Category: Activism

‘One, Two, Three, Four, Open Up the Prison Door’

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by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee

April 17 was Palestine Prisoners’ Day. In New Haven, it was marked by a march starting at the New Haven Green, going up Chapel Street and through Yale, passing by Yale Law School, and back to the Green. Some forty to fifty people marched and chanted despite a light rain. A number of Palestinian flags were carried as were two large banners that called for freedom for Dr. Abu Safiya, the Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who has been locked in various Israeli prisons since December of 2024. Another banner said, “Resist with Palestine Until Liberation.”

An intersection was blocked by the marchers so that a short speech could be delivered.  At Yale, a chant arose demanding that the Yale Corporation divest from Israel and weapons makers.  Basel Al Najjar, who gave one of the speeches, called on the crowd to show no fear and take more actions. He claimed that supporters of Palestine were now the majority. A new poll by CNN does show that Americans are now more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israelis.

The march was sponsored by We Will Return, the CT Palestine Alliance, UCONN MSA, Students for Justice in Palestine, and American Muslims for Palestine. It began after a Muslim prayer service but march participants were of all creeds. Several TSVN [The Struggle Video News: thestrugglevideo.org] shorts of the march received thousands of views.

 

SCSU Rally Calls For ICE-Detained Student’s Release

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Thomas Breen, April 6, 2026, New Haven Independent

More than 100 students, teachers, and immigrant rights advocates gathered outside of Southern Connecticut State University’s (SCSU) Buley Library Monday [April 6] to speak up for a classmate who was detained by federal immigration agents off campus last week.

photo: Thomas Breen

photo: Thomas Breen

Speaker after speaker on Monday — including co-emcees Justin Farmer and Sam Morrison, students and faculty from SCSU, and organizers from UNITE HERE 217, the New Haven Immigrants Coalition, and Unidad Latina en Acción, among other groups — called for the detained student to be released, for the university to support undocumented students, and for a mass mobilization against the Trump administration in response to the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

[More at https://bit.ly/4tpkTpM.]

 

 

Join a Community Event to Support the Ride to End Fossil Fuels in CT

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by Ella Foster, The No Pipeline Expansion Northeast Coalition

On Saturday, May 30 and Sunday, May 31, about twenty cyclists will ride 100 miles across Connecticut to oppose the expansion of fossil fuels in our state. Along the way, we’re hosting community events in Brookfield, Middletown, and Mansfield, and you’re invited!

All three of these locations have current or proposed fossil fuel projects that damage our local environment, contribute to climate change, harm our health, and push our energy prices up. Join us as we learn about these projects, make art, cheer on the riders, and imagine a cleaner, greener, and healthier Connecticut.

Together, we can send a message to fossil fuel and utility companies that Connecticut says NO to fossil fuel expansions. Read on to learn about each of the Ride to End Fossil Fuels events and their registration details. We hope to see you there!

Press Conference and Kick-off: May 30th, 8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m., in Brookfield, CT. The ride will start in Brookfield, Connecticut, where riders will join community members to highlight the proposed doubling of the methane gas compressor station. The compressor station is located in Brookfield, only 1,900 feet from the town’s middle school. Register at bit.ly/4to5juN.

Art for Our River: May 30th, 3 p.m.-6 p.m., in Middletown, CT. Riders will ride 60 miles from Brookfield to Middletown, where we will host a community art project, highlighting the proposed Eversource pipeline under the Connecticut River. This pipeline would impact state parks in Middletown, East Hampton, and Higganum. Register at bit.ly/4cKldsm.

Ride to End Fossil Fuels Rally: May 31st, 3 p.m., in Mansfield, CT. Riders will complete the final 40 miles of their ride before we cheer them across the finish line in Mansfield. Here we will talk about the impact of the interstate Enbridge pipeline that runs through Connecticut, including Mansfield. Register at bit.ly/4sQUssb.

For more information, email sena.wazer@sierraclub.org.

Protest the Fascist Trump Regime

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by New Haven Chapter of Refuse Fascism

Join with the New Haven Chapter of Refuse Fascism along with New Haven groups and individuals to protest against all of the fascist Trump regime with the unifying demand: TRUMP MUST GO NOW!

