Community Supported Organizing
Donation protected
Hello friends, old and new.
I am raising my own salary as a Climate and Social Justice Organizer. I am reliable, experienced, and have a huge network of friends and acquaintances from the past two decades. You all comprise my not-so-secret superpower by being part of this network. Seriously.
Please keep reading.
What this is for:
I specialize in coordinating actions and protests, and also focus on social movement and coalition building. I work extensively with teens and retirees in VT, two demographics that are passionate about climate justice, and either have a lot at stake or a lot of time to work.
I've always worked in the building trades for a living, but now, in light of the crisis we're in, I can't stop organizing. Therefore I'm leaving my day job and asking for your help.
Supporting me will help square away the modest living expenses of myself and my daughter (rent, gas, food, a little childcare), and hopefully some left over to get our skates waxed. I am more thrifty than most and am intent on building resources to increase our movement capacity and resilience. I can offer 501(c)3 tax exemptions through the Global Justice Ecology Project .
I am working with a variety of skilled organizers and we feel it is very important not to compete with one another for resources. The projects described below are all contingent on the essential work of many dedicated organizers and volunteers that I have the good fortunre to work with.
Current Organizing Portfolio
Direct Action
TRAINER & ORGANIZER
Nonviolent Direct Action and grassroots organizing have been essential parts of effective historical social movements. I am working with new and established coalitions to follow these models in order to seize the current movement building opportunity.<<<>>>
I am a trainer with the National Lawyers Guild, the Earth First! Trainers Network, The Rising Tide North America Trainers Network, and The Make, an action arts organization. I am training youth and others in Nonviolent Direct Action, Know Your Rights, Blockades, and Action Arts & Theater.
I continue to organize actions and strategy with many groups, including the Stop the VT Fracked Gas Pipeline Coalition, Earth First!, 350VT & 350.org, the Standing Rock indigenous solidarity movement, Migrant Justice, and others.
Vermont National Lawyers Guild (VT NLG)
CHAPTER CHAIR
I’m organizing lawyers and activists to provide legal consulting, grassroots support and criminal defense work for the social justice and frontline communities, and helping develop legal and court strategy with numerous activists in the State. A guild member since ‘02, I've organized training and legal support teams for multiple mass actions, sometimes for 30,000 people or more. I now provide legal support for actions in Vermont, and am currently representing myself in yet another civil disobedience defense case related to the VT Fracked Gas Pipeline.
The Make
CO-DIRECTOR
For 4 years Erok Gillard and I have been organizing artists-as-organizers events, trucking art & art supplies to actions, producing art & theater, and advancing the idea that artists need to be centrally involved in social movement work. At the first “Make” organizers and artists came together from New England and New York, held 2 days of workshops, panels, and parties. And we built and rolled out this great local action:
We host Free Arts Fridays (a youth worksop series), and have a couple performative actions in the works with Migrant Justice in Vermont.
Climate Justice Youth Organizing
FIELD ORGANIZER
The youth are the next generation of leaders. Their future is at stake, and their participation is vital. I am working with teens from multiple high schools, and we're building a replicable model for youth to get involved in network organizing across the state. These teenagers are doing art production, action planning, speaking at rallies, and honing their political analysis and developing their programs with us, including Free Arts Fridays, Uprise! Camp (below), and free ski trips!
UPRISE! Youth Activism Camp 2017
ADMINISTRATOR
August 7-15, 2017 at Wheelock Mountain Farm and
Justice Center ~ Greensboro Bend, Vermont
uprisecamp.org
In 2014 we hosted the Make, a 200+ person action camp for artists and the anti-fossil fuels movement at this 600+ acre homestead. As the lead coordinator of that project, I am excited to apply what we learned to a large group of teens! We'll all learn to build skills and strategy, and to get involved in making change for our futures. We are looking forward to registering young people and recruiting more mentors to work with us on social and racial justice analysis, wilderness skills and outdoor living, a multi-disciplinary action arts production shop, and "small farmers cool the planet" hands-on agricultural work. We have an amazing team of coordinators and mentors signing up to contribute to the empowerment of our next generation of movement leaders.
Standing Rock Mni Wiconi Village Construction and Northeast Builders Delegation & Supply Caravan
DELEGATION COORDINATOR
We just brought 40+ builders and volunteers and a moving truck full of woodstoves, food, and winter supplies. We also raised $25,000! We're still disbursing funds and I'm helping register volunteers for the Mni Wiconi Eco Village project, which will break ground in the Spring, as well as work on solidarity actions and organizing to support the ongoing work of the Water Protectors. Last week we blockaded the two TD Bank branches in the VT Capitol until closing with over 200 local "protectors", to call attention to the banks' financial involvement with the Dakota Acess Pipeline. Water is Life.
