Submission

On Saturday 1/21 there was a vigil for Tortuguita Manuel Teran. A group of about 40 adults and children placed candles and homemade signs by the turtle in Clark Park.

People spontaneously made speeches about Tortuguita’s death. The speeches touched on people’s experience of them, grief, martyrdom, and continuing to struggle. People called on each other to target cop city’s sponsors and the contractors responsible for building.

After people had been speaking for a while a small group broke off from the vigil. They took the street with banners. Barricades from a nearby construction site were pulled into the street to block cops and traffic. As the march moved graffiti memorializing Tortuguita and against police was tagged. A realty office had its windows smashed.

The rowdy vigil is the first time things have popped off from Clark Park in a while. A few years ago Cark Park was a regular spot for mid sized black bloc demos to start from. We think that this is worthwhile to revisit because it’s a traditionally anarchist neighborhood and there are lots of alleys nearby to easily change in. It’s exciting to see this kind of energy re-emerge in Philly.

Even though Philly is far from Atlanta, Tortuguita’s death has been deeply felt here. We are angry. We are watching. We are acting. Cop city will never be built.

RIP Tortuguita
Neither innocent nor guilty
Neither terrorists nor protesters
Simply anarchists!
A warm embrace to those arrested in Atlanta, Seattle and everywhere else
Death to civilization