Why build chapters?

We need to build a thriving animal rights movement that operates in every major metropolitan area and beyond.

The history of the abolitionist movement in the US teaches us the vital importance of mass movement-building to achieve transformative social change. Firm denunciations of slavery, particularly among Quakers in the Northeast, began as early as 1688, but the first abolitionist organization in the US—the Pennsylvania Abolition Society—did not materialize until 1785. It was not until ten years later the New York Manumission Society formed. Roughly 40 years later, the abolitionist movement in the US remained largely unorganized, stagnant, and marginal despite rising abolitionist sentiments across the country, particularly in the North. In 1833, however, sixty prominent abolitionists from across the country assembled in Philadelphia to establish a new, nationwide organization—the American Anti-Slavery Society—that would fight for the immediate emancipation of all slaves. Five years later, this organization had amassed 1,350 local chapters. By 1840, they had amassed over 2,000 local chapters.

While it would take decades of struggle thereafter to finally abolish slavery in the US, with the bloody, profoundly oppressive legacy of slavery continuing to this day, it seems the animal rights movement, which seeks the abolition of all animal exploitation, has reached a watershed moment at which our movement can mobilize activists in hundreds, if not thousands, of cities across the country. Despite the dramatic upsurge in veganism over the past few years in particular, however, this potential remains largely unrealized across the Midwest; of the 58 metropolitan areas across the Midwest with a population in excess of 100,000 human animals, just 15 feature a local animal rights organization. That’s just 1 in 4! If we graded our Midwestern animal rights movement by this metric, we would receive a mega-“F,” falling 34 points short of even a “D” rating.

Guided by the history of other abolitionist movements, we will fill this massive gap, delivering compelling, high-impact animal rights activism to every major metropolitan area across the Midwest in an effort to build the pressure we need to usher in transformative individual and institutional change.