We have finally recovered from our East Coast trip enough to tell you a bit about it.

Since we are transitioning to a leadership team model in the fall, one of our key priorities over the next few months is to introduce Megan and Sharon (the new Co-Directors) to as many of our supporters as possible whom they haven’t yet met.

So Megan and I recently did a week-long mini-East Coast tour from may 3-7. Megan met up with me first in NY where we spent several days running from Harlem to Brooklyn and back again, meeting with funders and network members. We had an intimate happy hour with our network members on the Lower East Side, organized by old school network member Han Shan. Several members of our partner group Students for a Free Tibet dropped by to catch up with us over pizza and beer, and at appropriate points in the evening Bill B and John S joined us by phone and even bought us a round of drinks .

After a few days, we hopped on Mega Bolt buses to get from NY to DC – amazing how far you can go for $20 on the East Coast!

The highlight of our DC trip was the House Party that network member Cesar hosted for us. Over sangria and middle eastern appetizers we introduced Ruckus to some new folks in DC, and shared up-to-date information on the work we are currently engaged in, including the U.S. Social Forum, the Take Back the Land campaign, responding to calls for support in Arizona, and our upcoming camps [an indigenous Tar Sands Camp in BC this July and our Advanced Action Camp for EcoJustice in MN this September.

We are deeply grateful to everyone who crossed our path on this journey, and to seeing even more friends and family of Ruckus on our next journey east!

Arizona’s racist SB 1070 anti-immigration law signed by Governor Jan Brewer April 23, 2010, has of course sparked a wave of protests in Arizona and around the U.S., as other states like Minnesota have already started proposing similar laws.  People are rising up everywhere to demand that President Obama intervene in Arizona and put an end to this racist law.

Ruckus sent trainer Isaac M. down to Phoenix immediately on April 23 after a call out for support by local Phoenix organizers.  After several days of working with folks on the ground and getting the lay of the land, Isaac returned and Ruckus continued strategizing with folks about the lead-up to the big May 29th Mass Action against SB1070.

Ruckus’s Co-Director Sharon Lungo is now back in Phoenix helping to facilitate action planning, with more Ruckus folks on their way next week.  We are plugging into and enhancing local action plans for May 29 as needed, and preparing longer-term strategy and tactical trainings with groups in Phoenix and Tucson for beyond May 29, to help build local capacity and develop the skills it will take to win this critical fight!

Here are some things you can do to support the fight!:

1. Donate to help fund Ruckus trainers’ travel to Arizona!

2. Send a letter to President Obama demanding he intervene in Arizona!

3. Come to Phoenix for the May 29th Mass Action! Register here to get updates.

4. Follow and support local partners in Arizona.

Stay tuned to ruckus.org and follow us on facebook and twitter for updates as actions unfold in Arizona!

We were very sorry to hear about the passing of one of the truly original Ruckus community members, Wally Brown, last week, and we wanted to provide a space to honor his memory, by collecting stories and thoughts about Wally that many Ruckus folks have been reminiscing about.

From Wally’s sister, Caryl:
“We would love to hear any of your ‘Wally Stories’, and any stories from his friends in the ‘activist community’. Wally’s family will be happy to see remembrances posted here and if you should want to send anything straight to his family, you can do so via his sister:
Caryl Brown
1225 Brighton Ave.
Lititz, PA 17543
carylrbrown@yahoo.com”

Thank you to Han Shan, for starting off the ‘Wally Stories’ with this nice eulogy below.  Please feel free to add your own stories as a comment on this page, and make sure to share this with friends and Wally’s community members.

Thanks also to Mateo for providing photos.

From Han:

R.I.P. Wally Brown; beautiful soul, troubled Bodhisaatva, peaceful warrior, friend.

Wally Brown passed away in his sleep on May 4th, 2010 in Portland. The medical examiner said that Wally had grown increasingly weak and thin over time and that “his body just gave out.”

Wally was a rebel with a cause and a broken heart. He was a long-time Earth First!er, old-school Ruckus volunteer, Native American rights supporter, anti-nukes activist, Rainbow, cook, hell-raiser, road-tripper, street protest logistics grunt, philosopher-poet, pothead, and mystic. He was introspective, deeply intelligent, and funny as hell. He was a veritable Forrest Gump of four decades of counter-culture and a hell of a story-teller. As his loved ones knew, he was also troubled and struggled on and off for much of his adult life with alcoholism & drug addiction. He could be harsh and hard to understand and sometimes rubbed people who didn’t know him the wrong way. Nonetheless, he was one of the kindest, most generous, most humble people who ever graced many of our lives. Wally was also a very dear friend, with whom I had recently lost touch, now with stinging regret.

Wally was cremated and his ashes will be dispersed in a number of places that are important to the family, including over his father’s final resting place. A few days after his passing, in honor of his service to the Tibet movement and other struggles for peace, human rights, and environmental justice, Tibetan monks at Kirti Monastery in Dharamsala, India, performed a special ‘puja,’ a Buddhist prayer ceremony to heal the soul of the recently deceased and aid its transition to the next world.

Wally’s mother, Mary Lou Brown, asks that those who wish to honor Wally’s life consider doing so by making a donation in his name to an organization – of their choosing – that supports causes that were important to him.

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More photos are coming in!  These are fom Caroline Dossche via Dexter, of Wally at the 10-years Walk Across America reunion at the ‘Tributaries Ranche’ in Florence, CO, in July 2002: