank, the consumer banking branch of JPMorgan Chase, where she'd been a customer for more than decade. The letters, dated March 7, had surprising news. "One letter said that they were closing my checking and savings accounts," Shen recalled. "Another said they were closing my credit card." Just why Chase was closing Shen's accounts wasn't immediately clear from the letters, which said only that the bank was taking the step "due to a publicly reported financial investigation."

Atlanta’s “Cop City” Is A Blueprint For America’s Future

In a special episode of Police Accountability Report, TRNN reporters Taya Graham and Stephen Janis report from the ground in Atlanta, where for weeks forest defenders have been fighting and risking their lives to stop the construction of “Cop City”—a massive planned police training center that would be used to instruct officers from around the country in deadly repression tactics. Speaking directly with activists on the frontlines, Graham and Janis explore the truth behind the police killing of Manuel “Tortuguita” Tehran, and the dark money sources funding the creation of the Atlanta Public Safety Center.

Youth Organizers Unite Marginalized Communities To Stop Atlanta’s Cop City

A crowd of youth organizers have mastered this call and response chant, a unanimous voice talking back to a potential Cop City. Nearing the end of Defend the Atlanta Forest’s Week of Action, the energy from the In Defense of Black Lives rally held at the Atlanta Police Foundation Headquarters is palpable. There is laughter, chanting, a fire of hope that electrifies the air — folks have just finished roasting the heavily militarized police, who eye the crowd through the slits of their helmets. The solidarity between these kids is their biggest threat. Black youth organizers were at the center of this rally that was organized by the Stop Cop City Coalition, In Defense of Black Lives Atlanta (IDBL), which is a coalition movement based in Atlanta that works to defend Black life and to defund the Atlanta Police Department.

Behind The #StopCopCity Domestic Terrorism Warrants

Atlanta, Georgia — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, in collaboration with several other law enforcement agencies, charged 23 more people with ‘domestic terrorism’ for their alleged involvement in the ongoing effort to stop ‘Cop City’ and to defend the Weelaunee Forest in unincorporated DeKalb County southeast of Atlanta. This brings the total number of ‘Cop City’ opponents charged under the statute to 42. Most of those arrested are currently being held at the DeKalb County Jail after being denied bond by Magistrate Judge Anna Watkins Davis on March 7. Four arrestees, including attorney Thomas Jurgens, have been granted bond.

An Historic Direct Action In A Forest Outside Atlanta

DeKalb County, Georgia – In broad daylight Sunday, March 5, a group of about three hundred masked people wearing mostly camouflage and black clothing stormed the main police security outpost within the Weelaunee Forest at the proposed construction site of the ‘Cop City’ project. Demonstrators tore up silt fencing, and set an office trailer, two UTVs, a mobile surveillance tower, and a front end loader afire as police ran for cover. The group hurled rocks and fireworks at the retreating police, who repositioned to a smaller outpost across Key Road SE and worked furiously to close a gate behind them to establish a barrier between themselves and the advancing group.

Atlanta Was A Constitution-Free Zone During ‘Stop Cop City’ Week Of Action

Southeast Dekalb County, Georgia—Belkis Terán raised her arms wide to welcome the rain now pounding hard over the newly thatched pavilion in the parking lot of the “Weelaunee People’s Park,” a space once known to residents of Atlanta and Southeast DeKalb County as Intrenchment Creek Park. Long before settlers dubbed the South branch of the Ocmulgee River here as simply the “South River,” the Mvskoke tribe, who were forcibly relocated from this area to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears in the 1830s, called the river Weelaunee, the tribal word for “green/brown/yellow water.”

Atlanta, GA: Elders Say Stop Cop City!

Atlanta, Georgia - On Monday, March 6th, a group of elders and a young person in support visited the corporate offices of Brasfield & Gorrie, as well as five B&G worksites around Atlanta, to call on the company to Drop Cop City. It is currently the general contractor on the project, officially known as the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. At each site, they held banners for the workers and passersby to see, and tried to talk to the construction manager in charge. At one site, after speaking with and handling flyers to dozens of workers from many countries, the manager appeared and threatened to have us arrested.

The ‘Stop Cop City’ Movement Roots Go Back Decades

On Jan. 18, 2023, a squad of local and state police officers marched into the Weelaunee Forest in southeast Atlanta, where they shot and killed a young, queer, Indigenous-Venezuelan protester named Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán. Tortuguita was one of many Atlanta forest defenders, a decentralized group of activists that has been living in the forest since 2021 to protect against its proposed destruction and replacement with “Cop City”—a massive police militarization facility complete with a “mock city” inside for police to practice their many tactics of urban warfare and repression.

Protesters Charged With Terrorism In Atlanta

At least 23 protesters have been charged with domestic terrorism amid a week of action against the construction of “Cop City” in Atlanta, a proposed $90 million police training complex. Atlanta police detained 35 people and arrested 23 on the night of March 5, they claim, for vandalism against the Cop City construction site and violence towards police. Activists dispute this narrative. While video footage shows a small group torching the construction site and throwing fireworks towards police, according to activists, none of the 35 people detained were detained at the construction site itself.

66 Organizations Urge That Domestic Terrorism Charges Be Dropped

Atlanta, Georgia - 66 environmental, human rights, and civil liberties organizations sent a letter to Georgia prosecutors urging them to drop domestic terrorism charges against Stop Cop City/Defend the Atlanta Forest protesters. The charges represent a draconian escalation seemingly intended to chill First Amendment protected activity. The letter reads, in part: Civil disobedience and disruptive activism are part of the American protest tradition. From the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement, Americans have long drawn on civil disobedience tactics akin to the occupation of the Atlanta forest by the Stop Cop City protesters.

Rally In Solidarity With Resistance To Cop City In Avon, Massachusetts

The Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta is the proposed site of a massive police training facility, known to most as “Cop City.” Cop City is the logical outgrowth of violent, racialized capitalism in the United States. Corporations and wealthy Atlantans believe that they need a large and well-equipped police force to tamp down “crime” in the city they are working to gentrify, and have thus contributed financially to this project. As landlords and cops push Black residents out, wealthy, mostly white neighborhoods like Buckhead demand ever more police intervention to keep them and their ill-gotten wealth “safe.” With all their militarized training, equipment, and qualified immunity from prosecution, police murder thousands of people per year — disproportionately Black, Brown, and Indigenous.

Voices On The Frontlines Of The Fight To Stop Cop City

Atlanta, Georgia - “A massive victory,” is how one participant, “Jean,” who spoke to It’s Going Down in a recent interview, described this weekend’s mobilization against “Cop City” in Atlanta. The movement is currently at a high-point, following an outpouring of support and rage over the brutal murder of Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, an anarchist and forest defender, who was shot and killed by law enforcement during a raid on tree-sits and protest encampments on January 18th. Statements of solidarity and support have come in from across the Left and the environmental movement, spanning from the Sierra Club and 350.org, to grassroots collectives and organizations all over the US and the world.

‘Stop Cop City’ Week Of Action Begins In Atlanta

Atlanta, Georgia – Atlanta-area forest defenders, community activists and their allies from around the country and the world are initiating a ‘week of action’ against a proposed ‘Cop City’ urban warfare campus and a movie industry facility that would demolish much of the largest urban forest in the country. The upcoming week of protests and direct actions comes less than two months after Georgia State Patrol shot and killed Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Terán in suspicious circumstances at a defense encampment near the proposed site on January 18, 2023. The week of action is kicking off with a rally at Gresham Park, with a music festival scheduled for the rest of the weekend.

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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