Marching together

Our movement is so back. This weekend in New York, more than 75,000 of us rallied together for the March to End Fossil Fuels. We demanded that President Biden stop federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency. 

The night before the march, our coalition hosted a pre-march panel and community hour where we heard from student climate organizers. Some students were based in New York, others flew from Ohio, North Carolina, or California. Erin Mackey and her friends from Climate Justice U of T drove ten hours from Toronto to attend. JP Mejia from Sunrise AU opened the event, encouraging us to think of universities as “laboratories of ideas” and pushing us to create the future we want to see tomorrow, today. Sammi Bringas from Sunrise NYU reminded us that organizing should be about “friends, fun, and sun” – grounding us in the fact that community is crucial to keep our movement going. 

After the panel, the 70 college organizers from around the US and Canada stayed to share food and strategize together. We sat on the floor, inching closer together. We introduced old friends to new organizers and put faces to names we’d only seen in our email inbox. We gathered in circles and traded stories of our setbacks and successes. The past few years since Covid have been rough for our movement, but the perseverance of our organizers was on full display that night. The positive energy in the room was palpable. Isaac Slevin from Sunrise Brown put it best: “we’re sooo back.”

On Sunday morning, members from our coalition marched with the youth hub, which our very own Magnolia Mead helped mobilize. There were hundreds of students from dozens of schools coming together and demanding change. We saw friendly faces from Zoom meetings transformed into energized bodies on the ground marching and chanting together. We were able to hug and sing in person with members from Sunrise Brown, Climate Justice U of T, Sunrise NYU, Divest Harvard, Sunrise American University, Sunrise Columbia, Divest Princeton, and so many others. Even our favorite high school organizer, Sebastian Lemberger was there, leading our group chants. 

For those of us in New York, this weekend was a reminder of how powerful we are when we come together. The energy and drive of our movement is unstoppable, and we’re just getting started. 

We hope you can join us in this new phase of the climate movement and build power together by taking action with our coalition. 

Thank you for an unforgettable weekend.