Please arrive 15 minutes early to register for the event and browse books. Buying a book before or after the event is a great way to support the Making Worlds project!
In today’s political climate, it’s more important than ever that rebels develop tighter security practices. How can we protect each other from state repression and make our activities less visible to the state? This presentation will go over the basics of security culture, tech security, and operational security. We’ll provide an introduction to security considerations for people who are newer to being politically active, while also touching on current debates around how to become harder targets for the state.
Facilitated by Philly Anti-Repression, a resource for people in the Philadelphia area dealing with state repression.
Friday, July 18, 2025
5:30 PM 7:30 PM
Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center210 South 45th StreetPhiladelphia, PA, 19104United States(map)
Philadelphia, PA — A working class uprising continued through Fourth of July celebration week in the “poorest big city” in the United States. Jammed locks at health centers, opened fire hydrants, slashed tires, blocked trucks, and blocked access to work sites were just a few allegations brought by City Solicitor Renee Garcia in a recent press conference. Three injunctions have been filed that require a limited number of essential workers to return to work and a third aims to stop “unlawful activity” by union members who are striking for better pay and benefits. Despite court orders, the city had received numerous reports of noncompliance, according to Garcia, “and they have not stopped.”
“At one location where we had employees locked inside, [striking workers] shut off the water from the outside and then parked their car over the valve [to prevent it being turned back on]. It’s not legal activity… Just two hours ago, they breached the fence, they came in and started taking trash from dumpsters and compactors and throwing it on the floor.”
Philadelphia City Solicitor Renee Garcia, July 2, 2025
Meanwhile, trash continues to pile up around the city.
Failed contract negotiations have led nearly 10,000 members of AFSCME District Council 33 (DC33), the union representing blue-collar Philadelphia city workers, to walk off the job.
DC33 represents an array of city service workers including librarians, sanitation, the water department, 911 emergency dispatch, school crossing guards, airport maintenance, and street maintenance.
Heaps of uncollected garbage (recently christened as “Parker Piles”) seen along South Street included flyers of Philly sports mascots Gritty (L) and the Philly Phanatic (R) encouraging residents to call the Mayor’s office
The historic strike by the largest working-class municipal union in Philly is the first of its kind in nearly 40 years. Trash pick-ups, street repairs, and other city services ground to a halt overnight.
Picket lines have been active throughout the city since July 1. Sanitation sites and public libraries have reportedly been chained and locked to prevent scabs – non-union workers brought in to replace strikers – from breaking union picket lines. The official Free Library of Philadelphia website listed over forty locations closed with “work stoppage” as the reason.
Striking DC33 workers rally outside the Philadelphia Free Library’s flagship Parkway branch on July 2, 2025.
Video from NBC10 shows a tense moment from Tuesday, July 1 when management at the Department of Sanitation in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood tried to enter the Sanitation Convenience Center while union members confront the person. “We’re on strike, man, you know the rules. We not moving nothing… and that’s what it is. Respectfully…” The clash lasted a few moments before management was turned away and picketers locked the gate shut. “Tell that to the Mayor. It’s the Mayor’s fault, not ours. We’re on strike… and that’s what we’re gonna do until we get a fair contract.”
In a conjuring of C.L.R James’ notion of “proletarian self-activity,” workers throughout the city have taken matters into their own hands, leading to at least two arrests.
On the 3900 block of Ford Road, union worker Carnell Wilder, 59, was arrested in connection to an incident involving a Philadelphia Gas Works employee. Wilder allegedly approached the PGW worker, who was operating a digger loader and asked “why aren’t you striking?” before proceeding to deflate one of the tires with a knife, according to unverified police claims reported in corporate media. Wilder was arrested and transported to a medical center for hand injuries.
The following day, July 2, Jeanette Coppinger, a librarian assistant and union member, was arrested after allegedly blocking the entrance to the Northeast Regional Library on Cottman Avenue. Local news reported that a sheriff’s deputy read the injunction against blocking entry during the picket, but Coppinger refused to move. In court, Coppinger affirmed that she willfully violated the order “to make a statement.”
Even the city medical examiners have walked out. City attorneys complained “cooled storage for dead bodies is getting crowded, and there is a ‘backlog’ of cadavers that need to be examined in Philadelphia’s morgue that has increased due to the strike.”
A judge agreed, “[it] creates a clear and present danger or threat to the health, safety or welfare of the public,” and ordered some staff to “cross any picket lines established by Defendants or any other person if necessary to complete the full, faithful, and proper performance of their duties of employment for the City.”
Union City Workers’ Wages Well Below Local “Living Wage”
DC33 is the lowest paid of Philly’s four municipal unions and the only municipal union with majority-Black membership, the Philadelphia Inquirer previously reported. According to a recent report by NBC10, sanitation workers in Philadelphia earn the lowest salary of any major city in the US; they typically earn between $18-20 an hour. A living wage in Philadelphia County for a family with one child stands closer to $38.60, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator.
DC33 is currently asking for a 5% increases over each of the next four years; the city offered 2.75%, 3% and again 3% over three years, according to a July 3 Billy Penn report.
On day one of the strike in front of the Parkway Central Library at 1901 Vine Street, one union member carried her child while admonishing the current pay rate as “not enough to even pay for diapers.”
This isn’t the first time Mayor Cherelle Parker, the first Black woman elected mayor of Philadelphia, has faced organized community resistance.
Last year, Parker’s unpopular push to gentrify Chinatown with a 76ers stadium proposal was a disaster for the city, as she spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars trying to convince her constituents that selling out Chinatown with a new stadium was a good idea. Chinatown residents and their allies rose to “Save Chinatown,” clashing with the mayor at press conferences, city council hearings and outside of City Hall. Despite heroic efforts from the Chinatown community, the stadium deal was approved last December. However, 76ers management reversed their decision with the city, humiliating the Parker administration.
Mayor Parker is again facing backlash after claiming that the city cannot afford the union’s proposal. Video is circulating on social media from 2021, where Parker is seen giving an impassioned speech in support of fair wages for DC33 and even quotes James Baldwin, “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do!”
Meanwhile, Parker created 16 new positions within her administration that offer six figure salaries. Parker, herself, enjoys a 9% salary increase that was carried through during the last month of the previous administration. Last year, she received an additional 3.1% Cost of Living Adjustment bringing her salary to $269,708.
