People Power - Resistance Training

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the ACLU fomenting a grassroots movement of non-lawyers, called People Power. Today, I attended its first “resistance training.” The trainings consisted of house parties – 2,000 of them across all 50 states, with 200,000 people signed up. We watched a livecast of the ACLU talking about understanding our First Amendment rights when protesting, and about the details of the immigration rights that are under attack right now.

This was perhaps the most inspiring day of this project. I’ve signed up to help out, initially helping to push for more sanctuary city legislation, particularly in the state of Massachusetts. My city, Somerville, and my county, Middlesex, are already pretty progressive on that front so there’s not much I can do. But there is pending legislation that could make a big difference in Massachusetts. I would write more – much more – but I have only three more minutes to get this blog posted today. Suffice to say: I’ll be writing about People Power more.