How to Become an Activist, According to a Long-time Twin Cities Organizer

Last month, Minneapolis-based activist group Twin Cities Coalition for Justice (TCC4J) joined several other organizations in hosting a protest for Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV). With over 200 people in attendance, the protest was considered a success, according to local radical news outlet Fight Back! News. Protesters gathered around the city’s downtown library — which sits on one of its busiest streets — during the after-work rush hour, with queer speakers shouting calls for trans liberation amidst the Trump administration’s fascistic crackdown on trans lives.

Yet this protest received no news coverage from mainstream outlets, even locally. While outlets such as Newsweek shared lists of protests organized by nationally syndicated nonprofits, grassroots organizers across the country were sidelined from coverage. These protests were as much of a success as the advertised ones, with many of those new to their local scenes joining in on the action, setting the groundwork for future projects.

In light of this, Free Radical reached out to TCC4J for a discussion about TDOV, grassroots organizing, and what regular people can do to make an impact in their community about issues they care about. The following is a lightly edited transcript of Free Radical’s interview with Jae Yates (they/he), a lead organizer with TCC4J.

Can you tell me a bit about yourself and your role in TCC4J?

My name is Jae. I joined TCC4J in 2020, shortly after the George Floyd uprising began, and I got involved because they were having organizing meetings around their annual Taking Back Pride demonstration that they launched in 2016 or 2017. After the murder of Philando Castille, they were basically protesting the fact that Minneapolis and Twin Cities Pride had cops as a large part of the Pride event, which is explicitly anti-cop. And so, I wasn't in the organization at that time, but people describe that as being pretty poorly received by the population of suburban white gay people that come to Pride. The TC Pride Board itself at the time was not receptive at all, so they kept doing it.

And then in 2020, Pride didn't have any programming. And so, I decided to go to one of their organizing meetings and then I've been coming ever since. A lot of what I do in the organization is work around establishing community control of the police in Minneapolis via an all-elected civilian police accountability commission. And so, that's our main work as well as responding to instances of police violence. For example, right now, we are supporting Jana Williams, the aunt of Allison Lussier, who was a Native woman that was murdered. And her investigation into her death was honestly really botched by MPD.

Just a recent example of Minneapolis police failing yet another Native woman who had sought their help in dealing with domestic violence from the man that her family and community members believe is a murderer. That's kind of the work that we do right now.

So, you mentioned the police accountability board. How has that been going trying to get that instituted? I remember hearing a bit about it on the news and hearing that Mayor Frey vetoed it. I can't remember the specifics. Like, is there still a big effort to get it up and going and push it against Frey and everything?

So, Frey didn't veto it, although he's said a lot of patently incorrect things about what this initiative is and what we're trying to establish and the reasons why we use this. In order to get it on the ballot, we had to collect a certain number of signatures and we collected more than enough the last time that we submitted them last year. But the problem is that the signatures need to be valid and because we're a small organization, it took us about four years to collect between 11,000 and 12,000 signatures. And so the way that voter registration works really works against you when you're trying to do a ballot initiative because if people move, even if they move in the same city, their signature is no longer valid unless they sign it with the correct address. So a lot of our signatures last time were also invalidated on technicalities that we think are about keeping it difficult for people to do initiatives like this through a ballot initiative. Things like, somebody didn't put an F in the address, so like the whole thing is invalid. Things like, somebody’s not legible enough. They can't verify that it's the person that's actually registered. 

We are trying again, and we're trying to collect the signatures in a much shorter time frame, which so far is going pretty well for us. I think we have something like 2200 signatures over about six months. So we're hopeful that we'll be able to get enough by May 2026, so that the people of Minneapolis can vote on our initiative. 

A little bit about what that is. It's just establishing an all-elected civilian police accountability commission, which would take over oversight of Minneapolis police, because currently what we have is the Community Commission on Police Oversight, which only has the power to make recommendations and not actually make MPD do anything. And we have the mayor who doesn't really use that power ever to discipline MPD or to implement what are for the most part incredibly common-sense, popular ways to curtail police brutality like banning encampment sweeps — things like that.

You mentioned that a lot of TCC4J factions came after especially the Minnesota state's oppression of protesters during the George Floyd uprising. Can you tell me a bit about grassroots organizing that's been done in light of that, especially in the time since in which the police have continued to be the police?

There were a number of forces around the George Floyd uprising and lots of different organizations that were involved at different times. In terms of groups that TCC4J works with or has forged bonds with, we have a pretty good relationship with… I believe she's George Floyd's aunt. And TTC4J has, for the past few years, tried to support them with their actions they do every year around George Floyd's death. 

We also have started work with different groups that do work with wrongful incarceration, partly because so many people who were participating in actions around the George Floyd uprising were wrongfully imprisoned or had charges that they had to fight in court. As a result of a protest that we staged in 2021, I believe we were subjects of the largest mass arrests in Minnesota history with the 646 of us that were arrested. 

It seems like a natural addition to our work around police brutality to also try to address wrongful incarceration and over-sentencing. The ways in which the Black community is also impacted by police violence is taking people away from their families, their charges trumped up or entirely false or coerced confession–type of charges. 

That's like some of the things that we've been doing since George Floyd's murder, and then obviously we see community control police as a concrete way to address police violence. We're not an organization that's about changing the hearts and minds of cops or whatever, but actually materially limiting their power to enact violence on our communities.

That is fantastic and refreshing to hear. Within my line of work, I've encountered a lot of very public-facing attempts at actions that basically just become ways for these national nonprofits and state politicians to pat themselves on the back and give empty platitudes. 

Yeah, I think the thing that makes those kinds of actions attractive is that they’re big-tent. A lot of times the politics are all over the place. The 50501 protests — they're talking about anti-war stuff but have things like “hands off NATO” as a demand, like the confused politics that a lot of liberal folks have. I would say that people are also looking for ways to be involved and to resist in the ways that they can and I think that while it would be nice if these groups would like to try to connect with grassroots organizers and actually support work that has already been happening, it's also an opportunity for us to connect to people who are activated around these issues. 

At the end of the day, I might not 100% cosign the politics of a lot of people who participated in that, but I think that we can give people opportunities to get involved with their local grassroots work through those kinds of protests and build as much opposition to these reactionary policies as we possibly can.

That's a good way of looking at it. I've done a little bit of work locally with groups like Sanctuary Supply Depot, I've sent people over to groups like Rainbow Wardrobe — just folk that I know needed some basic things like clothing and whatnot. What sort of groups in the Twin Cities are focusing on providing people’s material needs, meeting people where they're at and giving them the means to stay afloat?

Yeah, I actually myself do some mutual aid in addition to working on anti-police brutality. One organization that I'm part of is the Community Aid Network of MN (CANMN) — we're one of the only pop-up sites from 2020 that still exists and is up and running. So I find doing that really meaningful. Like, I think everybody can't do everything — some groups are going to focus on addressing police brutality, some groups are going to focus on immigrants’ issues. But I do think that we have to have an eye towards helping people survive so that they can participate in the movement.

That's why I put some of my energy towards doing that. I think some other organizations that have come up… SouthSide Kwes is a really cool up-and-coming youth-led organization of indigenous youth that lives in Minneapolis that does a lot of work around Camp Nenookaasi. Over by George Floyd Square, there's the closet that people maintain so that people can get clothes when they need that. Southside Harm Reduction has a needle exchange, things like that. So I think there's a lot of stuff that people in Minneapolis can do. There's really something that anybody can plug into.

We talked a little bit before about getting a lot of regular folks involved in the sorts of community events. What are some ways you might recommend folk to help with that outreach to people who might not be as plugged in to more radical movements?

I think that we've found a lot of success with holding some more education-oriented events. I think it can be easier to invite somebody who doesn't have as much experience going to actions — maybe they're newer on their political awakening journey.

I think inviting them to an event that's lower stakes in that way can be a good place to start where they get the background as to why these things exist. Maybe after that, you can feel more comfortable and prepared to participate in protests and things that are a little more radical than what those folks are used to. I also think a lot of times people are activated around issues that directly affect them. There were a lot of people with the wrongful incarceration fear that we had never worked with. I think exposing people to this idea that there are groups out there who are ready to support you and also ready to address the same problems that you are is really motivating. I think sometimes people just don't know where to start.

