This week, we saw SONG family showing up across the South to show, not just tell, that Black lives matter. Today we say thank you to everyone for making Wednesday’s work in Atlanta, in particular, possible!  Several members of SONG’s leadership and membership, the #itsbiggerthanyou crew, and individuals belonging to different organizations led a civil disobedience that challenged our bravery and showed us what is possible when ordinary people answer the call to fight for our collective safety, dignity, and liberation.  We experienced what is possible when Black leadership organizes across gender, sexuality, political lines, and class. Our actions answered a national call for a week of action put out by the network #Blacklivesmatter, whose leadership have exemplified organizing at the intersections to confront state violence. Their work is key in shifting the national conversation as it relates to black queer, trans, and women’s leadership in the fight against state violence.

Wednesday was also the 19th annual National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality, which is hosted by the group Stop Mass Incarceration. They showed what is possible when those who have been fighting on the frontlines are willing and open to new ideas, collaboration, and shared risk.  Our SONG comrades Janelle Jackson and Ash-Lee Henderson in Chattanooga, TN, took a collective risk as they protested police brutality and street violence on Wednesday and took arrest. We ask those if you who can to please consider donating to help with their legal fees.

Wednesday and the actions all week didn’t happen as an isolated event. Nor did it happen because those parties involved have been working for years together. We found ourselves in Ferguson together during the weekend of resistance at a #BlackLivesMatter meeting and we were inspired by the black, queer, young leadership of Lost Voices, Millennial Activist United and others who for months had been engaging in transformative fights in the most hostile of climates. We met and left with a duty to fight and win in our local communities and yesterday we did just that. We wanted to stop the traffic in the city “too busy to hate” because for many of us, it is a city too busy to care.

In the words of SONG member and action organizer, Dean Steed:

“From Ferguson to Atlanta, I have watched as Black young women organize and take a stand on the front lines of the movement across the nation against police brutality, racism, and state violence. I see that Ferguson is not just happening in the streets, Ferguson is happening in the basement of churches, meeting rooms, and inside where people are engaged in consistent organizing. People are coming together and using the power of the people against the state. People are using the power of organizing from Ferguson to Atlanta. We cannot do this work without organization, without organizations like SONG. It was through SONG that I as young, queer person here in Atlanta was able to take a stand for Black Lives on I-75 and shut down traffic in order to make visible the suffering of and violence against Black folks here, across the nation, and abroad. From Ferguson to Atlanta we must organize if we want to see an end to criminalization and state violence and terrorism against Black people.

In Ferguson, I watched as Black people confronted and faced off with police arms armed with tear gas, gas masks, guns, and batons. I watched as the power of people overcame the power of the state. Hundreds of Black people stood outside the Ferguson police department, and the eyes of the officers watered and their hands trembled. We were able to make them feel the way that they often make us feel: intimidated, nervous, and fearful. We were able to say things that we are not able to say when the officers are terrorizing our neighborhoods or harassing us in our cars, or brutalizing us in the streets. That was the power of the people. When we arrived back in Atlanta, I saw the power of the people again, as SONG leader Mary Hooks, organized folks to participate in this highway shutdown in downtown Atlanta. Along with five other warrior queens and our warrior brother, I took a stand for Black Lives, as we formed a human chain across the highway. It was necessary to interrupt and disrupt the system because Black suffering and oppression is made invisible and silenced much too often.”
These urgent times have called our collective consciousness to the attention of the criminalization of our families, our communities and ourselves. For SONG, the political moment requires us to bring not just our consciousness but also our bodies out of the shadows and in to this fight for safety and dignity. In a time where queer and trans black and brown bodies are killed, pushed into cages for the profit of the state, or used as targets for the police, we must engage in life or death fights worthy of the needs of our communities. Yesterday took courage, political will, and collective vision. We needed that, and so did our communities; and we need to not be afraid to show it.

Time is of the essence: we refuse to wait until the perfect coalition or perfect ideology is in place. We may not have all the answers but this we know for sure: We must love and protect each other. We will fight for Not1more precious Black life to be stolen from us. The only question that is necessary in these times is “which side are you on”? We are so proud to say that we are, and will always be, on the side of Black lives.

OCT 22: BLACK LIVES MATTER in ATLANTA:

Channel 2 Action News Coverage [Great clip with Mary Hooks]: http://www.wsbtv.com/videos/news/protestors-block-traffic-on-downtown-connector/vCyRJ5/

Bossip.Com [Photo Gallery]: http://bossip.com/1052306/blacklivesmatter-ferguson-protesters-shut-down-major-atlanta-highway-in-the-middle-of-rush-hour-for-mike-brown/fergusonatl13/