By: Gumbo V

Late February is a frigid time to visit Minneapolis, Minnesota, but the people of the Twin Cities are no strangers to fending off ICE. I had the honor of visiting Minneapolis from 25 February to 1 March 2026 for their Bring the Heat, Melt the ICE Week of Action, which brought in organizers from across the country to learn firsthand how Minnesotans have resisted the occupation of their cities by federal agents through an inspiring diversity of tactics. There were a variety of activities to participate in each day, from training sessions to ridealongs with ICEwatch patrols; noise demos to blockades on critical facilities; protest marches to Block ICE block parties—a “choose your own adventure” of movement learning. Week of Action organizers acknowledged in the welcome packet that “the strongest movements are made up of well-connected individuals across far reaches of time and space,” and sought to provide as many opportunities as possible for attendees to experience the breadth of their historic resistance.

Days 1-2 – Orientation & Suburban Patrol

My experience in Minneapolis began early Wednesday morning, 25 February 2026, as I left behind the near-90° heat in Texas and stepped out of the airport into sub-freezing winds to meet a comrade from Twin Cities DSA, Brooke B, who would be my host for the week. I briefly interviewed Brooke about her own perspective on the developments in Minneapolis, then we spent the rest of the day in training sessions hosted by Minneapolis rapid responders (many of whom were Twin Cities DSA members). Workshop sessions covered Know-Your-Rights business canvassing with a focus on organizing the workers at canvassed locations, the basics of the neighborhood rapid response model, and a thorough 2-hour session on the bread and butter of rapid response in practice. At the end of the day, attendees were invited to join neighborhood chats based on where in Minneapolis we were staying and get ready to patrol the following day.

On Thursday, I joined a rural/suburban patrol session, which began with a short training led by Tinkerbell and Mama Bear (most folks go by their Signal usernames as a matter of precaution). Brooke then took me and another comrade from northern California out on patrol in the city of Hopkins, a suburb of Minneapolis. We joined a live call on Signal to check in with dispatch, who asked us to check a list of areas where ICE had been seen lurking in recent weeks. The suburban patrol felt very similar to patrolling I have done in Austin—a lot of driving around from parking lot to parking lot, scoping out vehicles with heavily-tinted windows or out-of-state license plates, and trying not to be too paranoid. Border Czar Tom Homan, appointed to replace Nazi fanboy Greg Bovino as head of Operation Metro Surge at the end of January, had announced the “end” of the operation just two weeks prior, and organizers on the ground had noted a slow withdrawal of immigration officers coupled with a change in their tactics. ICE and CBP agents were no longer roving openly in their military garb but had instead shifted to more clandestine, plainclothes tactics to continue carrying out their abductions from a rotating cast of Enterprise rental cars. Comrades noted that this seemed to be a direct result of the strength of resistance efforts up to that point.

Dispatch, Please Advise

Let us pause here to discuss what is meant by patrol and dispatch. I will not go into the system at length, as it has been described in great detail in the piece “Rapid Response Networks in the Twin Cities: A Guide to an Updated Model” on CrimethInc.com, but I will discuss my personal experience with the tool. Patrolling (or commuting, as some in the Twin Cities have taken to calling it) is rather straightforward: get in your car, hop on a bike, or just throw on a coat and some walking shoes and roam your neighborhood looking for potential ICE activity. At first, patrolling was both decentralized and largely disorganized, but it rapidly became highly organized while remaining decentralized, a key to its success. By the time of the Week of Action, there were dozens, if not hundreds of neighborhood groups at varying levels of granularity, from the larger regional channels like Southside Minneapolis, to local and even hyperlocal chats consisting of as few as 3-4 city blocks. Within each geographic unit, people would be out patrolling during the day, or would join each of the respective neighborhoods along their commute to and from work; hence, commuting.

The rapid response networks in Minneapolis scaled up incredibly quickly. Consequently, they needed a better system of coordinating between the various responders on the ground. Enter: the dispatch system. Dispatch started at the Whipple federal building (see below), where initially organizers would stage in vehicles nearby and commute behind ICE agents as they exited the facility to give advance warning to the neighborhoods they entered. Over time, the ICE agents began harassing observers at Whipple more and more, so organizers adapted their tactics in response. By having a dispatcher offsite start a running call on a Signal chat, they were able to take some of the pressure of note-taking off of people on the ground. Instead of having to simultaneously take pictures of vehicles and note their license plates (or lack thereof), observers could call out the plate numbers verbally and a dispatcher would transcribe them. Dispatchers also assisted in directing more people to back up observers who were being harassed by ICE agents.

