WEBVTT - On the Ground at Defend the Atlanta Forest: Part One 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:08.719 Despite it being past midnight, you can still see through 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:12.560 the dense forest. The moonlit sky, combined with the urban 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.240 light pollution, make traversing the messy woods easier than you thought. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.079 You relieve that you don't have to use your head lamp, 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:23.639 which could have drawn unwanted attention. The company of a 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:25.959 few of your queer friends makes the walk through the 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:30.760 confusing woods less intimidating. Dressed in gray and camo, you 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.920 make your way through overgrown trails and hop over a 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.839 small creek. Save for the occasional train, all you can 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.400 hear is the croaking of frogs and chirping of cicadas, crickets, 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:45.560 and grasshoppers. The night air you breathe through your mask 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:48.519 is noticeably cleaner than the air from downtown that you 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:53.480 spent months riding in during not even counting the tear 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.360 gas in the air. As you and your pals slowly 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.560 trek through the forest, your feet squished into the grassy ground, 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.640 you avoid the area's caked in clay and stick to 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.600 the cover of trees, brush and the soft wetland. After 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.560 a short walk and with only a few wrong turns, 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.679 you reach an artificial break in the embrace of the forest. 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.600 You look at your masked up friends, and for a 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.960 brief moment during the moonlight night, you can't quite tell 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.760 who's who. Which is a good thing. You suppose everyone 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.800 exchanges glances, but no one says anything. Everyone already knows 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.760 what to do. As you approach the barren mound of dirt, 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.319 you get angry, a jarring crack in the beauty and 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:41.440 mysterious allure of the forest. You're no longer in the woods. 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.880 You're at the site of destruction, a clear cut that 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.920 seeks to expand its radius. Without the tree coverage, you 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.120 can see the harsh blue light of l eds in 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.160 the distance. There, among the mounds of dirt and fallen 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:01.520 trees are several unguarded machines of destruction. With no cell 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:03.960 phones in sight. You and your friends get to live 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.680 in the moment. Your agenda becomes the sound of shattering 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:12.840 glass in the cold night. Hammers meet windows and serrated 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.840 knives cut the inner tubing of bulldozers and excavators. The 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.920 undoing of the mechanical monsters that have violated the forest 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.480 has begun. No tool of the evil doers goes unharmed. 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.359 Rattling cans of spray paint, leave antagonistic and proclamatory messages 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.040 with rebellious hiss for those who intend to continue destroying 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:38.120 the forest. Defend the forest, no cops city, no Hollywood dystopia. 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.399 In little time, the light pollution, moonlight, and distant LEDs 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.680 are accompanied by a bright orange blaze emanating from the machines, 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.240 lighting up the area around the sad mound of dirt. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.880 A splash of gasoline acts as the extension of the 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.560 blood that fuels the burning fire in your hearts that 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.160 became a light with the rage felt at the sight 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.320 of the decimated woods. By the time the fire department 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.560 took notice, you've already disappeared into the night, like a specter, 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.480 fading like the curling black smoke that drifted into the 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:16.119 midnight sky. As you exit the forest, you go about 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.600 as if what happened tonight never did. You never tell 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.200 a soul, You never talk about it with your masked 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:27.600 up queer friends, since they were never there either. Details 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.760 fade in your memory like a dream, but deep down 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.480 you still remember the feeling, the peak moment of true freedom. 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:38.480 When the fire engulfed the machines, it was upon broken, 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:43.120 uneasable machines that the fires were extinguished, laying incinerated, the 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.600 excavators and bulldozers who are rendered immobile worthless. Piles of trash. 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.360 Fires are only temporary and can be undone. But the 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.520 connection between those who live in a forest, who breathes air, 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:57.920 and who drink its water filtered through its wetlands is 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.320 not so easily broken. Any further attempts that destroying the 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.600 forest we met with a similar response. The forest was 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.120 here long before us, and we'll be here long after. 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.440 You and your friends, among many other anonymous strangers will 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.960 see to that welcome. Took it up in here a 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.160 podcast about things falling apart and how we can put 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:23.720 them back together, And today we'll be spending that entire spectrum. 