City in the Forest
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![Endorsements: “Since April 2021, police abolitionists and environmentalists have been engaged in a furious struggle to prevent the destruction of a precious stretch of forest in Atlanta, Georgia, where the government aims to’build a police training compound and fucilitate the construction of a giant mumlfmgu for the film industry. In the following analysis, participants in the movement chronicle a year of action, tracing the movement’s victories and setbacks and exploring the strategies that inform it. This campaign represents a crucial effort to chart new paths forward in the wake of the George Floyd Rebellion, linking the defense of the land that sustains us with the struggle against police.” - CRIMETHINC. EX-WORKERS COLLECTIVE “One of the most enlivening, exciting movements I’ve cver read about. Great analysis, helpful timelines. Long, but worth every minute.” - TWITTER USER @ KENDALLISHERE] “The campaign to defend the Atlanta forest is, IMO, one of the most interesting and important struggles in the US right note, and this article is a real gem — deep historical conteat, analysis of the movement and its Timits, and conerete ways to get involved. Everyone read it!” - ((COUNTERAPPARATUS)) “Exemplar of serious, long-term revolutionar; opposiion gather than plota opportunitics Note the Heveraity of tactics” - ALEX DAVIS, ASSOCIATE PROF: CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY](city-in-the-forest-crimethinc 3.png)
![Opponents of these plans regard the police training facility—dubbed “Cop City’—and the Blackhall development as interrelated aspects of the same repressive restructuring of Atlanta. In short, the Blackhall development will exacerbate economic disparities and ecological collapse, while Cop City will equip the police to preserve them. The movement opposing these developments, ‘mobilizing around the watehwords DEFEND THE FOREST and stor cor crry, has passed through several phases of experimentation, using a wide array of tactics and strategies to keep pace with the course of events. It represents an important effort to revitalize eco-defense and police abolition strategies in the wake of the George Floyd Rebellion. [ TNI&K%]\ 0]](city-in-the-forest-crimethinc 8.png)
THE CITY
IN THE
FOREST
Reinventing Resistance for an
Age of Climate Crisis and Police
Militarization
ANONYMOUS
Patiently edited by the CRIMETHINC. EX-WORKERS COLLECTIVE
Design and layout by +5V @A) STMOVImee
Endorsements:
“Since April 2021, police abolitionists and
environmentalists have been engaged in a furious
struggle to prevent the destruction of a precious stretch
of forest in Atlanta, Georgia, where the government aims
to'build a police training compound and fucilitate the
construction of a giant mumlfmgu for the film industry.
In the following analysis, participants in the movement
chronicle a year of action, tracing the movement’s
victories and setbacks and exploring the strategies that
inform it. This campaign represents a crucial effort to
chart new paths forward in the wake of the George Floyd
Rebellion, linking the defense of the land that sustains
us with the struggle against police.”
- CRIMETHINC. EX-WORKERS COLLECTIVE
“One of the most enlivening, exciting movements I've
cver read about. Great analysis, helpful timelines. Long,
but worth every minute.”
- TWITTER USER @ KENDALLISHERE]
“The campaign to defend the Atlanta forest is, IMO,
one of the most interesting and important struggles in
the US right note, and this article is a real gem — deep
historical conteat, analysis of the movement and its
Timits, and conerete ways to get involved. Everyone read
it!”
- ((COUNTERAPPARATUS))
“Exemplar of serious, long-term revolutionar;
opposiion gather than plota opportunitics Note the
Heveraity of tactics”
- ALEX DAVIS, ASSOCIATE PROF:
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
Other CRIMETHINC. Works You Will Enjoy:
« The SHAC Model ~ A critical reflection on
the controvesial movement that fought animal
testing.
« Battle for Sacred Ground — An exclusive
first-hand account from the front lines of the
NoDAPL/Standing Rock movement.
« The Siege of the Third Precinct in
Minneapolis - An account and analysis from the
burning of the Minneapolis Third Precinct
« We Don’t Forget — Statement in support
of accused ELF member Joseph Dibee and an
appeal for ecological direct action
Further Reading on Autonomous
Struggles in Atlanta, Georgia, USA:
« Don't Die Wondering — Reflections on anti-
police actions within Occupy Atlanta, 2011-
2012
« Breathe Together, Choke the System —
Collected writings from the Atlanta-Ferguson
Solidarity Committee, 2014
« Confronting Cops and Klan in Stone
Mountain - Report and analysis from the 2016
“All Out Atlanta” mobiization
« Apply Heat, Melt ICE ~ Reflections in the
“Occupy Ice” protests in Atlanta, 2018
« Storming the Gates - Contextualizing the
struggle at the Dekalb County Jail, 2019
« Frontliners to the Front — Two-part overview
of the 2020 George Floyd Protests
THE CITY
IN THE
FOREST
“When a tree is growing, it’s tender and
pliant. But when it’s dry and hard, it
dies. Hardness and strength are death’s
companions. Pliancy and weakness are
expressions of the freshness of being.
Because what has hardened will never
win.”
-Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky
DEFENDING THE FOREST IN THE CITY
Atlanta s a city in a forest, with the most tree coverage of any
urban center in America. The South River Forest constitutes
the largest continuous scetion of this forest; it functions as the
“lungs” of the city, trapping carbon emissions and runoffin its
marshy lands and dense trec canopy. The South River Forest
conncets other forested areas across the entire southern halfof
the city and up the cast side into Decatur. It is not uncommon
to see deer running or playing in the woods—a breathtaking
experience, especially in a city. Away from surveillance
cameras and strip malls, teenagers go on dates, enthusiasts
ride mountain bikes, and elderly people walk their dog
“This is where the governments of Atlanta and Dekalb
County and the Atlanta Police Foundation arc attempting
to build a police training compound. Next door, in
Intrenchment Creek Park, a scandalous land-swap deal will
give public lands to Blackhall Studios, who hopes to expand
their nearby soundstage complex into the biggest such facility
on carth, This forest forms an essential link in the urban
wildlife corridor, which these developments will destroy. If
the developments go forward, the entire metropolitan arca,
which is currently insulated from the worst consequences of
ongoing climate collapse, will experience worse floods, higher
temperatures, and smog-filled afternoons just as the world
enters a_century of climate crises and ccological colla
“The area where the Police Foundation hopes to build
their training compound is also the site of the Old Atlanta
Prison Farm. In the 19th century, slaves worked this land
after it was taken from the Muscogee (Creck) people, who call
the area Weelaunce. During Reconstruction, the land bricfly
operated as a dairy works; afterwards, it was turned into a
n camp where prisoners were forced to till fields and
r animals in dehumanizing conditions. Some were even
Iynched. Pavingthisland over with new carceral infrastructure
Opponents of these plans regard the police training
facility—dubbed “Cop City’—and the Blackhall development
as interrelated aspects of the same repressive restructuring
of Atlanta. In short, the Blackhall development will
exacerbate economic disparities and ecological collapse,
while Cop City will equip the police to preserve them.
The movement opposing these developments,
‘mobilizing around the watehwords DEFEND THE FOREST
and stor cor crry, has passed through several phases of
experimentation, using a wide array of tactics and strategies
to keep pace with the course of events. It represents an
important effort to revitalize eco-defense and police abolition
strategies in the wake of the George Floyd Rebellion.
[ TNI&K%]\
0]
BACKGROUND
To understand the movement, it necessary to back up a bit.
The Atlanta Way
“Historians say The Atlanta Way has its roots in Black
and white business leaders meeting behind closed
doors to negotiate incremental advances in
racial issues to avoid public protests and preserve the
city’s business-friendly image.
In the 1960s, it helped the city overcome the turmoil
of desegregation and become a national leader in the
Civil Rights Movement. Atlanta emerged as
the economic capital of the Southeast. That reputation
has endured for decades, thanks to the many
champions of The Atlanta Way in business and
government.”