The dispatch system proved highly effective, so it spread throughout the neighborhood groups as well. Dispatchers began organizing amongst themselves to schedule shifts, train up new dispatchers, and export the system to new areas. Dispatchers would identify themselves using a phone emoji () in their signal name and add a green dot () or an X emoji () when they were on-shift, which led to an ingenious emoji code for quickly communicating one’s role in the wider network.

I was especially fascinated by the dispatch and emoji code aspect of the rapid response network. In my day job, I often act as a dispatcher for field crews to barricade flooded roads; my role is to look at the city from a bird’s eye view, monitor for flooding conditions, and send crews to the areas of concern to take action while I update the public about the hazard. The Minneapolis dispatch system is a powerful mirror of my own job, and one that organizers arrived at organically out of immediate need. Dispatchers are not only tasked with transcribing license plate numbers, but also checking plates against the database to confirm if they are ICE and, crucially, coordinating patrollers across wide geographical areas so that they maintain full coverage of a neighborhood at all times. One training session described it quite simply: if every single patroller converges on the first confirmed ICE activity of the day, that leaves the rest of the entire neighborhood as open season for other ICE agents.

Dispatchers thus have to manage several people at once (many or most of them total strangers!), keep them on target in their areas of coverage, and often talk them through difficult situations when they have ICE encounters themselves. A comrade in TCDSA shared during the rapid response training on Wednesday evening that he was the dispatcher on-shift when Alex Pretti was murdered by CBP agents at the corner of Nicollet Ave and 26th St. He had to talk the observers on the scene through the situation, help them navigate to safety, and gather as much information as possible about the incident. Though miles away himself, he was very much on the ground with everyone else. Another comrade told me later that it was the first time he had ever talked about that experience publicly.

Day 3 – Whipple Watch

Friday was Whipple Watch day. The intelligence-gathering operations outside the Bishop Henry Whipple federal building have been instrumental to the rapid response network in Minneapolis, affectionately dubbed “Whipple Watch” by organizers. Interestingly, the Whipple building is part of the Fort Snelling complex, which was historically used as a concentration camp for Dakota and Ho-Chunk people who were forcibly removed from their homelands during the Dakota War of 1862; it was also home to Dred and Harriet Robinson Scott who were enslaved there in the 1830s and whom the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott Decision ruled were not extended citizenship by the U.S. Constitution. Whipple now serves as an ICE field office and a detention center for immigrants and citizens alike.

Every day since the start of Operation Metro Surge, comrades have staked out the Whipple building beginning around 5am and often lasting until late in the evening. They log every single vehicle that enters or departs from the building carrying ICE agents, gathering data including license plate numbers, vehicle makes and models, photos, and even directions of travel along Federal Blvd in front of the building. These data are sent to a Signal chat that is recreated anew every morning where offsite organizers compile the information into a database that is accessible to rapid responders across the cities. Noting the direction of travel helps dispatchers know which neighborhoods the convoys of ICE agents are likely to target that day, with southbound convoys headed to southside Minneapolis and northbound convoys likely to target areas near downtown or in suburbs. One vehicle we observed leaving the facility in the two hours we were there was reported as making an abduction just thirty minutes later.

The utility of the intelligence-gathering operations outside of Whipple cannot be overstated. Minnesotans have the “benefit” of a less overtly evil state government compared to Texas under Greg Abbott, which has meant that Minneapolis police, Hennepin County sheriffs, and Minnesota state troopers are not directly collaborating with ICE agents to conduct traffic stops. Thus, ICE agents have to commute to a centralized location (Whipple) to mobilize for their operations, and rapid response organizers are better able to track them. The data gathered at Whipple Watch feeds a decentralized network across the cities that enables rapid responders on patrol in their neighborhoods to verify whether a vehicle prowling their block has been observed in ICE operations and rapidly mobilize a response if the plate check comes back positive, oftentimes before those agents are able to abduct anyone. Without that intelligence, rapid responders would be forced into a posture of constant reaction, rather than being proactive with their neighborhood defense.