In Philly, the average sanitation worker makes between $39,000-42,000/year. A 5% increase, the union’s current demand, would bring that number up by about $2,100/year, on average. As negotiations continue, the Mayor demanded that “we must restore order before bargaining.” DC33 responded: “Order isn’t the issue—poverty pay is.”
No deal was on the table by the time July 4 approached, where the Wawa convenience store chain hosts its annual music festival celebration called Made in America.
In solidarity with the workers, LL Cool J announced that he would no longer be headlining the Fourth of July event. “I understand there’s a lot going on in Philadelphia right now, and you know, I never, ever, ever want to disappoint my fans, and especially in Philadelphia,” he said in a video on social media. “Y’all mean too much to me, but there’s absolutely no way that I could perform, cross a picket line and pick up money when I know that people are out there fighting for a living wage. I’m not doing that, you know?”
At 2 p.m., the union organized a picket line directly outside of the festival’s entrance, near the Free Library on 1901 Parkway. Scabby – a cartoonish inflatable rat used to shame union-busting employers – made an appearance while hundreds of picketers and their supporters gathered. Union members, a labor historian and even a small band playing old union hymns shared time on the mic.
By around 3:20 p.m., another performer and Philly native, Jazmine Sullivan, expressed her solidarity with the workers and refused to cross the picket line to perform. Her Instagram story read, “In this life we are only measured by how we uphold our morals and standards, by what we choose to fight for through participation or protest. Today I choose not to perform at the Wawa Welcome America concert and stand with Philly’s DC33 until the city and union find a way to bring fair living wages to our working class. I love my city and I believe in you. Hopefully we will get to celebrate when things are better.”
As uncollected trash keeps piling up, strikers with @afscme33 are encouraging supporters to keep contacting Cherelle Parker’s office to help apply pressure to agree to an 8 percent raise for garbage collectors & other essential workers who often struggle to make ends meet. pic.twitter.com/TL3KHdcA0U
The historical significance of a sanitation worker strike in the U.S. cannot be overstated. The 1,300-strong sanitation strike in Memphis, Tennessee, inspired Martin Luther King to give his 1968, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech. “Don’t let anybody tell you to go back on the job and paternalistically say, ‘Now, you are my men and I’m going to do the right thing for you. Just come on back on the job.’ Don’t go back on the job until the demands are met. Never forget that freedom is not something that is voluntarily given by the oppressor. It is something that must be demanded by the oppressed.”
“The person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn’t do his job, diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity.”
Martin Luther King Jr., March 18, 1968
Standing with members of the sanitation unit on July 6, Greg Boulware, president of AFSCME DC33, strengthened the resolve of the strikers.
“We see scales, charts and graphs all over the country that are highlighting how far below the men and women who work in the City of Philadelphia are living below the living wage scale. That has to change … I don’t care how many SCABS they get to try to do our work, they can’t do the work that District Council 33 does.”
Greg Boulware, President, AFSCME District Council 33
On Monday, July 7 – the seventh day of the strike – three activists from the environmentalist Sunrise Movement had a “Special Delivery” for Mayor Parker. Inside City Hall, overflowing trash bags were dragged in front of room 185. The bags carried a written message, “MEET DC33 DEMANDS.” A sit-in had begun.
According to a Sunrise Movement Instagram post, “we picked up garbage from Piccoli Playground in North Philly, one of the mayor’s temporary dumpsites where trash continues to pile up and put us at risk.” The three were quickly arrested. One yelled, “Workers deserve dignity! Cherelle, pay your workers!” All three were released later that evening.
The same morning, in the Point Breeze section of South Philadelphia, striking workers reported a large police presence outside of Queens Memorial Library. One union member said that no scabs had been able to cross the picket. “SCAB LINE” was written in chalk at the library’s entrance. “WE SEE YOU SCABS – WE REMEMBER” was chalked in large letters on an adjacent wall. As of July 7th, the Philadelphia Free Library website listed 48 library locations closed due to “union work stoppage.”
Whispers of a city-wide general strike loom as other work sectors experience labor disputes. ASFCME DC47 plans for a strike authorization vote on Thursday, which would add 3,000 more strike-ready workers.
Penn Museum Workers United AFSCME Local 397, who voted to strike this Wednesday, went to social media to express solidarity with DC33: “The working people of Philadelphia deserve more than the crumbs Mayor Parker and Penn are putting on the table.”
As the workers maintain their resolve with “One day longer, one day stronger,” Philadelphians continue to defy the Mayor’s orders to not put trash on the curb. Block by block, signs and notes are shared between neighbors expressing support for the striking sanitation workers. In the City of Brotherly Love, solidarity remains a love language for strike summer 2025.
Limited amount of physical copies available, come to ORCA Open Hours 7/9, 5-9:30pm for free pamphlets or email reekingthickets@proton.me to check availability and get copies at another time (free locally before 7/23, $3 after, plus shipping if not local)
Join us for two reading group discussions at ORCA (orcaphilly.noblogs.org/events/event/reading-group-bonanno-on-insurrectionary-organization/ – email ORCA at orca.philly@protonmail.com for address and accessibility info) where we’ll discuss the ideas in this newly compiled collection of writings by Alfredo Maria Bonanno in pamphlet form! Pick up a free physical copy of the reading at ORCA Open Hours on July 9th, 5-9:30pm (you can also print/read the pdf file included in this post), and come to a casual first discussion (covering pages 1-43), at ORCA Open Hours at 7:45pm July 16th, and a second discussion (pages 43-96) at ORCA Open Hours at 7:45pm July 23rd. Please do the reading beforehand (though you don’t have to participate in the reading group to come to open hours these days, and cross-talk is welcome), and if you’d like, feel free to bring any jotted-down questions or thoughts that come up.
