Being a traveling activist you often put yourself in place you would not normally be and in situations that put your liberty at risk even when you don’t intend to.
I would like to tell a story about an amazing activist and community organizer I know in Texas who needs your help. This person has selflessly devoted themselves to organizing work all around the country including housing rights, reproductive justice and environmental campaigns. They also devoted most of 2012 to the Occupy Wall street movement. This particular person was working on a direct action campaign in Texas they went out one night to go dumpstering and got pulled over by the cops and arrested and charged with Felony and a class a misdemeanor and a class C misdemeanor. The arrest was not planned or apart of a specific direct action and was completely unexpected as they were following the law. This person now has to retain a lawyer for 3500-pre trial and an additional 3600 if the case goes to trial. Having devoted themselves to a lifetime of activist work some without pay and some with it they now need your help to pay some of these legal fees otherwise this comrade will spend maybe the next year of their life inside the prison industrial complex in a state they are not from and as a political prisoner.
I am now trying to fund raise to help them with all of their legal fees so they can keep doing the amazing work that they have been doing. They have court on the seventh of February and need to pay the lawyer by then so lets do a marathon and show them some solidarity and help keep them active for many years to come. Please donate generously any money that is left extra will be donated to the NYC bail fund.
The reason why this person is not publicly putting their name out there is because they dont want this charge to negatively affect any campaighns that they have been apart of.
While I am generally on board with this type of thing, there are some things I would like to express concern over. The first has to do with the anonymity of the activist in question. We know there are traveling activists who are of good intent. We also know there are traveling. “Activists” who are merely using Occupy as a cover for grifting and provocation, built in shit disturbers. How do these people criss cross the country without any evident means of income? If they are dumpstering, that’s cool. But who knows this person? What is their reputation, and why hide their identity? I am very grateful for the solidarity shown while I was locked up for the MayDay action in SF, and I am in strong support of all our brothers and sisters locked up. But without more details, I cannot comfortably say that this is not some type of hustle. If it is the person them self, just cop to it and say you need the bread, like I do. But the inference that this “certain individual” is some how so vital to the “movement” strrikes me as odd, because everyone else in the same boat has no qualms about being identified. Just think about it.