As an aside, the conduct of the ICE agents at Whipple was notably abhorrent. I had no expectations of them whatsoever, but I was primed to expect the stony-faced, vacant-eyed stares of cops in riot gear that I’ve seen at protests in Austin. They are law enforcement officers, after all, and there is a certain demeanor that often comes with that position. The ICE agents in Minneapolis, however, were openly belligerent towards people at Whipple. Although Whipple Watch had been ongoing since December, protests began targeting the building directly, sometimes escalating to barricading the exits to prevent ICE agents from departing for their daily toil of kidnapping people off the streets. In response, ICE and Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies erected concrete barricades topped with 8-foot chainlink fencing around the entire complex, which effectively created a chainlink tunnel along Federal Blvd that could only be accessed by car. Ironically, this also blocked one of the three gates that ICE agents would use to come and go from Whipple, limiting the number of gates that observers had to watch to two.

Whipple has since become a site of catharsis for many in the community, who will go to yell at ICE through megaphones to blow off steam after long hours patrolling their own neighborhoods. While we were there for Whipple Watch, others arrived simply to yell at the ICE agents and demoralize them. Rather than take it on the chin, as many cops are trained to do, these agents yelled back, threw water bottles out their windows, filmed protestors, and repeatedly flipped us off while grinning through their fully-masked face coverings. One comrade who helped start Whipple Watch in December told me that she was there early one morning, recording vehicles as they came and went, and agents rolled their windows down to call her a “red-headed cunt,” though she hadn’t said a word to them prior. They just seemed to thrive on the cruelty.

After Whipple Watch, we headed downtown for foot patrolling. Again, we joined a live Signal call with a dispatcher and embarked from the Minneapolis Central Library to crisscross the tightly-packed downtown core. Comrades in TCDSA noted that enforcement operations were less common in downtown Minneapolis because of its proximity to financial centers, and there seemed to be an implicit agreement between federal forces and the instruments of capital that too much disruption to the flow of money was unacceptable. As a result, rapid responders in downtown Minneapolis focused more on business canvassing, both organizing workers and businesses to know their rights should ICE arrive on the property and building support for the 23 January 2026 general work stoppage.

After a break for lunch at a worker-owned, cash-only deli co-op, we met with a protest march and walking tour. Led by a truck loaded down with loudspeakers, we marched past hotels where ICE agents had been staying, CBS News offices, and the headquarters for Target and other complicit corporations. At each stop, a new organizer came up to speak to the crowd about exactly how the corporate targets were wrapped up in the ongoing occupation of the Twin Cities. There was not a single cop in sight for the entire march; protest marshals handled all of the traffic for at least one block on either side and two blocks out ahead of the march, using a combination of bike marshals as a vanguard to seize intersections and foot marshals to leapfrog from block to block keeping the cross traffic away from marchers.

Day 4-5 – Solo Patrol & Closing Notes

I spent most of Saturday at the Twin Cities DSA annual chapter convention. Late in 2025, TCDSA passed a Contingency Plan in anticipation of escalated ICE operations. The Contingency Plan outlined a process by which either a majority of the general membership or two-thirds supermajority of the Steering Committee could declare an emergency and pause all other chapter activities so as to focus all comrades’ efforts on the emergency at hand. TCDSA activated this Contingency Plan in December, shortly after Metro Surge began, and had only just started to revive other sectors of chapter organizing while I was visiting. Saturday morning was also when news broke of the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, and Week of Action organizers were already planning a protest tying together the threads of imperialism abroad and racist, militarized immigration enforcement at home.

I left the chapter convention in the early afternoon to find coffee and a snack. I love all my comrades, but much of the debate at the TCDSA convention was of less interest to me than the resistance to ICE operations in the cities. While walking to a local bakery several blocks away, I asked Week of Action organizers which neighborhood aligned with where I was walking and was quickly added to the Longfellow/Seward neighborhood chat. I got my coffee and a pastry and then spent a few hours on the call with dispatch and other foot patrollers, walking throughout the Long-Sew neighborhood in the single-digit cold checking plates and looking for ICE. Thankfully, all I saw was the kind that freezes hard to the ground and makes you slip if you aren’t careful with how you walk (my hosts, Brooke and Sean, taught me how best to shuffle across slick patches of ice so I wouldn’t fall, something ICE agents would’ve done well to practice).

