OUR DEMANDS

Action Principles

• Advance the leadership of young black people and other young people of color in your action planning, choice of spokespeople, and your continued work.
  
  
• Use this moment as an opportunity to address systemic racism, not just the struggle in Ferguson.  Connect the fate of Mike Brown with the fate of millions of Black young people everywhere.  Elevate local incidents of police violence known to people in your community.
  
  
• Use the hash tag  #shutitdown in all social media attached to your action.
  
  
• Encourage everyone to join our national text network. Text "HANDSUP" to 90975. This is very important.  If you have a mass action this may be the best way to collect a list.  In the future we will be able to send texts to people based on their zip code.  We will try to send region specific texts in the future.
  
  
• If possible, design your action to be intense, direct, and sustained.  We don't want this to be a blip, or spasm.  We want a meaningful conversation to be sparked.
  
  
• If possible, develop a creative action.  Be imaginative and think outside the box.
  
  
• If possible, do an action at the DOJ or another federal building.  If those places are not available find a location that will resonate with people in your community.

Click http://fergusonaction.com/ for more information!

LGBTQ+ MUST CARE!

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail

In solidarity with The National Day of Protest this Wednesday October 22, please join the LGBTQ+ community for a conversation on why we should care about Ferguson.

LGBTQ+ & Black Oppression: Why We Should All Care About Ferguson
Location: Black Space, 2847 Cherokee St, St Louis, MO 63118
Time: 6-8pm

Contributors:
Ashley Yates with Millennial Activists United
http://millennialau.tumblr.com/

Ashton Rome with Socialist Alternative
http://www.socialistalternative.org/

Ed Reggi with ShowMeNoHate
http://www.showmenohate.com/ 

“One very tangible way it [Ferguson] affects the Queer Community is in the issue of intersectionality. LGBTQAIP people are not just white. This community is unique in that we are made up of an incredibly diverse group of people. According to polling done in 2012, 33% of LGBT people are people of color. Those of us who are not people of color tend to forget that there are LGBTQAIP people in every different culture, race, and class. We are looked to as the community of acceptance, and we constantly demanding equality. But equality is not a reality if it is only being granted to one group of people. We cannot ignore the injustices happening around us while we demand the freedom to live our lives peacefully. These issues are linked. They are not isolated from each other. Stories like CeCe McDonald’s illustrate where homophobia and transphobia meet racism and prove that the attitudes perpetuating racism are often held by the same people displaying hatred for the Queer Community.”

- An excerpt from Anthony Doubek’s reaction to Ferguson. Read full story:
http://boxersandbinders.com/2014/08/why-the-queer-community-should-care-about-ferguson-mo.html

Read background on CeCe McDonald:
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-transgender-crucible-20140730