Every Monday, 4-5 p.m., weather permitting, join us on South Frontage Road near the corner of Church Street South, outside The Towers’ east gate. Bring signs, banners, whistles, etc.

Info: newhaven@refusefascism.org, RefuseFascism.org

Join a No Kings 3 Postcard Team

by Connecticut For All

When our families are under attack and costs are pushing people to the brink, silence is not an option. We stand united to protect ourselves and our communities against Trump’s billionaire agenda and constant acts of violence. The solution in Connecticut is the Stand Up CT agenda which, if passed, will ensure stability for all working people in our state through funding and policies that protect our civil rights and public services. Enough is enough.

Our goal is to collect 1000+ postcards and deliver them to our Governor & Legislative Leadership on April 15 during a Tax Day action at the CT State Capitol.

Our Postcard Teams are going to be at No Kings protests in Danbury, Hartford, New Haven, and Stamford.

Want to join the fight? Please register at

https://bit.ly/40MPYqQ.

For details about the Tax Day action, please email info@connecticutforall.org.

Next NO KINGS Protest – Saturday, March 28th New Haven Green, 3-5:30 p.m.

Thank You, Activists, for Your Organizing!

by Progressive Action Roundtable Planning Committee

In this sadly historic time of a US president’s dismantling of democracy and the impending imposition of fascist rule and takeover of other nations, activists all around the country have upped the level of their resistance.

As we go to press, people throughout the US are planning thousands of massive demonstrations and rallies for March 28, No Kings Day 3, in which millions in the country will join in. They (and we at PAR) are determined to put a halt to the racist, anti-immigrant, cruel, war-mongering, nationalistic, misogynistic, LGBTQIA+-hating, genocidal, imperialistic policies of the controlling forces of the federal government that threaten humanity and the environmental balance of the entire planet.

Thank you! You are mobilizing an event that can help turn this country around by raising awareness, multiplying resistance, bringing optimism and forging plans to halt this country’s slide into authoritarianism and the continuation of degradation and impoverishment of its citizens and the people of the world.

If this April issue reaches you before Saturday, March 28, we hope you find a No Kings protest to attend. New Haven’s No Kings rally is on the New Haven Green, 3-5:30 p.m. Other CT rallies will be in Danbury, Hartford, Guilford, Branford, Greenwich, Waterbury, New Britain, Killingly, New London, Mystic, Granby, and many more towns. For details on these protests and to find others, please go to nokings.org.

We look forward to seeing your reports and photos of the various demonstrations and actions you’re involved in for our May Progressive Action Roundtable newsletter. Email them to parnewhaven@hotmail.com.

Time of Chaos, Time for Resistance

by PAR Planning Committee

2026 has begun with many intense challenges for the peace and justice community, locally and nationally. The federal government is out of control. Checks and balances within the government no longer exist as Trump refuses to be reined in even when Congress, the judicial system and states try to do so.

All over the country people have demonstrated against the many horrors and threats to democracy. The US invasion of  Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti by ICE in Minneapolis, the threat to implement the Insurrection Act and unleash the military against US citizens who protest, and the approaching dissolution of US-European alliances if Trump follows through with taking over Greenland have made it clear our government does not represent the people or the interests of democracy in the United States.

Greater New Haven-area peace groups have pulled out the stops, sometimes with four demonstrations within four days. We hope in the coming weeks that activists can send PAR reports of their excellent work of resisting fascism. Also welcome are flyers, “talking points,” and transcripts of rally speeches for us to print in future newsletters. Email reports, articles, photos, etc. to parnewhaven@hotmail.com.

Avelo to Exit Deportation Biz

by Thomas Breen, Jan. 7, 2026, New Haven Independent

Avelo Airlines plans to stop running deportation flights for the Trump administration later this month after deciding that its participation in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program is too complex and costly to continue.

Photo: Chris Volpe

Avelo spokesperson Courtney Goff confirmed that coming move for the budget airline in an email comment sent to the Independent on Wednesday.

“Avelo will close the base at AZA [in Mesa, Arizona] on January 27 and will conclude participation in the DHS charter program,” Goff wrote. “The program provided short-term benefits

At an April 30 anti-Avelo protest at Tweed.

but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs.”