Sunday was spent recovering from the high intensity of the week and visiting a frozen lake with my hosts (a personal first!) before boarding my plane for home in the balmy 85° Austin heat. I never saw an actual ICE operation while I was in Minneapolis, but I felt their presence throughout the cities nonetheless. It was a contradiction I discussed endlessly with my hosts and comrades whom I met: I wanted them to have a good day, with no abductions, but I also felt a responsibility to see those abductions in progress to get an idea of just how bad it might get in Texas (even worse than it already is). Despite never seeing ICE abductions in progress, I felt the community’s eyes on me constantly. There were times when I took a smoke break outside the Week of Action training locations or departed on my own to walk around and explore, and I could feel people watching me. The watching was rarely overt, but it was palpable—a father’s eyes lingering on me as he walked his child home from school; cars slowing down as they passed me by; a second glance from people on the sidewalk. I may have been there for a good reason, but they had no way of knowing; to them, I was a stranger, and a white, male-presenting one in cowboy boots at that. I never felt unwelcome by this attention, I only felt appropriately observed, because for all they knew I could be a plainclothes agent and their priority was keeping each other safe. Driving around in the mornings, I saw huddles of adults chaperoning children to their bus stops, and in the afternoons those chaperones escorted kids from the stops to their houses.

Minneapolis has been a site of struggle for decades, and even more recently as the epicenter of the George Floyd Uprisings in the summer of 2020. The people there are kind, their hearts so warm they could melt the snow that engulfed their streets, but they did not ask to be thrust into the national spotlight once again. To call them resilient feels belittling, much as I take issue with those who label all of us from the Gulf Coast “resilient” and “strong” for weathering the polycrisis of climate disasters, extractive industries, and negligent-at-best governments. Nonetheless, the Twin Cities have fought hard and they are lighting the way for the rest of us in struggle. Truly, the people, united, can never be defeated.

The post Dispatches from Minneapolis: An Overview first appeared on Red Fault.

By Diego Pajuelo

While PSU made headlines in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement when they claimed campus police were disarmed, this was never true. It is less true now that even partial concessions have been rolled back. Since 2023 the police have been fully re-armed.

In the midst of all this, the university still has a mural in the Smith building and a memorial on the street where Jason Washington was killed. In effect, they maintain symbols meant to give a sense of justice and remembrance to Jason Washington, but deny him any actual justice. Students at PSU are left in an oppressive setting, with 57% of BIPOC students saying they didn’t feel safe talking to campus police in a survey in 2020.

PSU Backstabs the Disarm Movement

In 2018, Jason Washington, a black man, veteran, USPS worker and community member at Portland State University was shot at 17 times (with 9 hitting him) by Portland State University campus police after trying to break up a fight.

In the aftermath of his death, a movement to disarm the campus police arose, with a great deal of support from the PSU Student Union (PSUSU), the Students United for Palestinian Equity and Return (SUPER), and from a number of professors working within the Disarm PSU coalition.

A number of demonstrations would be held between 2018 and 2020, including a non-violent occupation of the Campus Public Safety Office in 2018, and marches which blocked traffic. Despite the numerous demonstrations of significant public support, PSU never truly disarmed. However, due to the size and organization of the movement, PSU offered one major concession: campus police would start a few unarmed patrols.

Campus police, even during the unarmed patrols period, kept access to their guns, and the Disarm movement began to suffer loss of momentum. The year after, the PSU Student Union dissolved and SUPER dissolved in 2025. The Disarm coalition shifted focus toward PSU’s ties with the Boeing weapons manufacturer, but the group also became inactive by 2025.

More broadly, the Black Lives Matter movement went into decline after 2020. The economy recovered and a new president was elected.

In Portland specifically the Black Lives Matter movement experienced setbacks, with the re-election of pro-cop mayor Ted Wheeler, and the defeat of a number of progressives on the city council.

Combined, the lack of organization, drop in momentum, and illusion of partial victory resulted in the Portland State University administration in 2023 choosing to completely drop the partial victory of “unarmed patrols” and bring back armed patrols.

The Youth Wing of the Socialist Party

In academic year 2025-26, a number of students started building a YDSA chapter at PSU. Much of our membership comes from a place of fighting against the dictatorship of the capitalists, the oppression of LGBTQ+ people, and the brutality of racist police. Like the rest of DSA, we align ourselves with the Workers Deserve More program adopted by the organization in 2024, and while not everyone in YDSA is necessarily a worker in a classical sense, we all align ourselves with a working-class program: fighting for union power, college for all, and most importantly in this case, against mass incarceration and police brutality.

