On September 22 the Congressional Black Caucus held a Stop Cop City Press Conference in collaboration with the Hip Hop Caucus. The goal of this press conference was to raise awareness of the negative impacts Cop City will have on the social, political, and environmental state of our country. Speakers included influential actors and activists such as Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president and CEO of The Hip Hop Caucus; actor and activist Kendrick Sampson; actor and comedian Amanda Seales; and political activist Linda Sarsour.

Cop City is a $90 million police and firefighter training campus that is currently under construction in the South River Forest area of Dekalb County Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. If completed Cop City “would be one of the largest militarized police training centers in the country—all built by clear-cutting Atlanta’s largest green space“. The facility is facing widespread community backlash as the fear of hyper-militarization and the subsequent criminalization of Black and Brown communities is ever looming.

In an exclusive interview with TANTV activist and Until Freedom Co-Founder Linda Sarsour expanded on the public concerns surrounding Cop City and highlighted the possibility of similar facilities appearing across the country.

“Until Freedom’s support has been to amplify what is happening in Cop City, making people understand that this is not an Atlanta issue, it’s not a Georgia issue, this is everybody’s issue across the country. If we let this happen in Atlanta it’s going to happen everywhere. They have to basically destroy an entire rainforest in Georgia which also means that people are going to be displaced, and the thing that makes this so egregious is that we don’t need more police. What our communities need is healthcare, they need jobs, they need better school systems, they need access to higher education, they need opportunity to thrive, we do not need more police.”

For a full Livestream of the Stop Cop City Press Conference head to the TANTV Instagram.