Content warning: police violence
Last week I visited Atlanta with other 350 local groups to learn from on-the-ground organizers fighting to stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest. This experience showed me just how intertwined the issues of climate justice and policing are. Here's what you need to know:
What’s Happening —
#StopCopCity is a grassroots movement that rose from many years of Black-led organizing in Atlanta, Georgia. Communities immediately started organizing when the city announced its plan to build a $90 million police and military training site in Weelaunee Forest — the largest urban forest in the United States.
The Atlanta Police Foundation is behind this project and they are funded by some of the most powerful companies in the city — including Delta, AT&T, Home Depot, Bank of America, Chase, and many more.
Construction for this project was greenlit despite community input against it and after various backroom meetings between former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, corporate investors, contractors, city council, and other government officials.
Weelaunee Forest, original land of the Muscogee people is sacred Indigenous land that holds value for so many. It’s a natural barrier against climate change and a place where multiracial communities of Atlanta spend their time biking, walking their dogs, and more. A local school even started a community garden that has since been decimated by the police. Urban forests like Weelaunee also hold immense value for our ecosystem by playing a role in controlling urban heat effect, air quality, and flooding.
Opposition to Cop City began immediately when the public first became aware of the project in early 2021. Activists and community members in the primarily Black neighborhoods surrounding the proposed training center site began a series of organizing interventions and community events, including — mass meetings, barbecues, teach-ins, canvassing, and public outreach by activists and community members. Firsthand we saw how this movement is rooted in joy, resistance, and care for people and the land.
One of these forest defenders, an Indigenous queer Venezuelan activist, Manuel "Tortuguita" Páez Terán, was a true source of light who not only protested at the camp for months on end, but also raised huge amounts of mutual aid for the surrounding community. Tragically, Tortuguita was shot and killed by police during a SWAT raid of the camp.
The mobilization to #StopCopCity rests at the intersection of climate justice, racial justice, and social justice. It’s a call from frontline communities in Atlanta to not only protect the Weelaunee Forest, but also to stand in solidarity with communities of color who suffer the daily impact of police brutality and corruption at the hands of the institution of the police.
How You Can Take Action —
We need as many supporters in this fight as possible. There are several different ways you can take action:
Organize a solidarity action from your home. There are 3 businesses with NH offices that are invested in or connected to the Cop City Project: Invesco, Atlas Technical Consultants, and Corporation Services Company. You can organize a group of people to call, email, flyer, or hold signs outside of their offices. Click here to learn more and let us know if you want to organize something.
Donate to the movement through The Atlanta Solidarity Fund and the Forest Justice Defense Fund.
As a movement for climate justice, we stand in solidarity with the movement to stop Cop City, and with the greater movement to defund the police and relocate resources to our communities. The situation in Atlanta showed an overpoliced state that does not hesitate to take life, destroy the environment, impede on civil rights, or ignore Indigenous land rights. A Cop City like this could be built anywhere - even here in New Hampshire. We know this fight is important for all of us.
With rage, sadness, and solidarity,
Lisa Demaine
She/her/hers
Co-Executive Director