Early on September 16th, Bramble locked herself to a sleeping dragon buried on so-called Poor Mountain to block construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
The next day, she had this to say:
“It’s day 2 of the Sleeping Dragon action on Poor Mountain!! I woke up to a beautiful sunrise and blankets of clouds in the valley. I got to see birds soaring at eye level and feel the moisture in the air that makes Appalachia so vibrant. Workers came by my spot today and took away my supplies, hoping that I would leave. In the end though, they can’t take away the view I have from up here. I can see so much of what we are up against. I can see the pipeline easement for miles, their machines that destroy the forest, and Western Virginia Regional jail where Wren and Acre were held for months after they were extracted from the Yellow Finch treesits, along with so many others who are unjustly incarcerated. The mountains and wild forest surrounding all that evil is so much bigger, and it’s untamed. Yesterday, a security guard accused me of choosing the most treacherous part of the pipeline route to block. He’s right, it is steep up here. The mountains themselves have been a crucial part of the resistance to the MVP. Construction struggles with the steep slopes and waterways. MVP left the most difficult spots along the route for last, and that is a mistake that is going to cost them as the resistance continues into the fall.”
The three day blockade was located in Roanoke County on Yesan land. Poor Mountain is one of the steepest stretches of the MVP easement, and one of the last remaining areas of the pipeline’s path where downed trees have not been cleared.
After preventing Mountain Valley Pipeline work on a section of Poor Mountain for THREE DAYS (incredible!!!!!!!!), Bramble was extracted from her blockade and arrested. She was charged with 4 misdemeanors and was being held at the Roanoke County jail without bail.
The Sierra Club is one of the oldest and largest environmental groups in the U.S.. It also has a problematic history, from being founded by racist John Muir to members penning the racist “Population Bomb,” advocating for population control, to former director Carl Pope promoting corporate greenwashing. Earlier this year, politician Ben Jealous became the organization’s new executive director and began a process of “restructuring” due to budget deficits. The restructuring led to layoffs that included the equity and environmental justice teams.
We talk with Hop Hopkins and Michelle Mascarenhas (@MG_MMS), two of the top directors, laid off in the Sierra Club’s restructuring about what happened, the impacts on environmental organizing and equity within the non-profit industrial complex.
Bios//
Hop Hopkins is the former Director of Organizational Transformation at the Sierra Club, where he helped the organization evolve its commitment to anti-racism. Hop is a longtime social movement strategist and scholar, and has been a leader in movements from HIV/AIDS to anti-globalization, food sovereignty, anti-displacement and clean energy transition, after beginning his career as a grassroots environmental justice community organizer. Most recently he was a Climate Justice Fellow and adjunct professor at Antioch University. He is based on Tongva land in Los Angeles, CA.
Michelle Mascaranehas is the former National Director of Campaigns at the Sierra Club. Before coming to the Sierra Club, Michelle was a co-director of Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project where she supported the formation of the Climate Justice Alliance, the Reclaim Our Power Utility Justice Project, and projects at the intersection of land, Indigenous sovereignty, reparations and Black liberation. Prior to her time at MG, Michelle worked as a union organizer and organized farm-to-school projects. Michelle is based on Chochenyo Ohlone land in Berkeley, CA.
Today climate activists blocked all entrances to Citi banks headquarters to demand that they stop investing billions of dollars in the fossil fuel industry.
?BREAKING: Climate activists in #NYC have shut down the entrance to @Citi bank, the top financier of oil and gas in the Amazon and the second largest funders of all fossil fuels. They’re killing us for profit! #climateshutdown#EndFossilFuelspic.twitter.com/z8c06rmBWn
Citi is the world’s second largest funder of fossil fuels. It is the world’s second biggest financier of oil and gas extraction in the Amazon — financing over $1.8 billion worth of Amazon-destroying activities while also being the top funder of oil and gas extraction in Africa.
The bank has put in $333 billion into the fossil fuel sector since the 2015 Paris Agreement while continuing to greenwash themselves as a “sustainable bank.”
25 were arrested after keeping hundreds of Citi employees out of the building and waiting on the sidewalks and in the building’s plaza.
A number of Citi employees assaulted climate activists during the action.
Thursday morning a group of Cop City activists invoked a “people’s stop work order” and chained themselves to equipment at the construction site for the proposed Atlanta Safety Public Training Center, more commonly known as Cop City.
“This is a war happening against protesters,” Ayeola Omolara Kaplan, one of the five activists arrested, said via written statement. “If we don’t stand up for our right to protest now, standing up in the future will be vain. Cop City is in the process of being built, and this can only continue if we allow it.”
Four of the five activists who took part in the direct action at the construction site.
Left to right: Rev. David Dunn, Rev. Jeff Jones, Timothy Sullivan and Ayeola Omalara Kaplan.
Not pictured: Lalita Martin Credit: The People’s Stop Work Order
Kaplan, a self-described Atlanta based revolutionary artist, was joined by Jeff Jones, a Unitarian Universalist volunteer community minister; Reverend David Dunn, a Unitarian Universalist Minister; Lalita Martin, an Atlanta resident; and Timmy Sullivan, a Georgia resident.
