20250923 STAND Newsletter – STAND for Peace
What’s new with STAND
We had a wonderful day at STAND For Peace – thank you for everything you did to help make it a success.
Action NOW!
STAND, alongside more than 25 civil action organizations across the greater Atlanta area, is hosting United In Light on October 4th. This is an easy way for us to show solidarity with the larger activism community – please check out the mobilize and RSVP now!!!
The next national day of action is Saturday, October 18th for NO KINGS 2. Stay tuned for STAND’s plan. It’ll be family friendly, and impactful – you know how we roll.
Here are some other vetted actions sponsored by allies in the area including an opportunity to volunteer at a vaccine clinic.
Dear Friends,
I told you a few weeks back in this newsletter that I thought that STAND for Peace might be the most important event that we host this year. Watching everyone interact on Saturday confirmed that for me as we worked with the Afghan American Alliance of Georgia to welcome an amazing diversity of organizations and community members.
STAND believes in, fully participates in, and organizes mass action targeted at pushing back on damaging government policy. We understand that mobilizing our communities to put pressure on government officials alongside lifting up the spirit of dissent are critical in this moment of our history. We also believe that a prerequisite for community mobilization is community building, only some of which can happen through protest in the streets. But probably the deepest of our principles is that we can’t protect anyone's rights unless we protect everyone’s rights; that serves as the core of who we are for the same reason that love for all people served as the core of the civil rights movement. If we allow people to draw lines around whose life is valued, we become distracted by where those lines are placed rather than why those lines exist to begin with.
Adam, from Trans Joy, put this perfectly on Saturday:
Trans liberation is everyone’s liberation. The very made-up rules we break in order to be ourselves frees each of you as well. When we break down these oppressive binary walls, men are freer to be tender without shame. Women are freer to claim their authority and power without apology. Kids are freer to explore who they are without fear. Cisgender people are freer to love, dress, and dream far beyond these scripts we were all handed by society at birth. Our freedom and joy is your freedom and joy as well.
We don’t sacrifice by learning the needs of our neighbors, hearing their stories, and fighting for their rights – we become stronger. STAND For Peace was so important not because it impacted policy, but because it helped confirm for all of us that our immigrant and native-born, young and old, cis and trans, gay and straight, rich and poor siblings all belong in the same conversation in the assembly of community and defense of rights. It also showed us that while we fight for good governance, justice, and equality, the establishment of joyful and inclusive community is fully within our control. I look forward to doing more of it together.
STANDing with you,
Matt
