In 2020, amid Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd, a collective of cartoonists came together to make Safer in the Streets, a short zine featuring best practices for dealing with the police during street marches. That summer, many people were out in the streets for the very first time, and the one-page comics aimed to provide useful advice from veteran protesters on—among other topics—how to avoid a police kettle, how to protect your hands when facing a line of police across a barricade, and how to keep a march together.
This year, we have seen a new generation taking to the streets in response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. These protesters have faced not only police kettles and baton attacks, which were covered in the first volume of Safer in the Streets, but also mass arrests by heavily militarized cops, state surveillance, doxxing, and more. This escalated repertoire of repression requires the dissemination of a new set of practices and skills to keep us safe from both street-level police brutality and systems of carceral violence, so a group of cartoonists—some of whom were involved in the first volume—have updated Safer in the Streets for the present moment. New additions are included below, but you can download the entire zine, with old and new contributions, in the links below the comics.
Though it may seem like we are in a protest lull following the spring’s college encampments and their repression, daily marches and actions against the genocide continue. Now is a great time to imagine and prepare. As the first zine states, compliance won’t keep us safe, but we can work to keep each other safe.
You can download and print this zine in color or black and white. Assembly instructions can be found here. You can find a web version here.
