People of conscience across the country are looking ahead with uncertainty and even fear. But what gives all of us strength is looking at our history, knowing that in the most challenging of times we can band together and collectively stand up against repression and push forward for social change and civil rights. And succeed.
At no point in our history have the victories for social justice been won because people took a wait and see attitude, or because they faded or folded in the face or threat of repression.
What matters now more than ever is that we take action. At the PCJF, we stand with all those who are taking those steps forward - steps together - to face down what is coming, to protect those who are most vulnerable, and to make it clear that the people themselves are the force to be reckoned with.
So when we discovered that the Trump Presidential Inaugural Committee was already being allowed to suppress organizing and dissent for protests to Stop the Trump Agenda we mobilized. We are not waiting for Trump to take office. Action starts now.
This week, the PCJF took on the Trump PIC and the National Park Service who are barring access to key sites around Washington, D.C. for mass protests around the Inauguration. You can see some of the coverage of this work in defense of free speech rights below.
For more than 20 years we have been on the front lines defending democracy and civil rights in the courts and in the streets. With your help, we have won legal victories that have institutionalized fundamental rights to protest and restrictions on police conduct that federal judges have called "historic."
We need your help now as we take on what lies ahead.
Thank you for all that you do for social justice,
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard
Executive Director
Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
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Associated Press - Park Service quashing dissent during inauguration "The National Park Service is quashing dissent by blocking access to public space for those who want to demonstrate before, during and after President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, Washington civil rights attorneys said Wednesday." |
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Local CBS 9 Video - Inauguration protesters being blocked
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Local ABC 7 Video: Nat'l Park Service accused of blocking inauguration protests near White House, Nat'l Mall
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ThinkProgress - Trump gets to decide where in DC groups can protest his inauguration — if at all “'This blocking permit that the National Park Service filed is an affront to the First Amendment. It is a violation of free speech rights, and it is a violation of the democratic process, in which voices must be heard,' said Carl Messineo, the organization’s legal director." |
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FOX 5 - Park Service quashing dissent during inauguration
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The Guardian covers controversy over NPS unconstitutional blocking permit during Inauguration "The NPS filed a 'massive omnibus blocking permit' for many of Washington DC’s most famous political locations for days and weeks before and after the inauguration on 20 January, said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a constitutional rights litigator and the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund." |
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Reuters - Trump inauguration protest groups demand access to Washington sites The National Park Service "has done a massive land grab inhibiting all those who want to exercise their right to free speech," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a co-founder of the fund, said at a news conference. |