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.640 I'm Garrison Davison. The story I just read isn't merely 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.559 a fictional one. It was inspired by over a year's 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.440 worth of communicators and report backs coming out of the 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.520 Defend the Forest movement in Atlanta, Georgia. So excuse the 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:42.120 pretentious poetry of anarchists and speak. In early one, it 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.039 was real to the public that mainly four entities, namely 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.080 the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Foundation, de Cab 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:52.160 County and Black Hall Studios had dual plans to devastate 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.760 two complementary sections of the South Atlanta Forest. The City 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.599 of Atlanta and Police Foundation plans are to turn the 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.719 area of the forest, known as the Old Atlanta Prison Farm, 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.640 into the largest police training facility in the country, complete 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:11.720 with a mock city, helipad and bomb range. Meanwhile, Entrenchment 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.640 Creek of a public forest land will be traded by 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:18.080 De Cab County to Black Hall Movie Studios to clear 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:20.480 cut the land on which they plan to build America's 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:25.560 largest sound stage. This project lies at a horrific intersection 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.920 of police militarization, gentrification, copaganda, and exasperating the local effects 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.240 of worsening climate change by clear cutting hundreds of acres 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:39.560 of forest. In the last year, activists, ghosts like saboteurs, 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.919 and open source researchers have vultraals together into an anonymous 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.680 and diverse movement that's brought the plan to destroy the 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.720 forest out of the shadows of secretive, backdoor corporate deals 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.400 and into the public spotlight, forming the Defend the Atlanta 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.320 Forest movement that's consistently been able to get ahead of 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.680 police and media by breaking news about the force to 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.680 strug action plans and setting the terms of engagement and 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.440 what's deemed as acceptable direct action, all well being able 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.320 to foster relationship with the woods that they are defending. 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.120 I've been really interested in this project since I heard 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.080 about it last summer. Along with the intersection of police 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.479 militarization and climate change. On the flip side, there's this 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:24.080 unique intersection of urban city protest and classic forest echo defense. 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.760 The mix of tactics have produced a movement unlike anything 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.440 really seen before here in the States. Not to get 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.560 ahead of myself, but ever since last fall when the 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.000 Atlanta City Council approved the plan to build the largest 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.000 police training facility in the country, dubbed cops City by 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.120 activists due to the plans to build a mini version 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.200 of Atlanta within the facility to practice urban combat. But 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.799 I figured that I would eventually find myself inside the forest. 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.159 So this last April, when an opportunity presented itself to 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.960 travel to Atlanta, stay in the woods and talk with 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.159 some forest defenders, I could not pass it up. I 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.320 packed a tent, sleeping bag, and some microfilms and made 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.640 my way to Georgia. The first thing I noticed upon 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.360 arriving in Atlanta is that when they say Atlanta is 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.680 a city in a forest, they really do mean it. 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.000 The amount of continuous tree coverage throughout the city was astonishing, 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.720 and that's coming from someone who lives in Portland, Oregon. 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.960 As it turns out, the city of Atlanta actually has 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.920 the highest amount of tree canopy of any city in 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:28.680 the United States. On top of the citywide tree coverage, 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.160 there is the South River Forest, which makes up the 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.920 largest continuous section of woods and serves as Atlanta's first 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.040 line of defense in the face of rapidly accelerating climate change. 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.440 The forest in southeast Atlanta is said to function as 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.920 the lungs of the city. The canopy offers shade and 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.160 traps carbon, with some of the more heavily forted areas 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.480 acting as wetlands that filter rain water and prevent flooding 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:55.239 by collecting runoff. It's marsh is one of the last 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.640 breeding grounds for a lot of amphibians in the region, 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.200 as well as an important migration site or wading birds, 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.200 and serves as a home to a lot of local wildlife. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.200 Nearly five acres of this forest is under threat by 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.880 the Atlanta Police Foundation and Black Hall Studios. If plans 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.520 succeed to develop this precious strip of forest into the 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.080 massive police compound and adjacent movie sound stage, the entire 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.160 metropolitan area will face much harsher effects of climate change, 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:27.080 including worsening floods, higher temperatures, and less clean, tree filtered air, 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.800 not to mention the increased police militarization and gentrification. Speaking 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.200 of the second thing I noticed once I arrived in 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.880 Atlanta is how much gentrification is currently underway. The amount 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.360 of hideous five of our one apartments that are being 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.400 built was impossible to overlook. And as we'll see, the 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.920 way police feed off gentrification, which feeds off the corporate 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.400 and movie making sides of Atlanta, is not merely a coincidence. 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.080 Last fall, I interviewed Jamal from the Atlanta chapter of 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:00.560 the Community Movement Builders, a black blood collective of community 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.920 residents and activists serving poor, working class black communities. They 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:09.240 focus on responding to encroaching gentrification, displacement, and over policing. 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:11.800 Here's what Jamal had to say on the intersection of 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.520 issues owing around the cops city and defend the forest project. 