From a Refuse Fascism activist in Philly |
On Wednesday five of us participated in a snake march through the second day of “move-in day” at University of Pennsylvania. It was our first time doing this particular type of action. The general notion was to disturb the air in an environment with a lot of people packed together – specifically elite college students starting the semester – raising the demand that Trump/Pence Must Go, recruiting students on the spot to sign up and join in the chants and become organizers, get the word out about an upcoming meeting near campus, and set a very different tone for the whole semester.
One thing that hit us right off the bat was that it was significantly less crowded than we expected. Not totally dead, but not enough people to be truly disruptive or sustain an energetic march. There were five of us which was enough to have two people with instruments (a metal pot drum and a flute), 1 person filming, 1 person with a megaphone, and one person just focused on handing out flyers. We all chanted and secondarily handed out flyers. We were not stopped by campus security or the volunteers helping people move in, many of whom took flyers.
Videos of our main chant and some agitation are available on the Philly Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/refusefascismphilly/videos/439374820254114/?t=1
https://www.facebook.com/refusefascismphilly/videos/472026453349434/?t=13
People were generally supportive. Because we were moving quickly through campus, we did not have too many substantive engagements but it was noticeable that some people who were unfazed by our general agitation and chanting did stop and gawk at us when we said that we were there to recruit for this movement, to come to this meeting, and that it was up to all of us getting organized now. One older woman, a researcher attached to the campus who does not teach, who follows us on social media and has an orange sticker on her fridge at home gave me a list of who we should talk to. I took down some campus organizations names but also turned it back on her that we need her to talk to those folks and get in touch with us about how it went.
Four of the folks who showed up have been organizing with us for awhile but one young woman was brand new to organizing with us, although she came to one of our big protests last year and has followed us since. She had responded to a Facebook post we made calling for drummers and musicians to join a special project on this date, and direct messaged us for details. She brought a great energy to the march, as well as her flute.