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PROTEST AND SERVE  
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Kamau Franklin
May 23, 2024
Yes Magazine
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_ Organizers working to end police violence refuse to be intimidated
by growing efforts to criminalize free speech. _

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Since Sept. 5, 2023, 61 people in Atlanta have been charged with
racketeering for protesting in connection with the Stop Cop City
movement. Attorney General Chris Carr of Georgia is using the
state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to
develop a model for prosecutor offices around the country to repress
organizing against police violence. Georgia has expanded its domestic
terrorism law to increase the number of offenses that people can be
held for, while at the same time eliminating public bail funds that
bail poor people and activists out of jail. The aim is to criminalize
movements and chill dissent, particularly uprisings centered around
stopping police violence. 

The RICO indictment itself states that the “criminal activity”
didn’t begin when we started organizing against Cop City in the
spring of 2021, but instead a full year before, on May 25, 2020, when
a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd. For the State, a
“criminal enterprise” was born when people poured into the streets
demanding justice, abolition, defunding, and alternatives to police
interactions with the public. While masses of people were
inspired—during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic—to protest the
ongoing police murders of Black people, the state of Georgia instead
determined this collective exercise of free speech a criminal act.

The State’s level of attack on the Stop Cop City movement
establishes a deliberate and frightening trend. In Atlanta, we have
witnessed, in addition to the racketeering charges, the killing
of Manuel Terán, aka Tortuguita
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with no one held accountable; 42 people charged with domestic
terrorism
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and the arrest of the leaders of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund
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These actions are designed not only to criminalize the movement but to
redirect its efforts toward defending arrested comrades while
destroying the infrastructure that supports movement work. 

Across the country, increasingly draconian laws have been passed to
create extensive civil and criminal penalties for protest. Oklahoma
and Iowa have enacted laws giving drivers immunity
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hitting protesters. Indiana and Minnesota now bar people convicted
of unlawful assembly from having a state job
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receiving unemployment insurance, housing support, or student loans.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law in April 2021 that he
bragged was “the strongest anti-looting, anti-rioting,
pro-law-enforcement piece of legislation in the country.” In other
words: anti-protest, anti–First Amendment, and
pro-criminalization. 

Water protectors in Minnesota
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who have organized against the construction of a new pipeline, have
also had their organizing criminalized. Between December 2020 and
September 2021, more than 1,000 demonstrators were charged
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protest-related crimes. Many of those charges were later dismissed,
but the State isn’t always after a conviction—draining movement
energy and resources through lawsuits suffices. 

Land defenders in the Black Hills have been charged with felonies
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standing against the continued occupation and disfigurement of their
land. Protesters against the Israeli genocide have now become a
particular target of law enforcement
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as well as a wider media and government narrative that projects them
as antisemitic as opposed to anti-genocide. In Atlanta’s Cop City
fight, open records requests exposed a public-private task force
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included all levels of municipal, county, and state police; Homeland
Security; and the Atlanta Police Foundation—strategizing on how to
bring domestic terrorism charges against Cop City organizers. 

While masses of people were inspired—during the height of the
COVID-19 pandemic—to protest the ongoing police murders of Black
people, the state of Georgia instead determined this collective
exercise of free speech a criminal act.

The protest landscape today is reminiscent of that in the 1960s and
’70s, when police, prosecutors, and courts acted in alignment to
crack down on radical activists and civil rights protesters. These
same forces are uniting today against direct action led by leftist
organizers, similar to when federal and state authorities teamed up to
conduct surveillance and targeted operations on protest movements in
years past. This targeting by State actors led not only to the
attempted criminalization of organizers but also to the killing of
activists like Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in
1969. If you are challenging the State on how resources are spent or
how communities are policed, the State is going to respond with all
the tools it has to defeat you. 

We must not give up the fight. We must create structures and support
systems to expose and overcome the abuse of power. A mass defense
structure is crucial—this includes legal observers, bail funds, and
movement lawyers to support organizers who are targeted by the
State. 

Additionally, we need media teams that support the movement narrative
on important battles. Creating spaces for organizations and individual
activists to meet, plan strategies and objectives, and build
collective support is likewise key. In Atlanta, some of these tools
are being attacked because they’re so effective in supporting
organizers to get back into the streets and continue the fight. Power
needs to be in the hands of the people—and for that to happen, the
people must be organized to combat state repression.

Kamau Franklin
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of Community Movement Builders. He has been a community organizer for
more than 30 years, first in New York City and now in Atlanta.

For 30 years, YES! Media has been at the forefront of people power,
documenting community solutions that will free us all from unjust
systems. As we barrel towards a pivotal election, there is a growing
need for journalism like ours.  BUT WE NEED MORE MONTHLY SUPPORT TO
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we need.

* Cop City
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* police violence
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* Free Speech
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* Atlanta
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