Lauryn Cross
Lauryn Cross is a Milwaukee activist. Undergraduate biology major at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She focuses specifically on mobilization in her community surrounding climate justice issues.
She is a Black Queer organizer originally from the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee. She first got her start with the Rufus King HS Action Change Education (ACE.) coalition where they planned actions around various social justice issues. Shortly after she joined the Youth Climate Action Team (YCAT) focusing on climate justice. Currently she organizes with Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack! and the recently refounded Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR).[1]
Day of Action
March 2024, to end the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine’s (WCJP) Day of Action with an exclamation point, the Milwaukee International Women’s Day Coalition convened hundreds for the celebration of this important working-class holiday.
Artists, vendors, and coalition partners showcased their work and goods inside the Islamic Society of Milwaukee’s Community Center as the crowd trickled in to listen to two stellar panels of speakers.
The focus of this year’s celebration was twofold: fighting back against political repression and building a liberated future. Both themes, represented by separate panels, were unified by various threads, but the struggle for Palestinian liberation played the central bridge connecting them.
Blake Jones, propaganda chair of Reproductive Justice Action – Milwaukee, spoke about protesting Vice President Kamala Harris when she kicked off her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour in Big Bend, Wisconsin this January. Concerned about Harris’ hypocritical tour, Jones rhetorically asked, “How can you have reproductive freedom without a free Palestine?”
The other panelists, Aurelia Ceja of the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and the Coalition to March on the RNC 2024, Jamilah Arabiyat of Students for Justice in Palestine, and Allux Arellano-Motoxen of University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society, also touched on the connections between policing in the U.S. and the Israeli occupation forces. Ceja emphasized the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, which as they stated, “is an exchange program between the U.S. and Israel for cross-training. They train the exact same tactics here and there. We’re facing the same kind of violence and torture by the police.”
The speakers in the second panel discussed one of the main reasons why organizers often face political repression: we are fighting for and building a liberated future. Janan Najeeb, president of the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition and co-chair of the WCJP, spoke to the conditions in Palestine and the need to materially change these conditions in order for Palestine to be free.
Najeeb stated, “Liberation for Palestinians means a free Palestine. It means the liberation of my people, self-determination [and] to be able to decide their future. To live as human beings, raise their children and their families like everyone else in the world, be able to travel without restrictions, not have to go through 700 checkpoints, not to have their water controlled, not to have their schools and their medical accessibility controlled. So as a Palestinian, liberation means total liberation for my people.”
Christy Breihan of the Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba criticized the current contradictions with the “two-party system.” The Democratic Party’s involvement in the Palestinian genocide has stripped away the liberatory facade of the “vote blue no matter who” slogan, showing that liberation will not come simply through a vote. Breihan called out these false choices that Democrats are pushing on their constituents, stating, “the way that they’re telling us to protect reproductive rights is by voting for a president that sends bombs that murder women and children in Palestine. That’s the tradeoff I have to make, because genocide Joe will not be as bad as the racist, xenophobic, misogynist, other guy? That’s the recommendation about how women in the U.S. should liberate ourselves? I say that’s crap!”
Sara Onitsuka, chair of the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee, also spoke to the internationalism necessary for building a liberated future. As Onitsuka explained, there is a significant hypocrisy when advocates of the U.S. war machine justify imperialist domination by claiming to defend the rights of women.
Onitsuka stated, “Protecting women is also often used as an excuse for the U.S. to get involved in stuff abroad and invade countries. It’s been called pink washing and purple washing specifically for women, but that’s a huge issue that we need to be fighting against here. It’s really kind of ironic considering that we’ve overturned Roe v. Wade here, there are many transphobic laws that are being passed all across the country, and somehow the U.S still sees itself as a moral beacon of the world, to be spreading freedom around the world, but they’re using that as an excuse.”
As the movement for women’s liberation unfolds abroad, we must establish those firm connections with the movement inside the U.S. itself. Lauryn Cross, co-chair of the MAARPR and member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, provided this framework by emphasizing the need to put an end to police crimes in order to build a liberated future. Cross stated, “When we’re thinking about liberation, Black liberation, Palestinian liberation, we need to fight oppression in all forms it takes.”[2]
Tampa 5 rally
Nearly 30 people rallied outside City Hall in downtown Milwaukee, joining with others in more than 20 cities on August 9 2023 for a National Day of Action to demand justice for the Tampa 5, a group of activists facing severe political repression following an action to defend diversity, equity and inclusion in Florida universities. All of these activists were members of the Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society.