During the Winter term we set the priority of disarming campus police. Such a task is crucial in our fight for a worker-run society. In the history of the United States, the police have played the role mainly as strike-breakers and scabs, with the most notable example in recent history being the NYPD breaking up the picket line of the Amazon Labor Union strike in December of 2024.

They have also historically played a role enforcing an order of white supremacy, not just during the era of Jim Crow, when segregationist and white supremacy were more open in the law, but also during the modern day, by utilizing the war on drugs as a cover. For many, and especially Black communities, the police are known not as peace-keepers, but as weapons of mass destruction. They keep communities impoverished through the mass imprisonment of Black people, making it harder later in life to find jobs, and through economic exploitation of incarcerated and enslaved workers.

At PSU, the campus police are subservient to a completely unaccountable oligarchy: the Board of Trustees and the President. They serve to protect not students, but the PSU administration from any sort of agitators. Campus police are often hired from the regular police, and they carry with them the norms of structural racism, and enforce it here at PSU. To many at PSU, the murder of Jason Washington remains a reminder that we are not exempt from the racism which plagues the entire country, and which forces Black people into the most exploited sections of the working-class.

Our Demands

As a first step, we call on students at PSU to join us in petitioning to PSU to completely disarm campus police, including so-called “less-than-lethal” weapons. We also demand within the petition for all future decisions regarding the armament and funding of campus police to be subject to a vote by the students, professors and staff at PSU. No decisions on the campus police should be made unilaterally by the President, Board of Trustees, or whatever force acts without the consultation and consent of students.

The petition is itself only a first step, as we know it may not change the opinions of the administration. Furthermore, the administration has an active interest in keeping its own police force, not to protect students but to protect their own interests, to ensure that students fall in line with their rule rather than take any substantial moves to change. 

While we acknowledge limits to this petition, we do not abandon the fight to disarm PSU, but instead fight further on it, and actively organize students and student workers to fight for a program of working-class liberation. We call on those students, who seek action further than a petition, to join PSU-YDSA, and fight for an anti-racist society for the working class.

The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are joining calls demanding the release of Islamic Society of Milwaukee president Salah Sarsour after nearly a dozen ICE agents detained him on March 30.

Sarsour is a community leader. He is a legal permanent resident of the U.S., where he has lived for decades with his wife and family without any criminal record. ICE’s ongoing terror tactics in our communities over alleged foreign policy threats and flimsy constructions of legal status continue to harm more Milwaukee families than any of the agency’s now-displaced victims.

“ICE and the Trump administration are attempting to instill fear and division,” Milwaukee DSA co-chair Andy Barbour said. “We must stand together in solidarity, using our might as the working class to oppose the violence directed at our communities.”

Milwaukee DSA recognizes the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) role in violently suppressing political dissent in the U.S., especially when that dissent concerns support for the Palestinian struggle. We see clearly the danger posed by Sarsour’s detention in the so-called “land of the free” over a decades-old conviction by a foreign military court with a more than 95% conviction rate and a history of torture and abuse.

“Our hearts go out to Salah Sarsour and his family as he faces illegal and inhumane detention,” Milwaukee DSA co-chair Autumn Pickett said. “We reaffirm the call of DSA leaders like gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong and District 3 alderman Alex Brower to abolish ICE.”

Milwaukee DSA is Milwaukee’s largest socialist organization fighting against imperialism for a democratic economy, a just society, and a sustainable environment. Join today at dsausa.org/join.

Purpose

The Moderation Appeal Procedure provides a step by step process for members if they disagree with a moderation action. 

Procedure Steps

1. Discuss in direct messages with the Moderator, and other Moderators, about why the moderation action was taken.
2. Review applicable policies: Online Code of Conduct, Internal Communication and Moderation 
3. If you belive that moderator(s) have a pattern of wrongful moderation which targets:
   1. you specifically 
   2. a particular political view within the “Big Tent” of DSA 
   3. persons based on protected class listed in Resolution 33

Then contact the HGO(s) via grievance.mkedsa@gmail.com  to discuss and/or file a formal grievance HGO(s) will follow Procedure: Harassment and Grievances. Consult this procedure for more information about the grievance process