— “The Atlanta Way is an Ideal Never Fully
Realized, ”Atlanta Business Chronicle
‘The “Atlanta Way” as it is known loeally, is a model of social
management that goes back to the carly 1960s. During
the re-emergence of Black resistance movements in the
Deep South after the Second World War, business leaders,
landlords, government officials, and industrial magnates
established a cross-caste alliance for the express purpose
of forestalling racial justice movements in the city. They
hoped that by increasing cooperation between the white
corporate power structure and the Black business class,
they could pre-empt the demands of the exploited Black
masses without significantly altering the post-war capitalist
cconomy, which brought unprecedented power to the ruling
class in the United States following the destruction of
European industry. Developed in the Jim Crow period and
its immediate aftermath, the Atlanta Way subordinated
public policy to the personal relationships and back-door
dealings of the rich, a trend that continues to this day
“Thebasicstructure of pre-emptive counterinsurgency
reflected in the Atlanta Way strategy dictates that Black
people hold political office and fill roles in administration,
policing, and the justice industry. In return, those who
hold these positions are expected to impose repressive
policies, budget cuts, and mass privatization on the
region's Black and poor majority. Many Georgia liberals
believe that assuring progress on racial inequality means
creating financial and business incentives for developers,
universities, construction companies, industries, and real
estate investors. Nepotistic patronage systems—similar to
what is known as clientelism in some parts of the world—
are supposed to foster a thriving Black middle class.
Yet Blackresidentsof Atlantaarestill overrepresented
in the city’s jails, unemployment statisics, food lines,
and probation offices. All of the large public housing
developments in the city have been closed down, all of the
large shelters for the houseless have been shuttered, and
historically Black neighborhoods face an unprecedented
influx of non-Black tenants displaced from other cities and
neighborhoods by the rising costs of living around the world.
The Atlanta Way connects our time to the Jim Crow
era. Without it, Atlanta would not be a major destination for
profiteersand businessmen. By organizingcity affairsaround
private agreements between politicians and capitalists, by
coordinating investments and commerce according to the
principles of privatization and corporate incentives, the
architects of this system have smuggled Reaganite neoliberal
policies into institutional leftism. In framing this as “anti-
racist,” political elites deprive poor people of a necessary tool
for fighting against immiseration. Indeed, the Atlanta Way
could make it appear that anti-racism is simply a creative
way to package the plundering of resources by politicians
and their colleagues in the business and non-profit sectors.
Today, Atlanta has become the most unequal city in
the continental US, and the Atlanta Way is beginning to break
apart. Direct resistance to police brutality and racism also
has along, militant, history here, and itis clear that the years
ahead will create a hostile environment for the ruling cliques.
‘This is the context in which we can anticipate a new wave
of resistance to the Atlanta Way from above. International
investors and increasingly white, wealthy enclaves have no
long-term investment in the urban core; they use the city as
aspace for profiteering because of its low taxes and relatively
affordable land. Resistance will also come from below: from
renters, workers, students, prisoners, young people, and
residents facing displacement and erasure. The discourses of
the past century will no longer serve to reconcile these two
camps. The city government and its vast non-profit hydra are
trapped between two conflicting forces; they may be swept
aside in increasingly desperate fighting between them.
The George Floyd Protests
The Obama era witnessed several large-scale autonomous
movements, including Occupy Wall Street, the first wave of
Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the revoltin Ferguson,
and the struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The election of Donald Trump coincided with a
far-right reaction propelled by memes, online misogynist
forums, xenophobia, white nationalism, and anti-clitism.
“This in turn catalyzed a fierce anti-fascist movement. At the
high points, it involved millions of ordinary people; but the
front-line participants largely emerged from the same social
strata as previous grassroots movements, all of which were
de-emphasized in favor of building common cause with
urban liberals and progressives against the extreme right.
The George Floyd uprising changed all of that. In a
matterofweeks,tensofmillionsofpeopleconfrontedthepolice,
directly challenging the right of the state to determine what
constitutessafetyortodefenddisparities inaccesstoresources.
Inthe final days of May 2020, protests and riots spread from
Minneapolis to the rest of the country, including Atlanta.
For several wecks, thousands of people clashed with police
and National Guardsmen near Centennial Olympic Park,
constructing barricades, throwing back tear gas canisters,
and breaking up the sidewalks into projectiles. On some
occasions, large erowds smashed storefront windows, shined
lasers at police helicopters, and threw fireworks at police.
Every day, dozens of protests rocked the metropolitan
area, with revolts also taking place in some suburbs.
On June 12, 2020, two Atlanta police officers killed
Rayshard Brooks, who had been sleeping in his car at a
Wendys. In the following days, determined crowds torched
the restaurant. Clashes continued on and offfor weeks at the
nearby Zone 3 Precinet, then located at Cherokee and Atlanta
Avenuein Grant Park, bringing tear gas and explosions to the
residential streets almost nightly. Protesters also established
asmall occupation at the burned-out remains of the Wendy’s.
Amid this unrest, the Attorney General brought
murder charges against officer Garrett Rolfe for the
killing. In response, hundreds of police officers initiated
a citywide sickout, calling out of work and refusing to
perform their normal duties. Many officers quit their jobs
due to the stress of facing popular opposition and fear
of legal consequences for their systematic use of force.
From the beginning of June to the end of 2020,
more than 200 Atlanta police officers left their jobs,
including the Chief of Police. Some state patrolmen resigned
after protesters wrecked their headquarters on July 4,
2020. Some sheriff’s deputics, public transit cops, and
affiliated staff also sought new employment. The Georgia
Bureau of Investigations has sent out mass recruitment
emails to sociology students, suggesting that they too are
desperate for more agents. The system faces a crisis of
legitimacy and an impossible institutional dilemma. as
white business owners, landlords, business associations, and
international real estate companies demand a crackdown.
‘This was the context in which the City of Atlanta,
the Atlanta Police Foundation, and the office of former
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms developed the plan to
build the Cop City. Bundling together cultural nationalism
with calls for peace, Mayor Bottoms appealed for calm as
her officers dragged students out of cars, beat protesters
with batons, and shot tear gas into crowded streets.
The consequences of these events are still
underestimated by commentators and activists alike. Some
suffer induced amnesia about the revolt; others have moved
on to simple commemaration; still others continue isolated
but no doubt justified forms of subversive action. Meanwhile,
forces in local and federal government, business associations,
police departments, and armed militias have continuously
worked to make sure a popular uprising does not reoceur.
In addition to passing laws and killing dissidents,
this institutional reaction has focused on managing public
perception. Industrial interests and private investment
companies have conducted influence campaigns using local
news outlets—40% of which are owned by Sinclair Broadcast
Group, a right-wing organization with ties to former US
President Donald Trump. Between Sinclair, Nexstar, Gray,
Tegna, and Tribune, this coordinated reframing of events
has damaged the way that many sectors of the television-
viewing public perceive the revolt and its consequences.
In the wake of the uprising, a false narrative
circulated to the effect that the police, demoralized and
underfunded, could not control the “crime wave® sweeping
the country. This narrative, orchestrated in response to the
popular demand to “defund the police” advanced by some
Sections of the 2020 revolt, has shaped the imaginations
of suburban whites, small business owners, and many
urban progressives. The “crime wave” framework implied
that police departments around the country had in fact
been defunded or had their powers curtailed and were
consequently unable to assure social peace or free enterprise.
In reality, the vast majority of police departments received
an annual increase in their budgets, as they normally do. If
anything, they accrued more power following the events of
2020, from the political center as well as the right—witness
the accession of Eric Adams to mayor of New York City.
“Institute for Social Justice”
The government of Atlanta has developed a few tentative
solutions to the dilemmas they face. To follow through on
their commitments to their backers, city politicians need to
continue sacrificing public assets on the altar of the economy
in order to attract more major investors to the region,
especially the film industry and technology companies.
To maintain control in a period of rapid displacement
and rising cost of living, with chronic tension between
the conservative state government and the liberal city
administration, they need to funnel more resources towards
law enforcement throughout the region. Finally, to appease
the increasingly rebellious lower classes, they need to frame
this process of restructuring and repression in the language
of Black empowerment, social justice, and progressivism.
this. Decades of tax cuts and deregulation have created
infrastructural failures and breakdowns of all kinds. Among
other concerns, Atlanta lost the bid for a second Amazon
headquarters because the public transit, one of the least-
funded in the US, was not even operable when the corporate
Scouts came to visit. At the same time, it is precisely the
low taxes and absence of regulation that attract capital to
the state of Georgia, so cultivating a_social-democratic
governing strategy now may be impossible without creating
a flight of wealth to other parts of the country. It seems that
the current plan is to give over as many public contracts and
resources to private developers as possible, to allow them
to incur the costs of social disintegration and anger, to use
the police to control the blowback, and to use images of
Martin Luther King, Jr. to pre-empt meaningful resistance.
Thus, the plan to transform a wild space into a
police training compound is dubbed the “Institute for Social
Justice.” The plundering of public assets for the benefit of
2 movie company and real estate mogul s described as an
opportunity to create “good jobs” for local Atlantans, not
as a criminal expropriation of infrastructure. The clear-cut
that Blackhall Studios plans to trade the city government in
exchange for a section of the forest s to be renamed “Michelle
Obama Park.”
