Cities Across the US Set to Gather for “Day of the Forest Defender” in Memory of Tortuguita

On January 18th, cities across the so-called US and beyond will hold events honoring the life and legacy of Tortuguita, responding to a call to declare January 18th “Day of the Forest Defender.” According to a call posted to the counter-info site Scenes from the Atlanta Forest:

On January 18, 2023, Georgia State Patrol officers entered the Weelaunee Forest alongside police from other agencies in the region. They sought to clear the encampments re-established there in the weeks prior. A month earlier, on December 13, a similar operation cleared encampments after a year of struggle, and culminated in the arrest of 6 forest defenders on obscene and fraudulent charges of Domestic Terrorism.

When Patrolmen entered the forest in January, they entered into a long confrontation they had little or no experience with, a confrontation pitting free people, local residents, environmentalists, aspiring revolutionaries, and itinerant insurrectionalists against the Atlanta Police Foundation, the Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and his submissive City Council, Michael Thurmond and the Dekalb County government, Ryan Millsap and Shadowbox Studios, and all of the contractors hoping to devastate the land, displace its life forms, and replace them with a police training facility and soundstage complex.

This struggle has been something of a burning torch for class confrontation and subversive cultural innovation in the United States for nearly 3 years. It would not be an exaggeration to say this has been the sharpest struggle in North America during the entirety of the Biden-Harris administration.

The nature of this confrontation was altered permanently by the hasty and poorly-made decisions of Jerry Parrish, Bryland Myers, Jonathan Salcedo,  Ronaldo Kegel, Royce Zah, and Mark Jonathan Lamb. These officers ambushed and killed Tortuguita, the nom de guerre with which we knew a 26 year old anarchist living in the forest.

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In November 2023, the killers working from prosecutor John Fowler’s office coordinated a public leak of Tortuguita’s diary. This diary belongs with the family of the deceased, but is still in the hands of the executioners. Fowler, who is obsessed with the political dynamics of the movement and has worked hard to introduce terms and frameworks which appear nowhere in the penal code (including his inane commentary on anarchism in the indictment), initiated a motion to include scans of the diary into evidence. He pretends to believe that the document contains incriminating information for other defendants still among the living. His actual motivation is clear enough for those who study him: John Fowler is a right wing fanatic who believes that the contents of the diary will somehow demoralize the movement, or deprive it of a martyr. The motion his office filed made the document public record just long enough for reactionary thugs and brainless rightist commentators to publish a rash of hyperbolic and stupefying articles.

MEMORY IS OUR WEAPON

If the authorities can deny the public the right to remember the brutality and cruelty they unleash on those who take action, they can erode the coherence of our theories of struggle. They can lead us to wrong conclusions, by providing us with wrong histories. If they can induce a mindset of amnesia, they can disconnect serious militancy from intermediate struggles, thus depriving subversive groups of a medium for their interventions, and oppressed classes of combative methods. If they can keep us in a state of generalized forgetting, they can abuse communities and groups one after another without ever confronting a unified and sophisticated oppositional movement in turn.

This is why they compell us to move from one “emergency” to the next, scandal to scandal, always forgetting, never developing the power necessary to actually alter the course of events or to wreck the system for good.

In order to build forces capable of doing so, we need time. In order to seize the time, we need the focus and thus the memory.

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Do not hesitate to organize media, to coordinate speaking events, film screenings, prayer circles, concerts, dinners, or community events in memory of the fallen defenders of the Earth, and of Tortuguita in particular.

For ideas about how to better organize and promote events, check out our Getting Organized column here.

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Upcoming Events

Pacific Northwest

Seattle, WA: Vigil in Cal Anderson Park. January 18th.

Portland, OR: Vigil at Grant Park on January 18th.

Corvallis, OR: Westminster House in Corvallis at 6pm on January 18th. For more info see.

Boise, ID: Celebration in Albertson Park, January 18th.

Pacific

Arcata, CA: Vigil on January 18th, Arcata Plaza.

San Francisco, CA: January 20th, Enzyme Cultural Center.

Berkeley, CA: January 18th, Haste and Telegraph.

Oakland, CA: Event TBA

San Pablo, CA: January 18th, vigil at Kennedy Plaza.

Stanford, CA: Report back, White Plaza, January 15th.

Sacramento, CA: Community gathering, Southside Park, January 18th.

Long Beach, CA:  Community gathering, teach-in and vigil, January 18th, Wells Fargo across from Lincoln Park.

Los Angeles, CA: Community vigil and potluck, January 18th, North Hollywood Rec Center.

Southwest

Tucson, AZ: January 18th, memorial and community gathering, 101 E Ventura Street.

Central

Lincoln, NB: January 18th, vigil and rally, Nebraska capitol building, northside.

Denver, CO: January 21st, D3 arts.

Austin, TX: Community vigil on January 18th and benefit show on January 24th.

Houston, TX: Vigil and community gathering, Eastwood Park, January 18th.

San Antonio, TX: January 18th, Brackenridge Park, vigil and gathering.

Midwest

Columbus, OH: January 18th, Coffee Underground, community gathering.

Chicago, IL: January 18th, Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary. January 19th, film screening, Pilsen Community Books.

Carbondale, IL: January 18th, Commune community center, potluck and gathering.

Minneapolis, MN: January 18th, community gathering and mutual aid event, New City Center, 3104 16th Ave S.

Lansing, MI: January 18th, community gathering, Wentworth Park.

Southeast

Richmond, VA: January 18th, Shields Lake Theater, community gathering.

New Orleans, LA: January 18th, community gathering, 2111 Dumaine St. Another event taking place at Louis Armstrong Park.

Chattanooga, TN: January 20th, Renaissance Park, community gathering.

Savannah, GA: January 18th, vigil, Forsyth Fountain.

Atlanta, GA: Slow roll for Tort and community gathering. Gresham Park.

Tallahassee, FL: Vigil on January 18th, the Plant.

Asheville, NC: January 18th, Craven and Riverside, community gathering.

Chapel Hill, NC: January 18th, the Forest Theater, community gathering.

Washington DC: January 18th, Malcolm X park, vigil and community gathering.

Northeast

Boston, MA: January 20th, Lucy Parsons Center, community gathering and presentation.

Baltimore, MD: January 21st, Red Emma’s, community gathering.

Pittsburgh, PA: Film showing and benefit, Irma Freeman Center, January 18th.

Philadelphia, PA: January 18th, Clark Park, community gathering.

Binghamton, NY: January 25th, Riot Act Books, Binghamton, NY.

NYC, NY: January 17th, memorial and teach-in, Earthchxrch, 26 Avenue C.

Nationwide Summit in Tucson, AZ February 23rd – 26th:

From February 23rd – 26th, there will be a convergence in so-called Tucson, Arizona against Cop City:

Cop City, the $90M police training facility slated to be built in south Atlanta, would drastically increase police militarization and the spread of violent policing tactics across the world, from Atlanta and the US borderlands to Palestine. The contractors building Cop City are not bound by the geographic limits of one city or state. The movement to Stop Cop City cannot be, either.

From February 23-26th, hundreds of people across the country will converge in Tucson for four days of protests, panels and workshops, live music, and strategy discussions.

To submit an event for the Summit in Tucson, send a social media graphic with the date, time, and location to [email protected]

Begin making plans to travel to Tucson with your friends in February, and stay tuned in the coming weeks for more information!

STOP COP CITY EVERYWHERE.

Check out updates here.

Event going down near you that we missed? Contact us at info at itsgoingdown dot org to let us know!