With the Gateway Arch as their designated backdrop, activists flew a banner in downtown St. Louis that read “Racism still lives here” as part of the Ferguson Commemoration Weekend’s day of civil disobedience on Monday (April 10).
“In this country, racism kills,” said Elizabeth Vega, leader of the activists group The Artivists that helped plan the action. “Because a year after Mike Brown, people are still dying.”
Donned in rock-climbing harnesses, two women – an African-American and a Latina – acted as anchors as they raised the 40-foot banner up with two helium-filled weather balloons. Two young black men served as their supports.
“We are not attaching the banner to anything,” Vega said. “We are not trespassing or vandalizing. People fly kites in federal parks all the time. Ours just happens to be 10-foot by 10-foot weather balloons and a huge banner.”
Jessie Sandoval, who acted as one of the banner’s anchors, said they’ve been planning the action for months.
“The banner is not only a visual spectacle,” she said, “but it’s also an invitation for people to get involved in this movement and to bring together their own families and communities to have discussions.”
The group of about 12 purchased a “balloon banner drop” kit from the Ruckus Society, a network of non-violent action coordinators and workers based in Oakland, California. A direct-action coordinator with Ruckus also traveled to St. Louis to train them for the action. Some group members acted as legal liaisons, who would talk with police or authorities and explain their action.
“Ruckus had a huge role,” said Alisha Sonnier, president of the activist group Tribe X that also helped plan the action. “As an organizer, I need to make sure that everyone who is participating in this action is completely comfortable. Ruckus’ role is to help people feel that security in knowing that I’ve been trained by someone who does big actions like this for a living.”
Charles Long, the Ruckus trainer, said the society works to enhance what communities and activists are already doing.
“We are a magnifying glass around helping communities focus their energies and directed at their targets,” he said.
Ideally, the actions take a week of training, but the group only had a couple days. However in terms of the required skillsets, the balloon banner drop is on the low end of what Ruckus pulls off, he said.
“Ruckus does a lot of climb trainings and blockade trainings, which is literally how to block something from happening,” he said. “That involves some welding and some other tactics and skillsets that involve a little more training time. This is a basic introduction.”
However, it can be just as impactful as more complicated actions, he said, but it involves less bodily risk to those involved.
“A year ago we didn’t know what an art build was or how to organize it,”
Vega said. “But now we are taking on more complicated kinds of actions because we want people to pay attention. We think that art is a conduit to doing that.”
Follow this reporter on Twitter @rebeccarivas.
