Category Archives: Events

March 8, 2016

EMERGENCY ANTIFA ACTION: #DumpTrump, StL

By Elsie Dee

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This Friday, March 11th 2016 at 12noon fascist presidential candidate Donald Trump will be holding a rally for his StL-area supporters in downtown Saint Louis at the Peabody Opera House. This is a call-to-action for anti-fascists and anti-authoritarians to converge and meet-up with an anti-Trump/anti-racist protest at the Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market Street, St. Louis, MO 63103 at noon to help deliver a great big “Fuck You!” to Trump’s fascist supporters.

The ultra-rightwing’s recent boost in confidence and their escalation of violent attacks on people of color, Muslims, people of Middle Eastern descent, immigrants and refugees cannot be ignored. Instead of hiding behind our keyboards and glowing screens making fun of Trump and his supporters, it’s time to meet them in the street and make very clear that their fascist-asses are not welcome here, and will no longer be ignored and allowed to organize and operate openly in and around Saint Louis.

To learn more, visit this facebook event page set up by a local student group, or just get some friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, etc together and show up to help us shut Trump’s shit down!

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December 12, 2015

On bringing #BlackDecember to StL

By Elsie Dee

We want to relive the days when “death shall have no dominion, and dead men naked they shall be one with the man in the wind and the west moon, and they shall break in the sun till the sun breaks down”
(paraphrased verses from a poem by Dylan Thomas).

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Last month Greek anarchists called for an international month of autonomous, insurgent, and militant direct action in remembrance of our dead and imprisoned comrades, naming this call-to-action Black December. In the memory of all we lost which spurred the furious streetfighting of the past year, and in celebration of all we’ve each found with one another in these shared moments of insurrection, so beautiful and terrible all at once, we mean that this call-to-action not go un-answered in the greater StL-area.

Let’s shatter the banality of life in the river city, where we watch – as though we were helpless – as politicians and the gentrifying purveyors of progress, servants one and all to capital, build redundant sports arenas or an expensive aquarium to imprison animals for human amusement, rather than safe places for everyone in the city to sleep at night; a city that quietly bulldozes tent cities and casually plants anti-homeless spikes under overpasses, whose politicians pat themselves on the shoulder while professional activists line up to stroke the egos of city managers who claim to be “solving” the city’s homeless “problem”; where the biggest news of the year isn’t all the tears and hugs shared, the friendships & affinities forged and mental bondage broken by the explosion sparked by police’ coldblooded murder of Black youth, but rather, the fanfare surrounding the opening of a local Ikea.

There is no right or wrong way to do #BlackDecember, no instruction manual or actvist-y formula. We trust that the indominatable hearts of those inclined to act on this will guide them in the manner best suited to each individual. If you’re looking for inspiration, there’s plenty of recent, local examples of creative solutions to the immiseration of daily life in StL. Just think about it…

Snap 2015-12-13 at 11.00.39

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October 6, 2015

Upcoming Event: “Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South” book tour coming to StL

By Elsie Dee

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From the Convict Lease to the Prison Plantation: Race, Gender, and Revolt Against the Carceral State

This past year we have witnessed an explosion of activity in response to the ceaseless violence against Black and Brown people by the hands of the police, white vigilantes, and the prison system. We are living the legacy of hundreds of years of colonialism and slavery, but also are part of an inspiring counter-history of revolt against these forces. This will be a provocative presentation and discussion on several histories of rebellion against prison and forced labor, and how those histories connect with our own period of anti-police riots and prison struggle.

Authors Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford will be reading from their new book *Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South*, focusing on a cross-racial miners’ and prisoners’ rebellion against Tennessee’s early convict lease system, and a 1975 revolt at a women’s prison in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Neal Shirley grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and now lives in Durham, NC, where he is involved in several anti-prison initiatives and runs a small publishing project called the North Carolina Piece Corps.

Saralee Stafford was born in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Her recent political work has focused on connecting the struggles of street organizations with those of anarchists in the area. She teaches gender-related health in Durham, North Carolina.

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RSVP & more information available here: https://www.facebook.com/events/518117595004851/

You can purchase the book, Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South, here at AK Press: http://www.akpress.org/dixie-be-damned.html

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September 15, 2015

Announcing: “To Change Everything, the promise of anarchism”, a public panel at UMSL

By Elsie Dee

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To Change Everything: Struggle and Solidarity

If you are Roma in the Balkans, bars will refuse you service. You will give birth in a special room for Roma women. Medical personnel will disinfect the waiting room after you have been there. Your children will be forcefully showered at school, or sent to schools for children with special needs because they can’t read in the majority language. If you have a heart attack, the ambulance may refuse to drive into your settlement.

In the summer of 2015, mass protests took place every two days in the Czech Republic, against migrants from Africa and the Middle East who had almost died crossing the Mediterranean and were to be resettled in Europe. Protesters said that their culture was under attack.

From January to March, 2015, police killed 185 people in Sao Paulo, Brazil—most of them young black men.

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Everywhere in the world, we are witnessing the most repressed and marginalized populations rising against the conditions of their oppression. What can we learn from these struggles? What does it mean to act in solidarity with them? Does solidarity mean setting aside our own interests, or understanding them differently?

Join us for a lively discussion on race, gender, identity, and legitimacy with participants in grassroots movements from Latin America, North America, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, as they share their experience of struggles in their contexts. All of the presenters are contributors to a recent dialogue project, To Change Everything, which appeared earlier this year in over twenty languages: tochangeeverything.com

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More information available at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1465254723781096/

A list of additional tour dates & stops available here: http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2015/09/08/to-change-everything-us-tour-dates/

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