You’re a progressive activists or organizer.You show up for events that teach people about your causes and confront officials who are not, generally speaking, asked to account for their actions.You learn things yourself that you didn’t know.You want to share what you’re learning at these eventswith your friends and everybody you know who you wish had been there but wasn’t.
So you pull out your camera phone or your DSLR or your camcorder and you start recording.You shoot a few minutes of one speaker and a few minutes of another and maybe get some crowd shots. At the end of the day you load it up to your Facebook page, your Twitter account, your Youtube channel and hope for the best.
It isn’t until you play the footage back that you realize that you were too far away from the speaker for your recording device to really get what they were saying. The conversation of the people standing next to you is pretty clear though.Or maybe the shot looked okay when you were shooting, but now that you’re looking at it, the African-American speaker’s face is pretty dark.The white folks standing next to her/him/they is fine though.Is there racism in the camera?Maybe.But it isn’t anything that can’t be overcome with a few good tips.
Understanding how to adjust the exposure settings on your so-called point and shoot device, makingthe best use of available light and placing the camera where the speaker not only looks good but can be heard are all techniques we’ll be teaching at Grassroots DC’s next Basic Videography Workshop.
There’s something to be said for sharing a few minutes of a good speaker at an event via social media.But if you want to make sure your video looks good, sounds good and maybe even includes a specific call to action, like, when is the next event?Who should they contact to join the cause?What specific policy should they ask their elected officials to support?Then this event is for you.
There will be food and young people are welcome. Contact liane@grassrootsdc.org for more information.
Grassroots DC exists to support progressive social change activism in the District of Columbia. We publicize events through videos, podcasts, press releases and blog posts. We also hold public education events in public housing communities and other public spaces.
In 2018, we will continue this work but we hope to do more. Unfortunately, as a small conglomeration of videographers, podcasters and bloggers we only have the capacity to support a limited amount of work each year. So we’re looking for a few good media activists to help us expand our reach.
Grassroots DC Winter Solstice
Organizer & Media Activist Meet and Greet
Sunday, December 17, 2017
1:00 – 3:45pm
Dorothy I. Height/Benning Heights Library
3935 Benning Rd NE
Join us and learn how Grassroots DC can support your organization and how you can become a better media activist.
Events began on April 2, 2016 in Philadelphia, where more than a hundred activists began a ten-day, 140-mile march from to Washington D.C. By April 11, thousands had joined Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening in our nation’s capitol to demand Congress take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections in which every American has an equal voice.
According to John Zanga, from the DC Media Group, organizers planned an eight-day series of actions involving major groups which have expressed dissatisfaction with legislative agendas. They said they hoped the coming week of civil disobedience actions would be the beginning of a people’s grassroots movement to start wrestling control of the Congress from corporate moneyed interests.
Here are a few of my favorite stories covering the events of last week. I start with this video because I think it explains best the reasons the movement is necessary.
As this is site tries to cover local progressive issues, I’m posting a couple of articles from our local alternative media in their entirety below.
Black Lives Matter and Anacostia organizers lead 3rd march on Capitol by Democracy Spring Cross-Posted from DC Independent Media Center Written by Luke
On the 13th of April, Black Lives Matter and other Ward 8 organizers led Democracy Spring’s 3rd march on the US Capitol. The lead banner was from the Save Barry Farms organizers advising people to refuse to move, blocking displacement. When the march arrived at the Capitol, the third sit-in in as many days followed. As police arrested the folks in the sit-in, they also put police lines around the support people after moving them back behind the first police line. At one point they were told they too were subject to arrest,unknown if any arrests other than voluntary ones resulted from this. The final arrest total for the three days so far has now climbed to in excess of 700.
And finally, we have to include the coverage provided the DC Media Group, who is always good about interviewing event organizers and highlighting campaign goals and ways to stay involved.
Washington, DC – Over 400 Democracy Spring protesters were arrested Monday at the U.S. Capitol on the first day of eight days of planned protests. It was a record number of arrests in one day for a protest there, according to U.S. Capitol police. At one point, police had to stop processing arrests because the jail was full.
Cenk Uygur, host of the TV show Young Turks was among the last few people that police removed from the Capitol steps. He said it was his first arrest and he expected there to be many more. “The next time we come here I don’t think they’re going to have enough buses to arrest us all,” he said. It took nearly four hours and 15 bus loads for police to remove all the protesters involved in Monday’s sit-in.
Democracy Spring kicked off on April 2 with a 10-day march from Philadelphia to Washington, DC. About 135 took part in the 140-mile walk. David Schwank, a walk participant, said that he was inspired to join the protests for many reasons. “We have so many problems in our country, from environmental devastation to [un]fair wages and it all relates back to campaign finance reform,” he said. Schwank was also among those arrested Monday.
If I had the time, I’d post every police brutality video here, just to have a record. This is clearly not the worst behavior. No one died after all. But these two videos are helpful in that the second puts the first into context.
You might think that context ease your anger. In this case, you’d be wrong. What we may never know is how the charges against these teens may follow them forever. This is what white supremacy looks like.
Below is video of 19-year-old Tatiana speaks about what started the fight between her and another woman. This event sparked the police coming to break up the pool party. @ejohnsoniv on instagram @ejcreoleboy on twitter to see images and follow the story.
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