Trespassing with Light at BofA HQ


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Last week (May 8-10) in Charlotte, NC the Backbone Campaign was able to play a central role in the protest outside the BofA Headquarters. Rod Tharp, Bruce Wilkinson, and I brought out and deployed our giant Debt Ball with shackles and chains through the streets of Charlotte, where rumor has it that people haven't taken the streets in decades... someone said 40-50 years! Our Giant Debt Ball and the hundreds of fearless protestors made it nearly impossible for the police to deny us the streets or to take back the intersection outside the Bank of America tower where shareholders were meeting. Press coverage and photos abound!

We also projected on the BofA HQ, their stadium and more, getting a couple great photos and a compelling video. The action captured on video was particularly powerful thanks in large part to artist John Hulsey of Boston who provided an audio track for the action and then edited the above action video. More on that adventure below. See Trespassing with Light.

After protesting BofA, we attended the Right to the City conference of community organizers and organizations from across the country working on eviction protection and more. We built a new Eviction Free Zone banner there for our allies in Boston, City Life/Vida Urbana in a record time of 2.5 hours.

As usual it was not only a lot of work, but also a GREAT time connecting with AMAZING people.

Gratitude
Besides Rod and Bruce, special thanks is owed to Barbara Turburton for travel support, Bob Powell for GOBOs, Don and Cathy (our Charlotte hosts), and Laura Farley whose energetic organizing and creative vision helped us play a meaningful role. The great shot of the Dislike button is by photographer Tracie Williams.

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Trespassing with Light
We also pulled off three projection actions as part of our skill sharing and action fun in the heart of the BofA beast, downtown Charlotte, NC. The first action was the night before the protests, placing a "Dislike" button above the main entrance of their HQ. Another was projecting Foreclosed onto the BofA Stadium. The third, and my favorite was at the end of a long day of taking over the streets during the BofA shareholder meeting. After packing up and fueling up, we hit the streets again.

This time we had a mobile sound system in the van and an amazing audio track created by John Hulsey for City Life/Vida Urbana‬, featuring the compelling voice and writing of underwater homeowner Presley Obasohan of Boston.

Charlotte has a ridiculous ordinance against projecting that was used to shut down our artful freedom of speech action near to the hotel where the Bank of America shareholders were staying. The security you see in the opening of the video are private security brought in by BofA in honor of the protests. The officer in the video who asked us to stop the action is a Charlotte, NC police officer. (We did not get his name and rank.)

The audio component added a tremendous amount of poignancy to this particular projection action. So did staying stationary and inviting the "authorities" to confront us. Rather than acting like criminals, we experimented with merely exercising our freedom of speech in a respectful and beautiful action.

I am very proud of our courageous crew, especially Rod Tharp who sat in the hot seat having to provide th
e officer with his driver's license. As Rox ran sound, Laura worked the spotlight ($15 rental at local production company), and John captured the action on video. (Me? I just sat there and enjoyed the beauty of the speak such profound truth to such foolish power... Until the officer seemed intent on enforcing their trespassing with light ordinance [they don't call it that - but the officer - in an un-taped portion thought that was a very creative description ;-] Thank you as well to my friend and collaborator Bob Powell for give generous provision of GOBOs (the light stencils used in these actions.)

Learning new tactics
Projection as protest is a fun and easy tactic to master. It's relatively cheap and potentially super effective. We will be instructing in this and a vast spectrum of other nonviolent creative tactics at the 4th annual ‪Localize This! artful activist and organizer training camp. Sign-up to attend at http://LocalizeThis.org

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Here are some more great photos from our Charlotte adventures. Great footage of our Giant Debt Ball figure prominently in CNBC coverage HERE.