Weekend of Action: March 20 – 22

To be updated. Check back soon!

Everyone is a leader. YOU, yes YOU, can plan an action! Here are some ideas! 

There’s a wide range of action items, with varying risk levels – there’s something here for everyone! And know this is not an extensive list! There are endless things you can do and we urge you to get creative!

Ask yourself these questions: 

• What are your skills? (writing, graphics, speaking, researching, talking to people, etc.)
• What resources do you have access to? (printing, art supplies, a car, an event space?)
• What groups or communities/organizations are you a part of? How could they get involved in the weekend of action?
• Who are five friends who you could plan an action/event with? Who do you share values with? Who do you know who you think should get involved?

Performances and Public Disturbances:

• Relay Disturbances
  • This could be any kind of disturbance- someone sitting in protest and refusing to move, someone interrupting a public event to speak about what’s happening​, etc. But after one person is removed or forced to stop their act of disruption, another person takes their place and continues disrupting business as usual for as long as possible.
• Quick Group Disruptions
  • Get a group of friends together. Cause a disturbance in a public place, do some chants, pass out flyers, then disperse. Could be 15 minutes or more, and done in many locations. 
• Flash Mob
  • A spontaneous, contagious, and often celebratory protest that often uses social media or word of mouth to gather people on short notice in a particular place at a particular time.
• Brief Traffic Disruptions
  • You only need a few people to stop traffic for a few minutes. Make some signs, do some chants, stop traffic, then disperse!
• Creative Disruptions
  • Disrupt a public event (sermon, politician’s speech). You can shout, make noise, take the mic, or sing, do theatrics, or make a mess.
• Artistic Performances
  • You can organize a vigil, a dance performance, sing protest songs, or do a hoax, an identity correction, image theater, a citizen’s arrest, invisible theater, or a distributed action.
• Press / Media-Jacking
  • Media-jacking is when you subvert your opponent’s spectacle for your own purposes. Politicians, corporations, and lobbyists have much bigger public relations (PR) budgets and name-brand draw to attract press to their staged media events. Through well-planned creative interventions, however, you can refocus things and highlight a different side the story. 
• Cacerolazo (Noise Making Protest)
  • Get a group together and make noise en mass – banging pots and pans, blowing whistles, honking horns, using amps or drumkits. Could be outside a an ICE affiliate, hotels where ICE agents stay, or pro-ICE businesses.
• Blockade / Picketing
  • A human chain or physical barrier that shuts down something bad (a coal mine or Shell meeting), protects something good (a forest or home), or makes a purely symbolic statement.
• Walkout
  • Plan a group walkout at a given time from your school, your job, or from a public event. Use the opportunity to bring attention to your cause.
• Occupation
  • Physically occupying contested space to create community and disrupt the functioning of power. Examples include: sit-ins, factory occupations, housing squats, occupations of public squares or at-risk land.

“Behind-the-Scenes” Actions:

• Banner Hang
  • Hanging a banner off a building or structure makes for great media coverage, alerting the broad public to an issue or campaign. It’s also a good way to frame or contextualize an upcoming action. You can also put things onto buildings directly.
• Infestation
  • Release unwanted pests into the offices of ICE-affiliated companies.  
• Flyering / Canvassing
  • Go to the library to find flyers, posters, and pamphlets for flyering and canvassing! Get out in your neighborhood and get people informed and tied into the movement. Design and print out your own flyers, highlighting the cause or a broader protest event you are planning.
• Phone Blockade
  • When large numbers of people repeatedly dial the key phone lines of your target, you can tie up their service and pressure them to comply with your demands. Let’s make the people who work with ICE have a really bad day. 
• Organize a Call-in day. 
  • Get a group of friends together, and have all of them call ICE-affiliated companies, people, or politicians who could leverage pressure to stop the mass imprisonment and deportation of immigrants.
• Organize a Mutual Aid Benefit Show.
  • Get some bands together, make some flyers, donate funds to a local immigrant rights group! 
• Organize a Teach-In or Workshop
  • Share your knowledge/skills. Or study up on something you think is important, and then teach people! 
• Have a Neighborhood Meeting 
  • Discuss forming a Rapid Response Team to protect yourselves from ICE! Create a plan on what to do if ICE officers show up on your neighborhood. 
• Host an Art-Build
  • Is there a protest/march/rally coming up? Host an art build, bring some poster board and markers, and make some signs and banners!
• Have a Postcard/Letter Writing Party! 
  • Write letters to tell people about the cause. You can also write letters to people who have been imprisioned due to participating in anti-ICE protests (for example, the Prairieland Defendants).

You can find a wide range of action ideas at: https://beautifultrouble.org/toolbox/tactic

Find a protest saftey guide at: https://acrossfrontlines.org/protestsafety#before