BIO / WORK HISTORY
I was raised in the Northeast Kingdom of VT in the '80s, which has given me an understanding of class and economy that I carry through the rest of my work. I am currently a working single parent, living back in Rural VT after 17 years living and working in TX, HI, NY/NYC, CA, OR, and have returned home to VT in 2014. I'm a co-founder of several organizations, including Portland, OR Art and Revolution, the Food Security Roundtable (NY, MA & VT), and The Watershed Center in Millbrook, NY, and the Make Action Arts.
I've been involved in coordinating eco-defense in the Redwoods, the Everglades, the fracking fields, railyards, and a lot of spots in between. I have been honored to be very involved in the Global Justice Movement, Eco-Defense, Occupy Wall Street, the Food & Ag. Justice Movement, the National Lawyers Guild, "Culture Work" (Radical Arts and Performance organizing), and other direct action and coalition building work since 1998. I have been on the organizing team for a couple Earth First! continental rendezvous, the Miami FTAA protest of 2003, the Cancun WTO protest of 2003, Occupy Wall Street demos and projects in NYC, Flood Wall Street, and the annual VT actions in October to Stop the VT Fracked Gas Pipeline, the Make Climate Carnival (video above), and other smaller projects. I have also helped organize actions and strategy at numerous other global justice and campaign-based events. These actions are not just splashy events, they are also a key way to get a great number of people working together, refusing to be dominated, and discovering their freedom to resist domination.
Henry, Community Supported Organizer
There's a huge need for all hands on deck in this moment, and we all need to figure out a way to participate. I have coalition building experience, work well in a crisis, and have an extensive network of experienced organizers and contacts around the country to share. I hope you see supporting me as an efficient way to support solidarity work and strategic organizing in our community.
Thank you, sincerely, for reading my pitch to become a Community Supported Organizer.
Please stay tuned for more posts to come, and let me know if you have any question or suggestions about the work we're doing.
Thanks.
Your's in the vision of a thriving future,
Henry "Hambone" Harris
CSO
I am raising my own salary as a Climate and Social Justice Organizer. I am reliable, experienced, and have a huge network of friends and acquaintances from the past two decades. You all comprise my not-so-secret superpower by being part of this network. Seriously.
Please keep reading.
What this is for:
I specialize in coordinating actions and protests, and also focus on social movement and coalition building. I work extensively with teens and retirees in VT, two demographics that are passionate about climate justice, and either have a lot at stake or a lot of time to work.
I've always worked in the building trades for a living, but now, in light of the crisis we're in, I can't stop organizing. Therefore I'm leaving my day job and asking for your help.
Supporting me will help square away the modest living expenses of myself and my daughter (rent, gas, food, a little childcare), and hopefully some left over to get our skates waxed. I am more thrifty than most and am intent on building resources to increase our movement capacity and resilience. I can offer 501(c)3 tax exemptions through the Global Justice Ecology Project .
I am working with a variety of skilled organizers and we feel it is very important not to compete with one another for resources. The projects described below are all contingent on the essential work of many dedicated organizers and volunteers that I have the good fortunre to work with.
Current Organizing Portfolio
Direct Action
TRAINER & ORGANIZER
Nonviolent Direct Action and grassroots organizing have been essential parts of effective historical social movements. I am working with new and established coalitions to follow these models in order to seize the current movement building opportunity.<<<>>>
I am a trainer with the National Lawyers Guild, the Earth First! Trainers Network, The Rising Tide North America Trainers Network, and The Make, an action arts organization. I am training youth and others in Nonviolent Direct Action, Know Your Rights, Blockades, and Action Arts & Theater.
I continue to organize actions and strategy with many groups, including the Stop the VT Fracked Gas Pipeline Coalition, Earth First!, 350VT & 350.org, the Standing Rock indigenous solidarity movement, Migrant Justice, and others.
Vermont National Lawyers Guild (VT NLG)
CHAPTER CHAIR
I’m organizing lawyers and activists to provide legal consulting, grassroots support and criminal defense work for the social justice and frontline communities, and helping develop legal and court strategy with numerous activists in the State. A guild member since ‘02, I've organized training and legal support teams for multiple mass actions, sometimes for 30,000 people or more. I now provide legal support for actions in Vermont, and am currently representing myself in yet another civil disobedience defense case related to the VT Fracked Gas Pipeline.