This 96pg. collection of writings by Alfredo Bonanno (including some crude, new, provisional machine-translations with cursory manual corrections and added explanatory footnotes) aims to bring together some of his most concise, yet in-depth explanations of many of the core concepts of the specific strain of contemporary insurrectionary anarchism that he helped develop, which are often misunderstood or glossed over in jargon: projectuality, autonomous base nuclei (which include non-anarchists), affinity, informal organization, active/specific minorities (and their tools of counter-information, theory, intermediate struggles, and armed struggle), limited/specific struggles, the methodological trio of permanent conflictuality, self-management, and attack, and how these all relate to the mass process of insurrection. The particular value of this approach in the context of the real domination of post-industrial, technological society is also explored, as well as the relation between riot and insurrection, ideas of propaganda, linguistic and cultural alienation/estrangement/appropriation, destructive revolutionary consciousness oriented towards the unknown, and the significance of democratic, nationalist, authoritarian communist, synthesis or platform anarchist, shallowly spontaneist or individualist, unionist, and movementist tendencies.
We hope to evade some of the frequent snags that arise around current interpretations of Bonanno and contemporary insurrectionary anarchist theory, and feel that the material in this collection is far from another stale debate of the organizational question, and holds real, critical relevance from multiple angles for some contemporary impasses, transmitting, still, a powerfully fresh and possibilizing potential. Much will hopefully be at least somewhat new here for even those well-versed in current discussions, and, read alongside the anonymous classic At Daggers Drawn With the Existent, Its Defenders, and Its False Critics, and Armed Joy – also by Bonanno, we feel this collection can offer a very solid, well-rounded overview for readers unfamiliar with insurrectionary anarchist positions.
We do not intend to frame Alfredo Bonanno as some sort of mythical, revolutionary immortal with this collection, nor ourselves as any kind of privileged interpreter. It is not some detached intellectual fondness for decades-old European theoretical tracts passed through language barriers that leads us to feel these texts are relevant (though these ones do also please us to read). In fact, Bonanno’s rigorous criticism of this kind of ideological abstraction goes far further than many of his loyal, straight-talking critics who profess this angle. Both positive and negative appraisals of the insurrectionary anarchist proposals often suffer from a lack of genuine engagement with some of its primary theoretical elaborations, including with Bonanno’s work (though not only; our focus on him here doesn’t mean to repeat the frequent misconception that the many other, even less examined thinkers and currents historically involved are somehow irrelevant to the genesis of contemporary libertarian insurrectionary approaches). Part of this is a relative lack of translations, the tendency Bonanno had to sometimes present his complicated, often ambivalent (we mean this in a positive sense) ideas in simplified or indirect ways when not specifically explicating each referenced idea, the way that concise yet in-depth explanations of these core concepts are found somewhat scattered throughout his very prolific output (throughout which he wrote in numerous, divergent styles and tones), and his use of terms with specific contextual meanings. The over-reliance on secondary sources about his thought helps determine a situation where his positions are often presented in shallow terms, more relevant to the popular representation of his theoretical body of work than its actual content (all the more elusive for his fierce hostility to pre-determined dogma). Sometimes the criticism, largely baseless to us, alleges it’s too movementist and cautious, others find a concealed vanguardism, organizationalism, yet others that it’s too spontaneist, or spectacular, massified, isolated from the masses, militarist, classically socialist, insufficiently anti-civ, obsessively anti-acronym, etc.. Bonanno was himself drawn into polemics with critics or mistaken supporters revolving around these phantom positions, sometimes seeming to anticipate misreadings and frame his wording with these in mind (which an `opposite’ misunderstanding could find apparent confirmation in). The acknowledgement of this confusion, coupled with the implicit assertions of the contemporary invalidity of any conflictual premises shaped in the Italian Years of Lead, is itself a frequent excuse for watered-down, movementist readings, or to dismiss his positions a priori. In fact, we also live, in a different way, in bloody times, and the lack of a current Western analog for the Red Brigades (besides the vicarious would-be models of Palestinian authoritarian formations) could just as well argue for a reading less weighted towards emphasis of the pitfalls of armed struggle. In this situation and more generally, relevant insurrectionary analysis often appears split between very introductory treatments and highly elaborated, niche levels, subject to layers and layers of strongly diverging interpretation.
I disabled three cameras. The first one I cut the wire using wire cutters, another I painted over the dome with spray paint, and the third I cut the wires and pulled down the solar panel.
Here are two zines to help get started:
https://www.notrace.how/resources/read/how-to-submit-an-anonymous-communique.html
https://crimethinc.com/zines/blinding-the-cyclops
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.
There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!
Stop Cop City, Uprising Defendants, and Other Ongoing Cases
Right now, over 300 people are trapped in the W Building at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center – no air conditioning, no ventilation, no relief – in 100°+ heat.
Many are sick. The building is overcrowded. There’s black mold on the walls. And DOC is leaving them to suffer during a deadly heat wave.
This is a life-or-death crisis.
There’s an air-conditioned gym on site. They could be moved today. But Delaware DOC hasn’t done a thing.
CALL DOC NOW
Delaware Department of Correction
(302) 739‑5601
️Say this:
“I’m calling about the W Building at Vaughn. Over 300 people are trapped with no AC in extreme heat. There’s an air-conditioned gym – they need to be moved immediately. This is inhumane and unacceptable.”
You can also listen to accounts from the Vaughn SHU here and here.
Uprising Defendants
See Uprising Support for more info, and check outthe Antirepression PDX site for updates from Portland cases. You can also check With Whatever Weapons for regularly-updated zines listing current prisoners. To the best of our knowledge they currently include:
David Elmakayes 77782-066
FCI McKean
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 8000
Bradford, PA 16701
Issuing a challenge to regional anarchist networks across turtle Island! ! Camover has hit Montreal, Philly, and now New Jersey.
Grab your crew, spread propaganda, make a call specific to your local counter info site/spread thru signal networks if not applicable and get in on the smashy fun! Don’t let your city be left behind or unnecessarily surveilled. Philly has its first confirmed kill, and the heat only is making people go harder.
If you don’t know the game or the rules, it’s about disabling CCTV cameras, in the name of community defense against police incursion into our daily lives. Between facial recognition and high powered cameras with zoom and pan features, masking up, good bloc, and getting rid of those goddamn things is all the more important. Not to mention ALPRs like Flock (ride your bike or walk while camera hunting)
the rules are simple: use any tools at your disposal, make sure it doesn’t work, and don’t get caught ! The level to which you make it not work is obviously time location and method dependent, but get creative and have fun. Let us soon gather anywhere we like, confident we aren’t being watched by our enemies, unless they get off their ass and come see us
With so much love and equal rage ~some East Coast transsexual anarchists
Move like our dead are still beside us. They are our greatest strength and wisdom
Cameras suck! They’re evil and they pry into our daily life and expose our networks, movements, and habits.
In 2013, someone called for a game, Camover. The goal? Get as many cameras as possible off the streets of Berlin.
The rules? Record your kill, use any method you like, and disable them shits.
We’re in Philly and it’s 2025 so recording your kill is fucking stupid we’re nixing that rule. Dress good move smart and get rowdy and creative !
Some tactics and strategies from years passed include: grappling hooks, spraying them out, smashing them up, fucking removing them, flex seal, etch bath, I’m sure you could think of more. In the passed 7 years, Philly’s camera system has gotten too good. They can pan they can zoom and feeds over periods of time can be aggregated and sorted thru by AI. This spells danger for radicals insurgents guerillas and criminals of any milieu. The solution is simple and it was implemented systematically by various crews during the George Floyd uprising. Strategy and tactics were employed to defeat surveillance, and in the blind spot of the state, anarchy bloomed.
Every camera is a cop, this destroying one is about half as good as gouging a pig’s eyes. Claim your kills by reporting (brief text description with location and method if you like) them to camoverphl25@proton.me or don’t. All I really care about is hamstringing the surveillance state, so let’s all have a fun summer and get free!
Game is over on the last day of August, the crew with the most kills gets Nothing because bragging is dumb and unsafe. Love y’all! Kisses
The autonomous demonstration has returned to Philadelphia. On June 10th and June 14th respectively, two self organized autonomous demonstrations were called to fight back against ICE and in solidarity with the rebellion in Los Angeles. To read a better understanding of what went down, I recommend you read the Unicorn riot account (https://unicornriot.ninja/2025/philadelphia-police-crack-down-on-anti-ice-marches-twice-in-one-week/) and an article I have deep disagreements with (https://phillypartisan.com/2025/06/15/headless-courage-anti-ice-protests-vs-police-brutality/). Both give brief overviews of what happened at these demos.
As an older anarchist, I was glad to see younger comrades organizing against ICE in a militant fashion. It is a rare thing to see publicly organized autonomous demonstrations in the United States despite the fact that they are common in many other places like Latin America or Europe. Autonomous demonstrations are critical for real combative street movements. For over a decade, the activist/organizer culture has plagued Philadelphia’s street movements with their cowardice and liberalism. The tension between the militant and the activist has played out in the meeting, communique and even in the streets. Organizers have often played a counter insurgent role in various struggles such as anti-gentrification direct actions from 2013 to 2018, OccupyICE in 2018, the George Floyd uprising, the Eddie Irizarry uprising and the Palestine solidarity encampments. In each of these struggles, anarchists and our friends faced conflict with activists. While it seems more hip to talk about “counter-insurgency” these days from some of the very same cowardly leftists, it bears reminding that anarchists in Philadelphia have struggled against those who would want to water down social struggles.
These dynamics are often difficult to grapple with as the dynamics are often highly racialized. Despite the longstanding history of Black anarchists and Black radical militancy in the city of Philly since the 60s, those who take risks and organize autonomously are often accused of being “white adventurists”. While it can be amusing sometimes as there will be white radicals so plagued with white guilt that they cannot imagine that perhaps a Black or Person of of color person may in fact want to fight back against the forces that oppress them, many Black and POC organizers also actively despise militants of every background despite their near constant exhortations about “revolutionary violence” so they can sell copies of their books and admission to workshops.
Either way, I want to congratulate whoever called for the most recent demonstrations. The type of bravery displayed by those who organized and attended these demonstrations is the type that we’ll need to fight back against the worsening conditions in the United States. Unsurprisingly, both of these demonstrations were met with overwhelming police repression. There are probably a number of reasons for this. Both Cherelle Parker and the so-called progressive DA Larry Krasner both made it clear that peaceful protest was acceptable but anything deviating from permitted protest would be treated harshly. I believe that the PPD are afraid of a rerun of 2020. Doubtless the LA rebellion has scared the shit out of them. Either way, it is clear that the autonomous demo frightens the State in a way that the nicely marshaled parades by various activist and socialist groups simply do not. I want to commend the young people for taking the streets regardless of overwhelming police numbers on both days. The rest of the “Left” in the city of Philadelphia has been quiet. It makes me proud to be an anarchist to see that we remain on the front-lines when it comes to organizing to fight back against ICE while much of the Lefts skulks in the shadows (and not in the cool way). Let’s all make sure to support the comrades who faced more serious charges for taking part in these actions.
Some socialists wrote a critique of the first autonomous demo that I feel like I should address. In my view the article takes a myopic view of autonomous struggles and relegates them largely to a reaction to a current moment despite the fact that autonomous demos were popular in Philadelphia way back in 2017.
So the article is titled “Headless Courage”, I thought this was kinda funny because it’s clear whoever wrote it has never engaged with the work of Philly’s own Black revolutionary Russell Maroon Shoatz with his critical essay “The Dragon and the Hydra” where he argues for a multi-headed resistance against the colony and capital rather than a single-headed one. The autonomous demonstration in theory is an example of multi-headed resistance. The idea of an autonomous demonstration is a moment where various different WELL ORGANIZED affinity groups with different goals and intentions (ideally coordinating with each other prior to the action) can converge and act together in a public manner. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t always work in real life as there are often liberals who show up as individuals, seeking to derail the demonstration or accusing people of being cops. However, well organized affinity groups who can assert themselves solves this problem. Often many anarchists understand affinity to be a one time thing but it’s actually critical to understand that affinity is a long term organizational orientation based on building trust and reciprocal knowledge with your comrades. It seems that whoever wrote the article did not arrive to the demonstration with their own set of goals but instead decided to complain on the internet because no one listened to them! Organize yourself and yourself better. No one owes you allegiance or a rowdy demonstration.