AZ Family, a local news outlet in Phoenix, first reported on Avelo’s decision to end its deportation flights, which began out of Arizona last May — prompting a New Haven-based boycott movement, condemnation from politicians and activists across the country, and frequent protests outside of Tweed New Haven Airport, where Avelo has been flying direct commercial flights (but not deportation flights) since November 2021.

“The big lesson here is that human suffering is not profitable,” said Pastor Jack Perkins Davidson of Hamden’s Spring Glen Church in a phone interview with the Independent Wednesday. “I hope Avelo and all corporations in the U.S. have learned that valuable lesson, that collaborating with injustice and collaborating with racism, though it may for them provide the allure of short-term gain, are empty promises. There is no benefit.”

[To read the article in its entirety, see https://bit.ly/3NsEIN2]

Public Forum – Trump’s Attacks on Gaza and Venezuela: A Socialist Response to US Imperialist Wars and Aggression

 

Workers’ Voice will host a forum on Trump’s attacks on Gaza and Venezuela on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at Whitneyville Cultural Commons, 1247 Whitney Ave. in Hamden. At 5:30 p.m. we’ll have social time and food, and the program will start at  6 p.m. For more information, please email workersvoicect@protonmail.com. Cash donations are welcome.

At the same time, the Trump regime has launched multiple deadly strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela accusing the Maduro government of being a “narco-terror cartel,” they have also brokered a shaky rotten deal between Hamas and the Israeli government. Today Israel continues attacks on Gaza and has used the “ceasefire” as a pretext to launch attacks on Lebanon.

What is the role of US imperialism in the world and what does it have to gain from these attacks? In Gaza, what does the continued US support of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians mean for international efforts to build solidarity? What is the role of Hamas and what is the way forward? In Venezuela does US imperialism see another opportunity to transfer power to Machado’s opposition party? Is Venezuela a “narco-terror cartel”? What happened to the movement started by Hugo Chávez and is this the logical outcome of Chavismo? What way forward for the people of Venezuela?

Join Workers’ Voice/La Voz de Los Trabajadores for this forum as we discuss these important questions that are deeply impacting working people across the globe.

One to One: John and Yoko – A Collage of the Times

by Frank Panzarella, PAR reader and musician

For the last 60 years, the conservative corporate elite have used every tool to defame and compromise the legacy of the rebellions of the 1960s.  Two major pillars of that fear were embedded in the coming together of the Civil Rights movement and the social and cultural revolutions that were fueled by the war in Vietnam.

The rising tide of Black liberation inspired a generation to challenge the power of Jim Crow, and question all aspects of capitalist society in the United States and its tentacles of international involvement throughout the world.  The war in Vietnam became a funnel for many of these challenges of power.

Even on a social level these often contradictory and painful explorations challenged the norms of patriarchy and sexual relations and self-definition often embodied in the art and music of those times and the growing fight for a new kind of liberating culture.

A new quasi-documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono called One to One: John and Yoko is a fascinating, if somewhat limited, collage of that social revolutionary time.  It provides a small but rich glimpse into the maelstrom of events and the ferment of ideas of a generation seeking a new ideology and even somewhat challenging its own biases.

In today’s environment, where the reactionary forces of racist and fascist politics are attempting to reverse the modest gains since those times, this HBO feature is a welcome small window that reminds us of the complexity and dynamic energy that changed social relations in our country in those times that still reverberate today despite some of the chaotic flaws of those years.  It is those many advances that scare the most conservative in our society that the dreams of democracy, equality, and justice for all might actually happen, threatening the remnants of white privilege and corporate control of most of the wealth in our world and the health of our planet.

This is a worthwhile film.

View the trailer : https://youtu.be/oxagfYjeMV4

Some No Kings Next Steps

Some No Kings Next Steps: There was a No Kings Next Steps video conference last night [Oct. 21]. Here are some things that they talked about:

  1. A) Budget battle/government shut-down: Call senators and tell them to hold the line on asking the GOP to negotiate on healthcare. Or text “shut-down” to 30403 and they will text back what to do.
  2. B) Take control of the narrativeand share your posts on your social media of your stories of how the actions of Trump Administration are affecting/hurting you, criticism of organizations that preemptively capitulate to the Trump Administration, and to showcase stories or resistance (“social proof”).

