The day after the November election, I experienced a numbing sensation in my body, a sure sign of the collective grief many across the nation were feeling. More than just feeling numb, I was angry, and behind that, was a deep fear that our country would become even more vulnerable to chaos, confusion, and authoritarianism. Rather than hide away, I decided to join the 10-week Gear Up Campaign sponsored by SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), an organization seeking to bring white people into the fight for racial and economic justice.
The Gear Up Campaign is a learning, training, and action program that delves into education on topics like the rise of the far right in the U.S., how to organize under authoritarian rule, and the role of white people in racial and social justice movements. Throughout the campaign, I connected with a small group of local folks who had shared values on racial, social, and economic justice. We came together for bi-weekly in-person meetings and online national training calls on the other weeks. Together, we learned crucial community organizing skills like how to talk to white people about racism and how to hold meetings to bring more people into broader multi-racial coalitions.
The Gear Up Campaign training culminated in organizing a local action calling on elected leaders and participants to sign the Pledge to Resist and Protect.
We had hoped for a turnout of 20, but a group of 45 people representing a span of generations and a few different communities gathered together on a sunny but blustery afternoon on Saturday for a rally outside of United Christian Church on New Falls Road in Levittown. We came together in an act of solidarity pledging to protect the rights, safety, and dignity of people in our community and to resist Donald Trump’s anti-democratic and immoral agenda consistent with the principles of nonviolence.
Those who came out expressed gratitude for an opportunity to come together after such a horrifying two weeks of Trump’s return to the White House. The turnout shows that folks in lower Bucks care about working together for racial, social, and economic justice.
The National Day of Action to Rally to Pledge to Resist and Protect that happened in Levittown last week was but one of more than 50 different rallies across the country. Our group chose Levittown because it happened to be one of the most closely contested election locations in our region. Trump picked up a 5.7 percent margin increase between 2020 and 2024 and went on to win Bucks county by a .07% margin. Levittown, which traditionally has been predominantly white and working class, had been particularly hard hit by the effects of neoliberalism. The outsourcing of good paying union jobs, stagnant wages, increased housing costs, and the opioid crisis has made lower Bucks particularly vulnerable to the messages from right wing news sources and authoritarian demagogues who offer anti-immigrant, racist, and authoritarian policies as easy solutions to individual economic woes.
Those of us who gathered came from a variety of faith communities, various grassroots organizations, and even some local political groups. We came to speak up on behalf of immigrants and refugees and to advocate for the human rights of LGBTQIA+ folks. We came on behalf of working families struggling to survive in a time of stagnant wages, inequitable public schools, and college tuition that is wildly unaffordable. We came to push back against the right-wing authoritarian regime of Donald Trump, his billionaire allies, and the reactionary MAGA coalition.
I have participated in marches and demonstrations before, but this was the first time I, along with my other co-organizers, had been in the role of organizing a local action. While long dismayed by the specter of Trump’s return to office, I could never have imagined putting my own time and energy into this kind of work a year ago.
While we view our small rally as a success, we are well aware of the real risks facing marginalized individuals and communities right now. The Trump administration has wasted no time unleashing its authoritarian agenda by threatening to undo 14th Amendment protections and threatening a $1 trillion funding freeze for critical services Bucks county families depend on. The administration has utilized a ‘flood the zone’ strategy by issuing a flurry of executive orders designed to overwhelm and exhaust the opposition.
READ: A New Era of Leadership for Bucks County’s NAACP Begins: Adrienne King’s Vision for Equity and Unity
One attendee confessed to me afterwards that she was worried about coming out to the rally. She wondered if someone, emboldened by Trump’s recent pardon of 1,500 insurrectionists, might try to disrupt or threaten the gathering. Our group had had similar concerns and had prepared for possible scenarios with deescalation practices, which thankfully were not needed.
Lower Bucks County is politically divided and our organizing work has to make space for a broad and diverse coalition of people. When confronted with these very real differences I am reminded that I have far more in common with my neighbors than I do with billionaires, oligarchs, and right-wing demagogues. Remembering this will help us build a thriving community for all.