Chiding the demonstration for being “peaceful” when people were de-arresting, throwing barricades in the street and engaging in some light types of vandalism feels like a cheap shot considering the overwhelming police presence. Most demonstrations never even have any of those things happen. It’s sad but true. Furthermore, It’s clear that some people at the demonstration attended with intention and were able to take part in ways they found liberating. The conclusions in the article are unclear as the author acknowledges that non-autonomous demonstrations are weak and ineffective. Yeah, welcome to the club. Anarchists have been saying that for years. Nothing the socialists described at the demo such as police violence or snitchjacketing is particularly new. That’s just par for the course at public demonstrations. The solution isn’t creating some commander militant though but rather building forms of organization that can facilitate un-governability. I would refer the author to the coordinated affinity group as an example. Unfortunately, that form in Philly has largely been eclipsed by whatever the Left is doing these days. The author also argues bizarrely that socialists should do ESL classes and then use the people who do those classes for a militant demonstration.
“but you can recruit people more honestly and form more articulate connections by tabling, going door to door, or mounting programs like free food distributions or free ESL classes that directly serve your community. As described before in the Partisan, we should think of these types of projects as the proper way to build people power, and mass actions as the way to “cash out” on whatever power has been built to make change in the most direct and literal way”
Unfortunately just because someone likes your ESL class or free food doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to be interested in whatever type of demonstration that you want to do. Mass actions are the the product of random people from an ESL fighting the cops but rather the product of affinity groups building amongst themselves and together to build capacity to fight back. I dunno the author’s background but the whole part about “organizing the masses” is always corny to me cause leftists always seem to be confused when the masses are not interested in their political project. Often when white leftists talk about “organizing the masses”, they are talking about Black and brown people in the city. I think it may be hard to imagine for some crackers to understand Black and brown people are already organized just in ways that are often reactionary or liberal. Instead of thinking of people as monolithic subject for your revolutionary desires perhaps realize that individuals regardless of their class background are complicated. The mechanistic way of thinking about human beings on the Left continues to be a weakness.
For the younger people. Don’t stop! Focus on building affinity with one another in the streets. I feel like there has been a lot of chastising from both socialists, so-called legal support collectives and various cowards on the internet. At the end of the day, ya’ll are doing what the Left wishes it was doing. Keep training, making sure your Black bloc is on point, talking with your friends and refusing to follow orders. Whether it’s from cops, progressive politicians, leftists, crackers, organizers, liberal anarchists or whoever. If I had any recommendations, it would be to examine the history of social struggles in Philadelphia prior to this moment. You might learn a few things. I’ll include a reading list. But honestly, I’m just proud of ya’ll.
– ya local anarchist agitator
Some reading reccs:
Anti-Gentrification Actions Philadelphia: 2013 to 2018
The Dragon and the Hydra by Russell Maroon Shoatz
Spontaneity and Organization by Kimathi Mohammed
Activism as Recuperation (From a Movement for No Society)
In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil
The Secret is To Really Complain (From Anathema Volume 10 Issue 2)
What the Fuck Does Reconstruction Even Mean to Ya’ll: A Critique of the W.E.B. DuBois School and the Black Left in Philadelphia (From Anathema Volume 10 Issue 1)
Archipelago: Affinity, informal organization and insurrectional projects
Philadelphia, PA — The increasing tempo of pro-immigrant, anti-ICE protests hit Philadelphia last week, and the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) has decided to crack down.
On Tuesday, June 10, and Saturday, June 14, autonomous protests were called outside of the Federal Detention Center (FDC), where up to 125 immigrant detainees can be held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Tuesday protest included 80-100 protesters, while the Saturday demonstration brought an estimated 300. Both marches were met with intense police response which resulted in injuries and arrests.
Unlike other cities, where police shot tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds, the Philadelphia Police Department dispersed marches with tools on hand: battering protesters with batons, corralling the crowd with bicycles and nearly running activists and journalists over with motorized dirt bikes.
This report covers how police repressed the June 10 and 14 demonstrations that roamed the northeast side of Center City — video from June 14 below.
June 10 Autonomous Demonstration: Philadelphia Police Arrest 15 Anti-ICE Protesters, Strike with Batons
Nationwide protests had taken off in solidarity against the recent militarized crackdowns and immigration sweeps in Los Angeles, as well as in objection to local ICE detentions. On the morning of June 10, ICE arrested at least one individual in South Philadelphia. Local activists also witnessed three detained in Kensington earlier that week.
In response to these detentions, an autonomous protest was called that morning to mobilize that afternoon. At 4 p.m., approximately 80-100 people congregated near the FDC at 7th and Arch Street and began chanting. A megaphone was passed among the crowd, and participants gave speeches about the Trump administration’s “fascist” immigration policies, as well as the interrelated struggle between domestic colonialism and the genocide in Gaza. (Local protesters also have been rallying weekly against one of Israel’s arms suppliers, Day & Zimmermann, on Spring Garden Street.)
Philadelphia police officers film protesters outside of the Federal Detention Center. Officers with cameras followed the entire march.
A march then began, trekking past the ICE field office and then down Market Street, taking the prominent throughway. At the end of the second lap, police began pressuring the protest and at 6:44 p.m., issued a order to disperse. The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) then flanked the crowd in an attempted kettle, struck several people with batons and arrested 15.
Immigrants rights protesters march in Philadelphia on June 10, 2025.
Activists marched around the block to the ICE field office, looped back to the FDC, and then took another lap onto Market Street.
Several protesters used bikes to define the march’s perimeter, acting in sync during the protest. On the second return to FDC Philadelphia, tensions escalated between Philly PD bike patrol and the bike brigade activists. They faced off closely and argued for some time.
One protester from the bike brigade explained:
“From my perspective, the bikers present maintained control and effectively managed the situation, preventing a rush. This strategic positioning, I believe, was not favored by the police, leading to their attempt to accelerate matters. I also heard from someone that there was communication over the scanner indicating an intent to arrest the bikers, and myself. Our actions were entirely within legal bounds; we were simply employing strategic measures to maintain a safe distance and manage the situation effectively.”
Bike patrol officers stand close to marchers on June 10, 2025.
After the protest returned to the FDC, two bike cops were isolated by the crowd in front of the detention center. While activists and police exchanged verbal insults, at least one person in the crowd advised others to make sure that police could retreat from the cornered situation.
Protesters congregate outside the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia on June 10, 2025.
By this time, tensions were high. While there was no evidence of spray painted graffiti or significant property damage on the facility, a message was written onto one of the windows appearing to say “FUCK ICE.”
The Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia on June 10, 2025, with “FUCK ICE” written on a window.
At approximately 6:44 p.m., the police issued an initial dispersal order, declaring the march “unlawful.”
The PPD then pressured protesters to keep moving, issuing a third dispersal order by 6:51 p.m. However, these declarations were not easily audible — our contributor could not hear them on site. An increased presence of officers, prepared with batons and riot gear, began following the protesters from behind.
Police officers with bicycles follow the march in Philadelphia on June 10, 2025, after it was declared an “unlawful assembly.”
Philadelphia Police officers, including some in riot gear, tail the anti-ICE march behind the bike cops on June 10, 2025.
At around 7 p.m., police announced via their radios that they were planning arrests.
When the march reached Market St., police began to clash with protesters.
A police captain gives commands to protesters while flanked by officers on June 10, 2025.
Officers use batons to shove the crowd, with the Philadelphia Police captain giving commands, on June 10, 2025.
“They held the line when we got to Market Street. And they scared people. And, what do scared people do? They run. But then [the cops] started beating people,” one protester recounts. “There was no way out, so you had to run through or cower and hope they didn’t hurt you. If you ran, they tried to beat you.”
A Philadelphia Police officer chases a protester while brandishing his baton on June 10, 2025.
Philadelphia Police officers clash with, strike and arrest protesters on Market Street on June 10, 2025.
A Philadelphia Police officer uses baton to slam a pro-immigrant activist against a police car on June 10, 2025.
Philadelphia Police officers hold a protester on the ground on June 10, 2025, using batons to push into the protester’s neck.
Philadelphia Police surround a photographer and command him to move on June 10, 2025.
Philadelphia Police officers congregate after arresting protesters on June 10, 2025. Several detainees were lined up along the wall.
Fifteen people were arrested. Fourteen were hit with disorderly conduct, which is a ticketed offense called a CVN in Philadelphia. (There were press reports of another charge of aggravated assault but this has not been confirmed as of press time.)
As of 10 p.m. on June 11, additional barricades were placed around the FDC and its large window facade was boarded up.
June 14 Autonomous Demonstration: Protesters Flee Attacking Bike Cops via Holiday Inn Express
Liberal groups returned to Philly to host the “No Kings” national flagship rally on June 14 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; messages against ICE policy were a major theme. Facing light rain at 2 p.m., much of the 80,000 person crowd began drifting back towards City Hall from the art museum.
Shortly after, an autonomous demonstration against ICE gathered again near the FDC around 6 p.m. with a message in solidarity with the revolt by ICE detainees in Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, which is operated by the GEO Group. Last Friday, the Department of Homeland Security claimed four people escaped by knocking over an outer wall after an uprising among ICE detainees Thursday evening was spurred by a lack of food.
Philadelphia Police Department officers lined up outside the Federal Detention Center on June 14, 2025, some with riot gear.
Two masked federal police officers near the William Green Federal Building in Philadelphia on June 14, 2025.
Police scanners noted that the Philly PD shadowed some roaming protest groups earlier in the afternoon, as some “No Kings” protest participants joined into the autonomous gathering. Before the 6 p.m. protest began, dozens of cops stationed in groups around the FDC. Dirt bike police staged nearby on Broad Street, and sanitation trucks blocked street traffic around the FDC.
“Ice An Agent” message stitched on a cloth banner.
Shortly after the march began, over 100 Philly Police quickly corralled the protest to stop it from heading down 7th Street towards the highway. The group instead marched into Center City towards the Fashion District as bike cops followed.
Philadelphia bike police navigate around a plastic jersey barrier on the sidewalk.
The anti-ICE march snaked around northeast Center City. At 12th and Walnut there was a scuffle, after protesters repurposed plastic jersey barriers to obstructed bike police following the march. Officers had to push these out of way. Then, officers began to grab march participants with masks and umbrellas. Unicorn Riot saw what appeared to be several successful de-arrests.
A Philadelphia Police officer yells at protesters as he’s held back by his superior on June 14, 2025.
At 13th and Walnut, at about 7 p.m., after the conflict over barricades, police attacked the crowd and kettled it at the intersection. Some protesters then ran through the Holiday Inn Express garage. Police with bicycles lined up to cut off garage access, splitting the crowd. PPD ordered people to leave while they had everyone surrounded, and eventually let some march away while issuing dispersal orders.
This time around, the police had added dirt bike-type motorcycles to their arsenal. Philly Police on motorbikes nearly ran over people’s feet repeatedly, repeatedly zooming across a block to come within an inch or so of striking our reporter as well as a small handful of protesters leaving the area.
Once again there were arrests and injuries — legal observers tell us there were approximately seven arrests. One person was released immediately, two the following evening. By Sunday evening, June 15th, everyone was known to be released by 6 p.m.
Future ICE Activity Expected in Philadelphia
Philadelphia may see more militarized ICE actions soon. Detentions of immigrants have continued regularly around Philadelphia and its suburbs.
“The World is Watching” written with sidewalk chalk on the street in front of the FDC.
Kieffer Bray in the left photo and Lemley in the right photo (in a confederate flag t-shirt) holding a white power flag with nazi leader Claudino Petrucelli (white shirt)
Today we are introducing two more members of Atlantic Nationalist Club (ANaC), Samuel C. Kieffer Bray and Sean A. Lemley, both of New Jersey. Kieffer Bray and Lemley couldn’t be more different than each other on a base level, but have been brought together by this hate group to terrorize local communities. Both are long time members of ANaC which is run by Claudino Petrucelli.
Samuel C. Kieffer Bray is 32 years old and lives in Medford, NJ (editors note- we will be referring to him by the name listed in NJ court records, however he is also listed as Samuel Kieffer in records that are publicly available). Kieffer Bray has been a nazi for several years, first getting involved in Patriot Front (PF) in 2021. Kieffer Bray was present for PF’s ill-fated July 3, 2021 rally in Philadelphia. It was during this rally that Philadelphia residents confronted Patriot Front and beat the shit out of them. Shortly after fleeing in Penske trucks, Philadelphia police pulled over the Patriot Front members and Samuel provided them with his license.
