From December 2024 to February 2025, SURJ ran a 10-week “Gear Up Training and Action Program” – a powerful opportunity to build our skills, community, and power in the lead-up to 2025. Together, we learned from social justice experts about how to organize under authoritarianism, received training in skills we’ll need to fight back, and took action together as a community of thousands.
On February 1st, thousands of our members organized over 60 rallies for our national day of action, calling on elected officials and local leaders to take our “Pledge to Protect and Resist.” This day of action was the culmination of the organizing arc in our “Gear Up” program that we launched after Election Day. After nine weeks of organizing training and political education, program members– many of whom had never done anything like this before– identified a target in their community to sign onto the pledge and held a rally to show community support.
From pouring rain and freezing temperatures in the Northeast to the sunny skies of Los Angeles and Tampa Bay, members gathered in their communities for storytelling, chants, and a public commitment to protect and resist. As a result, 59 elected officials and community leaders signed onto the pledge.
Here are some of the highlights from the day of action:
- In small-town Levittown, PA, organizers doubled their recruitment goal and brought in attendees from across the state.
- 14 local community officials signed the Pledge in St. Louis.
- Members held four rallies in rural North Carolina, following up on SURJ’s election work in the region this past November.
- Many local and state officials showed up to rallies to sign the pledge in person and show their support: New York City Councilmember Erik Botcher, state Rep. Chris Rabb in Philadelphia, four city councilmembers in Ohio, and more.
This powerful organizing program is just the beginning. In the days ahead, we will need more mass-organized resistance to authoritarianism, and we will need mass support to have the backs of elected officials and organizations that pledge resistance.