A high-level skills training Civil Disobedience and Direct Action

*No Experience Needed*

NYC-DSA Marshal team is hosting a training to prepare our members to be as effective as possible in street actions and protests. In order to prepare for the May Day, the Poor People's Campaign, anti-war actions and other crises that call for civil disobedience, we encourage all NYC-DSA members to get trained - and to pass these skills on to others.

Effective Civil Disobedience is one of the most important tools for activists and organizers, with applications in a variety of campaigns. In the course of our existing campaigns (e.g. the Bowery Armory fight), our members have been arrested, and at that time, there was no infrastructure to mitigate the harms of that arrest, or design our actions to maximize the benefits of taking an arrest. Civil Disobedience has the potential to generate powerful media images, as well as directly stop and hinder the application of force by the state.

High quality trainings by experienced activists in civil disobedience are difficult to come by, so every NYC-DSA member should take the opportunity to go through this training by the Ruckus Society, an activist training group specializing in direct action and civil disobedience.

In order to compensate the Ruckus Society's trainers, we are asking for a donation of $20 per person, though if you are able to pay twice as much, you can cover the price for a comrade who can't afford it.

This training will cover two areas

Non-violent direct action planning:

“This how-to training steps a group through the process of developing a creative, strategic nonviolent direct action for their campaign. Tone, messaging, group capacity, and staying true to goals are highlighted, as participants practice designing actions for different scenarios.”

Non-violent direct action prep:

“This how-to training steps a group through the process of developing a creative, strategic nonviolent direct action for their campaign. Tone, messaging, group capacity, and staying true to goals are highlighted, as participants practice designing actions for different scenarios. Definitions of tactic, strategy, and organizing are reviewed.”