Being beaten by Philly residents and getting shaken down by the police didn’t deter Kieffer Bray’s trajectory into fascism though and he gained membership in the now defunct Embrace Struggle Active Club and the NJ chapter of ‘White Lives Matter” (WLM-NJ). Samuel’s bad choices and behavior were not exclusive to nazi groups. During 2022 he continued to make bonehead decisions- leading the police on a high speed chase on August 19.
A snapshot from Bray’s 2022 arrest by police for leading them on high speed chase.
Kieffer Bray’s court case number, 22002671, was readily available and easy to find.
As a first time offender he was not sentenced to jail but instead received pre-trial Intervention. On January 8, 2024 he was sentenced to probation and if he gets into no further trouble with the law past July 8, 2025 his record and charges will be erased.
While he was a member of WLM-NJ he crossed paths with Michael “Doc Grimson” Brown, who was publicly identified by Corvallis Antifa in November 2022. Doc Brown is infamously known as the failed Terrorgram bank robber, and upon his release from federal custody last month was transferred to his local county jail and is serving an 11 month sentence for violating his probation on a previous case. Brown and Kieffer Bray trained together before Brown attempted to rob the bank. Court documents reveal that Kieffer Bray was with Nicholas Mucci when the WLM-NJ member attempted to attack a One People’s Project show. Mucci is currently serving an 8 year sentence. Kieffer Bray is pictured above with Brown and in a video posted to Mucci’s Instagram account wearing the same boots and camouflage shorts.
Kieffer Bray as a child in a painting by his mother called “Portait of a Hero”.
Kieffer Bray is pictured in this photo from NJEHA’s failed Princeton, NJ demo from two years ago walking next to Claudino Petrucelli (in t-shirt).
Like all of Claudino’s ANaC minions, Samuel Kieffer Bray falls in line because Claudino preys on weak minds. Samuel also attempted to join NJP but it seems that he was rejected. He can still be found in the comments on TRS with the name saffronlizard.
In 2022 Kieffer Bray attempted to become a personal trainer but failed to achieve lift off. Evidence of this can be found on his LinkedIn profile below.
Profile picture on LinkedIn
It is believed that Kieffer Bray currently works at a warehouse in NJ. Any further information regarding Kieffer Bray can be sent to phillyfashwatch@riseup.net
Lemley can be seen here wearing a confederate flag shirt and holding a white power flag. Claudino Petrucelli is next to him wearing a white shirt.
From the outside, the life of Sean Lemley looks very different than Samuel Kieffer Bray but don’t let that fool you. Lemley has been involved in hate groups led by Claudino Petrucelli since 2021. He has participated in many campaigns designed to intimidate diverse communities from Pennsylvania to Connecticut. From anti immigration rallies to white supremacist banner drops, to the intimidation of businesses, and racist graffiti and stickering runs, Lemley has been a central player within regional nazi activity of ANaC and WLM-NJ.
Lemley is 28 years old and lives with his parents in Lyndhurst, NJ. Family pictures we’ve reviewed paint a picture of a nice loving normal family, so why is Lemley a nazi? It is believed he was radicalized online and connected with Claudino in-person through volunteering in local GOP politics where they bonded over their shared hate and prejudices. Lemley is in poor company though, as 3 former nazi members of groups run by Claudino are in jail, including Andrew Takhistov, who was arrested in 2024 on domestic terrorism charges related to his plan to attack the NJ power grid.
Lemley was easy to find due to the fact that his social media presence is sloppy and he has a penchant to wear the exact same outfits in every photo. Additionally ANaC’s security around their published propaganda photos is shit, so it made Lemley low hanging fruit. Below is a documentation of Lemley’s participation and involvement over the last 20 months in ANaC in the form of photo evidence.
December 22, 2023
November 10, 2024 anti immigration rally in which a few members of his group held a banner and did some chants. Lemley’s standard jacket for events is shown, with some of his long hair circled in red.
The following day on November 11, 2024, Claudino made another post on the ANaC telegram showing that the organization TRAC wrote about them. He made sure to add nazi imagery in his response, which we are using to prove exactly what Sean Lemley is- a nazi. TRAC if you’re reading this please stop providing free advertising to nazi’s.
December 7, 2024 Sean is seen throwing a nazi salute in Hamden, CT
March 2, 2025 Sean is seen in another propaganda post from New Rochelle, NY
March 9, 2025 Sean in his usual North Face jacket and NJ Devils winter hat
Claudino and Sean walking in the rain in the early morning hours of April 11, 2025 near Rutgers
Aftermath of flyer removal from the Art Museum on the campus of Rutgers on April 11, 2025
In April 2025 Lemley and Claudino put up flyers designed to create racial tension on the Rutgers New Brunswick campus. Antifascists found and removed the flyer shortly after they were posted. They were spotted walking around 2:00AM on April 12th near the campus. The removed flyers had the telegram channel listed of Atlantic Nationalist Club.
In 2024 Lemley ran for a position on the Lyndhurst Board of Education, albeit unsuccessfully. Despite losing, he did manage to get 1,931 votes in the election. It is well known that Lemley has close ties to other elected school board members, including Anthony Giarusso. Giarusso owns a popular GOP bar that Lemley and Claudino Petrucelli have been spotted at in Lyndhurst, NJ called City Lounge.
Because of the very public relationship Lemley has with Giarusso and the fact that he is comfortable enough to bring his nazi group members around the City Lounge bar it’s hard to believe that Giarusso is in the dark about Lemley’s true politics. We believe the board should be aware of this connection too. All 9 elected members are listed here along with their email addresses. We have sent this article to them and are awaiting their response.
Lemley is currently employed at ShopRite in Lyndhurst, NJ on New York Avenue. If you want to let store management know about Sean’s activities, the store can be reached at (201) 372-6181.
Being a nazi has consequences. Antifascists will always defend our communities against people who spread hate. To the few remaining members of Atlantic Nationalist Club that are reading this- Claudino does not give a shit about you. The same way he doesn’t care that Nick, Andrew, and Steve are sitting in jail.
The world they built is collapsing—and it was never meant to hold us anyway. The air is thick with smog and endings. And still, we remain. Beneath the ruin, something stirs: hands in soil, medicine from weeds, instructions passed through broken frequencies. We are not gathering to be seen. We are gathering to prepare.