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.160 Just to piggyback off of that, I think it's extremely 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.880 important for us to recognize the connections between all these things. Right, this, 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:28.000 like Cops City is a perfect blend of UM environmental 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:33.040 justice issues, uh just flat out racism, police brutality, and 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.640 also gentrification. Right, it's not a it's not a mistake 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.120 that they're building this Cops City right at this moment 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.360 when UM Atlanta is also becoming the for the first 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.000 time and I don't know how many decades, um Non 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.479 no longer a majority black city because neighborhoods like Pittsburger 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.840 were located out of and all across Southwest and West 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.160 Atlanta have becoming more like the black people have been 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.440 being displaced from the from our communities, right. UM. So 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.400 a perfect example is that with my gganization Community Movement Builders, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.079 we UH purchased We've been we've been doing work in 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.880 the Pittsburgh neighborhood for a while, but we purchased a 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.360 community house in the neighborhood about six years ago. Right 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:15.600 at that point, we purchased the house for fifty thousand dollars. Right. UM, 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.400 Pittsburgh has been historically uh poorn working class community. It 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.600 was uh it was founded as a black community, which 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:24.880 is different from a lot of other other neighbors in Atlanta. 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.240 Was founded as a black community from uh freed Africans 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.360 UM who were trying to escape some of the more 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:34.880 rural areas of the South and found work in Haven 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.040 in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Atlanta. And it's been a 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.520 poor and working class black community ever since. But now UM, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.920 because of the gentrification has been going on. How a 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.240 house just sold maybe about a month and a half 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.920 ago for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, So the 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.559 person's house at fifty thousand dollars six years ago. A 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.960 house just sold UM just a few blocks away from 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.280 that house for seven fifty thousand dollars. Now, it's not 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:00.960 every house to sell in for that amount, but that 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.000 just shows you the rate of gentrification that's happening. And 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.760 then and we know that cops are on this necessary 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.400 part of being able to defer to displace people from 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.960 gentrifying communities. They play an integral role within gentrification. Yeah, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.160 I'm just wondering, does any of you have anything like 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:20.280 even like anecdotal experience with like basically Marvel and men 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.600 tons of other industries like invading Atlanta. How is that 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.840 like affected specifically, Like you already talked about how how 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.319 you know, increased the increase in the film industry and 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.200 other things. Has you know, has made more gentrification, But 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.360 like how has that even affected just like like other 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.400 types of stuff including like policing, Like has has this 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.800 type of like growth um affected people or people you 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.960 know in in other ways? Yeah? Absolutely so I think 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.480 a lot of this kind of got I won't say 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.959 it got started, but a lot of it went even 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.520 uh you know, escalated when Tyler Perry Studio opened up 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.440 in East Point, UM and a lot of people you 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.280 know were praising It's like, oh look at this uh 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:00.560 you know, it's a black man. And I was able 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:02.559 to move down and be able to start this thing 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.079 within Hollywood. But no, it's all that is one of 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.400 the things that also spurred the gentrification in East Point, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.480 which is you might not be familiar with Atlanta, but 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.760 East Point is like literally right next to Atlanta, So 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.760 it's a lot of it's it's really close proximity, and 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.200 so that also spurs over to the gentrification here in 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.640 the city as well. Um property values have gone up 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.080 since that point even more. UM even my tax bill 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.840 has gone up a thousand dollars a year per a 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.880 year UM for the past like three years, right, UM, 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:36.800 So it's yeah, it's it's definitely. We definitely see the 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.440 effects and you know, and just talking to you know, 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.800 we do, we do do a lot of work around gentrification. UM. 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:45.840 And I think this is in tandem with you know, 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.679 because we have COVID nineteen out here now, with the 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.080 Vision moratorium which has now been you know denied um 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.000 with by the Supreme Court. Um. But even when there 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:57.920 wasn't a Vision moratorium, there were still people that were 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.880 getting evicted from their homes. And and I think all 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.480 of this in tandem when Atlanta specifically has already been 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:08.160 going through a gentrification crisis and um with COVID nineteen 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.480 where people have been losing jobs left and right, or 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:12.600 not been able to go to their jobs that they've had, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.200 um and look and having us salaries cut. People have 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:18.280 been hurting, and the response from the city has not 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.760 to been that has not been to provide more resources 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.560 to people. It's been too fund cops city to be 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:27.560 able to get more peace out. Who are the ones 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.679 that execute then actual evictions themselves? And I think it 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.120 all it all it all is connected in that in 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.920 that type of way. I arrived in Atlanta a few 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.160 days before the Muscogee Summit, a weekend event where the 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.800 original indigenous people from the area of the South River, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.040 or for the native name of the said land, the 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.960 Ulannie Forest, traveled back to their ancestral homeland to discuss 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:52.400 indigenous environmental