Appleton climate activists 'March Forth to Earth Day' in eight-week-long demonstrations calling for climate action
APPLETON - For the past seven weeks, about a dozen climate activists have stood in Houdini Plaza with signs and banners calling for aggressive climate action.
Members of local environmental organizations and concerned citizens have braced freezing temperatures and brisk spring days the last two months to relay their stance on the climate crisis.
“Our main message is that the climate crisis is an emergency, and it needs to be treated as one,” Grace Quinn, the local organizer and Sunrise Fox Valley member, told the Post-Crescent.
The climate strikes started on March 4 and will run for eight consecutive weeks every Friday as part of a state-wide March Forth to Earth Day project.
The Appleton strike has been mimicked across the state each Friday, with individual rallies in over 20 communities around Wisconsin.
March Forth to Earth Day is a series of events put together by Building Unity with the goal of bringing together environmental and racial justice groups across the state to unite their efforts on climate action.
According to Quinn, the March Forth to Earth Day rallies are one of the first united statewide rallies organized in Wisconsin.
“We’re trying to revolutionize climate activism in the state of Wisconsin and our hope is that if we can build that unified movement, we’re gonna make the greatest impact,” Quinn said.
Over 60 environmental and racial equity groups across the state, including local organizations ESTHER and Sunrise Fox Valley, have cosponsored the Climate Justice Unity Uprising.
The project has rallied environmental activists across the state to join in eight weeks of striking leading up to Earth Day.
“We’re celebrating Earth Day and sounding the alarm,” said Rene Ann Goodrich, statewide organizer and Native Lives Matter Coalition member. “We are bringing attention and demanding justice for our climate emergency.”
By hosting simultaneous rallies across the state, the unified organizers hope to get the attention of state legislators to create climate resilience plans and sustainability initiatives.
The individual rallies around the state are calling on a variety of climate action during the March Forth to Earth Day initiative, but together they are standing in solidarity with Indigenous-led movements and issues they're addressing.
“We are in support of our indigenous frontline leaders working to protect the land and the earth and our water for future generations,” Goodrich told the Post-Crescent.
March Forth to Earth Day is specifically calling for the stop to Line 5 and ending the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure.
“We are asking the Enbridge remove its pipelines in Wisconsin and the treaty lands of the Great Lakes region,” Goodrich said.
Organizers of the project are also recognizing missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two Spirit people and their connection to the resource extraction industry.
More: Indigenous-led activists protest Wisconsin oil pipeline in Green Bay, around Wisconsin
Red dresses will be hung out during the final statewide rally on Earth Day to provide public awareness on the missing and murdered women epidemic.
Goodrich is a part of Wisconsin’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force and she said by hanging red dresses organizers are building education on the violence and trafficking linked to the extraction industry.
“Hanging red dresses has become so important because it is a quiet advocacy that supports our survivors and provides allies with that educational piece,” Goodrich said.
Friday marks the last of the March Forth to Earth Day rallies, but local organizations across the state will continue their strikes the weeks after.
May 5 marks the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit where organizers across the state will again hang red dresses.
On Saturday, Building Unity, Sunrise Fox Valley and Honor the Earth with sponsor a virtual sustainability night to report on the March Forth to Earth Day events and discuss the next steps for the groups involved in the movement.
Sophia Voight is a government watchdog reporter for the Appleton Post-Crescent. She can be reached at svoight@postcrescent.com or 920-993-7102.
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Appleton climate activists host March Forth to Earth Day protests
