Earth Day Protest on 04/19/2025 in St. Paul, MN
This is a photo-heavy edition about the recent Earth Day protest at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Prior to 2020, I used to participate in my local activist community. I’ve attended many events and even helped organize some. I burned out even before the COVID Pandemic began, and my activism has taken a different form over the past five years. I usually only regularly leave the house for my health appointments and the very occasional supply run. It has been heavy on my heart that I am not able to partake in all the ways I wish to, now that I live the life of a recluse.
However, the precautions I’ve been taking, during this ongoing pandemic (masking & isolating), have helped me focus on my health, and even though I am a chronically ill, disabled person, I deemed myself currently healthy enough to go to a protest. The people who attended with me masked the entire time with me, and even though the majority of the crowd was unmasked, I felt like there may never be more ideal conditions to be outside with people than the beautiful day that was April 19th, 2025.
The event was promoted as the Fight for a People’s Earth Day, and there is often a protest around Earth Day each year. It ended up being a breezy Saturday with temps in the low 50s as the high. There were very few clouds in the sky, and it was a beautiful Spring day. I dusted off my old dslr and decided to attend. I’m still remembering how to use it, so this is just a heads up to lower your expectations about the pics. 😇
There were a lot of people in attendance, but definitely not as many protestors as the Hands Off! protest on April 5th, 2025.
A bunch of the people in attendance were outwardly supporting Climate Justice.
Others were resisting capitalism, fascism, and the oligarchy of our current technofeudalist age.
While more people were explicitly expressing their feelings about Donald Trump specifically.
Another cohort was about Criminal & Carceral Justice including police & prison abolition, immigration, wrongful imprisonment, and the abductions & deportations of people without due process.
There were also more general calls for Love, Democracy, and Freedom.
There were a lot of flags flying including: the flag of the United States of America (both upside down and right-side up), the flag of Ukraine, the flag of Palestine, the flag of Canada, the Peace Symbol flag, and multiple variants of the Pride flag. I did not attend the march portion of the event, but I did witness the extremely large flag of Palestine being folded up after they walked through the city with it.
A bunch of local activist groups and other organizations had tents and tables set up. There was an area for kids to blow bubbles and write with chalk. There was also a spot where anyone could make their own sign. Not pictured is the line of portable toilets available too.
At one of the tents, there was a large paper for people to write their answer to the question Why Are You Here?
While anyone who is attending an event like this should hopefully be aware that publicly expressing dissent is currently a constitutional right, that doesn’t mean that their presence at a protest won’t be held against them. I chose to cover any unobscured faces because that’s the OPSEC level I’m using in my praxis. I recommend that anyone attending events like these wear a mask, not only for your health & the health of those around you, but also because of the surveillance.
Already the federal government has labeled many people as Domestic Violence Extremists, including anti-capitalists, people who want to end the exploitation of animals, people who are against the destruction of the environment, and anarchists, to name just a few examples.
It was a fairly low-key event with a police presence to match. The crowd was mostly white people with a lot of middle-aged to elderly folks. There were some children and a bunch of dogs too. There was space in the crowd to keep your distance from other people, but there weren’t really any shaded areas. A lot of people have already written some great advice on how to safely attend a protest, and I may compile a roundup post of those in the future. We protect us.
~The Overstimulated
