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UPDATE: thanks to all of you we reached our goal for purchasing our new letters. We had them out on the bridge on Valentine’s Day with a message of love, photo attached.
We are keeping the Go Fund Me open for those who want to support our ongoing
expenses. We continue to need supplies and assistance supporting our protesting. Thank you so much for all your help!
Help us continue protesting against the Trump regime in 2026! We need new letters.
Since August, 2025, when we formed our chapter of the national Visibility Brigade, The Rubber City Resistance has been protesting regularly on bridges around Akron, Ohio. As of January 4, 2026, we've completed 17 protests. We calculate that we've reached at least 200,000 drivers. (It's not a blind guess: we came to that number by counting cars for 3 or 5 minute samples-- and then multiplying out by how many minutes we're on the bridge.) We're protesting consistently weekly or bi-weekly, depending somewhat on weather. Each protest brings out a group of 10-20 bridge participants and reaches roughly 12,000 drivers.
We have a few YouTube shorts on our channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RUBBERCITYRESISTANCE
This is our public Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579747583433
This is our Threads:
https://www.threads.com/@the_rubber_city_resistance
And we have some gear on Zazzle. A small royalty of 10% rolls back into our work. https://www.zazzle.com/collections/rubber_city_resistance_swag-119520210598930634
In a media environment where people have sorted themselves into information silos, overpass protesting reaches everyone who uses the roads equally. We have at least three audiences:
- We reach those who agree with us. When they see our messages they feel less alone and less hopeless. Several people have sought us out to join us after driving under our bridge. Two different people have come on to the bridge to spontaneously bring us coffee and donuts. We on the bridge also feel much better after our protest outings. Our tagline is "Action is the antidote to despair." It is much better to be out trying to do something than sitting at home and worrying. The more we do this, the more people join us.
- We reach those who have no clue what is going on. They may see a message TARIFFS ARE KILLING FARMERS, or TRUMP WAS EPSTEIN'S WINGMAN and ask themselves, "What does that mean?" or "Why have these people gone to all that trouble to make huge letters and get out on a bridge to tell me this?" If they go home and google, we've helped inform them and brought an issue to their attention.
- We reach hard MAGA. Yes, they give us the finger. Often, even the double finger. One time, a full moon. But it's possible that our message still has an effect. They live deep in an information bubble and exposing them to non-MAGA information might help create at least curiosity. Maybe they come away recognizing that others disagree with them, and we are not conceding without a fight. Or maybe, as I like to imagine, sitting beside a man giving us the finger is a woman reading our sign, and quietly wondering what it's about. If she googles later, this is a huge win.
What do we need money for?
Well, in two words: new letters.
We inherited most of our letters from our older brother group to our north in Cleveland, the Burning River Brigade. We made many more ourselves. These are foam core sheets from Dollar Tree with paper letters cut out and glued on them. They are held on to the bridge with an array of zip ties, carabiners, or now our best means, vertical bungees. They are totally water soluble, and getting very battered. The corners are dented and torn. The letters are peeling off, ripped and taped over. They weren't meant to last forever. If we had new letters we would be able to continue our work through the year, in all weathers. Right now we can handle cold, but rain is our Kryptonite.
What we want is a shiny new set of professionally printed giant letters on 30"x20" waterproof corrugated plastic, with super awesome grommets already installed in each corner. This will allow us to not only continue on bridges but to branch out into street protests, using a pole system where the large letters are strung together into words and carried around.
Please help us continue our work of recurring public protests, raising awareness, pushing back, and helping each other get through the Trump era.