The Make
CO-DIRECTOR
For 4 years Erok Gillard and I have been organizing artists-as-organizers events, trucking art & art supplies to actions, producing art & theater, and advancing the idea that artists need to be centrally involved in social movement work. At the first “Make” organizers and artists came together from New England and New York, held 2 days of workshops, panels, and parties. And we built and rolled out this great local action:
We host Free Arts Fridays (a youth worksop series), and have a couple performative actions in the works with Migrant Justice in Vermont.
Climate Justice Youth Organizing
FIELD ORGANIZER
The youth are the next generation of leaders. Their future is at stake, and their participation is vital. I am working with teens from multiple high schools, and we're building a replicable model for youth to get involved in network organizing across the state. These teenagers are doing art production, action planning, speaking at rallies, and honing their political analysis and developing their programs with us, including Free Arts Fridays, Uprise! Camp (below), and free ski trips!
UPRISE! Youth Activism Camp 2017
ADMINISTRATOR
August 7-15, 2017 at Wheelock Mountain Farm and
Justice Center ~ Greensboro Bend, Vermont
uprisecamp.org
In 2014 we hosted the Make, a 200+ person action camp for artists and the anti-fossil fuels movement at this 600+ acre homestead. As the lead coordinator of that project, I am excited to apply what we learned to a large group of teens! We'll all learn to build skills and strategy, and to get involved in making change for our futures. We are looking forward to registering young people and recruiting more mentors to work with us on social and racial justice analysis, wilderness skills and outdoor living, a multi-disciplinary action arts production shop, and "small farmers cool the planet" hands-on agricultural work. We have an amazing team of coordinators and mentors signing up to contribute to the empowerment of our next generation of movement leaders.
Standing Rock Mni Wiconi Village Construction and Northeast Builders Delegation & Supply Caravan
DELEGATION COORDINATOR
We just brought 40+ builders and volunteers and a moving truck full of woodstoves, food, and winter supplies. We also raised $25,000! We're still disbursing funds and I'm helping register volunteers for the Mni Wiconi Eco Village project, which will break ground in the Spring, as well as work on solidarity actions and organizing to support the ongoing work of the Water Protectors. Last week we blockaded the two TD Bank branches in the VT Capitol until closing with over 200 local "protectors", to call attention to the banks' financial involvement with the Dakota Acess Pipeline. Water is Life.
BIO / WORK HISTORY
I was raised in the Northeast Kingdom of VT in the '80s, which has given me an understanding of class and economy that I carry through the rest of my work. I am currently a working single parent, living back in Rural VT after 17 years living and working in TX, HI, NY/NYC, CA, OR, and have returned home to VT in 2014. I'm a co-founder of several organizations, including Portland, OR Art and Revolution, the Food Security Roundtable (NY, MA & VT), and The Watershed Center in Millbrook, NY, and the Make Action Arts.
I've been involved in coordinating eco-defense in the Redwoods, the Everglades, the fracking fields, railyards, and a lot of spots in between. I have been honored to be very involved in the Global Justice Movement, Eco-Defense, Occupy Wall Street, the Food & Ag. Justice Movement, the National Lawyers Guild, "Culture Work" (Radical Arts and Performance organizing), and other direct action and coalition building work since 1998. I have been on the organizing team for a couple Earth First! continental rendezvous, the Miami FTAA protest of 2003, the Cancun WTO protest of 2003, Occupy Wall Street demos and projects in NYC, Flood Wall Street, and the annual VT actions in October to Stop the VT Fracked Gas Pipeline, the Make Climate Carnival (video above), and other smaller projects. I have also helped organize actions and strategy at numerous other global justice and campaign-based events. These actions are not just splashy events, they are also a key way to get a great number of people working together, refusing to be dominated, and discovering their freedom to resist domination.
Henry, Community Supported Organizer
There's a huge need for all hands on deck in this moment, and we all need to figure out a way to participate. I have coalition building experience, work well in a crisis, and have an extensive network of experienced organizers and contacts around the country to share. I hope you see supporting me as an efficient way to support solidarity work and strategic organizing in our community.
Thank you, sincerely, for reading my pitch to become a Community Supported Organizer.
Please stay tuned for more posts to come, and let me know if you have any question or suggestions about the work we're doing.
Thanks.
Your's in the vision of a thriving future,
Henry "Hambone" Harris
CSO
Organizer
Henry Harris
Organizer
Plainfield, VT