Dear Frog Troublers and stoppers-by, thank you for the very kind messages you left on our post about Grampa Boggs. We’ve been reading them all week and feeling the love from people who knew him well, and people who will get to know him through us.
Yesterday, Bea and Harriet and Richard went to a Hands Off Pittsboro rally while I went to the statewide conference for the AAUP in Chapel Hill. The AAUP, or the American Association of University Professors, is a national union founded in 1915 to defend academic freedom. I’ve agreed to serve as the president of the North Carolina chapter next year—I was nervous about taking on such an important role, but yesterday I saw that we have such a great group of people working on so many essential actions, like protecting our international students and colleagues, fighting to restore our research grants, disentangling our university endowments from the war machine, and standing up for our whole communities. I was really happy to learn from so many other affiliated groups presenting at the conference: the UE150 grad student and campus worker union, TransparUNCy, and the Durham Association of Educators, among others.
Of course I wished I could have been at the Hands Off! rally, so I asked Bea to tell us about the one she and her dad and sister attended:
I thought it was a fun event. I brought a sign that I made for a Tesla protest that also worked for this one. My dad made this sign:
We were protesting what Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been doing to the country: firing government workers who keep us safe, ending life-saving scientific studies, cutting funding for universities, deporting people who are legally allowed to be here, and putting tariffs on other countries, which will make everything more expensive. There were at least two hundred people there, and it felt good being part of a group that’s doing something good for our country. Also, I got ice cream!😃 🍦
After the protest, my dad and Harriet and I were very hot, so we went to S&T Soda Shoppe to get lunch. We were still holding our signs as went in and sat down at a table. A lady who was also at the protest saw my sign, and she said that I was doing a good thing and that it’s great that as a young person, I’m getting involved. That really made me feel good because sometimes it feels like, as a kid, it’s hard to make a difference. But we are making a difference, and young people should try and speak up as much as they can these days. We are the future, and anything Donald Trump does will affect us way more than it will affect him.
You know who I also saw at the rally? My friend from Clapping Hands Farm Camp, plus her mom and Louise, the camp founder. My friend yelled “Bean!” which is what she calls me, and gave me a big hug. I’m really looking forward to going back to Clapping Hands Farm tomorrow with my mom and Harriet. Art Party Camp is a camp for younger kids, where you get to go with a parent or guardian and make art and have fun. Harriet is a camper, and I’m a junior counselor. I really enjoy being a counselor because you get to connect with the campers.
So, connection! Who are you connecting with this weekend, Frog Troublers? Have a beautiful day and lots of love from us.
Also! The next Triangle-area action is Kill the Cuts, Science Saves Lives on Tuesday, April 8 from 3-6 in Moore Square in Raleigh.
See you there?
There should always be ice cream!
Probly this was a good teachable moment for Bea to learn about astroturf fake "protests." Part of the "Hands Off" was "Hands Off NATO"...WTF? How many "protestors" were paid and bussed in to these coordinated events around the US? Why weren't opposition to Ukraine proxy war and protests against US support of Israel's genocide in Gaza prominent in these events? Belle what exactly were you and Bea protesting for and against?