They might have an idea that things are messed up in their community and they want to do something, but they're just not sure what that is. And I think having lots of different entry points for people to get plugged in is what’s important. I think we also really need to be arming ourselves with not just the practical elements that make resistance possible, like mutual aid and things like that. But also, being really knowledgeable about how these systems work, what are the most pressing issues first addressed and what the activists that have come before us have done to address these things. So, yeah, I think there's lots of entry points for people that they can take advantage of during times of crisis like these.

That is a great way of looking at it. On that note, a big thing I've been trying to focus on covering in recent months is the increasing intersection of trans issues with immigration and the abuses by ICE. What sort of support networks and actions are there around here that folk who weren't too privy to this stuff before can get plugged into and try to help out their neighbors, especially after the ICE kidnapping of University of Minnesota students?

I learned that TCC4J has a long history of working with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC). And they've done a lot of really great work around addressing this emergency around immigration and the mistreatment of immigrants here right now. They've got a number of Know Your Rights trainings as well as bystander interrupter trainings. It’s like what to do if you suspect that you are witnessing an ICE raid — we can interrupt or at least record them, to make sure that people aren't disappearing. I really recommend groups that advocate for people not panicking. They always say to make sure to verify before you are just yelling that ICE is here or whatever. I think that sometimes people in their desire to help will do things that are deeply unhelpful.

I really appreciate that MIRAC has a very thoughtful and practical response to the issues that are facing their community. I think like we should all know, are there people that live in our buildings that are at risk? Do we know what to do if we hear that ICE is in our neighborhood? Are we prepared to interrupt them when they're doing these frankly unlawful arrests?

I think that's something that I'm trying to get more knowledgeable on. It's not work that I do personally. But it's important to to protect immigrants who often— like you were saying, there are lots of trans people who are being negatively affected by these raids and by these policies, who are put in the situation of getting oftentimes deported to a country where they can face violence, even more violence than here, for their identity. And so it's important to try to support them as much as possible to keep them safe.

Turning over to my usual beat of queer issues, I reached out to you initially about the Trans Day of Visibility protest from a few weeks ago. Can you just tell me a little bit about that? How did it go? What happened?

It was a great event. We were at the library on Hennepin Ave in Uptown. And there's an empty lot next to the library that we just went into and posted up. And a lot of people came out. I wasn't really sure what to expect for the turnout because it was on a Friday at, like, 5pm. It’s right after work, and weekdays are kind of— you never know who will come out or not. But it was a really good turnout. 

A lot of our work was right on the street where there's lots of traffic — it's rush hour, we got a lot of supportive honking from cars as they passed by. I think it was really good for people, especially the trans people who attended. So you feel that support in a time when people are rightfully pretty scared about what things are going to happen and whether they'll be able to travel, whether they'll have access to medical care. I think knowing that there’s people trying to harm that institution is helpful in of itself.

I think the political content of the event was also really positive and well-received by the people that were there. I really love that we were able to have so many different areas of the movement represented. MIRAC was there and talked about what I was mentioning earlier about the particular dangers that queer immigrants face, particularly discrimination. The Minnesota Abortion Action Committee was the main organization that organized the event and so they were able to make the connection between queer bodily autonomy and access to things like HRT and abortion being part of the same fight for securing queer rights.

There were a lot of other really great speakers. All in all, it was a super successful event. I think sometimes for Trans Day of Visibility, I as a trans person feel like I'm not that interested in just celebrating being visible. I would prefer something that's about addressing the issues that we're facing and coming together to talk about what we are gonna do, you know what I mean? So I felt a lot better after a day slash week of the sort of empty platitudes that you get from politicians or in your workplace, things like that.

Sounds like it was amazing! You mentioned earlier other pride events, especially in opposition to the corporate rainbow-capitalist sort of pride events that are typically seen in a lot of cities. I used to live in Cincinnati, and the only pride event that happened was quite literally just a way for corporations to set up stands in the middle of a park and get people to buy rainbow-themed pens or whatever. And so with that, when I was moving up here, one of the things that a couple friends of mine were telling me about was what you mentioned to me — that Taking Back Pride march and People’s Pride. Can you tell me a bit about those?

