Yesterday, our chapter voted to endorse Defend the Atlanta Forest’s letter in solidarity with the movement to Stop Cop City and Defend Weelaunee Forest.

As the letter states, “Forests are the lungs of planet Earth. The destruction of forests affects all of us. So do the gentrification and police violence that the bulldozing of Weelaunee Forest would facilitate. What is happening in Atlanta is not a local issue.

Replacing a forest with a police training center will only create a more violently policed society, in which taxpayer resources enrich police and weapons companies rather than addressing social needs. Mass incarceration and police militarization have failed to bring down crime or improve conditions for poor and working-class communities.”

As our comrade Mariah Parker from Athens Area DSA, stated “This is going to be the largest cop training facility in the U.S. You know what happens when someone builds state-of-the-art shit? Everybody starts wanting a piece of it. That means that the police from Athens are going to be sent there to learn urban warfare, from Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Accra, Jakarta, Berlin. Anywhere you can point to on a map – they are going to send their police there to learn the state-of-the-art ways to beat the shit out of you.”

As the letter states, “The forest defenders are trying to create a better world for all of us. We owe it to the people of Atlanta and to future generations everywhere to support them.”

Here are some ways YOU can support the defense of Atlanta’s Weelaunee Forest and Stop Cop City:

1) Donate to Atlanta Solidarity Fund to support legal costs for arrested protestors and ongoing legal action.

2) Call on these investors in Cop City to divest from the project.

3) Call on Brasfield & Gorrie, the Birmingham-based general contractor firm of Cop City, to drop this construction project.

4) Organize political solidarity bail funds, forest defense funds, and forest defense committees where you live.

5) Participate in or organize local solidarity actions. (In early February 2023, we collaborated with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Birmingham on a vigil for police-murdered Weelaunee Forest defender Tortuguita outside of Brasfield & Gorrie’s headquarters in Birmingham.)

6) Circulate the solidarity letter, and endorse it by e-mailing the address listed on the letter.

Solidarity from Alabama with the Stop Cop City movement and all Weelaunee Forest defenders! ✊