Three Wins Today: Oct 17, 2025

Who's going to No Kings?

Tomorrow is No Kings 2.0. This is a massive event that will hopefully grow our numbers. But here’s the most important thing:

You need to do what you can. Not what you want to do, but what you can. We need you fighting back for a good long time, so don’t feel guilty if you can’t do everything you want.

If you can attend a protest, great! Make sure you take photos (from behind, or up high is best, or blur people’s faces, unless you ask permission to film them). The point is crowd size and cool signs anyway.

If you can go but can’t stay the whole time, that’s okay. Stay as long as you can, and then maybe get in your car and drive around honking. If you’ve ever protested you know how empowering it is to hear people honking.

If you have a car and can get out but can’t walk around, bring food and water and sunscreen and hand it out from your car. That is so appreciated.

If you have a car but can’t get out of it, that’s okay, bring some signs, tape them to the window, or having a friend hold them out the passenger side, and drive around and honk. You don’t have to attend the protest for it to be impactful.

If you can’t attend the protest and you can’t drive to the protest, you can post on social media. We need to lift up all the publications, both national and local that are covering the protests. We need to make sure they see that we appreciate their support. You can also repost all the photos you see, but give credit.

We all have a role to play tomorrow.

Now for wins!

Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Fri, Oct 3 - Steuart Pittman is the new chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, but he is also the term limited County Executive for Ann Arundel County. He wanted to make sure, both because it’s the right thing to do, and because he has slave holders in his family, before he left this position that the County apologized for their role in slavery:

I have this in my history, and I have strong feelings about it, and I might as well take the risk of talking about it. I felt like it was important to make a big deal of it because I see the impact of it, that it actually does bring people together, and address wounds that sometimes we know haven’t healed yet.

It may sound trite, but this is the first step. A formal acknowledgement goes a long way. There will be exhibits, speeches and panel discussions to better understand the role this county played in the slave trade.

And while this would be happening anyway, it’s something Pittman has wanted to do for a while, it’s a bit more powerful under the backdrop of the current political climate.

The event was originally going to be held on November 1, but there was so much interest, they had to postpone it will Nov 22. If you are in the area and would like to attend, you can sign up here.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Sat, Oct 4 - Vehiel Curry was installed the new presiding bishop for the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the country. And he’s also the first Black presiding bishop. He is following Elizabeth Eaton, the first woman presiding bishop, which has led to many other women coming into the leadership of the church. Curry hopes he can do the same for the Black ELCA community.

Minneapolis synod bishop, Jen Nagel believes Curry will change the church for the better. She told Star Tribune:

Going forward, we will be a different church. Are we all, the Lutherans of Minnesota, Wisconsin, all of the ELCA, ready to live into that call in a bigger way? That’s the bigger thing.

It’s nice that right now when we seem to be losing all our diversity, and many previous first seem like they might be lasts, that we’re seeing moments like this too.

Not to mention it really is very cool that so many of my wins over the past few months have come from various Christian denominations. Maybe it hasn’t been as irreversibly corrupted as many assumed.

Franklin County, Arkansas

Mon, Oct 6 - Resident Colt Shelby is suing Governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Secretary of State, Cole Jester, for delaying the election to replace Senator Garry Stubblefield, who died on Sept 2. The election is supposed to be called less than 150 days from the passing, but Huckabee Sanders took another route. As of right now, the election is set for after the end of the 2026 legislative budget session, so, this entire Senate District would have no Senate representation for anything financial at all.

Shelby told the Arkansas Advocate:

We need someone in there before the budget session comes. I think all of the candidates are ready. … They were prepared to go early on. So there’s no reason why we should hold this election in June.

I hope I have an update soon, cause the sooner there’s an update, the sooner the election will likely happen.

Also it’s worth noting, a Democrat has not run here since 2020, and not won since 2016. So it’s not likely a Dem would have won if Huckabee Sanders hadn’t made a spectacle, but since she did…

And again, an example of someone seeing an injustice and just doing something about it. Just something to think about.

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So those are today’s wins! I hope they’re inspiring.