We’re calling for workshops on what keeps us alive and thriving outside of capital; in the face of extinction: guerrilla gardening, wild plant ID, DIY healthcare, tincture-making, abortion access, hormone care, self-defense, somatics, self-regulation, bio remediation, prepper magic, makeshift shelters, analog comms, wilderness first aid, infrared detection avoidance, squatting for longevity, and anti-tech survival that exists outside of omnipresent surveillance.
We want to know what to do when there’s no food on the shelves, when the grid goes dark, when the body breaks down and no help is coming. We want to explore how to interfere, how to disrupt, how to wound the systems that keep us docile, monitored, and afraid. There are many forms of offense. Let’s explore all of them.
Just as urgently, we need the skills that keep us from turning on each other. The kind of survival that chooses care as strategy. That knows self-tending is not separate from community defense. That resists disposability and domination alike. That finds ways to stay in relationship even through rupture. If you hold knowledge that feeds, protects, soothes, or repairs—bring it.
The future is burning. Let us gather what’s worth saving, and learn to defend it.
Proposal deadline: August 31st
Send proposals to phillyskilly2025@proton.me
*101’s are great, but we are looking for more advanced topics & discussions*
A picture from a year or so of the Atlantic Nationalist Club. L-R, William A. Galmot New York, Sean Lemley, Claudino G. Petruccelli, unknown, Charles Netter.
Sigh … Atlantic Nationalist Club it’s trying something stupid again. The fact that we know about it should tell you how much they are failing.
A neo-Nazi organization in New Jersey that has been trying to make a name for themselves is planning to rally on June 21, but have not yet decided where they will hold it — between Philadelphia, Pa., or Princeton, N.J.
Atlantic Nationalist Club (ANaC), a spinoff organization from a New Jersey chapter of White Lives Matter (WLM) founded by its former head Claudino G. Petruccelli, does not have many members and three of them have been incarcerated over the past two years: Nick Mucci who attempted to attack a One People’s Project benefit show, Andrew Takhistov who is accused of plotting to destroy energy facilities, and Steven Koshlyak who was arrested the same week as Takhistov but his charges have not been made public after almost a year. In November 2022, Koshlyak was one of three, along with Petruccelli, arrested in Somerville, N.J., when they attempted to post WLM stickers on street posts and signs around town. Petruccelli additionally received a weapons charge for possessing a can of pepper spray larger than the legal size in New Jersey. These incidents, and the feeling that the group is compromised by antifascists, have kept other neo-Nazis away from Petruccelli and his group.
The original announcement. “Katamine” is a screen name Claudino Petruccelli uses.
When the group protested outside the One People’s Project office in December, they were confronted at a local diner by OPP members who learned about their plans that night before. Two months later, they attempted to protest outside a bookstore in New Haven, Conn., but patrons were waiting for them when they arrived because their plans for that rally were also leaked.
Petruccelli has shown a pattern of reckless violent behavior recently including a fight, also in Connecticut, two weeks before the bookstore rally. That fight with members of the Nationalist Social Club and its leader Chris Hood led to people being stabbed. On March 30, there was an attempt to set up fellow neo-Nazi William Andrew Wessells to attack in a Princeton, N.J. shopping mall parking lot, but that fight did not materialize. Wessells currently, along with his partner Tara Streb, run the WLM chapter in New Jersey, Petruccelli’s old position.
March 22, 2025 – Sean Lemley of Lyndhurst, NJ, left sparring with William A. Galmot of New York.March 22, 2025 – Claudino Petrucceli on left sparring with Charles Netter of Connecticut.
In April, Petruccelli and fellow ANaC member Sean Lemley, who works at a ShopRight supermarket in Lyndhurst, NJ that ran for the school board there last fall, returned to New Brunswick, N.J., to post flyers attacking Karmelo Anthony, who is currently facing murder charges after he stabbed Austin Metcalf in an altercation at a Texas high school that looks to be a case of self defense on the part of Anthony. Antifascists followed them while they walked the Rutgers University campus as they looked for a place to affix the flyers, which they eventually posted on the glass doors and windows of two university buildings and which were removed before anyone saw them. Petruccelli or Lemley knew they were being observed.
On May 17, Petruccelli said in a post on his Signal account, where he uses the name “Ketamine,” that he expected 30 participants. Regardless of the reputation the ANaC has with other groups, they hope to have them join them at their rally on the longest day of the year.
Paul Minton — a snitch, pedophile, and lifelong flip flop — has re-appeared in Philadelphia claiming to be an anarchist after being run out of town for being a white supremacist. Specifically he been seen on the dating app Tinder claiming to be a green anarchist looking to make friends and find romance. This quick write up and link dump is for those who don’t know who he is. Paul Minton should not be trusted, his history of white supremacist organizing, snitching, and creepy and dishonest social relations are all reasons anarchists and other radicals should be extremely cautious and skeptical of Paul.
Paul Minton, also known as Misk and Paulie, has organized with numerous fascist groups. Paul has been involved with White Lives Matter, PA Active Club, Rise Above Movement, S14, Keystone State Skinheads/Keystone United, as well as being a neo-nazi skinhead as a young man.
Paul has a checkered history of dabbling a number of cultures and social circles be returning to organized racism. Paul has been an orthodox Muslim, a vegan (and claims to be again), a hardcore punk music fan, and bafflingly, an anti-fascist! Around 2016 Paul became active in anti-fascist organizing, working with others to confront the far right resurgence of the first Trump presidency. It was during this time that he began grooming a then 13 year old girl who he would later impregnate. By 2020 Paul had been ostracized by local anti-fascists and leftist due to his unpredictable and harmful behavior. Around 2021 he returned to fascist organizing, doxxing many of his former anti-fascist comrades. Today in 2025, he is popping up again, this time claiming to be a green anarchist.
There’s no way to know if Paul Minton really considers himself an anarchist, but if he has shown himself to be anything it’s a flip-flop and a betrayer. Even if Paul is genuinely interested in green anarchy right now, it is very likely that he will eventually return to white supremacy. Any green anarchists, ecologically oriented radicals, or anti-fascists he meets between then and now should know he may well dox, harass, or snitch on them.
In-depth writeups about Paul Minton:
Rogues Gallery entry for Paul Minton
https://rogues.wiki/index.php/Paul_Minton
ALERTA! Paul Minton is a neo Nazi living in South Philly
