FEARLESS STATEMENT: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

To: General Distribution and Press Release  

From: Leadership of Fearless / Red River United Indivisible 

May 7, 2025 

Indivisible is a national, grassroots organization with thousands of chapters nationwide, dedicated to furthering progressive values by using multiple tools to exert political pressure on elected officials to enact change and unrig our democracy. To the general public, the actions most often seen are visibility events such as what occurred on April 5, the “Let them Eat Cake” street theater, Fired Up Fridays, and on May 1. Fearless (Fargo) and Red River United (Moorhead) chapters registered officially with national Indivisible at the beginning of 2025 to unite local concerned citizens. Fearless / Red River United Indivisible conduct peaceful, non-violent, and non-permitted protests that follow the guidelines specified by Indivisible as well as the ACLU of North Dakota. We focus on providing an atmosphere that is friendly, welcoming, and energizing while adhering to local laws. We provide volunteers in orange vests who monitor safety and facilitate maintaining the flow of traffic and pedestrians.  

On May 1, Fearless / Red River United Indivisible sponsored a visibility event on Veterans Memorial Bridge in conjunction with the national day of action; May Day Strong: For the Workers, For the Law. In addition to standing on the bridge, the event included speakers at Woodlawn Park who represented workers groups and the legal profession. We estimated the crowd size was between 500-600. Our code of conduct and expectations were posted in multiple locations on the Bridge on placards as well as with our volunteers. 

At approximately 5:30 pm, an individual chose to walk alone into four lanes of moving traffic, causing cars to stop and weave around him. Multiple members of our volunteer team requested the individual get out of the road, fearing for his safety. The individual was wearing headphones and appeared agitated if anyone came near. Other unknown attendees walked out into the road attempting to bring him back to the sidewalk. Our volunteers directed traffic and dissuaded attendees from confronting the individual. This individual’s actions not only endangered himself; they were endangering other participants, our volunteers, and drivers on the bridge. At the same time our team were assessing the situation for possible resolutions, we heard bystanders talking about calling 911, and observed one of the drivers of the blocked cars on their phone. Indivisible wanted emergency services to hear directly from our group to ensure they knew the individual was unarmed and not a danger to anyone but himself at that time. After the response from emergency services, some volunteers remained to direct traffic, while our team moved the majority of the participants to Woodlawn Park early for the speakers. The remainder of the event passed without further disruption. 

Following May 1, we have spent many hours debriefing, analyzing the incident, inspecting call logs, and reviewing police scanner recordings. It is clear that multiple calls were made prior to the call made by our volunteers. The individual’s comments to local media reflect that they had no intention of cooperating with the event’s guidelines or our volunteers, and had not planned for their own safety or the inevitable event of police involvement. Fearless / Red River United Indivisible focus on the safety of our attendees at every event we sponsor. We do our best to ensure safety for all. We have concluded we had no choice but to call 911 in this instance, for the protection of the individual as well as others. As a team we stand united, unanimously, by that decision.  

Dozens of Indivisible volunteers organized the May Day rally. Our purpose was to convey messages to the greater community about why we must all, in unity, join together to oppose the fascist regime that threatens all of us. Fearless / Red River United Indivisible also stands against the genocide in Palestine, as well as standing with the students and immigrants being detained for using their voices to speak against the atrocities in Gaza. National Indivisible has also made calls for a ceasefire as well as stopping arms to Israel, and provided platforms for people to speak on Palestine. But by making an impulsive, dangerous, and unprepared decision to step into the road alone, the individual hijacked the agenda of hundreds of participants, focusing attention on his action of moving into the road, rather than the concerns of the hundreds who stood on the bridge, or the pointed messages of the speakers. The actions of the lone individual exemplify exactly why Indivisible conducts legal, peaceful, non-violent protests, in addition to the many other political actions our members take every day. In this case, far more attention was paid to the individual in the road than the assault on workers’ rights, and the Trump administration’s failure to abide by the rule of law, including imprisoning immigrants in the middle of legal proceedings to become citizens.  

Civil disobedience has a long history in our nation. Indivisible respects those who want to do actions that risk arrest, such as sit-ins or blocking a street. However, that was not what our May Day event was and we were clear in our standards for our event. Groups or individuals who want to do activism that is explicitly civil disobedience should organize and prepare in advance for such action by arranging to have medical and legal support for their action. This is standard practice for groups that practice civil disobedience intended to risk arrest; again, that was not the intention of Indivisible’s May Day event. 

We want to reiterate that our purpose as an organization is to protect and improve our democracy so that democracy works for all, not just the privileged. As a result, Indivisible does not focus on merely organizing protests. We want to ensure that the voices and concerns of all are heard, particularly the most vulnerable. Our Indivisible chapters focus on making sure those voices are heard through applying political pressure on the elected officials who represent us. We hold those officials accountable for their actions and policies, through phone calls, written messages, and in-person meetings with officials, which both chapters do multiple times per month. 

Indivisible was founded in response to Trump’s election in 2016 - but we know that Trump is a symptom of a sick democracy, not its cause. Sadly, systemic oppression in our nation goes back to the very beginning with our country built on the backs of slaves and the persecution of Indigenous peoples. Quoting from the 

Indivisible website, “America’s police and criminal justice systems are the legacies of our country’s white supremacist, slave-owning history. Structural racism permeates every facet of American life and is perhaps most evident in the way that law enforcement interacts with communities of color. All across the country, Black people are more likely to be harassed, arrested, and killed by police than their white counterparts.” 

We have to build a democracy that reflects a broad, multiracial “we the people,” that works for all of us, and is sustained by all of us. Only then will we be able to achieve a progressive vision for our future. To accomplish our goals, we must be united against the Trump administration, not fighting from within. 

The commitment of Fearless / Red River United Indivisible is to work every day to build strong coalitions with any group or organization who is willing to work with us and values our mission of peaceful, non-violent action as one tool in our tool box to build a democracy of the people, for the people, and by the people.