💪🏼💪🏼 Action is power. Let's go! Boots on the Ground 4.13

This May Day, people across the country are uniting for a General Strike.

🚫 No shopping. 🚫 No working. 🚫 No school. 💪🏽 💪🏻 Mass rally and march.

We have absolutely no choice. Our taxpayer dollars are being used to:

• Support unwanted wars in the Middle East, bombing schools and hospitals.

• Kidnap our immigrant neighbors, opening mass detention centers in our backyard.

• Enrich the billionaire class, while the government makes cuts to food, daycare, healthcare and more.

• Limit our access to the polls, making it difficult to exercise our fundamental rights.

Demands:

• ✊ Tax the rich so our families come first – not their fortunes.

• ✊ No ICE. No war. No army serving authoritarian power.

• ✊ Expand democracy. Hands off our vote.

Fri, 5.1 | 5:30 p.m. | Washington Square Park | 100 E. Pershing Rd. KCMO

Mon., 4.20 | 6 - 7:30 p.m. | Shawnee Mission UU Church, 9400 Pflumm | RSVP

(Our standard headline these days.)

✅ Call your state legislator and let them know you do not support ICE in our community.

✅ Call your city leaders and demand they not use local resources for federal enforcement.

✅ Invite friends to attend a local Community Defense Training and learn our constitutional rights. (See item ⬇️ for sign up info.)

ICE is in our metro area every day, breaking up families. Johnson County is hit particularly hard. We strongly encourage everyone to attend a Community Defense training to learn: how ICE is showing up in our community; how to legally and safely observe an ICE raid/kidnapping; how to get involved in mutual aid; how to join a rapid response network. Sign up here! RSVP is mandatory.

• Saturday, April 11 | 1 - 2:30 p.m. | Westport

• Saturday, April 11 | 9:30 - 11 a.m. | Northland (Near Zona Rosa)

• Sunday, April 12 | 3 - 4:30 | Prairie Village

If you’re feeling anxious about the state of the world — and who isn’t? — consider volunteering your time. Numerous studies prove it lowers your stress.

✅ VOLUNTEER NEED IS URGENT. Help future immigration attorneys by participating in a simulated court experience. You’ll have a front-row seat to a trial experience while helping future lawyers strengthen their skills. The Immigration Court Trial Advocacy College is hosted by The Pen and Sword and area immigration attorneys. Contact: support@the-pen-and-swordkc.org

✅ Boots on the Ground Midwest is looking for an experienced grant writer. If you have a few hours a month, let us know. info@bootsonthegroundmidwest.org

✅ Growing Futures/Head Start is looking for some people who would be willing to pick up Auction Item donations from around the city and bring them to the office for us. Info@bootsonthegroundmidwest.org

✅ Are you interested in Election Integrity and want to get more involved? We are forming committees to implement actions that will help keep our elections fair and safe. Info@bootsonthegroundmidwest.org

✅ Concerned about the war? Are you a Veteran? Or do you want to support Veterans? Volunteer to help with a Veteran-focused action. Info@bootsonthegroundmidwest.org

Join Kansas City Creatives For Change for a night of music, poetry, art and community building to raise money for our immigrant neighbors impacted by ICE. Plus, catering by @lasprimaskc

All donations will go directly to community members to pay their utilities, rent or groceries, working with AIRR KC. Even if you can’t attend, PLEASE donate at the link below.

Sunday, April, 19 | Doors open at 4:30 p.m. | The Blackbox KC - 1060 Union | KCMO

✅ Click here to donate! Show proof of donation at the door. DONATION LINK NOW OPEN!!! PLUS, bring non-perishables to contribute to the food drive for @kcfoodnotbombs Learn more on IG @kccreatives4change.

This August, judicial impartiality will be on the line. Proposed amendment SCR 1611 would make the Supreme Court political and undercut the entire idea of checks and balances. Learn why it’s critical to VOTE NO on this amendment by attending these panel discussions.

✅ Elected vs Appointed: Inform Your Vote, sponsored by the Voter Rights Network of Wyandotte County. Confirmed panelists include: Professor Steve Leben, UMKC Law School and former appellate court judge; Clay Wirestone, Opinion Editor, KS Reflector; and Teresa Woody, former founding Litigation Director at Kansas Appleseed

Sat. April 25 | 11 a.m. - 1 p.m | | West Wyandotte Public Library - Auditorium | 1737 N 82 St, Kansas City, KS 66112

✅ Who Will Control Supreme Court Judges if They’re Elected?, hosted by Boots on the Ground Midwest. Chief Judge Karen Arnold Burger, Kansas Court of Appeals, and David L. Stutzman, former District Judge, will discuss how the process of appointing Supreme Court Justices currently works and has worked for decades.

Wed. June 24 | 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. | Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church | 9400 Pflumm | Lenexa | RSVP here.

✅ Take a free, online, self-paced Harvard University class on U.S. Public Policy: Social, Economic and Foreign Policies.

✅ Read how the U.S. democracy scale is tumbling. The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, has launched the United States Democracy Meter, a new tool for assessing American democracy, using a 100-point scale across 23 subquestions. It’s not good people.

✅ Follow Dave Jorgenson’s Local News International YouTube page for short news videos that will make you cry-laugh. Jorgenson rewrote the rules for how news outlets use social media, starting with the Washington Post. Now he’s back home in KC with his own channel.

The Boots on the Ground calendar offers a curated list of action items in Kansas and the KCMO metro.

Please submit items for the calendar to: calendar@bootsonthegroundmidwest.org

First, thanks for being part of the resistance. We need every one of you!

We keep our work free because we want everyone to have access to information and resources aimed at preserving democracy and fighting authoritarianism.

You can support through Substack by opting for a paid subscription. Or, you can donate through ActBlue. Thank you so much!