Video While Dickens launched his reelection campaign, organizers envisioned a better future for Atlanta 

Atlantans hit the Beltline Tuesday evening to protest Mayor Andre Dickens outside an event launching his reelection campaign. Demonstrators garnered the attention of the campaign event’s attendees and onlookers at adjacent Lee + White development businesses with a noise demonstration, a press conference and a flier distribution advocating for a people’s movement assembly, an alternative process of democratic self-governance. 

“Give us an opportunity to vote for what we want or don’t want,” said Mshairi Siyanda, community organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Movement for Black Lives. “And don’t make false promises, because then you’re just an actor in a political scene. 

“Our voices will be heard, and we will continue to march and say, ‘Andre, no matter where you are, we will show up, until you listen.” 

Dickens’s Failed Promises and Cop City 

During Tuesday’s demonstration, protesters chanted, “Andre Dickens, you’re a liar” while audio of Dickens’s statements promising to honor a petition for a Stop Cop City referendum played on repeat. 

In 2023, community members gathered over 116,000 petition signatures to put a referendum on the ballot for Atlanta voters. The referendum would have allowed Atlantans to vote on whether to overturn the lease of city land to the Atlanta Police Foundation for the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, colloquially known as Cop City. 

The Dickens administration has refused to count the number of petition signatures—which organizers say was over double the amount required to get a referendum on the ballot. Four organizers then sued the City of Atlanta in federal court for violating their First Amendment rights. In July 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled in favor of the organizers, but the Dickens administration appealed the ruling. The case has been pending before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals since December 2023.  

“Andre Dickens has failed us,” said Dawn O’Neal of the People’s Campaign to Stop Cop City. “Andre Dickens has failed the working class, the poor, minorities in this city.” 

O’Neal lives in the neighborhood where Cop City is located. She spoke Tuesday about flooding and environmental loss in the area, allegations of corruption against Dickens and numerous instances of violence by Atlanta police. 

“They are breaking pipelines. Our water is muddy coming out of the sink. That’s what Cop City is doing to our neighborhood,” O’Neal said. “Why would I want my children to be in this area? We don’t feel safe.”  

An Alternative Vision for Atlanta 

Community leaders outside of Dickens’ campaign event spoke about an alternative vision for civic engagement in Atlanta: people’s movement assemblies, a millennia-old tradition of communities gathering to determine for themselves the best course of action and self-governance. 

In explaining the people’s movement assembly process, Mary Hooks, an organizer with the Movement for Black Lives and the Stop Cop City Vote Coalition, said, “We bring democracy to the people.” 

“We’re not gathering at City Hall where you only get two minutes to speak and folks will put you out if they think you’re being unruly,” Hooks said. “We want to actually talk to the people and engage with the people at citywide assemblies and neighborhood assemblies. As we do that process, we’re gathering the hopes, desires and dreams of the people—and we’re inviting people to be with us, to build a bloc in this city that, when we say we’re moving on a thing, we got thousands who are moving on a thing.” 

Organizers handed flyers to passersby on the Beltline, people dining outside at adjacent restaurants and attendees of Dickens’s event, promoting the next people’s movement assembly on Saturday, March 22, from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m., at Howell Park in the West End. 

Chris Bufford, an organizer with the People’s Campaign, said the people’s movement assembly “gives us an opportunity to build stronger connections to people, so then we can start to build examples of what we want to see.” 

“We know there are other solutions that don’t require policing that can make our communities better,” Bufford said. “Investing in housing, investing in health care, investing in education and investing in people’s economic safety are proven to be better tools for stopping crime and violence that our elected officials like to talk about so much.” 

For more information on the March 22 assembly, visit actionnetwork.org/events/atlanta-peoples-movement-assembly or @ATLpeoplescampaign on Instagram.