We are considering an action in Concord for Saturday December 17th

(perhaps to begin at 10am). This is NOT DEFINITE.

If you want to understand the context and the reasons for this long delay, keep reading. Over a thousand people will receive this message. It is important that you take the time to read the details below if you want to know them. I cannot continue to answer hundreds of individual emails that ask me to reiterate information that is readily available to you already.

Mark your calendars for a fundraiser for Standing Rock in Boston on Saturday, December 17th (in the evening) at Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square (Roxbury).

On Saturday, November 5th, more than 250 people from many backgrounds gathered for an open meeting at the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) to begin a process of building relationships between non-Native activists and local Native communities. This meeting was convened at the same moment that the call went out from Standing Rock for a National Day of Action focused on the Army Corps of Engineers. The 250+ people gathered at the NAICOB meeting empowered a small group to designate a planning team for the November 15th day of action. This team represents local groups that focus on direct action and includes representation from Indigenous leadership and non-Native people of color groups.

This planning team (with input from a broader set of local Native leaders) determined that it was necessary to postpone a jointly planned action focused on solidarity with Standing Rock in order to build relationships and trust among these groups. Instead of organizing an action at the Army Corps of Engineers in Concord as originally planned, we agreed (at the request of local Native leaders) to ask our RSVP list and our own groups to show up for an action planned and led by Native American Studies professors and students at UMass-Dartmouth. Many of you showed up for this event.

The day before the National Day of Action, the Army Corps of Engineers released a statement delaying their decision on whether to authorize the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing of Lake Oahe (a reservoir on the Missouri River). On the Day of Action, about two dozen people went to Concord to the Army Corps office on their own, and the staff in that office came out to greet them and to express solidarity.

In light of the delay, the expression of local support at the Army Corps office, and continuing requests from local Native groups for a relationship building process, we are considering organizing an action (which is unlikely to include civil disobedience) at the Army Corps of Engineers office in Concord on the morning of Saturday, December 17th. One reason for choosing this date: thereis a fundraiser for Standing Rock that evening at Hibernian Hall in Roxbury, "From the Blue Hills to Standing Rock," featuring music, dance, and spoken-word artists offered by local indigenous performers and friends.

Planning for December 17th would allow us to schedule art builds and engage one another to build relationships (not just among the planning team, but more broadly - in ways that you could choose to engage).

I know you are frustrated about what seems a lack of urgency from this planning team. We are engaged in a process that 250+ people asked us to enter into. I want to thank those who have expressed their frustration constructively. I want to ask those whose frustration was expressed in destructive ways (either on the discussion board or more dramatically in my email inbox) to re-read your words before posting or hitting "send".

The planning team has a conference call Monday (November 21). It is our goal to open the process further after that.

A final request. Before you post a request for more information on the discussion board, please look at the existing posts to see whether your question has already been asked today. At this point, I am posting all new information in the event description, on the discussion board, and in an email to the RSVP list. If you unsubscribed from emails about this action, you won't get new information from me by email. If you want to change your settings, click on the Dashboard (next to your name at the top right of the page when you are on the event page), and then click "Edit Email Subscriptions" and find the event "Nov 15 #NoDAPL Day of Action at Army Corps of Engineers's list" and click on the button to the right to change your preferences.

THERE IS NO ACTION PLANNED FOR CONCORD, MA ON NOVEMBER 15TH.

Click here for the Facebook event for a #noDAPL solidarity action that local Native leaders are planning at UMass Dartmouth on November 15th. They have asked us to join them there and to invite you to do the same.

... and to postpone taking action at the Army Corps of Engineers.

You can read more about this decision and the process for reaching it below.

Click here for a toolkit for online and phone actions!

We have determined why there is so much online confusion. Somebody posted a separate event in Concord at the Army Corps for November 15th at noon (the same time and day we orginially listed here) AFTER I had changed the date of this one. Some of the national groups picked up that one and pushed it out to people (including many of you). So you were getting emails about a different event page, which is why the information was so confusing.

I just spoke to the organizer of that event, and he is emailing the 19 people who RSVPed and letting them know about tomorrow in Dartmouth and to RSVP here for updates on an action to be planned very soon in Concord. He looks forward to joining us then.

THE GROUP I AM WORKING WITH was tasked with planning a response to the national call to action by 250+ attendees at a meeting hosted by the Native American Indian Center of Boston on Saturday, November 5th. In our planning process, we were asked to slow down and plan a joint action in a good way – in ways that demonstrate that we not only see and hear the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, but we also see and hear our local Native communities. We will be planning an action at the Army Corps of Engineers in Concord, MA for next week. We meet Wednesday night this week to set a date.

