Refuse & Resist! was a human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 activist group founded in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1987  by Emile de Antonio

Emile de Antonio

Emile de Antonio was a director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political or social events circa 1960s–1980s...

, Dore Ashton, Dennis Brutus

Dennis Brutus

Dennis Vincent Brutus was a South African activist, educator, journalist and poet best known for his campaign to have apartheid South Africa banned from the Olympic Games.-Life and work:...

, John Gerassi, Abbie Hoffman

Abbie Hoffman

Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....

, William Kunstler

William Kunstler

William Moses Kunstler was an American self-described "radical lawyer" and civil rights activist, known for his controversial clients...

, C. Clark Kissinger

C. Clark Kissinger

C. Clark Kissinger was the National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society in 1964-65. He visited the People's Republic of China twice during the Cultural Revolution, and is a devoted Maoist. His writings frequently appear in Revolution, journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA...

, Conrad Lynn

Conrad Lynn

Conrad Lynn was a Black civil rights lawyer in the United States. He was a member of the African Forum for Socialist Education. He was a member of the Communist Party until 1937. He was the lawyer for militant civil rights activist Robert F Williams during the 1960s, when Williams lived in Cuba,...

, Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez is an African American poet most often associated with the Black Arts Movement. She has authored over a dozen books of poetry, as well as plays and children's books...

, Rev. Fernando Santillana, and other activists who were concerned that the American government, epitomized by U.S. President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

, advocated a far right-wing political program directed against the political rights of its people. Artist Keith Haring

Keith Haring

Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...

 created R&R!'s logo in 1988. The organization's national office was located in New York City, with chapters at various times in Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Honolulu, Hawaii; Los Angeles, California; Miami, Florida; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. The organization officially dissolved in 2006. At that time, the national office closed, and the organization's files transferred to the Tamiment Library at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

.

Refuse & Resist! opposed censorship

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

, war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

, acts of police brutality

Police brutality

Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer....

, in support of political prisoners and against the death penalty. The organization advocated reproductive rights

Reproductive rights

Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows:...

 and played an active role in the defense of abortion clinics. It also supported rights for undocumented immigrants. The group did not endorse candidates for elected public office.

Governance and methods

The organization was made up of affiliated independent organizations, individuals, local chapters, and less formal national 'networks' organized around specific initiatives or interests. The central form of the organization was a National Council which met periodically to "identify new reactionary attacks and to encourage resistance to them."

From September 1987 through early 2002, Refuse & Resist! published the print periodical CounterAttack and from 1995 until 2006 it maintained the Refuse & Resist! website as media for information about political and social events of concern in the United States and internationally.

In 1988, R&R! organized Resist in Concert! at the New York Palladium, with performances by Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....

, Afrika Bambaataa, De La Soul, Ikey C & Easy-Ad, Karen Finley, Lenny Kaye

Lenny Kaye

Lenny Kaye is an American guitarist, composer and writer who is best known as a member of the Patti Smith Group.- Early life :...

, Shinehead, and others.

In addition to the Resist in Concert! initiative, Refuse & Resist! involved and supported progressive art and artists, including supporting artists and arts organizations whose work was the object of governmental repression. Visual and performing artists, especially in New York and Los Angeles, were active in the Artists' Network of Refuse & Resist! and experimented with ways to integrate political themes of resistance with aesthetic expression.

R&R! initiated a periodic Courageous Resister Award to recognize important individual acts of resistance and in support of civil rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

 and civil liberties

Civil liberties

Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...

. Recipients included health care workers, activists against police brutality, artists, and even small towns. The first awards were presented at Resist in Concert! 1988, by Susan Sarandon

Susan Sarandon

Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...

, Robbie Conal

Robbie Conal

Robbie Conal is an American guerilla poster artist noted for his gnarled, grotesque depictions of U.S. political figures of note. A former hippie, he is noted for distributing his poster art throughout a city overnight using his "volunteer guerrilla postering army".Conal's parents were both union...

, and Philip Agee

Philip Agee

Philip Burnett Franklin Agee was a Central Intelligence Agency case officer and writer, best known as author of the 1975 book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, detailing his experiences in the CIA. Agee joined the CIA in 1957, and over the following decade had postings in Washington, D.C., Ecuador,...

.

R&R! organized public demonstrations and other forms of protest in support of abortion rights, immigrants' rights, political prisoners, and for other causes. For example, R&R! activists were actively involved in demonstrations against the 1991 invasion of Iraq and marched with thousands in the streets of New York City to protest the politics of the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Campaigns

R&R! organized against many forms of censorship. For example, when in 1989 the U.S. Congress adopted the so-called Jesse Helms

Jesse Helms

Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001...

 Amendment, which required the National Endowment for the Art not to fund "obscene or indecent" art, R&R! organized both the "Jesse Helms Degenerate Art Show" and the "New Blasphemy Forum" in New York City as forums for artists to express opposition to the new restrictions. Likewise, R&R! came to the defense of artists, such as Ice T, whose art was the object of censorship.

R&R! opposed the invasion of privacy

Invasion of privacy

United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...

 and government surveillance

Surveillance

Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...

. For example, when the 1990 Census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

 was conducted, R&R! organized public demonstrations across the U.S., in which census forms were burned in protest of what they saw as intrusive questions asked on the forms.

R&R! upheld reproductive freedom for women and posed the slogan "Abortion on Demand & without Apology!" In this activity, they frequently defended physicians and women's health clinics. In response to the judicial opinions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 , was a United States Supreme Court decision on July 3, 1989 upholding a Missouri law that imposed restrictions on the use of state funds, facilities, and employees in performing, assisting with, or counseling on abortions...

and Rust v. Sullivan

Rust v. Sullivan

Rust v. Sullivan, , was a United States Supreme Court case decided in 1991. The case concerned the legality and constitutionality of Department of Health and Human Services regulations on the use of funds spent by the U.S. federal government to promote family planning...

, R&R! deliberately disrupted two sessions of the U.S. Supreme Court, which was the first time that court had ever experienced public protest. In related events, activists occupied the offices of U.S. Congressman Henry Hyde

Henry Hyde

Henry John Hyde , an American politician, was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 2007, representing the 6th District of Illinois, an area of Chicago's northwestern suburbs which included O'Hare International Airport...

 and the National Right to Life Committee

National Right to Life Committee

The National Right to Life Committee is the oldest and largest pro-life organization in the United States with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide. The group works through legislation and education to work against abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted...

, both whom opposed abortion. During the 1990s, R&R! were vocal and uncompromising opponents of Operation Rescue

Operation Rescue

Operation Rescue is a pro-life organization which originated in California and is now based in Kansas....

, a group known for staging protests and civil disobedience against abortion clinics. Refuse & Resist! also co-initiated the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers in 1996, which has since become an annual event.

R&R! supported the defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. He has been described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate", and his sentence is one of the most debated today...

, an early member, who was accused and convicted of murder in 1982

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Mumia Abu-Jamal

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Mumia Abu-Jamal was a 1982 murder trial in which Mumia Abu-Jamal was tried and convicted for the first-degree murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner....

. Citing suppressed and allegedly falsified evidence presented against Mumia, R&R! joined with many others in exposing his trial and conviction as political persecution and a vendetta conducted by the Philadelphia Police Department. R&R! was active in the international "Free Mumia" campaign. in 1995, R&R initiated a series of "Philly Freedom Summers" in which students and other youth converged in Philadelphia, to raise public awareness and support for Abu-Jamal and for a new trial. It was during the first summer that they spoke out against Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge

Tom Ridge

Thomas Joseph "Tom" Ridge is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives , the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania , Assistant to the President for Homeland Security , and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security...

, who signed a death warrant for Abu-Jamal that June. That August the execution order was stayed, but Abu-Jamal remains in prison pending the outcome of his appeal.

R&R! supported the rights of all immigrants, raising the slogan "We Are All Illegals!" Activists often protested at the offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service

Immigration and Naturalization Service

The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service , now referred to as Legacy INS, ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred from the Department of Justice to three new components within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, as...

 (INS) and at the United States Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...

 base in Miami, Florida, in opposition to the return of Haitian refugees back to Haiti. In Texas, activists were arrested for climbing the fences of a 'secret' INS detention facility and exposing its activities.

R&R! organized the first National Conference Against the War on Drugs. They revealed photographs of alleged "boot camps" supposedly being used to incarcerate youths as punishment for what they felt were victimless drug crimes

Drug-Related Crime

In the United States, Illegal drugs are related to crime in multiple ways. Most directly, it is a crime to use, possess, manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as having a potential for abuse...

.

External links

• Refuse & Resist! – Official website.
• The Artists Network of Refuse & Resist!.