The government plans to begin clearing the forest for
construction in May or June of 2022. What follows is
the story of the movement determined to stop this.
op THE METAVERfiE/
AVE TR I
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
For the sake of brevity, this timeline does not include
lawsuits, injunctions, petitions to stop work, and the like.
In any case, those strategies are a legitimate part of this
movement, and their exclusion from this timeline is not
meant to suggest otherwise.
Spring-Summer 2021: The City of Atlanta, in partnership with
Blackhall Studios, approves the swap of Dekalb County public
lands at Intrenchment Creek Park for a parcel of land currently
owned by the movie studio. The land deal is conducted in
a semisecretive series of board meetings and hearings.
April-May 2021: Activists and local ecologists uncover a plan
by the Atlanta Police Foundation to transform the land known
as the Old Atlanta Prison Farm at Key Road and Fayetteville
Road into a massive police training compound.
May?15,2021:0ver200peoplegatheratintrenchmentCreckPark
for an informational session about the development proposals
May 17, 2021: According to an anonymous online statement,
seven machines left unguarded on the land parcel owned by
Blackhall—chiefly tractors and excavators—are vandalized.
Their windows are broken, their ires cut, and they are set on
fire. The statement connects the sabotage to the destruction
of the fores:
“We don't need a soundstage for entertainment. Everything
we need s already there. We don't need police training
facilities. We demand an end to policing... Any further
attempis at destroying the Atlanta Forest will be met with
similar response. This forest was here long before us, and it
will be here long after.”
June 2021: Notices appear affixed in the forest notifying
passershy that trees in the area have been “spiked,” with
the consequence that cutting them could damage saws and
possibly injure those uilizing them.
June 10, 2021: Three more excavators are burned on the parcel
of land owned by Blackhall Studios. Neither action appears
in local news media, although photographic evidence of the
damage circulates on social media.
June 16, 2021: On the night that the Atlanta City Council is to
vote on the construction ordinance for the “Cop City,”a handiul
of activists protest outside of the private residence of City
Councilperson Joyce Shepherd, the sponsor of the ordinance.
June 23-26, 2021: The first week of action brings hundreds of
people into the movement.
August 23, 2021: In Roseville, Minnesota, the
windows of Corporation Service Company office
are smashed. An anonymous online statement reads,
“After smashing the office door and throwing cans of paint
insicle, a message was left sprayed across the front: HANDS
OFF THE ATLANTA FOREST. Demands are being made
for CSC to drop their client, Blackhall Studios. Blackhall
Studios would like to level the South Atlanta Forest to build
the country’s largest soundstage and an airport, creating
unprecedented levels of gentrification in the city.”
Summer 2021: The Stop Cop City coalition and other
leftwing groups join the movement. Grassroots activist
organizations and networks create their own demonstrations,
social media pages, and meetings. Local independent media
outlet Mainline Zine steps up coverage of the movement
more or less from the perspective of these organizations.
September 2021: City Council meetings, held on Zoom because
of coronavirus-related restrictions, are repeatedly flooded with
hours of objections to the project. Votes on the ground-lease
ordinance are repeatedly delayed because of these objections
and demonstrations at the homes of Atlanta Chief Operations
Officer Jon Keen and City Councilperson Natalyn Archibong.
October 7: Color of Change announces that Coca-Cola is
stepping down from the Atlanta Police Foundation board
October 18: A small group of rapid-responders
disrupt the surveying and clearing of grounds at Old
Alanta Prison Farm. A surveillance tower is destroyed
November 10-14: A wide range of cultural events, info-
nights, bonfires, and meetings occur during a second
week of action. This coincides with the establishment
of an encampment in the forest; it lasts for six weeks.
November 12: A demonstration takes place at Reeves Young.
Headquarters. Intelligence gathering by activists indicates that
Reeves Young Construction has been contracted to destroy
the forest and build the Cop City development. About 30
people converge at the company headquarters in Sugar Hill,
Georgia, holding banners and demanding that the company
sever their contract with the Atlanta Police Foundation
November 20: Two more bulldozers burn in the forest.
According fo an anonymous statement republished on the
Unofiensive Animal website, anonymous forest defenders
burnt two bulldozers in the south Atlanta forest. No
Copy City, No Hollywood dystopia. Defend the Atlanta
Forest.”
This equipment was located on the land-swap
parcel currently owned by Blackhall = Studios, the
planned future location of “Michelle Obama Park."
November 27: A group of Muscogee (Creek) people return
to their ancestral lands at the current site of Intrenchment
Creek Park in the South River Forest, which, in Creek, is called
Weelaunee. The Muscogee delegation calls on everyone to
defend the land from the Cop City and Blackhall developments
December 17: A dozen protesters march to the entrance gate
of Blackhall Studios on Consitution Road and block the main
entrance, chanting slogans. Shortly after, a large contingent of
policeraidstheforest, evictingtheprotestcampestablishedthere.
December 20: According to an anonymously-written statement
republished on the website Scenes from the Atlanta Forest,
banners are hung in the backyard of the private residence of
Dean Reeves, chairman of Reeves Young. Reportedly, Dean
Reeveswasamongtheboardmembers presentatthe November
17 action and personally shoved and assaulted protesters
January 9: Survival Resistance, a local environmentalist
organization, beginsa campaign against AT&T, whichis funding
the CopCity development, holding protestsoutsidetheir offices.
January 18: In order to begin “boring” the land, a process
necessary for ~determining the ~consiruction supplies
needed for laying foundation, Reeves Young and a
representative of the Atlanta Police Foundation enter the
woods near Key Road and use a bulldozer to knock down
many trees. Construction is stopped when protesters
demand that they leave. The bulldozer remains at the
scene; it is subsequently vandalized, losing its windows.
January 19: Several people climb into tree houses in the
forest near the previous day’s confrontation, announcing their
intention to remain there in order to delay further destruction.
January 25-27: Long Engineering resumes surveying Old
Atlanta Prison Farm,” accompanied by the Atlanta Police
Foundation, Atlantapolice officers, and Dekalb County sherifis.
January 28: 60 forest defenders march into South River Forest
near the Old Atlanta Prison Farm to stop the boring and soil
sample collection. Dekalb County Police attack the protesters,
arresting four—the first arrests insidl the forest in the context
of the movement.
January 31: “Autonomous vandals” break windows and
spray paint “stop cop city” on a Bank of America in the Twin
Cities, Minnesota. According to an online statement, this
occurs in solidarity with the protesters arrested on January 28
March 1: According to another communiqué,
“Five large Long Engineering trucks used to do survey
work to help delineate destruction in the South Atlanta Forest
were destroyed in solidarity with eco-defenders currently
protecting the forest from being clear-cut to build cop city
and more Hollywood infrastructure for Black Hall Studios
March 19: Six machines owned by Reeves Young, including
two large excavators and a bulldozer, are destroyed in Flowery
Branch, Georgia. The online communiqué reads
“Unless your company chooses to pull out of the APF’s
Cop City project of its own volition, we will undermine your
profits so severely that you'll have no choice but to drop the
contract.”
March 26: Wells Fargo and Bank of America ATMs
are vandalized in City Center, Philadelphia. According
to an online statement, both institutions were targeted
because they fund the Aflanta Police Foundation.
COMING OUT WITH A BANG
Movements usually take one of two common paths from
inception to peak to decline.
‘The first possibility is gradual escalation. This is the model
commonly embraced by activist organizations, labor unions,
student groups, and the like. In this approach, movement
organizers or cadres initiate meetings and protest actions
designed to walk as many people as possible through the
contradictions inherent in the reformist_process, slowly
introducingtheparticipantstothencedforadditionalmethods.
When this strategy goes well, an_expericnced
movement then initiates a sequence of broader and more
militant efforts focused around particular demands or
aims. In the austerity era, however, it is very difficult to
compel the authorities to grant demands; more frequently,
police repression, charismatic careerists, and atlrition
all contribute to the slow deceleration of the struggle. In
regions or companies that are experiencing substantial
cconomic growth, movements are sometimes able to win
their demands, but this generally comes at the expense of the
‘mobilization itself, involving the co-optation of movement
leaders, the eriminalization of effective tactics, and the
subsequent restructuring of resources and institutions—
for example, in the form of automation or outsourcing.
