Lou Harris founded the east coast chapter of the Black Surfing Association in 2016. Building a strong surfing community where Black youth feel seen, supported, and protected is what the BSA is all about. To memorialize the many Black lives lost to police brutality and systemic racism, Harris organized a 400-person paddle-out in Rockaway Beach in 2020. Harris also teaches local kids to surf and swim for free. In an interview, he said “Seventy-five percent of youth drownings are Black kids. A lot of the kids in Rockaway, you know, they live on the beach but they can’t swim.” Harris’ guidance serves as a blueprint for a strong surfing community that isn’t afraid to address how insular, expensive, and predominately white the world of surfing can be.

Follow them on Instagram @black_surfing_rockaway or Facebook @Black Surfing Association (EC).

Jesse Pallotta (he/they) is a Brooklyn-based visual artist and co-founder of QT Art Camp, an art program that provides queer and trans youth with art resources. He studied at The Evergreen State College and received his degree in studio arts and aesthetic philosophy. Pallotta has a decade of academic training in drawing, painting, and sculpture with an emphasis on the figure. In 2021, he sculpted and installed a statue of LGBTQ activist Marsha P. Johnson in Christopher Park, which was the first public sculpture of a transgender person in New York City. Currently, he is collaborating with the House of LaBeija for a monument to Crystal LaBeija. When Pallotta is not making art, he is a tenant union advocate and organizer in Brooklyn.

Follow him on Instagram @sculptornextdoor and @qtartcamp, and @officialhouseoflabeija.

Aram Han Sifuentes (she/they) is a fiber artist, writer, and educator who works to claim spaces for immigrant and disenfranchised communities. She’s known for merging art and activism through community-based art projects that are multiethnic, intergenerational, and interactive. After the 2016 election, she began hand making protest banners from her apartment. The result was the Protest Banner Lending Library and a series of public workshops on banner sewing and community organizing.

Follow her at her website aramhansifuentes.com and on Facebook @aramhansifuentes.

UC Davis theater professor L.M. Bogad envisioned a campaign called Delivering Democracy, a team of singing and dancing mailboxes, to fight voter disinformation in the 2020 election. As Creator/Artistic Director, he teamed up with Theatrical Director Leese Walker (Artistic Director, Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble, NYC) and the Farm Arts Collective in Pennsylvania. The mailboxes took to the streets of Pennsylvania, singing and performing choreographed dances while distributing flyers that contained accurate information on how to vote by mail, drop box, or in person. Beyond election day, L.M. Bogad, Strike Anywhere, and Farm Arts Collective can be found creating theater at the intersection of arts, activism, and social justice.

Follow them on Instagram @ElemBogad, @strikeanywhere.nyc, and @farmartscollective.

World-famous political activist, designer, and flag-maker Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) created the very first rainbow flag in 1978. Over the next four decades, his creation would become embraced across the world as the universal symbol of the LGBTQ movement. For New York City Pride in 1994, Baker created a mile-long rainbow flag that was carried down First Avenue in Manhattan. During the parade, Baker used scissors to cut segments from the flag to be rushed to Fifth Avenue for an impromptu protest march in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the headquarters of New York City’s anti-gay Catholic archdiocese.

Follow them on Facebook @gilbertbakerestate, Instagram @gilbert_baker_foundation, and Tiktok @gilbert_baker_foundation.

Cyclists in Bellingham, WA gather together once a year for the World Naked Bike Ride to “reject the commodification of our planet and our bodies” — in the nude. From protesting indecent exposure to fossil fuels and US abortion bans to celebrating body positivity, the Bellingham chapter joins participants in over 70 cities across 20 countries worldwide.

Follow them on Facebook @BellinghamNakedBikeRide.

After the tragic killing of Freddie Grey and the Baltimore Uprising, Dominic “Farmer” Nell felt compelled to reflect on his community’s distress. Out of his vision emerged City Weeds — a trauma-informed food business that strives to feed, heal, and eliminate Baltimore’s food deserts. Their youth achievement program, BeMoreGreen, teaches Baltimore’s youth to develop and sustain enterprises that enrich the community’s landscape through the cultivation and sale of micro greens and cold-pressed juices. The program equips kids most impacted by trauma with the mentorship and skills needed to establish their own urban farms, including lessons on pricing and selling, product development, inventory management, marketing, and more.

Follow them on Instagram @cityweedz, @nellaware Facebook @CityWeeds, and Tiktok @cityweeds.

In 2015, hundreds of kayak-paddling activists – “kayaktivists” – paddled out into Seattle’s Elliot Bay to stop an oil company’s Arctic drilling fleet, including their massive drilling platform. Over one thousand people, including many in Coast Salish family cedar canoes, took part in a massive on-water action to stop the fleet from making it to Alaska’s Chukchi Sea to drill for oil. A kayaktivist group called the Mosquito Fleet raised money from Ben & Jerry’s and others to transform an industrial barge into a floating solar and wind powered protest platform called the Solar Pioneer. At night the Solar Pioneer would light up next to the drilling rig and screen documentaries about the company’s crimes around the world.

After a major credit reporting agency exposed the private data of more than 145 million Americans in 2017 and tried to keep them out of court with forced arbitration, creative activist Ian Madrigal (they/them) took action. They dressed up as a certain board game millionaire character, complete with a mustache and monocle, and photobombed the company’s congressional hearing. A year later, they reappeared in their signature getup when the CEO of a major tech company testified to the House Judiciary Committee, calling attention to the company’s massive political spending.

Follow him on Instagram @iansmadrig and Twitter @iansmadrig.

