Badscience and I have for the last year dedicated ourselves to the pursuit of creative strategies for activism and visibility. These have included the collaborative creation of a PAC, The Playground Legends, "parties with a purpose" and GOTV activities in some of Milwaukee's African American communities, a Voter Van, various banners, flags and signs, a battery-powered Sidewalk Soapbox Cart complete with microphones and PA, and assorted websites and blogs designed for online augmentation of these physical strategies aimed at giving people voice and visibility.
In the dark days of late autumn we were anticipating the kickoff of the Walker Recall campaign, slated for last November 15th. We had heard that there would be a big rally in his neighborhood that was to begin at 5:00, and we discussed how to be visible in the Wisconsin winter when night falls at 4:30. We kept looking at the Christmas displays going up in our neighborhood, and figured that we had to do something with lights.
We worked like mad to get our first LED sign ready for the event, and it worked beyond our expectations.
After a few events with our new sign, we continued to talk about tactics of visibility. It was fully dark during rush hour, and we set our sights to the numerous pedestrian overpasses that are scattered around Milwaukee. We scaled up the letters, spelled out RECALL, occupied our first freeway, and The Overpass Light Brigade was born.
We had our first attack that night, and when the policeman finally came, he let us know that we couldn't affix anything to the overpasses. Having only a few people to help, we had bungie corded a couple of the signs to the fencing. The officer suggested we not even lean the signs against the fence in order to allay the hundreds of complaint calls that were flooding their switchboard.
Our new constraints necessitated a holder for every sign, which ended up to help us define our operating system. OLB began with a small group of Holders of the Lights - folks who would show up at a designated overpass on a designated evening, and would stand in the cold and snow and wind. This physical occupation shifts the message from signage to witness, from advertising to testimonial. Passersby in cars below (thousands of people per hour) look up and see people behind the letters, standing in the cold night air, caring enough about something to get off their asses and represent. The sight of people hovering over the highway is a powerful symbol of our presence, of the visibility of the 47 percent of the citizens who didn't elect Scott Walker, but who have been entirely ignored in the radical governance of the last year.
The rightwing hates us, the leftwing joins us in real space and in spirit. As word has gotten out, we find it easier and easier to recruit Holders of the Lights for our Bridge Parties. Our list of volunteers grows, and we have more and more people willing to coordinate events in diverse parts of the state. People drive a long way to join us, or walk up from their neighborhood, curious as to what we are doing, and end up spending the evening on the overpass. This social aspect has become, in my mind, the most powerful part of the project.
More and more people drop by for the Bridge Parties, and as the weather gets nicer, I predict some great times. A few weeks back we got together with a local marching band and displayed on the iconic Milwaukee Art Museum pedestrian bridge. Our local art critic did a story on the evening. The fact that an authority was calling this "art" made the rightwing go nuts. The critic got more hate mail on that story than on any she had ever written. The comments of Greta Van Susteran's GretaWire were pretty entertaining. I do feel heartened that conservative citizens are so worried about the conditions of my employment that they constantly bring up our need for more assiduous focus on enterprise. After all, people who work for the state shouldn't be allowed out in public even on weekend nights. It simply isn't right.
We continue on our quest for visibility. We've open-sourced the instructions for making the signs, and we've franchised the operation to include another cell in Wisconsin, (OLB-Fox Valley) with a few more on the way. We try to get out on Wednesday and Friday evenings, and have invitations to visit folks all around the state. In spite of the spite of the Freepers, we both have full time jobs, so this can be challenging!
Last week, we had a lovely time on an overpass near an African American neighborhood in Milwaukee. I always explain to curious people what we are doing, and a number of folks came out and joined us. One of our crew got some names for help in voter registration. We held out JOHN DOE as a reminder of the ongoing corruption investigation of Scott Walker when he was Milwaukee County Executive. While this might seem a little cryptic - and I don't mind a campaign of open query - it resonates around Milwaukee.
Last evening, we rolled out the new "E" and "D" letters to commemorate the GAB's verification of the recall. Scott Walker is now officially "recalled to election." It was a particularly beautiful night after a day of cold rain. Their was a thick atmospheric mist which acted as a scrim reflecting the mercury vapor lights of the overpass. The colors were really beautiful. The New York Times sent a photographer to take some pictures. I'm not sure what will become of the photos he took, but it was fun jumping six foot cyclone fences with him in order to get "the shot."
Next week we go to central Wisconsin to join some Kossacks on a bridge over some busy highway. We'll be out there, muddling through these strategies of empowerment and tactics of visibility. We began this whole project as an experiment in DIY signage, but now find ourselves engaged in a surprising form of social cohesion. In essence, a simple idea led us to silhouettes on overpasses, sentinels bearing witness to politics, and a coming together of people in both virtual and real space.
That first sign from oh so long ago in November has recently been acquired by the Wisconsin Historical Society for their permanent collection. Overpass Light Brigade is now officially a part of Wisconsin's long history of progressive activism, still bright even in these dark days of fundamentalism's radical narrowings.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
UPDATE: OLB makes it into the Sunday New York Times: