Brad Lander for NYC Comptroller [[link removed]]Dear John,



Around midnight on November 8, 2016, as we were processing our shock that Trump had won, I tweeted the refrain ascribed to labor organizer Joe Hill, when he had been sentenced to death: “Don’t mourn, organize!”

There was a lot to mourn, of course, more than we could possibly know then. The children torn from their parents at the border. The families that the Muslim Ban has kept apart. A Supreme Court that would support reproductive health care and voting rights. The 400,000 people we’ve lost to COVID-19. So many will be mourning as a result of this presidency for years to come.

But we organized, too.

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Just seven days after that tweet you blew away our expectations, more than 2000 people lining up to come into Congregation Beth Elohim for the first meeting of what became Get Organized Brooklyn.

From that first night, we made a plan. We would do all we could to protect immigrant families, access to health care, human rights, and our democracy -- to mitigate as much harm as possible. We formed over a dozen working groups, joined with national organizations, and we got to work.

We joined millions marching in the streets at the Women’s March. When Trump announced the first Muslim Ban, we rushed to JFK airport together.

We mobilized in the streets to raise an outcry about the administration’s treatment of immigrant children, joined sanctuary efforts, and raised tens of thousands of dollars to help pay legal fees for immigrants.

When Republicans in Congress tried to repeal Obamacare, we staged protests and die-ins to defend access to health care.

In 2018 when the midterms came we sent millions of texts and calls to help Get Out the Vote in swing states to help flip the House, and a lot more organizing right here at home to take back the New York State Senate.

And in 2020, in partnership with millions of others and so often led by women and people-of-color, we beat Trump, won in Georgia, and flipped the Senate.

Watch this moving reminder of the first few weeks of that work together and, if you're able, help Brad and Get Organized Brooklyn keep organizing. [[link removed]]

But our work does not stop here. We have a fighting chance to save our democracy. But Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and our neighbor Chuck Schumer can’t do it alone. We still face the crises of a fractured democracy, gaping inequality, systemic racism, and climate change. And a global pandemic is still raging.

So we will have to keep organizing (our friends at Indivisible have offered a practical guide [[link removed]] for how, just as they did four years ago).

We mourned back then, and we should celebrate now . The joy we expressed spontaneously in the streets on that beautiful Saturday, November 7th was transcendent. Tomorrow, as we witness the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, we should celebrate all we’ve done together.

But let’s also remind each other how we got here, and what is still required of us: “Celebrate. But organize, too!”

Brad

P.S. It was organizing that got us here, and organizing that will keep us going. I f you are able, can you split a donation between Get Organized BK and my campaign to help us keep organizing? [[link removed]]

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