Alternatively, it sometimes occurs that a movement
crupts into the spotlight with a sudden concussive gesture
that draws attention and power into a kind of vortex of
refusals. Such struggles are often catalyzed by single issues
or grievances that rapidly become paradigmatic of all
social ills. Most of the mass revolts that have broken out
since 2019 have followed this path, including the so-called
October Revolution in Chile, the George Floyd uprising in
the US, the revolt against Omar Bashir in Sudan, and the
2022 uprising in Kazahkstan. By escalating into a general
clash with all forms of power, the protagonists of these
struggles indict the entire social order, posing the question
of revolution in_practical terms. To date, however, most
such uprisings have been crushed by police, swallowed
by civil wars, or annihilated by geopolitical superpowers.
“Thus far, the fight to defend the Atlanta forest does
not it either of these patterns. It may represent a different
trajectory, suggesting a way forward for struggles after the
tumultuous events of 2020.
FIRST, ATTACK THEIR STRATEGY
In April 2021, when activists discovered these two proposals
to destroy the South River Forest, they spread the news via
word of mouth for several weeks about a large information
sharing session at Intrenchment Creek Park. Around 200
people attended this initial event. The city government had
yet to announce its plans publicly, so the opponents were
able to craft the public narrative themselves, ensuring that
the facts didn't get lost in the shuffle. At the information
session, multiple masked presenters contextualized the
development within an overall schema of 1) racist and
authoritarian backlash against the George Floyd protests, 2)
pan-urban gentrification and displacement processes, and
3) climate collapse and the long-term future of the region.
‘With this event, event organizers denied the city government
the opportunity to introduce the developments to the
public with a distorted narrative—assuming they intended
to publicize them at all. Attendees asked questions,
shared perspectives, and committed ~themselves to
sharing what they had learned with their communities
while organizing grassroots, burcaucratic, and direct
resistance. This established basis for a collective struggle
that could utilize multiple strategies and tacties.
Within 48 hours, saboteurs ~ destroyed seven
unguarded _excavators, tractors, and other picces of
heavy machinery. An anonymous statement appeared
online detailing their motivations and methods and
connecting the attacks to the struggle against colonialism,
authoritarianism, and gender normativity. This catapulted
the movement into its first phase of development.
To date, no one has been arrested for these actions.
Over the following weeks, meetings, posters, and
fliers spread throughout lefi-wing networks, farmers’
markets, and do-it-yourself subeultural spaces. Local
ccologists and folk historians with long-term investment
in the land organized tours and plant identification
walks. A few candidates for City Council adopted the
struggle as a component of their electoral campaigns.
In mid-June, saboteurs published another statement
announcing thata numberof trees had been“spiked”and three
‘more excavators had been damaged. The sabotage oceasioned.
no dismay among the opponents of the development. Rather,
becauseit occurred so arly in the movement, this kind of bold.
actionbecameapartofits genetic material. Whilemany people
celebrated these actions, it remained to be seen whether the
‘movement would develop a participatory strategy enabling
more people to take action beyond sharing information or
cheerleading the courageous deeds of anonymous activists.
If the participants in the first phase of the movement
had aimed to create a political scandal, they had not
succeeded yet. However, they had drawn the attention of a
few hundred people who were willing to support a movement
that included vandalism and other forms of sabotage. They
had also established a discourse about the forest on the terms.
set by autonomous activists, not politicians or police.
What was missing in the fisst phase
inversely structured the phase that followed.
NAMES AND ADDRESSES
By mid-June 2021, most of the grassroots left as well as
autonomous, anarchist, and radical groups in Atlanta were
aware of the proposed developments in the forest, but they
were still searching for strategies that would enable them
to build enough power and leverage to halt the projects.
Some people—including activists conneeted to nationwide
socialist organizations, abolitionist networks, and ecological
advocacy groups—began knocking on doors in the vicinity
of the South River Forest, reasoning that neighborhood
organizations and households around the forest would be
necessary allies, s they would be among those most impacted
by deforestation and sound pollution. The canvassers hoped
to familiarize themselves with the discourse of the neighbors
and learn what might help to mobilize them.
Other strategies emerged around the same time. One group
focused on the City Council meeting of June 16, which was
supposed to vote on the land-lease ordinance sponsored by
then-Councilperson Joyce Shepherd. Because the meeting
occurred online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City
Council members hosted their conversation from their
respective residences. With a bit of research, a handful
of protesters located the home address of Councilperson
Shepherd. This group went to her home and displayed
a banner during the meeting. While the majority of the
protesters chanted from the sidewalk, one individual
approached her house, knacked on the door, and rang the
doorbell before returning to the street. Inside, unbeknownst
to the protesters, Shepherd was panicking. Those in
power typically assume that their actions oceur in an
abstract political “space,” and that the consequences of
their _decisions will not directly impact them. Shepherd
called off the vote and left the meeting early to call the
police, who arrived after the protesters had dispersed.
In the hour that followed, Joyce Shepherd held
a press conference from the newly constructed Zone 3
Police Precinct on Metropolitan Parkway. At the precinet,
Shepherd was surrounded by police officers and news media.
She deseribed in detail the aims of her land lease ordinance,
the nature of the project, and the efforts of protesters to
stop her. With this short statement, she catapulted the
movement and its story into the mainstream. The following
day, she made another statement in which she claimed that
she would push through the ordinance “no matter what”
the city residents that she ostensibly represented had to
say. Her fellow representatives rejected the tactics of the
protesters, falsely implying that their methods were illegal.
‘With this action, a few people were able to accomplish
an carly goal of the movement—to transform the Cop City/
Blackhall developments from back-door agreements into
public scandals. They also delayed the vote, coneretely
displaying the potential of direct confrontation. A new
strategy was emerging: to pressure decision-makers directly.
First Week of Action
‘The first planned Week of Action began a few days later, on
June 23. The organizers hoped to catalyze a wide array of
interventions. Theyheldmeetingstoexplaintheirideas,aiming
to interconnect resistance against the Cop City development,
the Blackhall development, and the accompanying
gentrificationand deforestation. Somesetupasharedealendar
and online promotion plan so that more people could step
forward to express themselvesin the context of the movement.
Inthisregard, thefirstweek ofaction wasaresoundingsuccess.
In the course of the weck, there were conversations about
ccology, colonialism, and sexuality; there were guided tours by
day and by moonlight; there were nightly bonfires in a forest
clearing; there was a hardcore punk show at a nearby venue,
during which hundreds of participants repelled police; and
therewasarave partydecpin the centerof theforest, gathering
some 500 attendees in a utopian ambience illuminated by
glow sticks and lasting into the early morning hours. If the
organizers had set out to generatea cultural consensus among
the thousands of people in the city's DIY art, poetry, queer,
punk, and underground dance subcultures, they succeeded.
On the night of June 24, people visited the home
of Blackhall Studios CEO Ryan Milsap in the outer
Atlanta suburb of Social Circle. Activists hoped that
placing fliers at the home, street, investment properties,
and post office box of Milsap would, in their words,
“inspire others to research and take the fight to those
directly responsible for the destruction of the forest”
Two days later, on June 26, the final day of the first
week of action, fifty or more protesters marched to the
headquarters of the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF). As
the erowd emerged from Five Points metro station, a small
contingent of officers attempted to arrest someone. The
crowd engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with the police
and successfully repelled them. Continuing behind a banner
reading “Another Word for World is Forest,” a reference to the
UrsulaK. Le Guin'book The Wordfor World s Forest, the group
descended on Deloitte Tower on Peachtree Street. Advancing
past security, they marched straight to the APF office and
smashed the glass doors and windows before overturning
tables in the tower lobby. The participants successfully
dispersed into the city center without arrests, while dozens
of police vehicles frantically established a perimeter—
effectively shutting down the central downtown corridor.
When Dissent is Not Enough
The movement expanded over the following months. New
organizing groups were announced as activist organizations
and independent media outlets developed a framework
enabling them to orient themselves to the struggle. While
corporate news and the Police Foundation failed to present
a coherent media narrative following the vandalism of the
APF offices, organizers got to work circulating informational
fliers and online graphies, conducting interviews, knocking
on doors, and organizing phone-in campaigns during
subsequent City Council meetings. For nearly all of August
and September, the “Stop Cop City Coalition’ and others
worked to introduce tension and contest the City Council
process. Following the intervention at the home of Joyce
Shepherd, protesters gathered outside the homes of possible
“yes” voters on the nights that the vote wasslated to take place,
causing further delays in the process. Foramoment, it seemed
possible that the campaign could achieve an easy victory.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. As those who study
revolutionary movements know, the police perform an
essential function in class society, without which many
other hierarchies and exploitative relations could not exist
for long. This is not simply an economic or civie issue
that can be worked around with some clever ideas and a
bit of pressure. Despite the efforts of organizers, which
culminated in 17 hours of oppositional public comment,
the ordinance was passed on September 8 while police
arrested protesters outside the home of councilperson
Natalyn Archibong. The land hosting the Old Atlanta Prison
Farm was turned over to the Atlanta Police Foundation.