4. If, after pursuing (1) and (2) you believe that a post of yours was wrongfully moderated, but this moderation was not part of a pattern of targeted wrongful moderation, then you should contact the HGO via grievance.mkedsa@gmail.com and include:
   1. “moderation appeal” in the subject line.
   2.  Information about the post that was moderated
   3. Screenshots of your discussion with the moderators  
   4. Your concerns relative to the policies (see 2) 
5. HGO(s) will review the moderation decision.
   1. HGO(s) should assess if the situation would be more properly handled as a grievance and take appropriate action if so. 
   2. HGOs can access deleted messages in the deleted messages channel of Discord.  
   3. HGO(s) may reach out to the member if more information is needed
6. HGO(s) will discuss the reasoning behind the moderation action with the Moderator(s) who made the moderation action. 
7. HGO(s) will assess the moderation action based on the applicable policies related to community standards 
8. HGO(s) will inform the members and Moderators of the assessment. They may further pursue any of the following as appropriate:
   1. re-educate member and/or Moderators about MKE DSAs applicable standards and polices
   2. Instruct Moderators to reverse the moderation action
   3. Instruct removal of “strikes” against a member
   4. any other appropriate actions or recommendations 

This article is written by a DSA member and does not formally represent the views of MADSA as a whole or its subgroups. 

Welcome to Vol. 8 of the monthly round-up! The content in this publication overlaps significantly with our DSA newsletter and monthly General Membership Meetings. To sign up for the newsletter or check out an upcoming General Membership Meeting, visit: https://madison-dsa.org/events/

MADSA Annual Convention a Success

The chapter held our annual convention on the evening of Friday March 20th and the full day of Saturday, March 21st. MADSA members elected new leadership for the coming year, voted to continue many working groups, and debated and passed resolutions that will shape how the chapter does its work this year and beyond. Below are 3 key themes from this year’s convention.

1. Organizing Everyday People, Especially Labor

This convention passed several exciting proposals around mobilizing everyday worker power. One was a major resolution setting clear goals around a “rank and file” worker organizing strategy. In short, key goals include: increasing organizing discussions in people’s unionized and non-unionized workplaces; taking specific actions to help existing unions become more active and socialist; taking steps towards a mass labor action on May 1, and building further potential for mass labor actions; and leveraging MADSA’s worker power for building new unions, pulling existing union members towards socialism, and building coalitions within and between unions. The resolution emphasizes a move away from convincing formal labor leadership, and towards supporting rank-and-file workers in taking concrete steps for socialist organizing in their specific context.

The convention also ratified a Community Defense Working Group, which will be taking the main role in guiding MADSA’s STRIKE ICE OUT actions. The group will emphasize community education, non-violent neighborhood mobilizing, mutual aid, and strike preparation. Specific goals for the working group include providing materials and trainings, doing administrative tasks for maintaining neighborhood group chats across the city, encouraging in-person meetings between neighbors, disseminating information from other reliable sources (Voces, MTI, and Comite Sin Fronteras), supporting tenant organizing, and helping build towards a May 1st major labor action / general strike.

2. Electoral Work

Members voted to continue the Program Working Group, which is developing a formal platform with the key viewpoints and priorities of MADSA as a chapter. This work will be helpful in guiding MADSA’s collaboration with political candidates, and when deciding how to prioritize projects in the face of unprecedented growth in membership. 

Members also passed a resolution to build DSA’s capacity as an independent political party. The resolution included a continuation of this past year’s electoral work, while also adding features like additional political education in the “off-season,” and collaboration with the Labor Working Group around research and explicit support of policy that improves labor rights.

Lastly, members passed a resolution reaffirming the chapter’s commitment to Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism. This resolution mandates that any program, platform, and/or candidates endorsed by MADSA “must support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, refrain from any and all affiliation with the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups, pledge to oppose legislation that harms Palestinians and support legislation that supports Palestinian liberation.”

3. Improving Chapter Functions

Lastly, several convention items focused on improving the running of our chapter. A spirited discussion took place around the accessibility of meetings. One particular area of concern has been disability access, including – but not limited to – variable masking requirements at different meetings. Another topic was improving support for working parents within the chapter, who face additional barriers to participating in regular meetings. On Saturday, members discussed a proposal and an amendment around accessibility issues, and they ultimately decided to table the final vote until the April general membership meeting.

Several resolutions did pass related to the running of the chapter, including: 

• Changes to certain chapter rules and processes, including standing meeting rules;
• Creating a cohort model for welcoming and onboarding new members to the chapter;
• Creating some editorial practices and increased structure for Red Madison, to improve responsiveness and to foster more participation in the publication. 

A resolution around creating a process for formal coalition-building with external groups did not pass, after significant discussion and debate. 

