On Nov. 10, 2025, outside a tall gray building on Oakland’s 14th Street, cars zoomed by, neon streetlights blazed and the night sky loomed. Inside a makeshift office, colorful posters plastered the walls, emblazoned with phrases such as “Defund the police” and “Free Palestine.” Lively chatter filled the room as people settled on folding chairs and worn couches. Homemade baked goods lay on tables alongside pamphlets, fliers and pins. This room is home to the scores of organizations working to bring justice to the Bay Area. 

Bay Rising, San Francisco Rising and Jobs with Justice (JwJ) founded Bay Resistance in response to President Donald Trump’s first inauguration in 2016. Since then, they have protested against many of the first and second Trump administration’s decisions, including the presence of ICE and the National Guard in the Bay Area, as well as being involved in other forms of activism, such as environmentalism. 

Bay Resistance has grown to be a larger coalition of partnered organizations in the Bay Area, with a smaller steering committee of groups that guide Bay Resistance’s vision and actions. These organizations include unions, law offices, churches and activist groups. Other groups work in partnership with Bay Resistance to organize events, campaigns and protests. Many of them provide services such as legal support, education and shelter, and lead campaigns for immigrants, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people in the Bay Area. 

Recently, Bay Resistance and its partnered organizations have worked on the ICE out of Dublin campaign, which advocates against the reopening of a shut-down prison as a new ICE detention center through petitions and canvassing. 

These efforts are rooted in hope. “Hope is really important, because without it, we would wither. Like, what’s the point of all of this if there is no hope that there’s a better future out there for us?” said Annette Wong, managing director of programs at Chinese for Affirmative Action San Francisco (CAASF), in an interview with The Urban Legend. “Hope is also a verb. It must be active. … We do have to put in the legwork for hope to become a reality.”

For many, especially in the context of the Trump administration and its policies, hope can seem distant. “Even though things seem pretty bleak right now, just get up, keep resisting every day [and] realize that in the end, the people will win,” said Ellen Brotsky, a volunteer on the chapter council of the Bay Area chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), in an interview with The Urban Legend. “People coming together can defeat the powers of authoritarianism, of fascism [and] of rapacious capitalism. … Fascism relies on … people giving up hope for a better world.”

At the November 2025 Bay Resistance meeting, organizers and community members shared their hopes for the future, presenting about issues ranging from Medi-Cal cuts to the importance of grassroots fundraising. They passed around sign-up sheets, posted QR codes to sign up for events and asked for shows of hands to volunteer, calling the Bay Resistance community to action.

After the presentations, there was time for community building. Members sat in circles, deep in conversation, taking notes in spiral-bound notebooks. Though the meeting was scheduled to end at 8:00 p.m., many people stayed much later, continuing to discuss ICE, protests they had attended,  attacks on trans healthcare, as well as their day-to-day lives.

Bay Resistance has more than 22,000 members — who can join the organization online or in person — composing a broad action network with members who have agreed to help one another in crises. Bay Resistance hopes that in an emergency— such as ICE or National Guard presence in the Bay Area — they can mobilize their network quickly. 

In October, when the National Guard threatened to enter San Francisco, the action network came together in mass protests and Zoom calls. “It was really beautiful to see the community that came out on a moment’s notice to protest,” Brotsky said. 

Some of Bay Resistance’s members choose to join action pods — small groups within Bay Resistance whose members are determined by zip codes. Pods meet monthly to discuss current events and plan actions they will take as a group, aiming to increase solidarity and safety. Some pods attend protests together, while others canvas their neighborhoods and pass out homemade pamphlets. Each pod has two leaders who can represent the pod in meetings. 

One organization that partners with Bay Resistance is Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). According to its website, JVP “is the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.” During the first Trump administration, they organized a demonstration at San Francisco International Airport to protest the administration’s perpetuation of Islamophobia. 

JVP hosts and engages in civil disobedience and works to educate communities about current events, especially relating to Israel and Palestine. In one demonstration in 2023, they occupied the Oakland Federal Building, demanding a cease-fire in Gaza. This demonstration aimed to show people in the Bay Area that there are Jewish people who support Palestinian liberation. 

Chinese American for Affirmative Action San Francisco (CAA), another organization partnered with Bay Resistance, advocates for the rights of Asian Americans and other marginalized communities. “We have Chinese in our name, but we’re really hoping to fight for systemic change that advances the rights of all folks that [have been] historically marginalized,” Wong said.

Recently, CAA has advocated for equal access to language services for non-native English speakers in San Francisco. The organization has worked to pass language ordinances requiring equal language access in government documents and services for Chinese, Tagalog and Spanish speakers. Their efforts have included amending the 2001 San Francisco Language Access Ordinance, which mandated city departments to provide equal language access. CAA also advocates for equal access to technology, such as WiFi, especially for people living in Chinatown. 

“For those folks [for whom] English isn’t their first language, … we need strong language access laws to ensure that those folks are not second-class citizens, … that they’re not treated differently [and] that they have access to all the same services that everybody … who speaks English [does],” Wong said. 

In response to the recent upsurge in ICE actions, CAA has provided Know Your Rights training and legal services to the community in Chinatown. “That’s the current struggle that we’ve been engaged in … working with other community groups to make sure that San Francisco is truly a sanctuary city,” Wong said. 

