Harnessing the Resistance: Building Grassroots Power Across Pennsylvania
On a chilly day in February of 2017, Angela Aldous couldn’t believe her eyes as she drove by her local courthouse in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, a conservative-leaning community an hour outside Pittsburgh. To her complete surprise, Angela saw six protestors braving the winter weather to hold signs in support of refugees and against the newly elected president’s proposed travel ban.
“I was so excited,” Aldous said. “I pulled over and ran out. I didn’t know there were other people who cared about this!”
That’s how Voice of Westmoreland, a grassroots resistance group that focuses on issues that matter to the local community, began. Aldous and her fellow activists began taking part in every resistance training and webinar they could find and, over the past almost two years, have been growing their membership and activities to build a sustainable grassroots group that will be active in their community long past Election Day 2018.
Across Pennsylvania, there are countless stories like Angela’s of everyday citizens stepping up to make a difference in their communities following the 2016 election. Mike Wilcox, a retired agro-businessman, cofounded Oil Region Rising out of a January 2017 conversation he and a friend had in a local coffee shop about their concerns over the direction the country was headed. Jane Palmer was inspired to start Indivisible Berks when hearing about the Indivisible Guide, a grassroots resistance starter guide, while watching TV one night. Action Together Northeast Pennsylvania (NEPA) was born in part out of connections made on Pantsuit Nation, the popular resistance-focused Facebook group.
Whatever the origin story, groups like these are engaging folks across Pennsylvania — oftentimes voters who have never been canvassed before — to hear about the issues that matter most to them, elect leaders who will stand up for these values and hold those in office accountable. All the while, Pennsylvania Together, an America Votes Pennsylvania partner organization, is hard at work supporting these grassroots resistance groups as they head into this critical midterm election and far beyond.
Right after the 2016 election, Hannah Laurison, Pennsylvania Together’s lead organizer, began to wonder what the many grassroots resistance groups that were cropping up across the state could accomplish if they worked together. In January of 2017, she cofounded Pennsylvania Together to accomplish just that and through partnership with America Votes, began helping these newly formed groups integrate into the broader progressive space.
“it’s been really helpful to partner with America Votes to connect these groups to this larger statewide plan, so they have a sense of common purpose and that they have a piece of this larger strategic effort that they’re participating in,” Laurison said.
Pennsylvania Together groups are now active in 15 counties across the state, bringing together like-minded individuals who oftentimes previously thought there were few others in their communities who wanted to help move the country forward.
“It’s been really helpful to partner with America Votes to connect these groups to this larger statewide plan, so they have a sense of common purpose and that they have a piece of this larger strategic effort that they’re participating in.”
-Hannah Laurison, Pennsylvania Together
“Time and again, folks have described how doing this work has meant that they’ve found their people, that people are coming forward and are so happy and relieved to know that there are others who share their values and are willing to step up to volunteer,” Laurison said. “It really has a mushrooming effect that I think is giving them a lot of hope about the direction of the country.”
Taking an issues-first approach to spur meaningful conversations within their communities is something that has led this sense of hope and enthusiasm to spread among many of the grassroots resistance groups Pennsylvania Together and America Votes are working with.
Wilcox, whose group Oil Region Rising focuses on nonviolent resistance to efforts by the Trump administration to change the country for the worse, always takes time to start monthly meetings with introductions, allowing the dozens of mostly retired attendees to get to know one another before diving into work together. Group members participate in demonstrations at their local congressman’s office and have been knocking on community members’ doors to hear the issues they are most concerned about. They’ll then ask if the individual is supporting a given candidate and if they plan to vote.
And the reaction Wilcox said he tends to receive at the doors?
“Gee, I didn’t know we had any Democrats out here. I thought I was the only one!”
Ryan Zarkesh, vice president of Action Together NEPA, said that the five chapters of his organization are hard at work building a permanent progressive infrastructure in their corner of the state that will not only elect progressives in 2018 but hold elected officials accountable long after. Through efforts such as door-knocking, phone calls, letters to the editor and much more, Action Together NEPA is focused on building progressive power over the long term in addition to incorporating the many talents of its all-volunteer crew to do so.
“We’re really focused on the political and issue-based work,” Zarkesh said, “but we’re also really interested in providing a community structure for our area that it’s currently lacking.”
“We’ve realized that we really needed to be a base-building group, a group building independent political power.”
-Jane Palmer, Indivisible Berks
Palmer of Indivisible Berks echoed that sentiment.
“We’ve realized that we really needed to be a base-building group, a group building independent political power,” she said. “We’ve been making a concerted effort to build that base in terms of building relationships and doing a whole lot more to weave us together as a local movement rather than a bunch of people doing projects.”
Her organization is working alongside groups such as Planned Parenthood and NextGen America to talk with voters who have rarely, if at all, been engaged ahead of an election.
“We find voters who are well-informed, receptive to our message, totally on board with us,” she said. “It disproves the idea that these places are deep red, homogenous and conservative. They’re truly not. I come away from every canvass feeling hopeful and uplifted.”
“Many of the voters these grassroots resistance groups are reaching out to would not be engaged ahead of the election were it not for the capacity that has been added by these organizations and Pennsylvania Together to the broader progressive space,” said Sam Gehler, America Votes Pennsylvania political and field director. “America Votes’ partnership with Pennsylvania Together has brought many of these groups into the fold so they’re participating with our longstanding partner organizations and owning pieces of a fully coordinated statewide plan to build progressive power.”
Election Day is now just around the corner, but these groups aren’t slowing down anytime soon in their fight to lift up the voices of everyday Pennsylvanians and the issues they care about most. Remember that six-person protest that jump-started Voice of Westmoreland? More than 300 community members gathered at that same courthouse for a demonstration the group organized this past June in support of fair immigration policies.
“We’re grounded in the community year-in and year-out,” Aldous said. “When the elections come around, we do the work and build the momentum, but afterwards we’re going to pick right back up with all of our other issues.”