The next meeting of the Greater New Haven Indivisible group is on Saturday, Nov. 15 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Stetson Library (2nd floor) at 197 Dixwell in New Haven.

For more info: greaternewhavenindivisible@gmail.com.

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News from Greater New Haven Indivisible

Thanks! to everyone who attended the No Kings New Haven event this past Saturday. Across the US, it was the largest peaceful protest in American history – and it was amazing to see so many people on the New Haven Green having a good time while fighting for democracy and progressive values and against autocracy! Way to go, everyone!!

Photo: Chris Volpe for the New Haven Independent

There are Indivisible groups across the US, CT, and in the area. You can check the National Indivisible website where groups are (https://groups.indivisible.org/). Every local Indivisible group decides their own actions in order to work towards change, fight back against rising authoritarianism, and prove—action by action—that courage is contagious.

People Have the Power!

Janis Underwood, Greater Westville Indivisible

In the middle of September, a small group of neighbors were talking about the October 18 nationwide call to action put out by the national Indivisible organization. We noticed New Haven did not have a No Kings Rally in the works. We decided New Haven was not about to be left out of standing up to the authoritarian overreach of this current administration.

Over the next few weeks we mobilized an army of volunteers who came to help in droves and brought expertise, enthusiasm and themselves. We were determined to showcase unity and an action for a peaceful, action-oriented protest that resulted in the New Haven No Kings rally.

Photo: Chris Randall

Over 20 community groups came to share their organizations’ mobilization efforts with sign-up opportunities and information. Much to our joy, several thousand people came to march together with their signs, songs, slogans, puppets, umbrellas and HUGE spirit. The wonderfully diverse community of New Haven made this happen!

Did we know what we were doing? Not exactly, but we had a goal in mind and found people who shared their expertise and talents to help make it happen. Did we make mistakes…certainly. Would we do it again? After a little R & R … maybe!

People never realize their power until they exercise it. You Can Too!!!

Contact Nan to get involved. Her email is greaterwestvilleindivisible@gmail.com.

No Kings Day 2! Demonstrate on Saturday, Oct. 18

www.nokings.org

[Demonstrations on Oct. 18 will take place in many towns across the country and the world. The Hartford demonstration at the Capitol is from noon-2 p.m. The New Haven demonstration will be on the New Haven Green from 3-5 p.m. NOW IS THE TIME!!! See www.nokings.org for all locations. And check the time before you go to ensure the time has not changed.]

In June, we did what many claimed was impossible: peacefully mobilized millions of people to take to the streets and declare with one voice: America Has No Kings. And it mattered. The world saw the power of the people. President Trump’s birthday parade was drowned out by protests in every state and across the globe. His attempt to turn June 14 into a coronation collapsed, and the story became the strength of a movement rising against his authoritarian power grabs.

Now, President Trump has doubled down. His administration is sending masked agents into our streets, terrorizing our communities. They are targeting immigrant families, profiling, arresting and detaining people without warrants. Threatening to overtake elections. Gutting healthcare, environmental protections, and education when families need them most. Rigging maps to silence voters. Ignoring mass shootings at our schools and in our communities. Driving up the cost of living while handing out massive giveaways to billionaire allies as families struggle.

The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.

Our peaceful movement is only getting bigger and bigger. “NO KINGS” is more than just a slogan; it is the foundation our nation was built upon. Born in the streets, shouted by millions, carried on posters and chants, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship together.

Because this country does not belong to kings, dictators, or tyrants. It belongs to We the People – the people who care, who show up, and the ones who fight for dignity, a life we can afford, and real opportunity. No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings.

 

Know Your Rights https://undocumented.media.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3141/2025/03/Know-Your-Rights_One-Pager_Bilingual-2.pdf

Resistance Toolkit Zines

by City of New Haven Peace Commission

The Peace Commission has created a new community resource https://heyzine.com/flip-book/19c5ceb599.html for activism in New Haven in the current political moment.

Be sure to check out our website peacecommission.org for our bilingual Resistance Toolkit Zines, created by Nelani Mejias for the Peace Commission.

[To read more about the Resistance Toolkit, please see bit.ly/3IcUglQ]

 

Know Your Rights https://undocumented.media.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3141/2025/03/Know-Your-Rights_One-Pager_Bilingual-2.pdf

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