Before You March on June 14: Read This First

The Rules Have Changed.

An Updated Guide to Staying Safe at Protests (2025)

By Lori Corbet Mann

(The full guide is originally published on This Wide Territory)

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Breaking News — June 12, 2025

Today in Los Angeles, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed and handcuffed by federal agents while attempting to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference. Padilla had asked about the recent ICE raids targeting constituents in his home state. Agents pushed him face-down to the ground, zip-tied his wrists, and detained him briefly before releasing him.

“If this is how they respond to a U.S. Senator, I can only imagine what they’re doing to cooks, to farmworkers, to day laborers,” Padilla said, visibly shaken.

This is no longer theoretical. This is not the slow creep of authoritarianism.

It is its sprint.

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Which brings us to the guide that everyone should read before showing up at the nationwide “No Kings” protests on June 14: a clear-eyed, unflinching protest safety manual.

A commenter on Lori’s post worried that her tone was too severe, too intimidating. But Lori responded with what might be the defining line of this moment:

“The world has changed. And so have the rules.”

There were no facial recognition databases when we protested the Vietnam War.

No drones, no phone pings, no ICE vans disguised as unmarked SUVs.

Today, protestors are being arrested, detained, disappeared — judges, teachers, teenagers, and now sitting U.S. Senators.

Lori doesn’t sugarcoat that. She lays it out — not to scare us into silence, but to prepare us to endure. Her guide is not alarmist. It is an act of care in a time of cold brutality. It is a flashlight in a surveillance state.

“Optimism without adaptation,” she writes, “can compromise people’s futures.”

If you plan to protest on June 14, read Lori’s guide. Share it. Print it. Pack it next to your saline rinse and burner phone.

And if it scares you? Good. It means you understand the stakes.

We’re not marching in the same world anymore.

We’re marching through the ashes of what used to be democracy — trying to build something braver in its place.

From Vietnam to Now: My Own Warning

I protested during the Vietnam War.

We carried hand-painted signs and backpacks filled with hope and peanut butter sandwiches. We feared batons, not biometric scans. We ran from horses, not helicopters. The risk was real — but the rules were analog. You could disappear into a crowd. Your face wasn’t a barcode.

There were no burner phones. No encryption guides. No need to tape your legal aid number to your thigh. No warning to leave your smartwatch at home because it might track your heartbeat as evidence of intent.

What Lori is describing now isn’t hyperbole — it’s the new architecture of repression. The kind that’s silent and seamless and absolutely lethal if you pretend it isn’t happening.

And that’s why her guide is so important. Because it doesn’t ask us to stop. It asks us to understand the terrain before we charge into it.

It’s still possible to protest.

It’s still possible to resist.

But it’s no longer possible to do it naively.

Read the guide. Share it with your friends, your kids, your elders who still think this is the 1960s. We are no longer in the era of “flower power.” We are in the era of facial recognition, predictive policing, and ICE raids with no warning.

Courage now must be paired with strategy.

Love must be paired with literacy.

Outrage must be paired with operational readiness.

The future isn’t going to wait for us to catch up.

So let’s meet it with our eyes open, our packs light, and our minds clear.

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Seen in the Streets of Los Angeles, June 2025

An American protester in Los Angeles stands defiant against LAPD riot officers.

(Credit: Jill Connelly/Reuters)

This image made headlines — but it should also make us stop and ask: what would Lori say?

The bright green head covering. The white backpack. The exposed face. The open posture before a wall of state armor. It’s heroic. It’s cinematic.

And it’s exactly what gets you tracked, tagged, and remembered — by more than just the people you marched for.

Lori’s advice isn’t about toning down courage. It’s about outsmarting a system designed to punish it.

A precis of her guide begins below. Read it. Share it. Let it help you resist with courage and caution.

An Updated Guide to Staying Safe at Protests (2025)

By Lori Corbet Mann

(The full guide is originally published on This Wide Territory)

YOUR TIME STARTS BEFORE YOU LEAVE

• Write on your arm with permanent marker:
  

  • Your first name

  • Emergency contact

  • Legal aid number

  • Any critical medical info (e.g. allergies, meds)

  • This isn’t about drama. If something happens, it helps medics or legal observers get you the right help fast.

• Check in with your outside contact. Confirm that you’re heading out, what time you’ll check in again, and when they should raise the alarm if they don’t hear from you.

• Take a final full-body photo and leave it with your contact.

• Ground yourself. Take three steady breaths. Set your intention.

Then go. Quiet mind, eyes open, feet steady.

GETTING THERE + GETTING HOME

• Avoid driving your own car.

• Do not use rideshare apps near the protest.

• Afterward, don’t go straight home.

• If you’re stopped: Stay calm. Do not unlock your phone.

• Be cautious with public transport.

• Walk the last leg.

• Plan your route home before you go.

ARRIVAL + ON THE GROUND

• Arrive early, leave early.

• Stay near the edge.

• Don’t rely on transit during or after.

• Keep your eyes up and head moving.

• Move regularly — don’t plant yourself.

• No live streaming. No facial photography.

• Stay off your phone.

• Don’t call out other people’s names.

• Stay calm if tensions rise.

• If the police line shifts, go.

• If someone is detained, do not intervene.

IF THINGS ESCALATE + GETTING OUT

• Trust your gut.

• Avoid bottlenecks.

• If the crowd surges, move at an angle.

• Do not shelter underground.

• Avoid medics surrounded by police.

• Do not rely on your phone.

• Change direction if you’re followed.

• Discard anything that might connect you to the event.

• Wait until far from the site before turning your phone back on.

WHEN YOU GET HOME

• Clean your skin if exposed to gas or spray.

• Scrub your device.

• Debrief with your buddy or group.

• Check in with your outside contact.

• Log anything unusual.

• Tend to your body.

• Give yourself quiet.

• Expect emotional ripple effects.

• Decide when to re-emerge.

ONLINE COMMUNICATION: BEFORE + AFTER

• Avoid posting plans in advance.

• Use disappearing messages.

• Don’t tag or name others.

• After the protest, pause before you post.

• Edit with care.

• Watch what’s being said — and how.

• Assume nothing is private.

“Use what’s useful to you, share it widely, and please take care of each other out there. This moment asks a lot — but not more than we can carry together.”

— Lori

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For Those Who Still March

(a quiet poem at the end of a long day)

Let the world call you tired.

Let the data show your sleep.

But you are the pulse

that outlasts the riot,

the whisper

that outwalks the drone.

You do not need to shout

to be brave.

You do not need to run

to be ready.

You are the hush

between warnings,

the breath

before a song.

Carry water.

Carry names.

Carry your small, unyielding hope.

The path is not lit.

But you are.

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Your thoughts, your voice—always welcome here, and honestly, needed more than ever.

Are you planning to join the protest on Saturday? If so, where will you be?
If the question feels too risky to answer, I understand completely.
We are not in ordinary times.

We are in a moment that asks us to weigh every word, every step, every risk.
And still—we keep showing up. However we can. In whatever ways we can.

You're not alone. Not in your fear. Not in your fire. Always forward, Gloria