Yeah, so I already talked a little bit about the origins of Taking Back Pride earlier, but People's Pride is something that was started by a friend of mine that I met doing work with CANMN, Ani, and a couple of other people that they work with. It started in 2020 again when Pride wasn't doing anything. And I love People's Pride. It's like if Pride was actually good, you know? It's gotten bigger every year that we've done it and they always come out ten toes down in support of what we're doing, trying to bring Pride back to its roots and also stopping the sort of apathy and frankly pinkwashing of a lot of the issues that are happening around Pride. Last year, one of our demands was around not contracting with any companies that support or have supported the occupation [by Israel in Gaza], which is something that Pride unfortunately does not really seem to care too much about.

I think also shouting out the fact that People's Pride doesn't have an FBI or military or police recruitment booth is worthwhile. The people who organize it know the roots of pride as explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-police. And I think personally as a queer person, one of the main things that motivates me every year to confront corporate pride in this way is that like, this is not what this is about. If you are going to say that this is an event for queer people, but there's no real advocacy for queer rights in any tangible way, then it's sort of insulting to me, right? To call what you're doing a ‘pride parade.’

It's not supposed to be like an excuse to daydrink in the park. And so, I think I find People's Pride really powerful because this is what this could be if it was centered around the community and not corporations. TCC4J started the [Taking Back Pride] disruption, which we did because a lot of the folks who organized in TCC4J are queer. You know, when we went to TC Pride to be like “this is why we object to the police being part of this parade,” their response was basically just that “it's not like that anymore,” even though it clearly is.

And I don't know, I think there's just a lot of denial from a lot of— frankly, white queer folks who don't have to confront these issues as often. And so I think part of what we see our role as too is bringing a particular politics back to celebration, if we wanna call it that. I can't just have mimosas and stay up in the street when I know that the purchases that I've made at this event or that like, I have to support certain companies that are murdering Palestinians. That's not compatible with having pride in queer identity, you know? And I think we have to refuse to allow as queer people to use this to pinkwash things like war, ecocide, and genocide.

I love that message. In late 2023, I was working on a story – which ended up getting scrapped for a bunch of other reasons – where I was investigating Zionism among leaders of Cincinnati Pride. Come to find out that at the 2024 Pride event, there were cops openly frisking people while writing down their names in an attendance book. And so just hearing about this makes me wish that many more cities throughout the country would have something like this instead of just saying “whoa, this year, Target said they don't want to kill us!”

It's funny that you mentioned Target too, because our thing — we've been saying this since 2017 — is we don't want to kill our community. We don't support these corporations being here mostly because they're not actually about it.

Most of these people and these entities send money to the Republican lobby the rest of this year, they fund all of these things that are contributing to climate change, and restricting trans care. It's going to affect all of us. We can't pretend like these issues don't affect us because we're celebrating or something.

I think that Twin Cities Pride maybe feels justified because it’s like, “we're putting something on for the community with this money.” But I think our point is that after Target announced that they were doing the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) rollback, Pride dropped them and then was able to match their contributions in under 24 hours. It proved that you never really needed these corporate sponsors. You just aren't willing to connect to the community and actually build an event around them so that they feel invested in helping run it.

I would rather have a smaller, less celebrity-studded event if it means my community can actually afford to party with me while their issues are actually front and center. This whole argument of “well, we need money to get Lizzo!” I guess that's cool, but what about fighting for our rights?

It feels like so many of the people who organize these sorts of corporate-friendly Pride events are really just interested in making themselves into “community leaders.” A lot of them self-identify as that. We don't need people making a career off of pandering to Target and Lowe's. The moment they get pushed back on DEI it’s like they’re saying, “actually queer people can go die."

At the end of the day, it would be great if we can convince Twin Cities Pride. We don't want to have an antagonistic relationship, but also we are people who can see this situation clearly in a way that they obviously don't. Because we were right. Target rolled back DEI and said that they were starting to draw their pride advocacy back. We told you this would happen. So maybe you should believe us and start divesting from corporations.

Yeah, one hundred percent. Pivoting a little away from the topic of pride, a lot of my audience is just getting into activism and aren’t very plugged in yet. In recent months, I’ve been trying to focus more on highlighting activists and tangible actions. I've had many people ask the same question, where they’re not plugged into their scene yet and don’t know what’s going on around them. How can they find out about these actions and how can they get involved?

I think that there are lots of different ideas on how to do this, but I believe that people should join organizations. By organizations, I mean grassroots organizations that are led by people who are affected by these issues and who seek solutions that are led by the community and not by nonprofit or corporate interest groups. 

