Lisa Fithian - Shut It Down: Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance

PRAISE FORSHUT IT DOWN

As the left gets serious about electoral organizing, its more important than ever that our movements also stay mobilized, disobedient, and in the streets. Lisa Fithian has helped drive some of the most creative, game-changing organizing of our timeand her wise and warm book will help us build real power.

NAOMI KLEIN , author of No Is Not Enough and This Changes Everything

Direct action must be strategic, precise, calculated, and intentionalwords that also describe Lisa Fithian. She is a movement veteran, and we stand on shoulders of women like her. Lisa has taken a new generation of leaders under her wing at a critical time, and I am honored to be among them.

LINDA SARSOUR , Palestinian-Muslim-American activist; cochair, Womens March on Washington

Lisa Fithian is a treasure to social justice movements in the United States and an inspiration to all who have been touched by her energy and commitment. From workers struggles to Occupy Wall Street, from the Battle of Seattle to the Katrina disaster, Lisa has been thereteaching, leading, following, and building a toolbox for direct action. In Shut It Down , Lisa brings the past four decades of activism alive with dynamic storytelling skills that allow the reader to relive those moments and know that they, too, can pick up the banner and run with it.

ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ , author of An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and Loaded

Lisa Fithians book shows both the craft and the heart essential for these times. Her wide organizing experience enables her to describe both the toolbox police use against activists and how grassroots movements rise again despite everything. Get this book if you like stories and you want to win.

GEORGE LAKEY , author of How We Win ; columnist, Waging Nonviolence

Ready to rise up and shut down injustice? You can find no better guide than this dynamic collection of stories and lessons from powerhouse organizer Lisa Fithian. This brilliant book, a vital addition to every resisters library, will take you right to the frontlines of some of the boldest and most consequential protest campaigns of the last four decades, leaving you with everything from nuts-and-bolts tactical tips to frameworks for deep strategic thinking.

L.A. KAUFFMAN , author of Direct Action and How to Read a Protest

Lisa Fithian is a legend. I hope this book becomes one, too.

DAVID GRAEBER , author of Debt and Bullshit Jobs

In my own long life of activism, Lisa Fithian is the person who has taught me the most about strategy, organizing, and sheer, stubborn courage. Shes also gotten me into more trouble than any other single person! Sofull disclosureshes a dear friend. Im in the book, and she says nice things about me. But even if she didnt, I would still have to honestly say that shes done a brilliant job of weaving activist stories together with practical, how-to advice. The book reads like an adventure story, but at the end you will come away with solid information on how to organize and make transformative social change. In these challenging times, this book is a much-needed gift!

STARHAWK , activist; director, Earth Activist Training; author of The Fifth Sacred Thing and The Empowerment Manual

Shut It Down is an annotated travelogue of a lifetime of resistance, full of the nitty-gritty of real movements: deep strategy and think-on-your-feet decisions, friendships and alliances, best practices, worst mistakes and key lessons, real life exhaustion, and the exhilarating, world-changing power of fighting back. Its jam-packed with tips for a journey we all need to take, shared through detailed and richly personal stories that transform the ideas of struggle into usable muscle memory.

AURORA LEVINS MORALES , author of Medicine Stories

Based on lessons of struggle over the past few decades, Shut It Down is one of the best guides to, and reflections on, social transformation that I have ever read. It is both deeply profound and educative, direct and unpretentious. Everyone, whether experienced or new to wanting to change the world, needs to read and share it.

MARINA SITRIN , author of Horizontalism and They Cant Represent Us!

Shut It Down traces the course of radical resistance in the United States through Lisa Fithians astounding experiences sowing the seeds of struggle. Rather than analyzing protest movements from afar, Fithian brings her readers into the streets in this essential chronicle of direct action from below.

MARK BRAY , historian, Dartmouth College; author of Antifa

Lisa Fithians Shut It Down is an invaluable tool and a must-read for organizers and activists. She explains both why we need to shut it down and the nitty-gritty of how to shut it down. She has been a key strategist in organizing hundreds of thousands of workers in the Justice for Janitors campaignfrom blocking bridges in order to shut down DC to enduring mass arrests in the face of police violence during the Houston janitors strike. Lisas book inspires us to confront the powerful and teaches us how to beat them.

STEPHEN LERNER , fellow, Georgetown University Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor; architect, Justice for Janitors campaign

A firsthand account from the front lines of direct action over the past four decades. A story not simply of resistance, but of building something better. The young movements of our time will only benefit from Fithians experiences and insights.

SHAUN CHAMBERLIN , editor of Surviving the Future and Lean Logic ; Extinction Rebellion arrestee

SHUT IT DOWN

Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance

LISA FITHIAN

Foreword by Frances Fox Piven

Chelsea Green Publishing

White River Junction, Vermont

London, UK

Copyright 2019 by Lisa Fithian

All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all photographs copyright 2019 by Lisa Fithian.

Lyrics to the song Like a Mountain on page 89 were written by Naomi Littlebear Morena. Reprinted with permission.

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Editor: Katherine Don

Project Editor: Michael Metivier

Project Manager: Sarah Kovach

Copy Editor: Laura Jorstad

Proofreader: Eliani Torres

Indexer: Linda Hallinger

Designer: Melissa Jacobson

Printed in Canada.

First printing August 2019.

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Our Commitment to Green Publishing

Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because it was printed on paper that contains recycled fiber, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Shut It Down was printed on paper supplied by Marquis that contains 100% postconsumer recycled fiber.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fithian, Lisa, author.

Title: Shut it down : stories from a fierce, loving resistance / Lisa Fithian.

Description: White River Junction, Vermont : Chelsea Green Publishing, [2019]

Identifiers: LCCN 2019018116| ISBN 9781603588843 (paperback) | ISBN 9781603588850 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Civil disobedienceUnited States. | Protest movementsUnited States.