With activists organizing for the upcoming 2016 Republican National Convention, the annual membership meeting of Cleveland Peace Action will focus on understanding and how to resist the predictable state response to political protest.

Join activist and PM Press author Kris Hermes on Wednesday, March 16th at 7pm at Pilgrim Church to discuss his new book Crashing the Party: Legacies and Lessons from the RNC 2000. The meeting will begin at 7pm with a potluck, followed by board elections and a presentation by Kris Hermes at 8pm.

Specifically, Hermes will focus on how free expression at political conventions and other protests has been stifled by police, and how activists can come together collectively to engage with the legal system in ways that protect arrestees and mitigate harm from any resulting prosecutions.

Kris Hermes is a Bay Area-based activist who has worked for nearly 30 years on social justice issues. Organizing with ACT UP Philadelphia in the late 1990s spurred his interest in legal support work and led to his years-long involvement with R2K Legal. Since 2000, Hermes has been an active, award-winning legal worker-member of the National Lawyers Guild and part of numerous law collectives and legal support efforts. Hermes has written extensively in his professional career as a media worker and as a legal activist.