Many sincere people were demoralized by this turn
of events. Some turned their attention to the upcoming local
clections, hoping that the city government could be stacked
with abolitionist or progressive candidates who might strike
down the project. As it turned out, Mayor Bottoms did not
run for re-clection, and the former mayor, Kasim Reed, lost
to current mayor Andre Dickens. Joyee Shepherd also lost
her campaign for re-clection. et since the elections, nothing
has changed regarding the Blackhall and APF developments.
THE FIGHT IS ON
‘The Atlanta Police Foundation has contracted at least three
companies to build their compound. The surveying appearsto
bethework of Long Engineering, while the construction tself
is to be done by Reeves Young Construction and Brasfield &
Gorrie.Itisnotelearyetwhovillclearthelandin Intrenchment
Creek Park, where Blackhall Studios hopes to expand.
‘The information that is known to date was hard won
by diligent activists on the ground. Shortly after the City
Council vote in September, surveyors and small work crews
began entering the site near Key and Fayetteville Roads. The
trucks and uniforms revealed the names of the contractors,
which once again gave opponents of the Cop City the chance
to initiate a struggle on their own terms.
On October 8, about two dozen people entered
the work site from the forest and confronted contractors
who appeared to be clearing land for the purposes of
taking photographs and samples. When the workers
left, a surveillance tower erected by the police was
toppled. Forest defenders dispersed with no detentions.
Had forest defenders utilized only virtual or
bureaucratic channels to collect information, they might not
have learned that Reeves Young were being called in to do
the actual destruction until it was publicly announced much
later. The ability to break news to the public before the city
government has been a consistent advantage.
Second Week of Action
It's a widely observable point of failure in movements when
the protagonists lose the initiative and resort to attempting
to recreate an earlier phase of events. Nostalgic for the heady
days of open revolt, the chaos of fiery nights and smoke-
filled shopping distriets, people resolve to call together a
coalition of the willing to kick things off again. Hoping it is
enough to set a clear time and place, preparations are made,
and a crowd assembles—but falls short of expectations,
consisting chicfly of dedicated militants or friends.
As the weeks pass, this becomes the new high-water
mark. With a more serious attitude, a group of friends or a
network of crews calls together another demonstration “like
the last one;” but perhaps in a different location or with a
more ambitious intention. This may work a few times—but
new roles and rules of engagement are being established,
the euphoric sense of power that animated the early days
is gone, and nothing can bring it back. The large crowds
have dissipated and the police are learning every step of
the way. Eventually, even this comes to an end, and the
participants devise all kinds of theories to explain why. The
conclusion typically involves finger-pointing, resentment,
denunciations, and splits as the rebels blame cach other for
their shared failures and limitations. An entire book could
be written about this phenomenon. But if participants in
struggles can become aware of this general tendency, that
awareness might open up space for more creative efforts.
Following the City Council defeat in September, it
wasn't clear how many people would continue to oppose the
developments, though the small confrontation on October 8
suggested that some wished to. Sensing the difficulty of this
moment, organizers announced a second Week of Action for
mid-November.
‘The second Week of Action was similar to the first, but
there were innovations. Once again, various groups organized
cultural events, information nights, bonfires, and meetings—
but this time, many of these occurred in or near a more
publicly advertised encampment at Intrenchment Creek Park.
The organizers of the first Week of Action had
welcomed a small cluster of participants to camp, essentially
in secret, on a stretch of the Ol Atlanta Prison Farm. This
time, a few dozen people pitched tents, erected tarps and
make-shift kitchens, hung banners, and constructed a bona
fide protest camp in the woods. This camp persisted in some
form for six weeks. Unsurprisingly, the overall diversity of
those who gathered had decreased compared to the first week
ofaction, a general tendency of movements and mobilizations.
‘When a struggle contracts as a consequence of disorientation,
repression, or other setbacks, the movement oriented towards
it often divides back into its constitutive elements, usually
along ethnic, generational, gender, and class stratifications,
despite the efforts and good will of the participants.
Take the Fight to Them
Now that Reeves Young had been identified as the contractor
hired to destroy the forest and build the police training
compound, many participants in the movement shifted to
focusing on them. On November 12, 2021, immediately after
the second Week of Action, thirty people descended on their
offices in Sugar Hill, Georgia, forty miles outside of Atlanta.
Holding banners and chanting slogans, this group walked
right into the offices, disrupting a board meeting involving
company president Dean Reeves and CEO Eric Young. The
executives did their best to appear unfazed, commenting on
the millions they would line their pockets with. Slowly, the
atrium filled with workers concerned about the protests and
the aggression and violence of their bosses, who had begun
shovingandeven punchingprotesters, goingoutof theirwayto
target the smallest people present. The protesters had already
accomplished their goal of applying direct confrontational
pressure to the Atlanta Police Foundations service provider.
‘Three days later, two more excavators were burned on
the parcel of land currently owned by Blackhall studios. These
were the eleventh and twelfth pieces of heavy machinery to
be sabotaged, reckoning by the claims of responsibility that
appeared online. Unlike the previous anonymous statements,
the statement accompanying this action was suceinct, stating
only what had oceurred and wi
Stomp Dance
On November 27, 2021, 250-300 people gathered in
Intrenchment Creck Park to observe and participate in
a ceremonial stomp dance and service of the Muscogee
(Creek) people. This particular delegation came from
the Helvpe Ceremonial Grounds in castern Oklahoma,
invited to their ancestral homelands by a local indigenous
organizer. The movement had faced setbacks, but
it had not collapsed into a private grudge match
between hardened militants and the Police Foundation.
The Muscogee people were once organized into a
confederationoftribesspanningmuchofwhatisnowAlabama,
Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. The Muscogee peoples
and their Mississippian ancestors in this region, known
as “mound builders,” maintained a network of towns, each
preserving political autonomy and territorial independence,
allocating resources and making decisions in a consensus
process unknown to their later European antagonists. The
concept of private property that reigns supreme in our society
was anathema to the Muscogee peoples, who held essential
goods and lands communally. Nearly all of what is now.
Alabama was taken from the Muscogee in 1814, following
the defeat of the Red Sticks revolt in which many Muscogee
people allied with Tecumseh and the insurgent Shawnee
peoples against colonial expansion into their communities.
Between 1821 and 1836, the Muscogee were forcibly removed
from their homes to Oklahoma, where many still live.
When the November 27 delegation came to the South River
Forest, or Weelaunee, to perform their dances and speak
their language, they shared some of their knowledge and
histories with those gathered. But their goal was not simply
to share culture in a depoliticized way. They encouraged the
current residents of Atlanta to stop the destruction of the
forest and halt the Cop City and Blackhall developments,
understanding these as the latest chapters in a long story
of destruction beginning with the European colonization.
MOVES AND COUNTER-MOVES
In the weeks following the ceremony at Intrenchment
Creek Park, participants in the encampment in the
forest outfitted it with a field kitchen and sitting arca and
erected banners and signs in the forest visible to mountain
bikers, hikers, and others who passed through the park.
Establishing a semi-permanent presence in the forest
was a way to gather information on an ongoing basis
and to provide an immediate deterrent to developers.
‘The encampment was evicted on December 17, after
six weeks. That morning, about a dozen people blocked the
entrance to the existing Blackhall Studios site, located on
Constitution Road. This contingent subsequently burned
a flag, chanted slogans, and *hexed” the media company
before dispersing into the forest. In the following hours,
presumably at the urging of Blackhall, Dekalb County
Police entered the forest en masse, mobilizing police
cruisers in the parking lot, officers on foot, helicopters and
drones overhead, and unmarked vehicles on the streets.
The officers were likely intimidated by the low-visibility
terrain; in any event, all of the forest defenders based in
the encampment escaped without being detained. This
was the first time a concerted effort was made by law
enforcement to engage protesters in the South River Forest.
A month later, on January 18, 2022, Reeves Young
and the Atlanta Police Foundation entered the forest near
Key Road with a bulldozer. They began knocking down trees
so that their associates in Long Engincering could survey
the land, placing stakes and marking trees for removal.
Approximately a dozen peaple in dark clothing approached
the workers and APF representative Alan Williams, ordering
them to leave. The bulldozer was subsequently vandalized.
Several people quickly built multiple impressive tree
houses near the surveying site and climbed into them. News
of this new tactic spread rapidly. It couldn't have come at a
better time.
The Stakes Go Up
In the confrontations with contractors on October §
and January 18, small, dedicated groups were able
to halt work without resorting to force. It is possible
that this period has ended, or else that the timeline for
surveying and sample boring now requires business
exeeutives and police chiefs to expose their employees to
greater risks in pursuit of their respective bottom lines.
From January 25-28, repeated cfforts were made
to stop tree felling and soil boring, all to no avail. In some
instances, only a handful of activists were on the scene
behind makeshift barricades. Reinforcements could not
arrive rapidly enough to assist those on the ground. Later
in the week, on January 28, around 60 people marched to
defend the forest at 10 am on a weekday. This erowd, the
largest to gather in any one place in many months, marched
into the forest, onto the Prison Farm property, around
erected barricades and tree houses, and direetly confronted
construction workers who were boring holes in the ground.
Policeattacked the mareh, tackling several people; the
other demonstrators did not mount a proportional response
to this aggression, despite outnumbering the police. Perhaps
some of the tacties popular during the 2020 rebellion, such
as mass use of umbrellas or makeshift shiclds, could have
cquipped the participants to feel more capable of decisive
action. Alan Williams of the Atlanta Police Foundation
was filming protesters, looking a little anxious as he did so.
This was the first time that protest
arrested in the South River Forest, on either the Prison
Farm or Intrenchment Creek sides. Each new phase of the
movement has been constructed out of elements missing
from the phases that preceded it, developing out of the
contradictions and limits of the previous phase. It may be
possible to chart a new path forward from this point starting
from the most resilient aspects of the previous stages.
s were
THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE
Every movement needs both offensive and defensive
strategics. In this case, defensive strategies would enable
activists to withstand repression and protect the fores
Offensivestrategies would enableactiviststoimposetheirown
timelines, battlegrounds, and confrontations, demoralizing
those who seck to destroy the forest and eventually foreing
them to abandon the planned developments.
Defense
As of the beginning of April, it appears that on-the-ground
resistance to construction is not currently a viable offénsive
strategy. The presence of activists and organized groups in
the South River Forest should be understood as the most
sophisticated defensive strategy available to the movement.
‘The forest will remain a site of contestation as long as the
APF and Blackhall Studios seck to destroy it. The more
activists understand the forest and its specific terrain, the
more prepared groups will be to carry out actions there; the
more practices and infrastructures participants establish
that newcomers can make use of, the better. By continuously
connecting a struggle to the fate of a particular place,
participants foster an emotional and sensuous relation to
the land that is seldom found in movements around abstract
goals.
Some components of a coherent and efficient defense:
« HOLD pEcISIVE TERRAIN. Reeves Young and Blackhall hope to
destroy a particular area of forest. By preventing them from
casily operating in this location, making it difficult to survey
itand dangerous to leave equipment there, a defense strategy
can severely limit their ability to accomplish this.
« arTrmon. Recognizing this terrain as the defensive position,
forest defenders could drag Reeves Young, local police, orother
adversarial forces into narrowly focused and labor-intensive
conflicts, games of “cat and mouse;” and other expensive and
unrewarding engagements. For now, the defenders possess
an advantage in this regard, because the terrain itself can be
prepared to frustrate the efforts, case of movement, visibility,
or general operating capacity of the attacker. The more the
adversary has to surveil and plan around the defenders, the
less they can focus on destroying the forest.
+ pisrupTioN. Forest defenders can limit the ability of the
adversary to attack according to coherent or synchronized
schedules or timelines. Defenders have the privilege of
selective engagement—they can engage when and how they
please, according to inclination or opportunity, putting the
attackers in a state of uncertainty.
+ preparaTion The primary purpose of defense is to open
space for offense. Forest defenders can carry out stationary
or mobile operations; they can engage or escape; they can
disrupt, sabotage, confuse, or misdirect the developers. The
chief goal i to force the developers to proceed in a clumsy
and confused manner both logistically and politically.
Defense cannot substitute for offense, but it is a
necessary aspect of all fights. If on-the-ground defense
becomes the sole focus of a movement, that movement
will eventually be defeated. In this case, that would mark
a step back from the beginning of the movement, in which
the participants set the terms of the entire conversation. If
large-seale development does not begin for many months,
it could be disastrous for embattled activists to spend that
period accumulating charges and injuries fighting uphill
battles against an increasingly emboldened and militarized
opponent.
Therefore, other means are necessary.
Offense
Whover sets the terms of a fight can arrange the dynamics to
the disadvantage of their adversary. When police drive hostile
crowds into empty corridors, parking garages, or alleys, that
is what they are trying to achieve. This is what governments
do by continuously framing conflicts as diserete “issucs”
and “debates; conferring agency to those best situated for
generatingpublicconsensusand structuringtheconsumption
of information (i.e, politicians and the electoral machinery
that promotes them). For those with less means, the best
strategies catch their opponents off guard, compelling the
adversary to respond in ineffective or imprecise ways. Ideally,
the adversary should not even understand what is happening.
Participants in direct-action-oriented movements
generally have an overdeveloped focus on offense. Gathering
information, audacious frontal - engagements, ~surprisc
attacks, swarming tactics, hit-and-run maneuvers, striking
unprotected targets or infrastructure, targeted online
campaigns, setting the pace with both concentrated groups
and decentralized crowds... all of these are more or less
familiar to those experienced in riots, rebellions, and direct
action campaigns over the last decade.
Yet there is more to say about the principles of offense and
how they relate to this movement.
Movement Diversity Is an Asset
To date, the movement to defend the Atlanta forest has not
coalesced around a single coherent strategy. The participants
have employed several parallel strategies in tandem, with
the strengths of one approach filling in for the weaknesses
of another. This works best when the participants tolerate
those with different tacties and priorities. In a movement
that accommadates a diverse range of approaches, particular
strategies can succumb to “evolutionary pressures”
without that jeopardizing the movement as a whole.
As alluded to earlier, there have been tensions in
the movement regarding the priorities of different groups,
the presumed identities of the participants, and the alleged
connections between their respective ~experiences _of
oppression and their political ideologies. At times—and this
is hardly unique to this movement—single-issue mentalities
have undermined some participants’ ability to imagine a
struggle cohering around overlapping but distinet aims
and motivations; at worst, this has led some to claim that
those with different priorities are not worth collaborating
with. Many movements have been hamstrung by this kind of
mentality over the past half decade—and police departments,
city governments, reactionaries, and liberal opportunists
have not missed the chance to exploit this. Both experience
and common sense suggest that it is not wise to place all of
one's eggs in one basket —and that redundancy is not always
a sign of disorganization, as some centralizing tendencies
imply, but can be an expression of a more resilient approach
to organization, as long as the general goals remain in focus.
Critical, inquisitive attitudes will generally serve us
better than any form of dogmatism. Ifone group or tendency
can accomplish their goals alone, then let them do so. Since
none has, yet, in this case, it must be necessary to work
alongsideothers,evenifonewould prefernotto.Ifonecanonly
work with those one can bully, intimidate, or shame, it should
not be surprising if one’s allies lack conviction, courage, and
intelligence. The clear articulation of differences, criticisms,
and concerns is a strength in movements, but ideally,
they should be articulated in a spirit of mutual education
and learning, lest they become a part of the repressive
landscape itself, serving police and developers as various
tendencies and cliques slowly cannibalize cach another.
THE SHAC MODEL
In this general spirit, it is worth spelling out a strategy that
has been latent in the movement since last fall—from the
demonstrations at the houses of Joyce Shepherd and the other
city council representatives to the pressure directly leveraged
against Reeves Young and Ryan Milsap of Blackhall Studios.
This approach could be summarized thus: hold those
responsible for these projects personally liable for their
decisions and the decisions of the companies they own.
Because the entire system of rules and norms we live under
dictates that exploiters, warlords, mass murderers, and those
who destroy ecosystems must not face pressure at home as a
consequenceofthe decisionstheymakeatwork, thisstrategyis
bound to be controversial. It rejects the entire logic of ‘limited
liability” that forms the basis of corporate rule in our society.