MADSA Attends “No Kings”

Members of the chapter recently attended the No Kings protest on March 28th, with the goal of being a visible socialist presence, handing out materials, and talking to interested crowd members about action steps for being politically engaged and effective. In preparation for the march, MADSA had organizing meetings, an art build on 3/27, and a crowd canvassing training emphasizing “NO ICE, NO WAR, NO BILLIONAIRES!” 

Several MADSA members gave speeches at the protest! You can see them here, and shorter clips will be posted on Instagram in the coming week.

ICE Out Efforts Continue

MADSA continues to coordinate information about trainings and events, and neighborhood group chats, via the Strike Out ICE hub. Check it out here, and keep your eyes out for the newsletter in your inbox! 

A major next step in the process is the Madison Worker’s Assembly on April 4th. This is an opportunity for the community to come together and reflect on goals and strategies for mass labor action.

Additional Organizing

Other important efforts this month included the following:

• Labor Working Group hosted a Strike Studies event on 3/2; the next one is on April 6th.
• MADSA hosted a panel discussion titled Against Empire: A Socialist Conversation on Imperialism on 3/26 – a topic that is especially relevant given current events.
• MADSA held an Affordable Housing Panel, featuring local organizers and elected officials on 3/27 – video here!
• The Program Working Group had an event on one of the planks in MADSA’s developing platform – public transit! This took place on 3/31.
• There was a one-off reading group on 3/23 focusing on two short texts by Alexandra Kollontai, focusing on the intersection of Marxism and feminism. 

And coming soon:

• MADSA is starting to prepare for another Queer Liberation March, with a meeting planned for 4/4.
• DSA made plans to attend the upcoming May Day Strong Solidarity School, preparing for a May 1st day of mass labor action / general strike – this is scheduled for April 11th.

Social Events

We continue hosting recurring social events – DSA 101, Coffee with Comrades, and the Rosebuddies program. MADSA Run Club is making a return on Sundays as the weather warms up!

Protest Song of the Month

For this month’s song, have a 1913 tune by Joe Hill, We Will Sing One Song.

• Video here of a modern cover.
• More about Joe Hill here.

And that concludes our monthly round-up!

We are excited to announce our first federal endorsement for 2026!

Oliver Larkin is taking on one of the most war-mongering democrats in Congress, and DSA is proud to endorse him. Four Florida DSA chapters have already endorsed on the ground, canvassing and carrying petitions for Oliver. We will no longer allow billionaire-backed democrats to claim that we have to spend billions on war while healthcare is further decimated — we’re challenging them in the primaries with organized people who can’t be bought.

Oliver is part of a slate of candidates in the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

Date: Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 6pm PST

Online Only. RSVP for Zoom Link.

Monthly Steering Committee Meetings are open to members to observe but, generally, only Steering Committee members may vote and participate.

Date: Sunday, April 12 from 9:30 am til 11 AM

Location: Ragamuffin Coffee Roasters – 550 Collection Blvd Suite 130, Oxnard, CA 93036

Come join like-minded comrades for a cup of your favorite morning beverage. These gatherings offer a relaxed space to meet members and find out how to get involved, decompress, talk about the issues we face, and stay connected as we close out the year.

No RSVP needed!

April 2026 Newsletter

Music and the Movement: Sharing Songs

Since the start of the leftist movement, songs have been of paramount importance in lifting spirits and sharing stories of bravery, solidarity, and a better world.

Countless people have been moved in spirit and into action by Which Side are you On, Power in a Union, and the UK Labour Party anthem Bread and Roses. These songs can speak to us still. But many new artists are expressing the spirit of the working class.

So it is my privilege and joy to share my current playlist of modern Folk and Americana inspired songs: DSA Playlist - Recent Americana/Folk‍ ‍If you like Carsie Blanton, she will be performing in Earlville and Naples, NY in June and in Syracuse in October!

New songs that inspire with hip-hop vibes include Cure for Paranoia and DAMAG3.

Please share the songs that inspire you!

Send what inspires you to newsletter@syracusedsa.org for inclusion in next month’s Newsletter.

April 2026 Newsletter

Labor Movement Hero: Mother Jones

by Comrade Alex R

In the midst of a growing nation that was reaching the peak of its industrial development, prosperity, capital gains, and expansion was the projection of American society to the world in the late 19th and early 20th century. Manufacturing, industrialization, and technological advancements characterized the country at this time. However, a vast majority of the country was not benefiting from or living within the prosperity that was advertised. Instead, what was on the forefront of the daily life of workers was the conspicuous wealth inequality, the minimal amount of workers’ rights, unsafe working conditions, and horrid living conditions. In order to be exploited further, many workers were ostracized for organizing, kept largely uneducated, and were purposefully limited in their material possessions to keep them dependent on their employer. 

