I have been working with the Pensacola DSA chapter for about 2 months now and was given the same style of button twice and wore them on my chest to the Pensacola city council meeting.

I decided to act on my conviction of class solidarity. there was an outreach program to show up at the Pensacola city council meeting to stop “item 15” or to get a no vote. I did not research the topic for more than 30 minutes , I didn’t know the person that reached out to the DSA chapter for help, and I lived two counties over.

I decided to test my principles, travel alone, go to a city that I’m not familiar with, ask questions to the staff about basic questions of council proceedings like I was literally clueless, and misinformed. the whole day that I spent was feeling like I was second guessing myself in varying intensity.

it did excite me that I get to be one extra body in a crowd, then one extra number that signed up for speaking, and then one extra voice speaking to the council. It was awesome to hear that 29 people (including me) signed up to speak on item 15.

the council was pretty entertaining because people were voicing there opinions both for and against Christmas drag show, and the clearly inspired passionate speeches of people that came up before me, helped me feel better about me going in front of the crowd to speak.

I haven’t done public speaking in years and I did not practice my speech so I did think I flubbed words and I couldn’t recite an entire sentence in my notes, but I at least got out that I’m from Destin Florida and I’m here to stand in solidarity with the working class of Pensacola. I did hear some clapping from the crowd, nowhere near much as what better speakers got. I was happy I spoke with and supported a very passionate and articulate members of the working class.

The working class of Pensacola did achieve a victory they got item 15 removed from the agenda (the council did not vote on it).

I figure out during the meeting that item 15 dealt with development of Baptist hospital land, the developer got the contract to develop the allegedly (as in I never confirmed it true) walled off NOLA(new Orleans, Louisiana) residence from their home and then bulldozed all there belongings and house in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, the developer bribed the council members with Rolex and a trip to NOLA, and the council deliberated on who got the contract in a meeting that wasn’t open to the public.

https://weartv.com/news/local/pensacola-delays-plans-with-nola-firm-for-baptist-site-over-gentrification-health-fears

link for information, I’m in a few shots mostly my white shoes.

If anyone interested I could upload the clip of me speaking to peertube and post the link.