Before departing for the training center site, the five individuals carrying out the direct action were joined by a support group of around 25 other Stop Cop City activists. The group gathered in a circle, prayed, and sang a few refrains of “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” to emotionally prepare for the day’s action. The five hopped into a white van and pulled out of the meeting site, followed by a caravan of supporters.
People put their bodies on the line, with the courage to stop this construction
Mary Hooks
When asked about the potential for life-altering felony charges for shutting down the construction site, Jaanaki Radhakrishnan, an organizer with the Student Coalition to Stop Cop City, expressed faith in her fellow activists and concern over the potential police response. “I trust that they have themselves together, that they know what they’re doing,” said Radhakrishnan as the caravan moved toward the construction site. “There’s always that you never know what the State is going to do, but they got it.”
What the State has done so far is throw the extreme charges against those arrested in relation to the Stop Cop City Movement.
Sixty-one individuals alleged to be part of the movement to Stop Cop City were charged in a sweeping Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) indictment on Sept. 5, and prosecutors have charged 42 activists under Georgia’s domestic terrorism statute since December 2022. The Georgia Attorney General’s office is prosecuting the RICO and domestic terrorism cases. In May, a joint APD and Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) task force raided the home of three organizers with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund and charged them with charity fraud. Radhakrishnan believes that each of those events only served to undermine the State’s position in the eyes of the public.
“With each passing act of repression the State does, they’re making our case for us,” said Radhakrishnan.
A semi-truck driver honks in support as they by the support rally outside the construction site of the proposed training center Credit: Matt Scott
Judging by the dozens of individuals driving by – including one MARTA bus driver and several semi-truck drivers – who honked in support of a rally held outside the construction site the word about Cop City is out, and residents are against the facility.
Political theorist and Morehouse College faculty member Andrew J. Douglas took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to express similar sentiments and explain the groundswell of support for the Stop Cop City Movement. “These RICO charges will only build the movement,” Douglas wrote. “In the words of George Jackson, ‘Repression. Do you see the effect it has on the uncommitted? Comrade, repression exposes.’”
Since January, the construction site remained guarded nonstop by the Atlanta Police Department (APD), with typically 30 officers patrolling the grounds and surrounding roadways around the clock. The last time activists entered the site in March, police were chased out and construction equipment was destroyed. APD and other local police agencies responded with a massive police raid of a nearby anti-Cop City music festival that resulted in prosecutors charging 23 individuals with domestic terrorism.
A stop work order posted by the activists outside the Cop City Construction site
Thursday morning, however, no APD officers stood guard at the Constitution Road. entrance to the construction site in unincorporated DeKalb. The five activists exited their van, entered the gate, and successfully chained themselves to a construction excavator for almost an hour. Construction remained shut down until the last activist was taken into custody around 10 a.m.
For their part APD officers did not engage with the support rally outside the construction site, choosing instead to fortify the gated entrance previously unguarded. One of the officers near the gate carried a gas mask and riot control rifle, and a second officer arrived a short time later carrying an assault rifle. The support rally organizers pre-arranged for an individual to be their police liaison and while police did speak to the liaison to request the group move several times, no arrests were made outside the construction site.
Mary Hooks, national field secretary with the Movement for Black Lives and Jaanaki Radhakrishnan, student organizer at the support rally for “The People’s Stop Work Order.” Credit: Matt Scott
“People put their bodies on the line, with the courage to stop this construction,” said Mary Hooks, national field secretary with the Movement for Black Lives told the media as the support rally ended.
When asked about the potential for domestic terrorism or RICO charges for the five activists who shut down construction Hooks said, “this is dignified and righteous protest. Anytime that somebody puts their bodies on the line for the cause…this was worth the risk.”
“Cancel this lease,” Hooks continued, listing the group’s demands. “Stop this right now. Take this $67 million, and let the people decide how it should be spent.”
Speakers at the support rally explained that the five individuals chose to carry out this direct action to draw increasing attention to the number of people supporting the Stop Cop City Movement and the demand to that the facility not be built.
“We’re here to make sure that message gets heard as widely and as loudly as needs be in order to ensure Cop City will never be built,” said Reverend Jonathan Rogers, a Unitarian Universalist minister and member of the Cop City Clergy Coalition.
Footage from Lalita Martin’s GoPro Camera. Credit: The People’s Stop Work Order
All five activists were taken into custody by APD and brought to DeKalb County jail. Each activist was charged with criminal trespass and obstructing a law enforcement officer, both misdemeanors. Martin was additionally charged with reckless behavior, also a misdemeanor.
Organizers plan to hold a jail vigil outside the facility Thursday at 8 p.m. for the activists arrested at the construction site. A second Stop Cop City rally in protest of the RICO indictments levied against the movement is planned for 6:00 p.m. Friday outside the office the Georgia Attorney General’s Office in Downtown Atlanta.
