We’ve been attacked, what’s the next step?

Police used tear gas and arrested nonviolent, peaceful activists trying to rescue beagles at Ridglan Farms from torture.

We have been attacked. Now everything depends on how we respond: with courage or fear.

Today, hundreds of animal activists were tear-gassed, shot with rubber bullets, and assaulted by dozens of police protecting Ridglan Farms. As I sit in a jail cell, I am feeling a mix of shock from the sudden escalation of violence and guilt for the failure to protect the people I love. Cordial conversations with Sheriff Kalvin Barrett convinced me that authorities would respond to our movement with reason.

I was wrong.

Wayne being arrested while trying to serve legal papers to Ridglan.

Now we must care for our injured and defend those who are arrested. Leaders like me must be accountable for our decisions and ask forgiveness from all those who suffered harm while our movement learns from this moment.

An activist was assaulted by police or Ridglan security guards. He was unconscious, but was revived and probably arrested.

Above all, we cannot give up on our purpose. We cannot give up on the dogs. If we stay focused on this purpose, the repression will backfire. The public will see armed men attacking grandmas desperately trying to save dogs, and their conscience will be awakened. That is what happened in India’s struggle for independence when armed British soldiers attacked peaceful activists simply attempting to gather salt. It’s what happened when civil rights activists were attacked by police dogs in Birmingham in 1963. It will happen here too — as long as we don’t give up the fight. The brutality of those attacking us will highlight the injustice of a system that uses state violence to defend the torture of innocent dogs.

I don’t mean to say that this moment will guarantee the scale of change we saw in the 1960s. There were years of struggle and failure before activists in past movements saw the change they dreamed of.

What those activists understood though is their sacrifice had purpose.

Claudette Colvin, a young Black woman who was arrested one year before Rosa Parks, did not spark the historic movement. And the Black community in Montgomery could have responded to Colvin’s arrest with withdrawal and fear, as a state-sponsored lynching spread across the nation, that would have been an understandable response.

But they did not respond with fear. Rosa Parks saw the purpose in Colvin’s brave acts and instead followed in her footsteps. Parks’s courage in the face of repression changed the world. In the face of broken systems, courage is often the only thing that does.

So now we animal activists face the same question. We have been attacked, and our friends are hurt and in jail. But the dogs we love are still trapped in cages. And those brave activists’ sacred purpose — to bring those dogs into freedom and love — shines brilliantly through their actions.

As I sit in this jail cell, I cannot say with certainty what our next steps should be.

But what I can say is this: our next step must be taken with courage.

Pray for courage. Pray for the dogs.

A beagle rescued on March 15th.