Author: John

  • Building the Resistance, One Circle of Trust at a Time

    ByJohn

    Toby Sackton at First Parish Wayland: Why Movements Are Built on Trust, Not Leaders.

    In a talk at First Parish in Wayland in March, Toby Sackton gave what might be the most complete account yet of why this moment demands something different from conventional politics and what Lexington Alarm has been building since Patriots Day 2025.

    The talk, titled “Building Effective Resistance,” was part history, part organizing theory, part urgent call to action. Sackton began with the personal. “I have been an activist since the 1960s,” he told the room. “When the war in Ukraine started, I was glued to the news every day. Gaza was worse. When Trump was reelected, it was another shock. Truly, the world was coming apart. I doom scrolled. I read every atrocity from doge, the attack on science every firing, every attack on immigrants and Black people.”

    What broke the spiral, he said, was not a policy win or an electoral outcome it was human connection. “When a group of us founded Lexington Alarm one year ago, for the first time since the Vietnam era, I felt part of this broad network of people, a movement, that had majority support, all working towards a rough common vision grounded in the ideas of equality and the promise of what America could be.”

    Sackton started with a diagnosis. “Since the beginning of 2025, the laws and traditions that have shaped the last hundred years of our history have been violently attacked.

  • The March 28 Debrief: What We Got Right and What We Fix Next

    ByToby

    A few days after the No Kings rally in Lexington, Lexington Alarm held a debrief session to gather reactions. There were several successes and a few things to change before our next event.

    At a post-event debrief on Zoom, organizers, marshals, volunteers, and participants went through the rally piece by piece. The consensus: it was a success. Nearly 2,000 people attended, more signs were sold than at the 6,000-person October rally, and close to 100 new contacts signed up at the tables. The mood among volunteers was described repeatedly as “uplifting.” The table setup was the best yet — positioned closer to the crowd than in October, generating real conversations, sign sales, and genuine engagement with organizational literature.

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    The Speeches of Lexington No Kings Day, March 28

    ByJohn

    photo by Sasha Patkin: Ayla Modirzadeh-March, LHS Junior, Speaking at No Kings Day in Lexington

    Nearly 2,000 people came to the Lexington Visitor’s Center, across from the Battle Green, on March 28, part of the largest single-day protest in American history. Nationally No Kings had more than 3,100 events nationwide, with an estimated 8 million participants, including 180,000 in Boston.

    Lexington Alarm and IndivisibleLAB held the rally in Lexington, after it became apparent that many wanted one here, as has been done 3 other times this past year. Of course, Lexington is among the most fitting locations. “The Battle of Lexington and Concord was here,” one eighth-grade resident told the Lexington Observer. “It was the first place where we took our stand against kings. And I feel like we’re doing that again.”

    Toby Sackton opened by naming the stakes directly. “We are not just fighting for survival, but for the rebirth of our Constitution and its promise.”

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    Profiles in Courage

    ByToby Sackton

    At Lexington Alarm we have a theory of resistance. When people have courage to take small actions they generate a response. No action is too small or insignificant not to count. Sometimes the responses strengthen the resistance in surprising ways. This creates a snowball effect, and the resistance to abuses and attacks on our constitutional rights grows stronger.

    We have two really important examples from the past two weeks.

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    ICE Supporters Try and Suppress Bearing Witness Demonstrations

    ByToby Sackton

    The weekly Bearing Witness protests at ICE headquarters on District Avenue have become a regional center of peaceful resistance, drawing 700–900 participants each week. Organized by a broad interfaith coalition, the demonstrations elevate the voices of those harmed by ICE while reaffirming a commitment to nonviolence. That very commitment has triggered escalating efforts to suppress the protests: parking bans, intimidation, and towing by powerful real estate interests and complicit local authorities. As businesses and police “bend the knee” to protect ICE, Bearing Witness remains resolute. Peaceful assembly is not a threat—it is a constitutional right, and it will continue to grow. See our Letter to National Development

  • Burlington Passes Anti-ICE Town Meeting Resolution

    ByJohn

    The Burlington Town Meeting voted nearly unanimously to condemn violations of local zoning laws and the inhuman conditions of detention at the ICE district facility in Burlington. The resolution called for ICE to cease overnight and extended detentions at the Burlington facility and to comply fully with the conditions they agreed to when they first…