Sunrise Brown members head to New York for climate demonstration

Over the weekend, around two dozen members of Sunrise Brown traveled to New York City to join an estimated 75,000 protesters in a demonstration calling for global leaders — especially President Joe Biden — to take more aggressive action against climate change.

The protest, which took place on the eve of the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings, was focused on “bringing the momentum back” to in-person climate organizing after a slowdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Marlena Brown ’25, a Sunrise member who attended the demonstration.

Sunrise members attended the protest in order to join in “re-igniting something in the movement and building more collaboration across groups” involved in climate activism, Marlena Brown said. “It was really rewarding to be in a space where people from all different aspects of the climate movement came together.”

The demonstration in New York also allowed climate activist organizations across Northeast college campuses to connect. According to Marlena Brown, 10 members traveled to New York the night before the protest to attend a panel engaging the Yale Endowment Justice Coalition, members of the Fossil Free Research coalition and Sunrise hubs from Columbia, American University and New York University.

“The point was (to get) specifically college hubs together to talk about their experiences with activism on their campus” and the “challenges they run into,” Marlena Brown said.

Sunrise Hub Coordinator Isaac Slevin ’25 spoke on the panel, after which attendees split into small groups to discuss best practices for climate organizing on college campuses, said Ava Ward ’25, a Sunrise Brown member who attended the panel. “They really crafted a very powerful narrative of why we need to work together,” she said.

Ward added that she attended the protest in New York hoping to connect with other college climate activists. “I wanted to be a part of the growing movement that is a cross-university coalition of students committed to the climate fight,” she said.

According to Marlena Brown, Sunrise Brown leaders focused on bringing a “strong variety” of group members representing different identities and levels of involvement to the demonstration. They were also eager to provide members who had never attended a major climate protest before with a chance to do so, she added.

Virginia He ’27 was involved with the Sunrise hub in her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Before arriving on campus, she contacted Sunrise Brown organizers to get involved with the organization and jumped at the opportunity to attend the protest in New York.

She said that it was “crazy” seeing so many people on the streets of New York, adding that it was her first time attending a demonstration that big. She began her work with Sunrise during the pandemic, when nearly all activism occurred virtually.

“When I was marching down the streets of New York, there was a really big sense of solidarity and togetherness … that I hadn’t really felt before I came to the East Coast,” she said.

Marlena Brown emphasized the demonstration’s intergenerational and energetic nature, with activists of all ages joining forces in New York to demand action addressing the threat of climate change.

“I would say that the biggest thing I got out of it was this … greater sense of unity” in the climate movement, Marlena Brown said of the demonstration.

Ward also highlighted a speech by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), noting that it was “really incredible to be able to see firsthand one of our political leaders really taking the climate threat seriously.”

Back on College Hill, the Sunrise members who attended the protest are eager to incorporate the solidarity and energy they experienced into their work at the University.

The demonstration “showed us that our next steps forward should be finding a way to marshal in our power and (the) passion we have amongst college students towards an effective end,” Ward said.

The demonstrators at the protest were “all very much in the fight together,” He said. “That was really empowering to see, and I'm really excited to continue to build that community as I do some more work here at Brown.”