Hello friends,
I hope you are doing very well! I am so grateful to be a part of this organizing community, and I can’t believe how far we’ve come. I love this work and each and every one of you for being a part of it. I hope you’ll consider helping us sustain this campaign for the next year by donating to No Coal No Gas !
I’ve been reflecting on the anniversary of our train blockade in Hooksett, NH and the past two years I’ve spent in this campaign, and I wanted to share my reflection here with you!
Photo credit: Ceilidh Peden-Spear
Two years ago I leaned against the frigid, rusty steel of a train bridge and looked at the icy Merrimack river swirling below. A bright red Emergency Services raft flailed in the eddies, desperately trying - and failing - to chip through the ice. Above us, helicopter blades fractured the sky.
We’d been blockading the train for five straight hours at that point. This final action was the third blockade of the same coal train in 24 hours as it progressed north through New England communities. The train was filled with 10,000 tons of coal en route to the Merrimack Generating Station. This rusted train bridge was our last stand.The previous evening we’d sat around our glowing, buzzing phones until late, late at night as our friends in Worcester successfully stopped the train after waiting hours in the cold, dark woods for the train. Later on, we listened, sleepless, as the blockade in Ayer, MA held out through the wee hours of the morning. Finally, the sun rose and the train was drawing nearer to the coal plant. We held hands in a circle - anxious and determined as the train approached.
Just two days before I had said goodbye to my friends outside a Zapatista-run community center. I had spent three months in Mexico learning about the incredible organizing of Indigenous Mayan communities, campesinos, workers, and students, and about autonomy and resistance from “below and to the left.” And the entire time I've been thinking about what we could do in New England to be part of this struggle—how we could take matters into our own hands and stop the harm that’s happening, how we could build a better world without waiting for anyone’s permission. And I wasn’t sure exactly how to do that, or where I would go.
The sun started to dip as pigeons swarmed in a flock around the train bridge, lighting up their feathers in red iron and gold. Beneath us, cops and firefighters screamed about legality. I glanced over at my buddy Johnny’s frozen grimace as the sun slipped away, leaving us cramped and aching. Then, I heard our comrades across the water start to sing. From way over on the pedestrian bridge came the same song I had sung in the Zapatista safehouses, in housing co-ops and in union halls. As the hypothermia set in and the officers climbed up to arrest us - I knew then that I was home.
Photo Credit: Johnny Sanchez
Two years later, that action is still not over. Johnny and four others arrested on the bridge that day are headed to trial in the spring- still standing strong in the knowledge that what we did that day was just and necessary. I’m so proud of them, and excited for them to get their day in court.
This campaign is still going strong. There’s a lot that’s happened between then and now - from the ongoing pandemic and housing crisis, to the struggle to stop Line 3, the George Floyd uprisings, and so much more. One thing that hasn’t changed, for me at least, is No Coal No Gas’s commitment and tenacity. In the past years, No Coal No Gas folks have organized local mutual aid networks, defended our communities from violence and evictions, and trained dozens of new activists in de-escalation, organizing skills, and direct action. We’ve traveled across the country to throw down for Indigenous-led resistance struggles, and faced down both riot cops and white supremacists in our own backyards. Regionally, we’ve worked as a campaign to keep constant pressure on our regional grid operator, ISO New England- with our utility strike, coal deliveries, comment periods, and public protests. We’ve shown up powerfully together at the Merrimack Generating Station itself, as well as it’s corporate owners’ offices- taking direct action to prevent the plant from running and begin remediating the land around it. And through all of this, we’ve remained solid in our commitment to community building and to each other.
Photo credit: Rebecca Bealieu
Two years later, No Coal No Gas is my home. I’m constantly awed by the creativity and love that saturates everything we do, whether it’s a late night scheme session, a spontaneous art installation, or a long tender discussion on the way home from court. It’s been an honor to work with such an extraordinary set of people - pranksters and preachers, theater nerds and flame throwers and strategic researchers - people who are guided by ceremony, by deep care, by a willingness to put themselves against the wheels of destruction and the determination to build something better in their place. This is the same community that, very nearly literally, saved my life when I learned I had contracted COVID-19 while in a northern Minnesota jail, that taught me to drive while supporting a 24-hr sit in to Stop Line 3, this is the community that has become my family and some of my best friends. I know that No Coal No Gas has done the same for countless others and that the future is terrifying but our best chance of survival is each other.
Sometimes I feel scared when I think two years into the future. There is a lot of society left to unravel and a lot to be afraid of. However, I can still smile right in the face of an uncertain future. I know that there will be more handcuffs, coal smoke and police in the years ahead. I also know in my heart that there will be more music, more laughter, more of us balanced on those thin steel rails over the water - breathless and hanging on. I cannot wait to look back two years from now and think about all that we still have to fight for, and see how much more we’ll have to love.
Thank you so much and thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being a part of this resistance network! If you can help us sustain this work, please consider donating to No Coal No Gas this year!
Lots of love,
Leif :)
Campaign Coordinator, No Coal No Gas
PS: Donating to No Coal No Gas goes directly back into the work we do. We appreciate each and every gift that allows us to come together, so keep an eye out for more fundraising emails from us as we wrap up the year and let your networks know. Thank you!
