Features
It’s Time to Put the People Back in Charge! Four DSA Members Qualify for City Council Races
Wednesday morning, at the steps of the Criminal District Courthouse, DSA School Board Member Gaby Biro introduced DSA’s City Council slate for 2025. Members Pastor Gregory Manning, Bob Murrell, Danyelle Christmas, and Jackson Kimbrell will proudly represent our chapter on your October ballot.
This slate represents us. Our members come from working class and union families. We see the damage that white supremacy, incarceration, and the school to prison pipeline bring into our neighborhoods. We’re tired of watching our schools and public goods get sold off to private corporations. These candidates dream of a future where we take on climate change, we have power and public transportation we can rely on, and we build long term housing for every resident of this city. They’re out there every day, knocking on doors, standing side by side with their neighbors against ICE, and working to put the people back in charge at City Hall. A better world is possible, and being clear and unapologetic about our demands is how we’re going to get there.
Join us tonight at our Campaign Kickoff Party, 6:30 pm at Brieux Carré. Come hang with comrades and get a glimpse of all that we can accomplish together.
DSA Space-Warming Party: Home is Where the Organizing Is
We’ve officially moved into our space at the New Orleans Healing Center, and now it’s time to celebrate! Come enjoy comradely antics and support this new hub for community organizing on Friday, July 18th from 6:30-8 pm at the New Orleans Healing Center, Suite 258. There will be refreshments, snoballs, and plenty of good vibes, so be sure to pop by!
This new location fills the need for a secure meeting place for progressive groups, but it’s not cheap — donations are welcomed at the door, on Paypal to treasurer@dsaneworleans.org, or through monthly local dues. We’ll also be selling merch and encouraging in-kind donations of furnishings like chairs, tables, floor lamps, desks, and similar things (reach out on Discord with questions!)
Parking is located at 2465 N Rampart St. Small signs directing you to the space will be put up, and you can also check out our helpful guide and map for navigating the building. We hope to see you there!
What Hurricane Ida Revealed About the Failures of Our City-Assisted Evacuation Plan – Wash F
After Hurricane Katrina, the city developed a comprehensive city-assisted evacuation plan that kicks in once a hurricane is forecast to be category 3 or above. In 2021, when Hurricane Ida reached category 3, this evacuation plan should’ve been initiated, but Ida’s rapid intensification didn’t allow nearly enough time to do so.
Given the difficulty of evacuating tens of thousands of residents with different needs across the city, the plan’s timeline involves evacuation orders going out 54-72 hours in advance of landfall. In comparison, Ida’s timeline was:
- [72 hrs until NOLA landfall] Ida designated a tropical storm: 8/26 at 7pm.
- [54 hrs until] Hits Cuba as a category 1: 8/27 at 1pm.
- [30 hrs until] Intensifies to category 2: 8/28 at 1pm.
- [18 hrs until] At 1am on 8/29, it intensified to a cat 3, beyond what was expected. One hour later, it was a cat 4.
Assuming people checked the weather at 8am, that would leave less than *12 hours* before it hit the city around 8pm.
Climate change means storms will continue to develop quickly and unpredictably. When (not if) this rapid intensification happens again, how will we deal with it? Does the City truly have a sufficient hurricane response strategy, or just a best-case-scenario plan making us feel safer than we should?
The City needs to prioritize strengthening our ability to weather storms when pre-storm evacuation is not possible. Cuba is known to have robust hurricane preparedness and response infrastructure because of its vulnerability to hurricanes and inability to evacuate, so much so that Oxfam published the report “Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Risk Reduction from Cuba.” The City of New Orleans should learn from our Caribbean neighbors, reevaluate our current hurricane response plans, and pursue tactics for protecting the city and those in it when storms hit — our survival relies on it!
Red Rabbits Recommendation – Develop Threat Assessment Skills
We live in a world that isn’t safe, but learning how to make proper threat assessments can keep you and your comrades safer. There are different ways of making your assessment, including this four-step model:
- What am I trying to do? Think about the thing itself and any information related to it.
- What can go wrong? How what you’re doing can expose personal information in ways that are bad.
- What am I doing to mitigate that? How changes in behavior or technology can prevent things from going wrong.
- How did I do? Re-examine the situation under the new conditions to see if the threat level has changed.
We also have this five-step model from our good friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
- What do you want to protect? The data, communications, and other things that could cause problems for you if misused.
- Who do you want to protect it from? The people, organizations, and criminal actors who might seek access to that stuff.
- How likely is it that you will need to protect it? Your personal level of exposure to those threats.
- How bad are the consequences if you fail?
- How much trouble are you willing to go through in order to try to prevent those? The money, time and convenience you’re willing to dispense to protect those things.
As with many things, there isn’t a single, best solution. The challenge to you and your comrades is to craft and use a threat assessment protocol that will work in your situation. We owe it to each other not to make anything easy for the class enemies.
Bulletins
School Supply Drive with the Direct Service & Health Justice Committee
We’re planning a school supply drive for the August 9 Brake Light Clinic & Health Fair. Chip in for supplies at our School Supply Drive Wishlist, or bring your own to our next General Meeting where we’ll assemble the kits.
Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing: EWOC Training Series on How to Unite and Win
Come join Worker Power Louisiana for a four-part training on fundamental principles of effective shop-floor organizing. Four sessions will cover Developing Leadership (July 12), The Organizing Conversation (July 19), The Arc of the Campaign (July 26), and Inoculation and the Boss Campaign (August 2). All sessions are from 3:00-4:30p Central. Sign up here to get started.
City Council Endorsement HQ
Election Day is October 11 and New Orleans DSA has three endorsed members running for City Council. Keep up with Danyelle Christmas, Jackson Kimbrell, and Bob Murrell’s campaigns at Endorsement HQ. Volunteer, donate, follow on social media, and fill out the Campaign Outreach Survey to get involved.
We’ve Moved to Discord!
New Orleans DSA members should get on our Discord server to keep up with your comrades and our efforts. We’ve phased out Slack and will migrate old conversations over.
Community Calendar
Friday, July 11
Free Palestine! Abolish ICE! Weekly Lunch Hour Rally
12:00 pm – 12:45 pm (every Friday)
Immigration Court, 365 Canal St
DSA City Council Campaign Kickoff Party
6:30 pm
Brieux Carré, 2115 Decatur St
Saturday, July 12
Unión Migrante Immigration Justice Teach-In
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church, 3900 Pitt St
Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing: Developing Leadership
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Milton Latter Library, 5120 St Charles Av – Sign Up
Sunday, July 13
Membership Working Group Kickoff
12:00 pm
Discord Meeting Room 1
Monday, July 14
Critical Mass Bastille Day Ride with Danyelle Christmas
6:00 pm
French Market, Barracks St & French Market Pl
Tuesday, July 15
Indivisible Tuesday ICE Protest
9:00 am – 10:00 am (every Tuesday)
Immigration Court, 365 Canal St
Sports Drink Community Night: Local Politics
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Sports Drink, 1042 Toledano Av
Wednesday, July 16
Indivisible Wednesday ICE Protest
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm (every Wednesday)
ICE Field Office, 1250 Poydras St
Thursday, July 17
Poli-Ed Reading Group: On Contradiction & The Master’s Tools
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm (third Thursday)
Oak St Brewery, 8201 Oak St – Reading List
Friday, July 18
Free Palestine! Abolish ICE! Weekly Lunch Hour Rally
12:00 pm – 12:45 pm (every Friday)
Immigration Court, 365 Canal St
DSA Space-Warming Party: Home is Where the Organizing Is
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
New Orleans Healing Center, 2372 St Claude Av, Room 258
Saturday, July 19
Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing: The Organizing Conversation
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Rosa F Keller Library, 4300 S Broad St – Sign Up
Down the Road
July 23 Municipal Action Committee Meeting
July 26 New Orleans DSA General Meeting
July 26 Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing: The Arc of the Campaign
July 27 Chapter Orientation
August 2 Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing: Inoculation and the Boss Campaign
August 5 Rank & File Project Meeting
August 6 Health Justice and Direct Service Meeting
August 8-10 DSA National Convention
August 9 Brake Light Clinic & Health Fair
October 11 Municipal Open Primary Election Day
November 15 Municipal Runoff Election Day
Solidarity Means Action is the weekly newsletter of the New Orleans Democratic Socialists of America. Subscribe for updates every Friday at 8:00 am Central.