The time was ripe for an awakening of the working class and for someone to fearlessly lead them in their fight. As Mary Jones stated, “[These] were the days of sacrifice for the cause of labor (Jones, pg. 14).” Mary Harris Jones (well known as Mother Jones) took on this challenge and has become renowned for major contributions to the labor movement. Among her accomplishments are massively expanding the United Mine Workers of America, helping to eliminate child labor, and co-founding the Industrial Workers of the World (Jones). This does not even touch on the vast number of strikes and demonstrations she led or the countless number of workers she helped unionize. Beyond her renowned fiery speech and relentless toughness, her ability to draw from her own experience and her dedication to fighting for her class molded her into the labor hero she has become.

Mother Jones’ background is a major factor as to why she was such a prominent figure in the labor movement. The trials she faced throughout her life prior to work in the labor movement hardened and emboldened her. As a first generation immigrant from Ireland, Jones witnessed the toil and struggle of her people who had to work to earn passage to North America. Upon arriving, she experienced discrimination based on her heritage and witnessed the toil of her father who worked on the railroads. Additionally, soon after marrying, her husband (a member of the Iron Moulders’ Union) and four children died of yellow fever in the epidemic of 1867 (Jones, pg. 13). This was one of the first moments that Jones has noted as stirring her to action. A startling observation she made was that the victims of this epidemic were “mainly among the poor and the workers [as] the rich and well-to-do” had the means to leave the disease ridden city (Jones, pg. 12). This experience riled her to action as a nurse for her sickly neighbors. Following this, in her work as a dressmaker, she was appalled by the gross discrepancy in wealth as she saw the “poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry” next to the apathetic “tropical comfort” and “luxury and extravagance” of the upper class (Jones, pg. 13). Soon after much of her life was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire and she found herself in the labor movement as a frustrated, hardworking individual with a rising class consciousness. Mother Jones leaned on the trials and lessons she learned throughout her life and used them to formulate a clear worldview that relied on equity, fairness, and justice for the working class. 

Another central tenet of Mother Jones’ work was acknowledging the difference in the experiences of the socioeconomic classes of the time. Rather than turning a blind eye, she embraced these differences and approached the burgeoning labor movement from this lens. Her contempt and vitriol for the wealthy and their government lackeys was inherent to her approach. Speaking largely to groups with limited education and limited social safety nets (including health care, child care, social services, etc.), she was ruthless in calling out career politicians who were clearly bought by the wealthy and passed legislation for their causes. At one demonstration, she expounded about the “prosperity of the rich” being “wrung from the poor and helpless” all while chastising the “legislators [who] in one hour pass three bills the relief of the railways” while bills on labor go untouched (Jones, pg. 80-81). Jones attacked the newspapers who limited coverage of the movement because “mill owners had stock in the papers (Jones, pg. 70).” Intimidation was not an option for Jones and loudly proclaiming her criticisms of the upper class helped to fuel the class solidarity necessary for labor movements to succeed. Beyond this, she confronted many of the top politicians in the country, confronted mine owners, police officials, and every proxy of the upper class without trepidation. All the while, she injected a class consciousness and educated the working class on how to succeed through solidarity.

The principles and beliefs that Mother Jones proclaimed to the masses were essential to her role as a prominent figure in labor history; however, her true impact was not her speeches. It was that she lived her beliefs, fortified the labor movement with more class consciousness, and built solidarity among workers. She engaged in the very labor struggles she spoke passionately about, fought side by side with striking workers, organized all that were willing (and many who were hesitant and reluctant), and wore her label as an “agitator” proudly. The model of Mother Jones is one that teaches us to live our struggle, get our hands dirty, fight in the name of class solidarity, and to stand with our fellow worker in the face of adversity. She reminds us that “there are no limits to which powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery (Jones, pg. 27)” and to be “not afraid to face any thing if facing it may bring relief to the class that [you] belong to (Jones, pg. 87).”

Jones, Mother. The Autobiography of Mother Jones. Edited by Mary Field Parton, Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1925.

The entirety of Mother Jones’ Autobiography can be read for free here. Thanks Alex!

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