philosophy, what land back and rematreation means in 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:56.280 theory and practice. Several Indigenous authors were present and led workshops, 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:00.319 including Indigenous feminist, scholar and community planner lower Are Joe 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.760 from the University of Oklahoma, author of Spiral to the Stars, 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:08.480 Muskogee Tools of Futurity, and Dr Daniel Wildcat of the 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.080 Haskell Indian Nations University, who wrote the book Read Alert, 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.720 Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge. In the less academic portions, 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:20.360 there were forest walks, community meals, and singing of old 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.960 Muscogee songs, including ones that are performed two centuries ago 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.320 during the Trail of Tears. Muskogee Creek. Attendees also gathered 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.520 around a sacred fire to perform a stomp dance, recreating 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.320 rhythms heard and sensed in the forest long ago to 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.480 rekindle the relationship with the Earth and connect back to 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.680 the ancestral presences. This was the second ancestral migration the 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.440 Muskogee Creek Title members have done since being forcibly removed 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.600 two centuries ago and displaced to Oklahoma. The first one 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.600 took place just this last November, and both times the 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.200 particular section of land they gathered on in Transparant Creek 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.800 Park is one of the areas under threat of being 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.200 ecologically destroyed and clear cut. Over the course of a 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.880 few days during my week long stay, I sat down 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.760 in the woods to record with two groups of forest defenders, 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.240 one group sitting around a campfire at night next to 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.360 a high security child prison, and the other group during 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.800 the sunny bird chirping day outside the Black Hole Studios 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:21.000 movie plot. So if you hear campfires or bird sounds 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:25.080 in the background, just embrace our forest punk aesthetic. Up front, 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.320 I think it's really important to first talk about the 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.360 history of the land that is under threat because on 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.640 top of issues regarding gentrification and the plans of this 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.360 police training facility. As a response to the George Flayne 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:41.160 uprising and the false manufactured crime wave media narrative intended 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.920 to rejusify American policing in the wake of the uprising, 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.240 that the fact that the Atlanta Police Foundation shows this 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:51.880 plot of land in particular is particularly gross. The history 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.120 of this small section of land in the South River 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.680 Watershed is deeply scarred and desperately needs time to heal. 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.880 There are centuries of oppression and state violence tied to 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.600 this particular spot of land, and now we're seeing that 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.200 trying to be continued with this Cops City plan. Local 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.880 tribes were expelled for millions of acres in the southwest 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.440 region of what is now known as the United States 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.440 during the early decades of the eighteen hundreds. Forced removal 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.120 and displacement of the Muskogee Creek people began in the 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:22.440 region in eighteen twenty one through a series of treaties 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.800 which then eventually led to a quote melee of removal. 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:29.760 More on that from one of the force defenders I 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.040 spoke to, and I'll note we'll be using a mix 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:36.120 of voice distortion and voice actors combined with other audio 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.440 distortion to help protect the identities of the forced defenders 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.600 that I spoke to against possible state repression. So enjoy 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.880 our our our cool voice distorted audio. Yeah, I think 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:59.960 it's important because a lot of our comrades relatives repressed 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.040 lands in the early eighteen hundreds. They a lot of 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:05.800 them did not go quietly in the night. I think 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:07.600 that's important to remember because I feel like a lot 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:09.440 of people are just like the Trail of twos or 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.160 like they were pushed out, but they're they fought against 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.320 being pushed out, and then when a lot of them 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.320 are pushed out or killed off, then it was used 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:22.320 to incur sory and house mostly black people. So we're 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.359 taking it back. That is most of the people that 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.640 I have seen involved. It is a diverse group of people. 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.399 It's not just like white anarchists in the woods. That 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.080 is a misconception. There's all kinds of folks, which really 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.800 I think is interesting and makes this trouble unique and important. 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.080 But there is also a lot of like white anarchists 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.000 that are using their privilege to help take the land 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.520 back for our comrades that want to see it back, 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.880 and it feels things feel like they're in a good way. Um, 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.840 there's good relations that are existing between like the anarchists 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.280 and Indigenous Alliance down here, where like obviously no one 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.600 person speaks or represents any one group, but the alliances 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:04.399 that we have are very informed of the variety of 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.960 activities that have happened down here, including the persons of machinery, 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.959 and we were positively told to quote unquote keep on going. 