Jobs with Justice San Francisco (JwJ) is also partnered with Bay Resistance. JwJ advocates for livable wages and better working conditions for low and middle-income workers in San Francisco. They have been involved in campaigns for affordable housing for low-income workers, as well as for increased access to education, specifically through tuition-free city college. 

One of Bay Resistance’s core values is to uplift leaders from impacted communities, which is reflected in partners like JwJ. The Bay Resistance website states, “We respect the power of frontline communities, who are directly under attack, to lead the resistance to those attacks and welcome allies to join us as partners in struggle.”

According to Bay Resistance’s philosophy, marginalized and vulnerable communities lift themselves up through grassroots leadership. “It is really important, having grassroots leaders be at the front of work to support vulnerable communities, and having leaders whose lived experience reflects the work that they’re doing,” said an anonymous source from within Bay Resistance in an interview with The Urban Legend. This source requested to remain anonymous due to the political nature of their work. “Lifting up those voices — that’s something that is really important.”

An additional organization involved with Bay Resistance focused on grassroots leadership is 350 Bay Area, a chapter of a larger climate activism organization. 350 focuses on studying how climate issues impact vulnerable communities and empowering those communities to take action through education and campaigns. It aims to move the Bay Area away from using fossil fuels and towards using more sustainable sources of energy such as solar, wind and hydroelectric energy. 

“We strive to build the strength and connection of our community and mobilize ourselves and our neighbors to take tangible climate action here in the Bay Area and California,” wrote Zoe Jonick, lead organizer at 350, in an email to The Urban Legend. 

Another Bay Resistance value is to lead with love. Bay Resistance’s website states, “We believe that this moment calls for us to express and commit to a radical love for our communities, our families, ourselves and our earth.”

Jonick finds hope in this love. “Hope is found in the obvious care that I see mirrored in my neighbors and community when things get bad,” Jonick wrote. “It also shows that people are willing to put in the effort to build up practices that we want to see and fight for a better version of our future. Hope is the persevering fight for the world we want to build, despite all the things that come in the way.” 

Recently, 350 Bay Area has supported their community by organizing the distribution of air purifiers to people in Martinez, California. “[An] extremely meaningful experience for me was connecting with local community groups in Martinez, where they live in the shadow of a very polluting refinery and face a lot of hazardous air quality,” Jonick wrote. “It was very moving to hear the stories of the people who live there and have dealt with the health impacts for years, and to be able to address their circumstances at least in this one way.”

Community is a common theme throughout Bay Resistance’s values and work. “Community, in its best sense, is people contributing whatever skills and resources that they have to helping the collective thrive,” the anonymous Bay Resistance source said.

The relationships built through collective action can be powerful. “People are more likely to stay involved in this hard work if they’re doing that with other people that they have built relationships with,” the anonymous Bay Resistance source said. “It’s a sustaining force, that relationship.” 

Collective action can be impactful for personal growth. “Some of my favorite stories have been from the youth I work with expressing how taking action has impacted them,” Jonick said. “One of our youth volunteers told me when she signed up that she only wanted to do more behind-the-scenes work because she was not comfortable talking to people about these issues. After joining [350], … she was telling me how much more capable she feels in talking to other people to get them to take action.”

Bay Resistance and its partner organizations believe in and practice nonviolent resistance. Their definition of resistance is expansive — besides protests and rallies, it encompasses noncooperation and caring for others. Recently, Bay Resistance has organized volunteer support for people with immigration-related court cases. 

There are many ways to contribute to resistance through community work. “Maybe you can’t go to a sit-in yourself, but you can … help pick people up if they’ve been arrested in a civil disobedience action. You can support mutual aid for immigrants who are afraid to go out of their houses,” Brotsky said. “Those are all forms of resistance, and there’s room for everybody.”

Resistance can be actions that people take, but it can also be actions they refuse to take and policies with which they refuse to comply. “Resistance for us means noncooperation,” Brotsky said. “At this moment, when we’re facing rising authoritarianism and fascism, it means noncooperation with authoritarianism.”

 It can seem daunting to get involved in activism as a high schooler, especially because of stereotypes about youth. “People dismiss students as not knowing enough about the world,” Wong said. “But … knowing the difference between right or wrong, what is just and what is unjust — these things we learned from a very, very young age.”

Especially for youth, participating in advocacy can have negative consequences for their futures and how others view them.  “I’ve been told all the time, … you can stand for something, but if you stand too closely to it, then you’re sacrificing something else, like going to college, getting a good education, having a good reputation,” Laia Trachtenberg ’26 said. “Those are things that children have all been taught to care about so deeply, which can obviously scare them out of pursuing their passions, standing up for what’s right [and] taking risks.”

Bay Resistance sees the value in high schoolers’ voices and they have many ways for teenagers to get involved. Bay Resistance welcomes youth into their pods, trainings and protests, and there are opportunities to join their partner organizations, such as 350’s Mobilizing Team for young adults. 

“I always recommend that students find a group to take action with, whether it’s a school club, a local organization like ours or just their friend group,” Jonick wrote. “Joining up with others immediately helps people see the power of unified, collective action.” 

While the current political climate can seem daunting, action is always possible, no matter the scale. “The antidote to apathy and despair in the face of often overwhelming odds and bad circumstances is action,” Jonick wrote. “Doing one small, tangible thing will make you feel so much better and will give you a foothold in the onslaught, and things will become much easier to handle.”