Things are heating up across the United States as talk of a general strike increases and protests against ICE intensify. After the success of the Minnesota General Strike, organizing for general strikes is happening in other cities. We plan to introduce a series of interactive storytelling maps that give folks a sense of what is happening around the country.
To understand where things are headed in terms of a general strike to stop ICE, it's important to understand how people across the country are mourning the assassination of Alex Pretti.
Payday Report has collected news links from 62 actions and vigils across the country and internationally. The responses and calls to organize are inspiring and moving. Here are just a few highlights
- In Boise, Idaho, at a vigil honoring Alex Pretti, Jamie Hahn said, “Anybody I know from Idaho doesn’t want to see this happen here. If it’s happening there, it’ll happen here. People are getting murdered in the street and it’s visible. We all see it. We have to do something.”
- In the small town of Midland, Michigan, population 40,000, Hannah Hardy gave a moving speech, telling people “It’s so easy to just watch it on your phone and move on,, but if I don’t go out and do something, who’s going to?”
- Two-time WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart told a crowd in Miami. “Really all day yesterday, I was just disgusted from everything that you see on Instagram and in the news."
- At a vigil for Alex Pretti in Burlington Vermont, Kip Demoll said, “This invigorates and makes you feel not alone. Watching the news can be really hard, and sometimes it makes you cry, but knowing there are people honking and showing support, that’s really helpful.”
- We tracked 7 rallies for Alex Pretti overseas in Malta, Dublin, Paris, London, Sheffield (UK), and in Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland,
- Finally, we tracked reactions in Alex Pretti’s hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin, where more than 2,000 rallied. Afterwards, Chris Di Salvi, a high school classmate, told WLUK, "I never thought him to encourage any kind of violence at all. He was genuine, he was kind, he was friendly to everybody that I know. I can't stress how much he was kind to everybody."
Payday will present more maps like this, especially as we hear about more nationwide actions. We wanna give everyone a sense of how wide and deep the movement is across the country that goes beyond Instagram posts and allows folks to access the individual stories of people through local news sources.
For bigger events like May Day or the next Minnesota General Strike we will do comprehensive maps that show exact numbers like how we tracked 300 solidarity actions during the Minnesota General Strike, last year when we tracked “Days Without Immigrants” Strikes in 120 cities, or when tracked 3,000 strikes during the pandemic.
However, many of our maps will be interactive storytelling, like our map with links to stories about 62 vigils for Alex Pretti across the country and around the world. We hope that folks scan a few of these articles and get a sense of what people are feeling as general strike talks increase.
Finally, we need your help to do more maps like this. So, if you can spare a few bucks, we can tell more about the stories of so many workers.
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