In September 2021, the Atlanta City Council approved a proposal to lease 381 acres of the Weelaunee Forest—stolen Muscogee land surrounded by majority-Black neighborhoods—to the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the largest militarized police training center in the US. In response, a decentralized movement has risen up to halt the destruction of the forest and the construction of what has come to be known as “Cop City.” As the Stop Cop City movement has grown, the state has employed increasingly draconian methods of repression. In January of this year, police killed Manuel “Tortuguita” Téran, a 26-year old Indigenous Venezuelan forest defender. Dozens of people have been arrested for protesting, including a legal observer with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and more than 40 have been charged with domestic terrorism. Last month, a heavily armed joint task force raided a community center and arrested three bail fund organizers living there under tenuous allegations of “money laundering” and “charity fraud.” And despite widespread opposition, the Atlanta City Council recently authorized an additional $30 million contribution to the construction of Cop City, bringing the city’s pledged total to $67 million. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, culture editor Claire Schwartz is joined by three guests in Atlanta deeply engaged with Stop Cop City—Micah Herskind, a community organizer and writer; Keyanna Jones, a reverend and organizer; and Josie Duffy Rice, a writer who covers criminal justice—to discuss the movement’s roots and tactics, and what the militarization of Atlanta can teach us about the economic underpinnings of fascism.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Transcript forthcoming.

Further Reading and Listening:

“The Fight Against Cop City,” Amna Akbar, Dissent

“Shmita Means Total Destroy,” Fayer Collective, Jewish Currents

“This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City,” Micah Herskind, Scalawag

“Atlanta Is Trying to Crush the Opposition to ‘Cop City’ by Any Means Necessary,” Hannah Riley, The Nation

“Targeting bail funds and Stop Cop City activists is an old tactic,” Say Burgin and Jeanne Theoharis, Washington Post

“‘Multiple Grammars of Struggle’ – To Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cop City,” Millennials are Killing Capitalism

“When protest is a crime,” Part 1 and Part 2, Outside In

The O'Reilly Update, May 23, 2025