Initially, none of us were thinking about going to the No Kings Protest
on October 18th. We thought that the march would be a waste of ourenergy, and most of us were long tired of the same formula of the A-to-B
march. ---- However, Crimethinc's call for anti-authoritarian blocs at
No Kings 2 was enough to convince our group to give it a shot. In
roughly a week, we put together a banner, a route plan, zine printing,
and at least an idea of what we wanted to do at No Kings. Not bad. ----
On the day of No Kings, we did some last minute zine folding, as well as
dealing with some last minute dropouts and miscommunication. We had an
idea of where to park, but some folks were confused about the carpooling
situation, which led to us marching to the rally 30 minutes after our
original plan.
We bloc'd up in a discreet location near city hall, brought out our
flags and marched over to the rally. We got our first stares from
confused onlookers, with some liberals attempting to taunt us. Soon
after, we made it to city hall, but we were swarmed by cops asking us if
we were intending to counterprotest. After we said we were joining the
protest, we went into the rally.
Initially, people were put off by a group of people wearing all black in
a coordinated group. I guess they might have thought we were agitators,
but some folks came up to ask who we were, once we reassured everyone
that we weren't fascists or MAGA, people quickly warmed up to us. Many
people asked for our literature and some folks went over to have
conversations and a few folks held up umbrellas to give us shadeand gave
us water. (Doing black bloc in 90 degree weather is pretty rough.)
We attempted to get into the center of the crowd, but there were too
many people. Instead, we moved to the side, and some of us split up and
went into the crowd to hand out zines; others stayed with the banner and
let people come to us to have conversations.
Eventually, we took the hill on the side of city hall facing the crowd.
According to a comrade who didn't join the bloc, we were very visible
even from far away. Some folks took pictures and cheered us on. We
mostly stayed up here and attracted some comrades who came up to us to
give us water and other supplies.
When the march started, it took us a moment to descend the hill, taking
the banner with us. We managed to get in line for the march.
Unfortunately, we couldn't get a megaphone, so we could not do any of
the more militant chants. We were forced to listen to the many
milquetoast chants (e.g. "This is what democracy looks like!"). We
dodged horseshit from the horse cops, and the march ended up being
relatively short compared to the other large scale marches that happened
at city hall.
After the march, we went around talking to people, some dressed
individually in bloc (who weren't affiliated with us), and did some
networking. We handed out the rest of our zines, and talked to some
folks who were disenchanted with the protest. We were happy to point
them to some events that we were planning on putting on! The event lost
energy quickly after the march, so we decided to leave before the cops
decided to swarm us.
We haven't stretched our protest/march muscles in a while, and it felt
good to do so! It definitely was worth going out and talking to people
about alternatives to marches and community organizing.
Overall, our experience with the No Kings rally was positive. The zines
were well received by the people we were handing them out to, we should
have definitely printed more. In the lead up to the event, we were
running through many different scenarios in our heads, and were
definitely on edge when we showed up to the rally, but once we actually
got their and made our presence known, all doubts about attending the
rally went away.
We definitely should have shown out with more comrades so we could have
engaged with more people, the atmosphere was ripe for a more radical
direction that should have been capitalized on more. Hopefully, in the
future, we can refine our approach towards these demonstrations to
maximize our presence and spread of our ideas.
Space City Anarchist Organization
Founded 2022 in so-called "Houston" and building a liberatory movement
in support of the people.
Find out more here: spacecityao.noblogs.org
https://organisemagazine.org.uk/2025/11/04/no-kings-no-masters/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten