By Adrienne Pickett, Founder and Chief Creative Officer
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about World War II.
I started with Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State who fled Nazi-occupied Europe as a child. From there, I moved to Book and Dagger by Elyse Graham, which chronicles how professors, librarians, archivists, and scholars quietly became spies and resistance operatives for the Allied forces. I reread All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, novels about ordinary people in Nazi-occupied France who became extraordinary through acts both large and small.
It’s like I’m preparing for something. You don’t need to ask me why. Just scroll your social media for thirty seconds.
You’ll see videos of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good be shot and killed at point-blank range by ICE. You’ll read about infants who stop breathing because of tear gas landing in their car. You’ll hear about women and children being assaulted in detention. You’ll watch federal agents drag people from their cars, their jobs, their homes, often without warrants, without explanation, and without constitutional authority.
And then the government says, “Don’t believe what you’re seeing.”
George Orwell once wrote:
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
— 1984
Maybe now it’s time for me to go back and re-read 1984.
That directive, to deny reality, is a hallmark of authoritarianism. And we are watching it unfold in real time.
Let’s be honest: this machinery of state violence has long existed, particularly in Black and Brown communities. It gave rise to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panthers, and Black Lives Matter. What’s different now is visibility (and that ICE has started killing white people). Everyone is watching. Everyone has a camera. The revolution is being livestreamed.
We can all take a page from what’s happening in the Twin Cities. Neighbors built encrypted Signal networks to track ICE movements and warn families. They organized rapid-response teams, mutual aid hubs, and mass protests that shut down streets and made a massive racket outside hotels housing ICE agents. In cities across the country, people are organizing court watchers, legal observers, and community protection networks.
And yet, many people still feel frozen.
Overwhelmed. Helpless. Burned out. Just trying to survive.
That’s exactly what authoritarian systems depend on: paralysis.
But history shows us something different.
In moments of moral crisis, the Underground Railroad, the French Resistance, the Civil Rights Movement, people didn’t become heroes by being everything.
They became essential by becoming something specific.
Not everyone can march.
Not everyone can run for office.
Not everyone can organize.
Not everyone can risk arrest.
But everyone has a role.
And when we each step into our role, movements become unstoppable.
So here are the Seven Resistance Roles we need right now.
No matter who you are—wine moms, grocery store clerks, Uber drivers, artists, academics, engineers, hairstylists, students, retirees—there is a place for your time, your talent, and your voice.
1. The Storytellers
If you shape stories, you shape reality.
The right has understood this for decades. They’ve invested billions into media ecosystems, influencers, think tanks, and digital propaganda machines that distort truth and normalize cruelty.
We must counter that.
Storytellers translate complexity into human reality. They give faces to injustice. They make suffering visible. They remind us who we are fighting for.
If your hairstylist was abducted by ICE — tell his story.
If your neighbor disappeared — say their name.
If your friend is afraid to leave their house — amplify their voice.
Storytellers are social media users and everyday witnesses. And it’s 2026, everyone is a social media user.
Helpful resource:
Carol Chaya Barash, PhD — Why Story Changes Everything
2. The Foot Soldiers
Movements move because bodies move.
These are the people who show up to protests, canvases, phone banks, city council meetings, and community events.
They knock doors.
They make calls.
They staff rallies.
They hold signs.
They chant.
They organize neighbors.
This is how public pressure is applied. And every authoritarian regime fears public visibility.
Find protests, organizing events, and actions near you:
50501 Movement
Mobilize.us
3. The Agitators
Progress has never been polite.
These are the disruptors. The direct-action organizers. The culture jammers. The protest artists. The people who refuse to let injustice become just background noise.
They organize sit-ins, walkouts, shutdowns, boycotts, and creative disruptions. They make neutrality impossible.
They remind us: comfort is a privilege.
Find your local Democratic Socialists of America chapter
Get involved with an economic blackout and general strike
4. The Underground Builders
Every movement needs invisible architecture, and the people who quietly build it. I have been deeply moved by those who operate beneath the surface, creating systems that protect communities before danger arrives. These are the people organizing rapid-response alerts when ICE or other federal agents enter an area, building encrypted communication networks, coordinating emergency transportation, and mapping out safe pathways when families need to move quickly.
Some of this infrastructure is digital, some of it is physical, but all of it is rooted in trust. Underground builders create the connective tissue that holds resistance together. They protect the most vulnerable among us by weaving networks of safety, care, and coordination, often without recognition, and always with courage.
The gold standard for encrypted communications:
Signal
5. The Mutual Aid Makers
In Minneapolis, a sex shop called the Smitten Kitten has transformed into a community mutual aid hub distributing diapers, formula, and food to families afraid to leave their homes. In Portland, coffee shops and nonprofits organized food distribution after SNAP benefits were cut.
Mutual aid makers are caretakers, healers, providers, organizers, cooks, drivers, childcare helpers, and community connectors. Because survival itself is resistance they are the ones building community fridges, ride share networks, childcare co-ops, and create emergency housing pipelines. Care is not charity. Care is strategy.
Find or build mutual aid networks:
6. The Status Quo Challengers
Power must always be confronted where it lives. These are the people willing to step into hostile systems and dismantle them from the inside, often at great personal cost. They are the candidates who run for office when no one else will, the school board members protecting inclusive education, the city councilors blocking contracts with predatory agencies, the public defenders and judges upholding constitutional rights, and the agency reformers and commissioners who refuse to accept business as usual. They understand that protest alone is not enough, that resistance must also become policy, law, and structural change. They are the ones who transform public outrage into lasting reform. And if you’ve ever found yourself thinking, someone should run, that someone might be you.
Run for office resources:
Run for Something
EMILY’s List
We can help, too.
7. The Witnesses
What is documented cannot be erased and, as my mom always says, what happens on the internet stays on the internet. Democracy cannot survive in darkness, and The Witnesses shine a light so we can see clearly what is being done in our name and with our tax dollars. They are the FOIA warriors, the legal observers at protests, the court watchers, the researchers, and the archivists who preserve truth when power would prefer silence. ICE raids and unconstitutional searches flourish when no one is paying attention. The Witnesses make sure someone always is. They create the historical record, gather legal evidence, and protect the possibility of future accountability, so that when justice is finally restored, the truth will already be waiting.
Become a legal observer:
National Lawyers Guild Legal Observers
The goal of authoritarian systems is paralysis. To keep us isolated. Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Just trying to survive.
But history tells us something else:
Participation is the antidote.
You don’t have to do everything.
You don’t have to save the world.
You don’t have to be fearless.
You just have to find your place.