MIAMI — The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that its upcoming nationwide event, The Resistance Training: An ACLU Town Hall, will feature a special guest — author, actress, and model, Padma Lakshmi.
The event, which will be held at the University of Miami’s Watsco Center on March 11, will be broadcast live to hundreds of individual events being held around the country. It aims to empower communities to respond to the Trump administration’s attack on rights and civil liberties.
The town hall will launch an ACLU national initiative to organize and empower communities around the country in defense of their constitutional rights. It will feature PeoplePower.org, a new grassroots mobilization platform developed by the ACLU. Over 1,000 people are expected to attend the Resistance Training in Miami, and nationwide over 1,500 hosts have events planned and more than 80,000 people have pledged to attend events.
Lakshmi, an activist for women’s health, will highlight the need for Americans of all walks of life to become engaged in order to protect constitutional rights. A New York Times best-selling author, she was the recipient of the 2016 NECO Ellis Island Medal of Honor and also serves as host and executive producer of Bravo’s Emmy award-winning Top Chef.
“America’s strength and shining beauty comes from the voices of all its citizens and the depths of our diversity — including Muslims, women, transgender people, immigrants, and refugees, whose rights are under attack in this administration.” said Lakshmi. “People across the nation are coming together to demonstrate that the people are the source, not the subject, of political power.”
The program will also seek to amplify organic, bottom-up grassroots actions. At the event, the ACLU will provide an update on its ongoing fight to resist President Trump's unconstitutional policies. The ACLU will also promote ideas for action to defend sanctuary cities, resist deportation raids, oppose the Muslim ban, maintain Planned Parenthood funding, and support other organizational priorities
“The ACLU is taking its strong legal power and adding mass people power to create a potent force for change,” said Faiz Shakir, national political director at the ACLU. “We will stand united to stop the greatest threat to civil liberties in our lifetimes.”
“South Florida is critical to the ACLU’s effort to resist the unconstitutional policies of the Trump administration. Some of the groups that make up the fabric of life in South Florida — immigrants, LGBT people, and many racial, ethnic, and religious minorities — are the very targets of the attack on fundamental rights. That’s why the ACLU chose Miami for the resistance training: to give the people here the tools to fight back,” said ACLU of Florida Executive Director Howard Simon. “In my decades of work with the ACLU, I have never seen this level of concern about the effects of sudden political change — and the outpouring of activism that is the result of that concern.”
The PeoplePower.org platform will use digital tools to communicate with and train volunteers on their rights and ways to resist President Trump’s unlawful policies across the country. PeoplePower.org will be a one-stop hub for all organizers seeking to influence the national debate.
More information about the new platform is available here: https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-launches-grassroots-mobilization-platform
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The Resistance Training: An ACLU Town Hall
Saturday, March 11
Doors open at 3:30 p.m.
Event begins at 5 p.m.
University of Miami Watsco Center
1245 Dauer Dr, Coral Gables, FL 33146
RSVP for the live event in Miami here: aclufl.org/ResistanceTrainingRSVP