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:20.600 So that feels empowering and it feels beautiful, and it 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.399 feels important to note that some of the comrades that 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.720 have ancestral tires to this area, it's such a dark 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.800 history and they're still here. Is something that they're mentioning, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.680 and they're excited. The people that were close to obviously 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:38.720 we are close to all of them. They're excited that 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.680 people are choosing to use their privilege to help make 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.520 sure these facilities don't get built. Continuing with the scarred 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.439 history of this land, Shortly after the lands at the 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.840 South River Forest were stolen from Muskegee Creek people, plots 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.120 were distributed to white settlers in the fourth Georgia Land 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.240 Lottery of one, which made available landloads of two undred 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.000 in two point five acres. Many of these white settlers 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.720 established slave plantations on which cotton and other crops were 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.800 produced through slave labor. Through archival records, we know of 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.040 at least twelve plantations that were on this land that 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:17.879 existed from the eighteen forties up until eighteen sixty five, 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.200 and then in the early nineteen hundreds, the very same 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.640 land started being used as a prison farm, now known 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:29.200 as the Old Atlanta Prison Farm. The Old Atlanta Prison 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.840 Farm was originally bought in nineteen seventeen to incarceraate prisoners 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.800 of war, but this plan was abandoned within two years 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.080 and the land was converted into a prison farm where 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.439 inmates including a moonshiners, public drinkers, and just loiterers and 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.280 really anybody, were sent to and forced to perform unpaid 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:50.800 agricultural labor. This shift from plantations to prison farm marks 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:54.280 the rebranding of slavery into for profit prison labor. This 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.240 labor included washing cows and arsenic laden water, which led 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.800 to the early deaths of countless prison nurse. The facility 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.320 ran up until in which it was shut down, and 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.200 then two child prison facilities were put on the adjacent land, 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.080 and the Atlanta Police Department already currently uses sections of 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:18.000 this hollow ground as a firing range. Tear gas canisters 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.360 and bullet casings from police are frequently found throughout the forest. 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.199 From where on that here's some other parts that might 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:26.960 sit down with the forest offenders. And then I guess 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:32.960 like fast forwarding a little bit from this land where 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:37.960 indigenous people lived to the prison farm, um, and then 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.240 how this has like a long incarstral history and history 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.359 of being tied to policing. Uh well with the child 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.000 prison that's still here, the prison farm, and then now 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:50.879 trying to build this militarized training facility, just like continuing 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:55.159 on this legacy of state violence, which is like another 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:57.640 massive aspect in terms of like they're trying to take 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.000 this very like land that needs to heal from the 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.600 centuries of violence and just tear it all down and 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.720 build more of that. Um. I know, there's like there's 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.560 the firing range that we've been hearing shots from. Uh 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.840 there's it's like just this never ending thing. It just 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.560 like just keeps happening. It's a pretty weird, surreal experience. 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.919 Makes me feel like we're all like an endangered species 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.159 living in like the last part of the forest and 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.840 fucking South Atlanta. I remember when I was explaining to 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:31.919 one of my relatives, are like I was reading the 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.600 internet about the Family Atlanta forest and not sure quite 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:37.679 what's all going on, but sounds like you're living in 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.840 how you're between two different chapters and sons of high 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.560 security was the less security, a large massive power line 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.440 cut and old Prettiston farm and two sides of the 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.359 road at least three different police firing rangers and always 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.480 water treatment plane at the doubles as a firing range 0:21:54.480 --> 0:22:01.120 and super training facility for the police. Another interesting facet 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.639 is this particular piece of land where they're trying to 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:10.879 build Top City is like a really important turning point 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:16.040 in history of slavery in the US, and like this 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:21.320 is where a lot of things went from like shadow 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:26.440 slavery um and transitioned into what we now have as 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:32.760 prison slavery. And as we're sitting here on what was 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:37.880 literally a prison farm, even people in pretile detention were 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:43.600 here and used for unpaid labor, even people who had 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:48.000 not been convicted of any time. And so it's kind 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:55.200 of like it's like like very like visible like stain 0:22:55.720 --> 0:23:00.159 on the like history of of like what you is 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.159 racist policing, but it's harder to cover up and harder 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:09.400 to like pink flash um and so like even as 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:13.439 there is like a place where children are locked in 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:20.120 cages over they have not yards from me. So too, 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:26.720 is this a place where people were brought for being 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:31.439 used as slaves and like died and were buried in 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:36.760 unmarked graves. Yeah. Can I talk a little bit more 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:40.439 about that. This was the transition. This is like the 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:45.520 intermediitary the intermediate transition between child slavery and mind day 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:50.800 prison slavery. UM. And it was like especially horrific, Like 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:55.080 there is two lakes on the property, but where at 0:23:55.119 --> 0:23:58.760 one point said to be filled with arsenic um where 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:06.159