by Cynthia Sowden
If you haven’t heard of Indivisible, you will.
The organization started out as a Google document put together by former Obama staffers during the previous Trump administration, instructing people on how to organize on a local level for change in the federal government. It has since grown to a 501(c) organization with chapters across the nation – including one in Northeast Minneapolis.
Indivisble volunteers writing postcards
On Saturday, March 8, a group of about 36 people gathered in the community room at the St. Anthony Community Center, 3301 Silver Lake Rd., to learn about how they could fight back against the whirlwind of changes coming down from Washington, D.C. Most were from Northeast, but some were St. Anthony and Columbia Heights residents. One woman came from Coon Rapids.
Mary Lillestol, who lives in Windom Park, leads the local group. “The remedy for anxiety and anger is action,” she said, addressing the feelings of many in the room. She then led a cheer from the 1976 movie “Network:” “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
For the next couple of hours, the group learned about postcard campaigns, how to contact elected representatives and organize rallies – all with the aim of putting pressure on lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to respond to the people who put them in office. Participants were urged to call or write their representatives every day, hold rallies, hold signs on bridges, attend sessions at the Legislature and demand that their senators and representatives – Democrats and Republicans – hold in-person town hall meetings.
Newly-elected Sen. Doron Clark (DFL, Minneapolis) stopped by and offered some pointers about communicating with elected officials. No.1: Forget about form emails. “I get 500 to 600 form emails a day,” he said. “Those go into a folder that never gets looked at.”
If you want to have your message read or heard, he said, keep it short – 100 words or fewer. Take one or two points from a form letter and make it personal – how does a proposed law affect you? “Telling your story is one of the most effective means of communication,” Clark said. The same principles apply to phone calls.
Lillestol recommends a “gratitude sandwich:” “Thank them for their work, tell them what you want and thank them when they respond.”
Indivisible chapters have been popping up all over Minnesota. A Sunday, March 9, article in the Minnesota Star Tribune mentioned chapters in Moorhead, Willmar and Mankato. Lillestol said the Northeast chapter started last November. “We were just a group of 15, and have increased in number each time,” she wrote in an email after the meeting.
Asked how she became involved, she said she attended a Zoom meeting after the November election, not knowing it was put on by Indivisible. “On that call, they encouraged each of us to start a group. I had no idea what it meant, but I had read Timothy Snyder’s book, ‘On Tyranny,’ and remembered it talking about the importance of community and not accepting in advance. So I signed up a group, hoping if I built it they would come.”
To learn more about Indivisible, see indivisible.org or contact Mary Lillestol, lillestol@gmail.com.