While many folks have been taking a break during this holiday season, our Marla Marcum has not been one of them. Over the last week Marla has been jumping between lawyers and dozens of defendants who are before multiple courts defending their acts of conscience and moral imagination. 

Will you support Marla’s incredible court-support work with a donation?

The Climate Disobedience Center arose out of a need to deal with court cases after someone has taken action. I’m sure many of you know how we’ve spearheaded efforts to bring the climate necessity defense into courtrooms across the country. But legal strategy isn’t the only thing that happens when activists enter a courtroom; it can be a place to build community, build the disobedience muscles of those around us, and build power we can use in the next phase of action.

Defendants from the 2019 mass action to remove coal in Bow, New Hampshire fill the room in Concord District Court February 14th, 2020.

Marla Marcum has been leading us in ways to do that for over half a decade, and she has been making the resources she’s developed to successfully support defendants available to activists across the country, and coaching people who want to learn to do it themselves. 

This year she’s been busy shepherding over 100 cases through multiple courts in two different states as part of the No Coal No Gas campaign to close down the last remaining coal plant in New England without a shutdown date. As COVID-19 forced huge backlogs in the criminal (in)justice system, and then to court proceedings going online, Marla has brought community building to Zoom court.

This isn’t just a nice add-on for activists. At our core we believe that this is part of having each other’s backs in risky work and holding on to our humanity in the dehumanizing systems that operate in the world as-it-is now.

I think Marla’s work is an important model for climate activists across the country. And I think the movement needs her to continue to be a resource for others across the movement in 2021. If you think so too, will you chip in to support the Climate Disobedience Center as we reach the end of the year? Could you make a $20 monthly contribution? Or a $50 one-time contribution?

Click here to become a monthly sustainer. Or click here to make a one time donation.

So as we launch into 2021, I am grateful for the assurance of knowing that Marla’s on my team, and the team of so many activists across the country when we move into action. I hope you can show some appreciation too with your donation.

Thank you so much.

-Jay
for the Climate Disobedience Center team