“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” — Frederick Douglass

The NLG-SF stands united with all those protesting the murder and violence of police against Black people specifically. We defend the rights of people, communities, organizations and the movement  to protest and organize against police and state violence, repression, injustice and neglect, including racism, sexism, homo/transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, colonization, occupation, displacement, incarceration, poverty and exploitation of people and land.

The San Francisco Bay Area NLG provides legal support for those protesting and organizing against injustice.

You can request NLG-SF Legal Support for Demonstrations at: https://tinyurl.com/NLGSF-Legal-Support.

 We can support our social justice partners and individuals protesting and fighting injustice in the following ways:

• Our legal observers are on the streets to document police misconduct and state violence so that we can defend people and help them navigate the criminal legal system  and advocate against police and other state violence and repression.

OUR LEGAL HOTLINE COORDINATES LEGAL SUPPORT DURING DEMONSTRATIONS

Please call the NLGSF’s Legal Hotline if you witness an arrest. Try to get the arrestee’s full name and date of birth.

    NLGSF’s Legal Hotline: 1-909-4NLG (4654)

    Jail hotline (calls made from inside of the jail if you or someone you know is arrested): 1-415-285-1011

• Our movement lawyers can help with criminal defense and holding police and government accountable for violence and violations for civil and human rights.
  
• The Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee has bail funds available for protesters, activists and organizers and also works with other social justice partners on bail and jail support. Other bail funds can assist in getting arrestees out of custody also.
  
• Our movement lawyers can support protestors and activists who are visited by the FBI or are victims of state violence and repression while protesting or organizing. NLGSF’s FBI Hotline supports activists who are targeted for their political beliefs and activities by State repression in the form of FBI home visits and grand jury investigations.  

  If you have been contacted by the FBI (or other federal agency) as part of a domestic security investigation, please contact our FBI Hotline immediately so that we can connect you with an attorney who can advise you about your rights.

  FBI Hotline: (415) 285-1041

  Please leave a voicemail; someone will return your call within 72 hours.

You can email us at demonstrations@nlgsf.org if you or someone you know has been arrested for protesting injustice or hurt by police or government violence while protesting or organizing. We can also provide Know Your Rights trainings and/or legal observer trainings for your organization, activist network or community.

We are in a very uncertain moment and facing a great public health threat that is also a social and economic crisis. We are witnessing moving and powerful acts of social solidarity, mutual aid and collective care. The pandemic is exposing, at new levels and on a global scale, vast racial and economic inequities, the crises of homelessness and displacement, the lack of an infrastructure for public health and social welfare, and the growing authoritarian tendencies of governments.

Movements and community and intimate networks are providing for what the government is failing to provide. While this is necessary, it is also unacceptable that the vast resources of the federal, state and local governments are not being mobilized to care for people. There are important and necessary calls to “shelter in place” without efforts to provide for people without places to shelter, without the ability to secure food or resources, without connecting people who are isolated, without supporting people whose homes are unsafe, without providing protections or resources or those who are incarcerated, detained or institutionalized, without providing economic relief for people without work or income.

During this great threat, we have to seize the opportunities that exist to support grassroots demands. The NLG-SF has important work to do to defend those organizing and demanding shelter and an end to evictions, those who are incarcerated and detained, migrants and asylum seekers fighting for their right to stay, emergency workers organizing for protections and workers who have been laid off organizing for economic relief, and, as always, defending our right to organize in the face of what the government is not providing and in response to any repression that might be coming.

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We provide legal support for activists

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