On November 15th, local Native leaders invite all of us to join them in Dartmouth, MA. Facebook event page here.

Stay tuned for an action at the Army Corps of Engineers District office in Concord, MA sometime next week. We'll let you know the details as soon as they exist. We are first supporting the November 15th action in Dartmouth, linked above.

The messages below were sent to people subscribed to the RSVP list for this event

I am writing to express deep gratitude for your passion to respond to the call for a national day of action at Army Corps of Engineers offices.

In acknowledging the moral power of this call and the urgency of the timing, we are committed to responding in ways that both prioritize the voices and leadership of local Native communities, and keep the focus on the fact that Standing Rock is part of an ongoing struggle against colonial violence. Indigenous communities have been fighting the very ecological devastation of their land that has led to our current climate crisis for more than 500 years.

A group that includes local Native leadership, non-Native people of color leadership, and white climate justice and faith-based organizers met Thursday to discuss the best way to answer the national call to action on November 15th. We agreed that – on this timeline – we cannot organize an in-person action that prioritizes relationships and honors the decision-making processes of local Native communities whose support and leadership we need to honor and follow. We are committed to organizing an action at the Army Corps of Engineers in response to this call, and we hope to let you know by November 17th what the date of this action will be.

For the November 15th day of action, we are working together to generate a set of online, telephone, and other distributed actions you can take to pressure the Army Corps of Engineers New England District Office in Concord and the Obama Administration. We will push those materials out to you on the morning of November 15th.

[UPDATE: Native leaders in Massachusetts have asked us to invite you to join them on November 15th to Stand with Standing Rock at the UMass Dartmouth Campus Center at 1pm. Native Drums Encouraged. Request for support for ally groups to bring down folks and food and Boston banners for day of action. Mwalim DaPhunkeeProfessor is the local contact.  info@daphunkeeprofessor.com. This is the only information available to date.]

Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1878903025671184/

We know this message will be disappointing to many of you because you feel a deep responsibility to respond to the call to action on November 15th. We know you all are ready to stand in solidarity with the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and that some of you are even ready to risk arrest through acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, if necessary, to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline. We hope you will see this (longer) planning process as a serious answer to that call.

Those of us who seek to be allies have plenty of work we can do in our own communities. Climate devastation is rooted in racial and gender oppression. If you are reading this email, you probably live in the Northeastern United States, and you may still be in shock after the Presidential election. I have already witnessed outward, unabashed instances of racism (in the form of violent verbal abuse) in the Boston area. As a white person in this region, it would be easy for me to blame other people in other places for electing a man whose campaign was founded on racism, sexism, and xenophobia. But I don’t need to look elsewhere.

As white folx, we haven’t done enough to undo the racism in our own communities and within ourselves. At the suggestion of people of color whose leadership I deeply value (and whose compassion I did not earn), I am committing to engage this worksheet over the coming weeks with people in my own organizing and faith communities. It comes from the Standing Rock Solidarity Network website, which includes a number of resources for those seeking to become better allies (including resources related to traveling to Standing Rock,which many of you have been requesting on the discussion board).

There are other actions planned in the region. You can choose whether you might attend one of those on November 15th. Whatever you choose, we encourage you to honor the guidance shared by Kelly Hayes (How To Talk About #NoDAPL: A Native Perspective), which includes these words:

"We fully recognize that all of humanity is at risk of extinction, whether they realize it or not. But intersectionality does not mean focusing exclusively on the intersections of our respective work.It sometimes means taking a journey well outside the bounds of those intersections.

In discussing #NoDAPL, too few people have started from a place of naming that we have a right to defend our water and our lives, simply because we have a natural right to defend ourselves and our communities. When “climate justice”, in a very broad sense, becomes the center of conversation, our fronts of struggle are often reduced to a staging ground for the messaging of NGOs.

This is happening far too frequently in public discussion of #NoDAPL."

Finally, many of you have asked whether this action will include nonviolent civil disobedience / nonviolent direct action. This is an open question, and if there is a plan for such action moving forward, we'll let you know where and when you can attend a training in order to prepare yourself with others. If you still have pressing questions after reading this message, please feel free to contact me directly. I will answer you as quickly as I am able.

It may be uncomfortable for you to postpone taking action in Concord, but we are not asking you to be passive. We are asking you to do some deep work for yourself and within your own community in preparation for answering this national call together. Holding space is action.

Fierce Love,

Marla