20250603 STAND Newsletter – Planning NO KINGS, Just Pops!
Dear Friends,
Some of you may know that I run a biomedical research lab over at Emory University. While my lab has not taken the catastrophic hits that some of my colleagues have endured, we have nonetheless been deeply impacted by attacks on the research and public health communities. Fortunately, we continue to be able to do good work, although perhaps not all of the work we’d hoped, and we’ve been able to keep people employed. My close friends and family know that this has been a challenge in my professional life, and in trying to support me, try to offer assurances. That they’re sure that things will stabilize, or that things will work out some way or the other, or that it won’t turn out to be as bad as everyone thinks. I’m not so sure. I want to believe that the damage being done to my professional world is overblown or reversible, but I must admit that I worry that it isn’t. In offering those assurances, I fear that my friends and family are trying to protect me, and perhaps sometimes themselves, from a rather grim reality. Nonetheless, I am appreciative of their efforts to try and make a challenging time more bearable.
But one of these conversations has stuck with me; between myself and a family member who I disagree with politically in almost every way, but I’m confident still cares for me deeply. She said, with genuine concern on her face, that she knows that sometimes good things come out of the bad. That, I believe, is true. But I don’t think it happens by accident. I think that when confronted with the bad, people of conscience rally, find each other, and live into their purpose. I believe the bad, in a way, is clarifying – it allows us to see more clearly the work that needs to be done. Perhaps to see the work that has always needed to be done, we just weren’t ready to do it yet.
I’m ready to do it. Thanks for doing it with me.
As a part of that work, STAND will be demonstrating on Saturday, June 14th to protest governance by decree and celebrate the better angels of our democracy. There will be two events that day, so please read the following carefully, and help us by letting us know that you are planning to attend.
The first event, the NO KINGS rally, is being held in Liberty Plaza in downtown Atlanta at 10am. This is not a STAND-sponsored event, but is being run by groups that we trust to do good work and we expect a strong turnout. We’d love for you to join us, and we will plan to meet at 8:45am at the Avondale Marta station to jump on the train and head downtown. PLEASE LET US KNOW YOU’RE COMING. When we send people out to large protests, we like to be organized and make sure that everyone is accounted for and safe. We can only do that with your help.
Later that same day, STAND will be sponsoring a celebration of democracy – NO KINGS, Just Pops! That event will kick off at 1pm from Decatur Square, and will then march from there up Clairemont Ave towards our friends at Clairemont Oaks. There, we’ll have a brief rally, some music, and a popsicle party. We will put our signs to good use and share in a vision of what a truly just society might look like by exercising our rights to free speech and assembly. Sometimes, community building can look like a protest, and I for one am looking forward to spending that time together with you out on the streets of Decatur.
Let’s do the work and leave it better than we found it.
STANDing with you,
Matt