I think that the Twin Cities is so interesting to me because when I moved here, I found out about the incredible organizing work and the groups that have been around for decades and are making actual progress in their movements. With the sheer amount of organizations out there, people just have to look. I found TCC4J from a Facebook ad. Also, when I moved here, I used to live downtown with my sister and one of my first memories of being here was going downtown for babies’ first “big city pride” and being really disappointed. There was a bank float and all these corporate sponsors everywhere and I remember being on Hennepin Avenue after I had gone back upstairs,  looking down at the street, and I saw these incredible leather clad lesbian bikers come tearing around a corner with this banner that said something like, “No Pride With Killer Cops.”

And I was like, “this is what I'm looking for.” Pride is supposed to be militant and it's supposed to be about building a fighting queer movement. People really have to just be willing to try things out, try out different organizations. You might not find the perfect landing place the first time, but there's so many different kinds of work being done. People just have to be willing to go outside of their neighborhood and outside of their comfort zone and just see what's going on.

I’ve been seeing a phenomenon online that’s two-fold. One side is a lot of people are confused about how to attend radical action safely, especially the more public facing ones. A lot of folks don't know the best practices, but are eager to learn. And then on the other hand, there are a lot of people who will just take pictures of activists’ faces and sharing identifying information publicly online while incorrectly thinking they’re being helpful. I’m interested in what tips you have in mind for folk in these camps. What are some best practices for attending these sorts of events, how do you do it safely?

You have to be able to accurately assess your own level of risk. Because I'm an activist, I make the choice [to be public] because who's gonna take political direction from a faceless, nameless community member? I have to stand behind what I say publicly. That's a choice that I've made. I do show my face at protests. But for other folks, think about what kind of actions you’re going to. If it's your first protest, maybe it's not the best fit for you to go to a black bloc action. Maybe you shouldn't go to civil disobedience action. Maybe start with something that's more family friendly. 

I know that some people really don't like the idea of having family friendly actions, but in my opinion, there are lots of different kinds of protests, and families have a stake in politics too. Parents want their children to be exposed to political messaging while they're young. We need different events that have different risk levels. The most important thing is knowing what kinds of events you're going to and informing yourself about the risks. 

If you are thinking about participating in something that is more civil disobedience oriented or something as we say colloquially, a little spicier, you do want to take steps to conceal your identity if that's appropriate. There are situations, such as with organizations like the Anti-War Committee, where those are activists who are choosing to get arrested and want to talk about their story publicly. Other actions, you might want to think about not bringing your phone, especially if you work in a job where your employer might be monitoring your social media or if you're worried about people finding out that you went to a protest. I think people should consider at least leaving it on airplane mode, if not leaving it at home entirely. 

A lot of the stuff that keeps you safe at a protest is about preparation and forethought. Making sure that if something happens to you, there are people that will know to contact legal help, will know to check the jail roster, making sure that you have plans for getting your medication, getting your pet fed. Just thinking about how you can prepare for potential arrest or police violence, I think goes a long way to making protests safer. Know what you're doing and know what kind of action you're going to and also know who's organizing it. I don't go to stuff that's organized by random people because they're not accountable to me, they're not gonna help me if something goes wrong.

Where can people learn more about TCC4J and similar groups? And are there any actions you kind of want to highlight that might be coming up in the next few months?

You can find more information about us on our website, which is TCC4J.net. You can also follow us on Instagram and Facebook. We post most of our events in those two places. We hate these sites, but having a hub for events, calendars and invites is unfortunately really useful. I don't have time to list every cool organization but, most of the orgs that we have relationships with have Instagram and Facebook as well. We do a lot of cooperative events and like to crosspost each other’s stuff. I really like to encourage people to follow — maybe it can be an alternative to doomscrolling.

I really encourage people to find what you're passionate about. I think people who really care about the issue they're addressing make the best organizers because they're motivated to find solutions to this garbage system that we live in. There's a niche for everybody, there are so many different things that need to be done within different organizations. Join up and you can help and even be trained up on a skill that you can use in other areas of the movement. 

It's valuable to know how to work with other people in the difficult mess that is political organizing because if you can do it there, you can definitely do it at work or in your friend group.

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Thank you to Ryan Fae (@ryan.staticnoi.se) for editing this article. Subscribe to support more journalism like this.