“These students were protesting against attacks on public education under their right to free speech. So is protesting a crime? Protesting is not a crime, and they should damn well be hearing our demands for better education!” said Robby Knapp, the social media chair of University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society. “The people that fund these public systems are the communities and students they serve, who have a right to say their opinions on such matters! However, we live in the good ol’ capitalist U-S-of-A where we aren’t given that right.”
“Reactionary Republicans and politicians that stand idly by want to strip away any ounce of progress that we’ve made over the last 70 years,” said Lo Cross, one of the co-chairs of the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Pollical Repression.
“Though we have different areas of focus in our organizations, anyone of us can become targets when we stand up and fight back against injustices perpetrated by the U.S. government. The anti-war movement in the U.S. has been a target of political repression throughout history. Many protesters of the Vietnam War faced brutalization and arrest, and the students involved in the resistance to the war who bravely voiced their opinions and joined the multi-faceted anti-war efforts, additionally faced restrictions on campus protests,” said Sara Onitsuka from the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee. “So we have a long and storied history of solidarity in our movements. Today, we reiterate that commitment to defending each other and our right to protest!”
“The Tampa 5 are under attack not because reactionaries like Ron DeSantis are in a position of absolute power, but because they are scared. They are scared of us! We outnumber them and they know it,” said Ryan Hamann from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.[3]
Abortion protest
On July 4 2020, over 1000 protested around the following six demands: True separation of church and state; repeal of Wisconsin State Statute 940.04; law enforcement shall not enforce abortion bans; the state of Wisconsin shall require law enforcement officials to read off Miranda Rights to those being detained; the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County shall not prosecute abortion cases - dismiss them all; and community control of the police now.
The protest was led by Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Reproductive Justice Action Milwaukee.
“Oppressed people have never been free! Workers have never been free! And we can’t expect politicians or Supreme Court justices to hand us freedom,” said Rory Donovan of FRSO.
This sentiment was echoed by Lauryn Cross, co-chair of the Milwaukee Alliance, who told an attentive audience about the importance of recognizing “that when the Democrats, Republicans and people that are supposed to be ‘about us’ fucking fail, we check them with militant, organized, grassroots resistance.” [4]
Pride rally
on June 25 2020, 100 people showed up in Milwaukee to say no to cops and corporations in Pride. The rally and march honored the radical character of the LGBTQ struggle. ,
Speakers of the host organizations - Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR), New Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) along with a representative of Mothers Against Gun Violence - delivered powerful speeches at the entrance of the Wisconsin Center.
Lauryn Cross, a member of the Milwaukee Alliance, noted, “It is important to apply the messages from Stonewall to the same struggle for LGBTQ rights going on today.”
“We need to know who our friends are,” declared Nadezdha Young Binter of FRSO. “The pigs who beat my friends during the George Floyd uprisings, who picked them off the street in unmarked vans, who funneled the crowds towards Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha. Those are not our friends. We need to draw our lessons from our real friends, the movements of the oppressed against the ruling class.”[5]
FRSO member
Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack!
FRSO member, Lauryn Cross, speaking on behalf of the newly formed Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression at the NAARPR's National Day of Action to Demand CPAC. Lauryn speaks about a few local cases of victims of a serial killing cop (Alvin Cole, Jay Anderson, Jr., and Antonio Gonzales - collectively known as "The 3"), and also on the need for community control of the police through CPAC to ensure that killer cops face the consequences of their actions.
Learn More about the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and CPAC here: https://naarpr.org/
Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w97OJ2dRsDo
- CPAC #FRSOInAction #NAARPR #BLM
Milwaukee comrades
January 15, 2020 Milwaukee, WI – As President Donald Trump took the stage at the UW-Milwaukee Panthers Arena on the evening of January 14, over 2000 rallied and marched against his visit and his reactionary agenda. The action was led by the Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention, a growing group of nearly 20 organizations that has come together to march and protest at the Democratic Convention which will be in Milwaukee this summer.
Omar Flores, a leader with the coalition, served as the press representative for the action and also spoke at the rally before the mass march. Afterward, he explained why the Coalition to March on the DNC organized the demonstration against Trump.
“Trump is the ruling class with their mask torn off. He is the most honest expression of our class enemy in all their infamy,” Kellie Lutz, a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack!, said. “He is an enemy of working class and oppressed people everywhere, and he must be defeated!”
Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, a major immigrant rights organization, spoke about the importance of united front against Trump and his administration, which has continued to attack and illegally imprison immigrants.
Lauryn Cross, a young activist from the Youth Climate Action Team, spoke about fighting against the destruction Trump and the rich have caused for our planet. She was joined by many other young fighters, including those of Students for a Democratic Society - Parkside.[6]