In 2012, Michael Bellavia and Chris Mecham organized the Million Puppet March in response to lawmakers’ intention to cut funding for public media. Over 1,500 puppeteers marched their puppets on Washington to demonstrate solidarity for the continued funding of public media. Today, Bellavia, Mecham, and other organizers continue to support public media and other causes through puppet-based education, advocacy efforts, and marches across the country.

Follow them on Facebook @millionpuppetmarch, Twitter @MillionPuppets, Youtube @MillionPuppets, and Instagram @millionpuppetmarch.

When the Center for Biological Diversity needs to make a splash about protecting biological diversity, they bring out Frostpaw the polar bear. At conventions, marches, protests, and beyond, Frostpaw carries an important message about protecting and respecting all forms of life. The Center for Biological Diversity believes that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — specifically the existence of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. The organization works to secure a future for all species using science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.

Follow them on Facebook @CenterforBioDiv and Twitter @CenterForBioDiv.

After the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, student survivors and the general public knew something needed to be done. During the #EnoughWalkout held in Brooklyn NY, student activist Georgia Groome wore a bulletproof vest showing logos of companies that had ties to the NRA — companies that host NRA channels, fund the NRA directly, and retailers that give discounts to NRA members. She made a speech on the steps of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall and was interviewed by the news media. The results were incredible: Several of the companies featured on Georgia’s vest stopped hosting NRA channels and giving discounts to members.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, artists Dustin Klein and Alex Criqui wanted to reclaim and re-contextualize Confederate monuments and other oppressive symbols in their hometown of Richmond, VA and beyond. The result was Reclaiming the Monument, a projection-based protest art piece using the statue of Robert E. Lee in Marcus-David Peters Circle to shine a light on the deeply rooted issues of racial inequality and systemic racism. The project was a huge success, gaining international attention and ultimately culminating in the removal of the statue on September 8, 2021. Klein and Criqui’s grassroots demonstration against police brutality and systemic racism had a real impact on the local community and has inspired activists around the globe.

Follow them on Instagram @reclaimingthemonument and Twitter @RecTheMonument.

Heezy Yang is a Seoul-born queer artist and activist. He has been active in the LGBTQ+ scene in South Korea and beyond since the early 2010s. He creates and exhibits artworks related to various queer issues, and performs in drag as Hurricane Kimchi, advocating for LGBTQ+ rights.

Follow him on Instagram @heezyyang and @hurricainekimchi.

LIFE Camp Inc. and activist Erica Ford provide youth and families that have been impacted by violence the tools they need to stay in school and out of the criminal justice system. Founder Erica Ford and the organization provide programs to reinforce self-esteem and mobilize youth to prevent and heal from violence in NYC’s most underserved communities. Their Peacemobile connects community members impacted by violence with tools and resources to heal in real time.

Follow them on Instagram @Lifecampinc, Facebook @PeaceIsALifestyle, Tiktok @lifecamp, Twitter @lifecampinc, and Youtube @lifecamp.7536.

The NDN Girls Book Club is a 501(c)3 literary nonprofit that hosts free community workshops for Native people, especially Native youth and girls, in poetry, zine-making, editing, fiction, nonfiction, and Native literature talks. They aim to make quality Indigenous literature accessible for all ages by sending out free books and literary care packages.

Follow them on Instagram @ndngirlsbookclub, Twitter @ndngirlsbookclb, and Facebook @ndngirlsbookclub.

In 2018, we launched an ice cream flavor called Pecan Resist, featuring an important message about licking injustice, one fudge chunk at a time. We were honored that Oakland, CA artist and activist Favianna Rodriguez joined the movement and created a one-of-a-kind pint design for us that captured joy on the journey to a more just world. She is an artist, cultural organizer, and political activist who uses her art to address issues of migration, economic inequality, gender justice, and ecology. Favianna lectures globally on the power of art, cultural organizing, and technology to inspire social change, and leads art interventions in communities around the country. Rodriguez partners with social movement groups around the world to create art that’s visionary and transformational. She is the Executive Director of CultureStrike, a national arts organization that engages artists, writers and performers in migrant rights.

Follow her on Instagram @favianna1 and Facebook @faviannaart.

Across the nation, a small but vocal minority of activists have been calling on school districts to ban books en masse. 3,362 book bans were enacted in public school classrooms and libraries during the 2022-23 school year, many of them specifically targeting books with themes of race, sexuality, or LGBTQ+ identities. After learning about the bans, especially in states like Florida and Texas, a member of our friends at DCX:Tommy Noonan, along with his daughter Millie Noonan and a helpful grandpa Tom Noonan Sr. (and his power tools), built a mini banned book library. They brought the little library to Harvey Cedars, New Jersey and filled it with banned books that Millie picked out from the Ocean County Library. It was to show the local community how books, especially books by authors of color and LGBTQ+ authors, were being banned throughout the country. Margaret "Poochy" Thomas Buchholz supported the cause and let us keep it on her front lawn. And, in a serendipitous twist, Weaver Lilley, a professional photographer, was riding by on his bike and snapped some really solid shots.

The Little Banned-Book Library is 100% portable and can travel to different parts of the US that need it. Check out how Ben & Jerry’s has supported stopping the mass ban on books through their podcast Into the Mix or on-the-ground work in Florida.

Brandan “BMike” Odums is a New Orleans-based artist, speaker, and activist who uses his art and his voice to reflect and amplify the beauty and strength of Black people. He is a public artist engaged in a deeply thoughtful dialog with the communities where he shows his work. He is an educator happy that he can help students who visit his Studio BE gallery better understand Black history. He is a collaborator who works with other artists, activists, athletes, and brands to inspire and strengthen the movement for racial justice and equity. BMike, we’re proud to say, is also the artist who designed the amazing new pint for Change the Whirled, the new non-dairy flavor we just launched with Colin Kaepernick.