At the beginning of the 21t century, animal rights
activists in the United Kingdom and the United States set
out to take down the biggest animal testing corporation on
the planet, Huntingdon Life Sciences (HILS). The campaign
to stop HLS, “Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty” (SHAC),
formally disbanded in 2014, is best known for its period of
ambitious international participation in the early 2000s.
The methodology of this movement, which encompassed
direct action, symbolic protests, cultural cvents, sabotage,
pranks, and more, included many features that have since
been used in a wide range of campaigns. The overall strategy
of SHAC involved mobilizing a fow hundred people to
maximize their effectiveness against a major enterprise
by focusing only on their ability to function economically.
The methods and outlook of the “SHAC model” could be
instructive to opponents of the Cop City and Blackhall
Studios_development in the South River Forest today.
The SHAC model is centered around tertiary
targeting, ie, isolating service providers from third-
party contracts in order to limit their ability to provide
services to the client, which is the actual target.
‘The SHAC model isolates the service provider (c.g.,
Reeves Young and whoever is contracted for Blackhall) from
all their third-party clients: from the other construction
contracts they have, from the companies that manage their
landscaping or data, and from any company that provides
them labor or supplies.
The service provider depends on many third
partics. Those third-party contracts provide the service
provider with insurance, materials, equipment, security,
catering, cleaning, mail service, data maintenance, and
more. All of those third parties can be pressured to drop
the service provider. Furthermore, the service provider
is likely a company with more than one client, and those
other clients can also be pressured to drop the provider.
Any company or contractor that is able to move their
money away from the service provider because they have
other economic opportunities can be pressured to do so.
Essentially, this strategy does not directly challenge
the bottom line of any of the third-party companies; it only
isolates and demoralizes the service provider and, therefore,
the client. To date, it remains uncertain who the service
provider is for Blackhall, although that information will
come out sooner or later.
Li
s of the SHAC Strategy
In actions outside the forest—at some distance from the
object of their efforts—it might be more difficult for activists
to maintain a sense of urgency. Targeting individuals at their
offices and homes will chiefly bring out those who are excited
about such confrontational methods, rather than those who
prefertomaintainwelcomingspacesofencounter,tobuild tree
houses or elean campsites or cook for others, to cultivate the
kindofeollectiveimaginingthatisneeded totransformsociety.
Ifthey fail to do proper research or mapping, activists
could waste time targeting minor institutions and companies
that are unwilling or unable to drop their contracts. They
could spend months facing down insignificant companics
with many possible replacement subcontractors. The forces
bent on destroying the forest may be able to ensnare activists
inlegal battles. Laws arealways biased in favor of profiteering.
Participants in this kind of strategy sometimes
develop a warped idea about the nature of power. While our
society is ruled by corporations and states, and those entities
are run by real human individuals, patterns of exploitation,
abuse, destruction, and violence are not simply caused by
the malevolence of specific people. Holding individuals
responsible for their actions can be an effective tactic in
protest campaigns, but the ultimate goal is to emancipate all
humanity and the earth, including those who profit on the
currentarrangement,nottopassjudgmentorpunishevildoers.
All real proposals can be put to the test through
practice and judged by the outcome. The proposal to
employ this strategy to defend the forest is built on a simple
hypothesis: if Reeves Young is forced to drop the contract
with APF, APF investors will lose the confidence required to
find a replacement and the project will fail. The same goes
for the Blackhall project. If activists defeat Reeves Young
by means of direct action and self-organization, even if
the project finds a new contractor, the sophistication and
confidence that the movement will have developed in the
process will likely help it to evolve once again.
Learning Lessons: 1-69 & NODAPL
Many struggles against infrastructure projects have taken
place in the United States over the past two decades.
Grassroots movements have halted pipelines, industrial
developments, new jails, mountaintop removal projects, and
deforestation efforts. We can also learn a lot from movements
that failed, such as the fight to stop the construction of
Interstate 69 and the struggle against the Dakota Access
Pipeline in Standing Rock.
In the movement against 1-69, the so-called
“NAFTA superhighway a small group of anarchists and
environmentalists developed a strategy focused on material
disruption. Utilizing direct action and outreach efforts in the
part of southern Indiana where the construction was slated
to begin, activists hoped to nip the project in the bud. In
the end, the industrial interests behind the highway project
out-maneuvered the autonomous groups and their allies.
The strategy of nipping the project in the bud committed
organizers to extending themselves hours away from their
homes, in an often hostile region. They were able to build
strong relationships with the farmers dircctly facing land
seizures by the highway, but the FBI worked to isolate
those farmers by visiting their churches and speaking with
pastors who did not feel threatened by the highway but
were primed for anti-anarchist panic. Had those organizing
against the highway done more to build momentum and
participation further along its projected route, in friendlier
farming regions, college towns, and larger cities further
north, it is possible that a broader and more robust struggle
could have emerged. This strategy would have relied on
digging in and inhabiting camps over the years that it
took for the state to reach them, rather than attempting
frontal confrontation at the beginning of construction.
In the movement against the Dakota Access
Pipeline, a powerful network of Indigenous groups,
environmentalists, anarchists, and protesters - coalesced
alongside spiritualists, lawyers, and loeal politicians sceking
to stop the construction of an oil pipeline across Lakota
lands. Despite the efforts of early organizers and activists,
the movement generally centered the voices of trained
activists and politicians operating within the colonial
structures over the voices of young people and working-class
Lakota people in general. This contributed to a tendency
to condemn effective tactics—“nonviolent” or otherwise—
in favor of symbolic actions and legalistic strategies.
In the end, a confusing series of announcements by
then-President Barack Obama implied that the movement
had succeeded, when in fact the construction was only
delayed. After this, David Archambault and others within the
movement utilized identity-based arguments to demobilize
the encampments and disaggregate the movement as a
whole. Archambault was rewarded generously for playing
this role, while other participants in the movement were
imprisoned. This coincided neatly with the strategy of
Tiger Swan, the private security contractor hired by the
pipeline company, which aimed to divide the camp along
lines of identity in order to polarize it and isolate radicals.
‘The defenders of the Atlanta forest should continue
to invest in mass-oriented strategies, not specialized
campaigns, using cultural means to cultivate the kind of
widespread support that will enable them to replenish
numbers and withstand repression. At the same time, they
should popularize decentralized tactics that directly empower
individuals in order to limit the damage that authoritarians
and opportunists can inflict on the movement.
THE SHOCK OF VICTORY
We win more than we realize. Across twenty years of
resistance, expressed in direct action movements on both
“local” and “global” scales, attitudes have shifted throughout
our society. The efforts and ideas of social movements
have been instrumental in this transformation. We have
seen the results in widespread approval of Indigenous and
environmentalist resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline
in 2016, in the unprecedented participation of white and
non-Black youth alongside Black rebels in the George Floyd
Uprising of 2020, and in the general consensus, across an
entire cross section of political tendencies, that the neoliberal
order that existed from 1980 on is in crisis and that a new
chapter in world politics s desirable as well as inevitable.
Inmany environmental defense movements, itis very
difficult to accomplish the short-term goals; the protagonists
often proceed as if they do not expect to win. The mid-range
goals, though rarely articulated aloud, typically include more
general aims such as:
« discourage future ccologically destructive ventures
+ de-legitimize authoritarian organizing strategies
+ demoralize or challenge the legitimacy of police forces and
institutional channels
« innovate or spread direct-action-oriented frameworks or
tactics
« spread radical ideas and extend the networks of those who
espouse them.
When we consider the past decade through this lens,
it is hard to argue that anarchists, abolitionists, anti-
fascists, environmentalists, feminists, prison organizers,
and Indigenous and Black radicals have failed. Some of
these goals have been achieved to such an extent that
tacties and proposals that were confined to the radical
fringe 20 years ago have been adopted by millions.
Long-term goals—world revolution, decolonization,
the abolition of capitalism, the destruction of borders and
racial hierarchies, the abolition of police and standing
armies, the advent of real community—do not seem
immediately attainable, but they too may be closer. Since
2018, according to the International Monetary Fund,
the tides of revolution, insurrection, upheaval, and mass
disobedience have reached historic proportions. Thus far,
most of these rebellions have been suppressed or appeased,
confirming the classical revolutionary doctrine that only a
worldwide revolution can truly emancipate us, as the ruling
order now commands forces of repression with global reach.
Nonetheless, as we are seeing in Ukraine right now, there are
limits to what even the most powerful of those armies can do.
But what about those of us engaged in concrete
struggles today, struggles we are determined to win?
Paradoxically, it appears that nowadays, it is casier to achieve
mid-range goals than short-term goals, and people focus on
long-term goals more often than short-term ones. Somehow,
thousands have participated in destroying shopping distriets,
establishing temporary cop-free zones, and blockading
airports, but it is still very difficult to imagine protecting a
single wildlife corridor at the outer limits of one city. This
is unnerving, but it should not be demoralizing. As we have
already seen, it is more likely that thousands of people will
rip up paving stones and use them to fight the police than
itis that the Atlanta City Council will heed the demands of
its own constituents. It was precisely this dramatic sequence
of events, spiraling outward from the ruins of the Third
Precinct in a storm of riots, that madeit possible to talk about
restructuring law enforcement across the country—not the
reformist organizing campaigns of the preceding decades.
In light of this, those dedicated to defending the
Atlanta forest find themselves in a difficult predicament,
though not an impossible one. On the one hand, they must
develop a framework that distributes agency broadly—
something that many groups can participate in and influence.
‘The aims of these groups must be immediate cnough that
small victories can enable people to build confidence and
momentum. And they must proceed as if victory is possible—
for surely, it is—while bearing in mind that another revolt
against the police, gentrification, climate collapse, or racism
could erupt everywhere, informed by experience emerging
from a struggle that is, for the time being, a local affair.
“This is an immense responsibility—and a gift. The
influence of intentional groups and organizations can get
lost in the chaos of massive uprisings, as millions take hold
of their own lives. Yet in the past decade, we can see how the
innovations of radicals and small groups in local movements
can shape the imaginations of the mass movements that
follow. The defense of the Atlanta forest will influence
struggles to come. What we do now will set a precedent for
what happens later. Let’s not back down.
No Cop City, No Hollywood Dystopia!
APPENDIX: The Atlanta City Prison Farm
and the Legacy of Carceral Reformism
In 1821, after coercing the Muscogee to leave Georgia
in a forced march, the government of Georgia extended
a rail line west to the area near the border of Muscogee
and Cherokee lands, where the city of Atlanta now sits.
Industrial development was a major contributing factor,
including the desire to establish trade outposts and a
national rail system connecting the agricultural zones
of the South with the industrial zones of the Northeast.
Using labor and infrastructure from neighboring
Decatur, which had been established in 1822 following
the scizure of Muscogee territory, residents and
businesses rapidly expanded around the terminus
of the rail line. It became a major logistical hub,
arguably the biggest in the southeastern United States.
In 1864, during the US Civil War, Union General
Sherman attacked Atlanta, torching nearly all of the railway
andsurrounding buildings,effectively destroying the capacity
of the Confederate Army to move troops and resources
through its territory. In the years following, the population
of Atlanta exploded. It became one of the largest cities in the
Southeast, with a large Black and working-class population.
During Reconstruction, the borders of the
city expanded to accommodate the waves of new
residents, including emancipated Black people arriving
from plantations. With this growth, the power of the
municipal government expanded in conjunction with
local capitalists’ efforts to attract investments to the
new state capital. The government was given the right
to open public workshops, mills, factories, and parks.
In 1920, the government of Georgia turned a
municipal dairy farm located on Key Road into a jail.
The transformation of the dairy works from city-owned
factory into forced labor camp illustrates the relationship
between production and statecraft in the US. Despite the
hopes of early reformers and ideologues, the state is not a
vehicle for conflict resolution, nor an instrument for class
reconciliation, nor a means of establishing social peace.
The chief function of the state is to enforce hierarchies
in knowledge (sacred, legal, or otherwise), control of
resources (including land, raw materials, capital, means of
production, labor, armies, and the like) and decision-making
(bureaucracies, courts, congresses, and so on). As long as a
state controls a territory, it willreserve the right to transform
any element of that territory intoa police operation or facility.
‘Wecansee thisin the history of the former dairy works,
on Key Road. As the Atlanta Community Press Collective
documentedintheir2021 article,“Slave Labor, Overerowding,
and Unmarked Graves’, the Atlanta City Prison Farm
rebranded itself again and again over the following years,
while extending its authority and resources under successive
phases of “humanitarian” reforms and restructuring.
Inthe beginning, the opening of the Prison Farm was
justified by a false narrative about economic stagnation at
the dairy works, as well as moral outrage surrounding the
egregious conditions at a nearby stockade on Glenwood
Avenue. Subsequently, in 1944, the prisoners were
forced to erect a new building, a hospital. This hospital
was meant to provide medical relief for prisoners, who
were overworked, sexually abused by guards, tortured,
and sometimes killed by prison authorities. Once it was
completed, the authorities put prisoners to work cleaning
and maintaining it, but the medical infrastructure itself
was used to treat those afflicted with venereal diseases in
the city at large, not the prisoners who built it—continuing
a longstanding strategy of providing social benefits to one
section of the working class by intensifying the exploitation
of their unemployed and racially targeted neighbors.
‘The prison was used for the systematic incarceration
of loiterers and “drunks;” driven by the moralistic notion
that solitude and hard work would renew the “honor” of
the captives. Overcrowding, a favorite excuse of the carceral
state, was used to justify expanding the prison six times from
1929 to 1960.
In the early 1980s, pressure from the American
Civil Liberties Union compelled the Prison Farm to replace
its solitary confinement units with twenty additional cells;
reformers who do not understand the need to destroy
these facilities often consequently function to introduce
a more rational and efficient cruelty. Around that time,
the sentences for alcoholism and other “quality of life”
crimes began to shorten, just as the population of Atlanta
began to contract. Between 1970 and 1990, the city lost
21% of its residents—most of them white—as industrial
reorganization and racial segmentation in the working
class provided jobs for white workers in the clerical,
service, and logistics sectors further outside of the city
limits, while Black workers remained concentrated in
¢ destitute and abandoned urban core.
Do Not Let Them Re-Form
“Carceral reformists hope to use this opportunity
0 introduce adjustments that will stabilize the
regimes of confinement and control for another
century. But at this juncture, inspiring actions
could catalyze a confrontational movement
that pushes for abolition rather than reform.”
“Storming the Gates”, Crimethinc.
For over a century, demands to reform the carceral system
have preserved its underlying logic of control, smuggling it
into the future time and again. The developers of Cop City
promote the idea that it will train officers in “less lethal”
policing techniques. Following the 2014 revolt in Ferguson,
Missouri, civic groups stepped up demands that police officers
be outfitted with body cameras, hoping to curb extrajudicial
killings of Black people. This did not limit police violence,
but it did enable the police to secure even more resources.
As the Fulton County Commissioners channel
over a_million dollars towards the creation of a new
jail, John Keen and others in the city government are
justifying this with a_“humanitarian’ discourse about
overcrowding. Its possible that they intend for this new
jail to appear in the vicinity of the Cop City compound.
Over the past half decade, abolitionists have gained
ground against these tactics, fighting to overturn, defind,
or shut down carceral institutions rather than simply to
reform them. But if these efforts are to succeed, ordinary
people must understand themselves as the agents of social
change—like the thousands of participants in the siege of
the Third Precinet in Minneapolis—rather than looking to
political representatives or non-profit organizations. Even
the sincerest politicians are bound by procedures, laws,
and back-room deals that do not influence most people.
Grassroots action is simply more efficient than institutional
change, even if institutional change is your only goal. This
understanding informs the current struggle to stop police
expansion in the South River Forest.
Originally published online at
www.erimethine.com
on 04.11.2022
At the time of publishing, more information about the
movement could be found at defendtheatlantaforest.com
or on social media under the names “Defend the Atlanta
Forest’, “Stop Cop City”, or “Stop Reeves Young”.
Copy and distribute freely.
THE CITY
IN THE
FOREST
sixer apit, 2021, police abolitionists and environmentalists have
been engaged in a furious struggle to prevent the destruction of a
precious streteh of forest in Atlanta, Georgia, where the government
aims to build a_police training compound and facilitate the
construction of a giant soundstage for the film industry. In this essay,
participants in the movement chronicle a year of action, tracing the
movements victories and setbacks and exploring the strategies that
inform it. This campaign represents a erucial effort to chart new
paths forward in the wake of the George Floyd Rebellion, linking the
defense of the land that sustains us with the struggle against police.
CRIMETHINC. EX-WORKERS COLLECTIVE
CrimethIne. is a rebel alliance—a decentralized network pledged
to anonymous collective action—a breakout from the prisons of our age.
‘We strive to reinvent our lives and our world according to the principles of
self-determination and mutual aid.
wwiw.crimethinc.com | USA, May 2022