About this guide
Below are a number of resources for designing and implementing direct action. We’ve taken special care to include resources that specifically address accessibility needs and organizing in the time of COVID-19. This is a living page that will be periodically updated.
We know disabled and chronically ill people have always come up with creative ways of resisting, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. We encourage people to continue to expand what it means to take direct action!
Long COVID Justice is in a long lineage of justice movements using direct action. Direct action can range from distribution of vital supplies – like masks and COVID tests – needed in our communities, to confrontational actions like protests, to non-violent civil disobedience drawing attention to or blocking injustice.
Long COVID Justice was founded, in part, by longtime HIV activists living with Long COVID, who have seen direct action win the policies and resources to turn around an almost universally fatal condition for millions worldwide, in a movement that continues to push for the rights and lives of people living with, or at risk of, HIV. And we honor the lineage and power of the disability justice movement – named and shaped by disabled and chronically ill Black and Brown LGBTQ people – which recognizes it takes more than theoretical legal rights to overcome entrenched ableism, racism, gender bias and the drive for profits.
Direct action efforts can and should span a range of access needs! We’ve helped to develop a spectrum of tactics that deepen collaboration between those who can be onsite and others who help from a distance, or from our beds.
Following the inspiring and effective models of HIV activism, LGBTQ+ movements, disability justice movements and more, we invite you to let us know if you or your loved ones can join direct action onsite* or online.
If you’re interested in designing your own direct action, please make use of the toolkit below. Then let us know how it went by emailing [email protected] or tagging us: @longcovidjustice on Instagram or @longcovidjustice.org on Bluesky.
* We’re using “onsite” instead of “in-person” because we believe we can still be together as people when collaborating online/digitally.
Note: We’re based in the U.S. and some resources refer to U.S. laws, but many resources will be useful anywhere. This resource list was originally created in 2023 and is currently being updated, including newer resources that reflect current conversations on uses of direct action in 2025. Some older (pre-COVID) resources do not mention masking, etc.
Have a resource to suggest? Write [email protected].
Long COVID Justice Direct Action Resource Guide
Introduction to Direct Action
- Direct Action theory – Beautiful Trouble
- Collective Survival, Adaptation and Direct Action – Kelly Hayes
Getting started
- Direct Action Strategy Guide – The Ruckus Society
- Checklist for planning & evaluating actions – Beautiful Trouble
Use this “action star” tool to devise a strategic action that moves forward your campaign. Who is your audience? Your target? What are your points of intervention? These and other questions will help you frame your action within the larger context of the campaign, and make sure it’s as impactful as possible. - Points of intervention – Beautiful Trouble
This tool will help you identify points of intervention where your action may be most impactful. - Power Mapping – Beautiful Trouble
Use this tool to identify who the target of your action should be. - De-escalation Skills and Tactics – The Direct Action Movement
Creating more accessible actions
Resources for making on-site actions more accessible, plus ways to take part from home, bed, and/or digitally.
Onsite actions
- Cripping The Resistance: No Revolution Without Us – Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
I believe we need to keep using our disabled creativity to crip the resistance. To keep creating crip strategies to fight to win. - COVID Safety for Protests / Palestine Solidarity – People’s CDC
- Direct Action Planning Resource for (and by!) Sick and Disabled Comrades – This Autonomia
- Access Suggestions for Mobilizations and Access Suggestions for Public Events – Sins Invalid
- How to Make Your Social Justice Events Accessible to the Disability Community: A Checklist – Rooted in Rights
- Ability Access/Disability Inclusion Checklist for Marches and Rallies – Action Network
- How to Protest with ME And other Energy-Limiting Chronic Diseases – #MEAction
This is a guide for people who are planning a protest, demonstration, or activism to include people with ME and other energy-limiting chronic diseases. The second part is a guide for those planning to attend a protest that have ME/CFS. - Inclusion in the Time of COVID – Strategies for High Impact & What Would An HIV Doula Do?
This toolkit, created by our parent org Strategies for High Impact, offers things to consider and actions to take to make your meetings and actions accessible to those who are immunocompromised, chronically ill, and/or disabled in this COVID era. - MASK UP, WE NEED YOU: Palestinian Solidarity, Covid-19, and the Struggle for Liberation – Sheyam Ghieth & Rimona Eskayo
Protesting from bed, home, and/or digitally
- 26 Ways To Be In the Struggle Beyond the Streets – Disability Visibility Project
A list that is designed to celebrate all the ways that our communities can engage in liberation. This list was created by and for those in our communities who can’t be in the streets, and includes concrete ways that we can and do support liberation every day. - The Revolution Will Be From Bed – Crip the Gig
Access tips for protesting on site or from bed. - Organizing 2.0 Digital Tactics for Direct Action – Organizing 2.0
In this training video, you’ll learn ways to implement powerful and effective digital direct actions during a pandemic.
Toolkits for COVID-related organizing
- Fighting mask bans & affirming mask rights– Check out Fight for the Future’s StopMaskBans.com site and Mask Together America’s #StopMaskBans for more info on local organizing efforts.
- Keep Masks in Healthcare Toolkit – COVID Advocacy Initiative/Mandate Masks US and COVID Safe Campus
This toolkit offers a number of accessibility resources as well as digital and hybrid action ideas.
Action Ideas
- Civil disobedience
- Occupation
- Public filibuster
- Media-jacking
- Mass street action
- Creative petition delivery
- Creative disruption
- Blockade
- Banner hang
Examples of direct actions
Actions on COVID and Long COVID & associated conditions (LCAC):
- Die-in at Pfizer to demand more vaccine access
- Millions Missing Demonstration at the National Mall
- Keep Masks in Healthcare Week of Action
- Mask distribution at social justice rally (Climate Justice Committee MN)
Other examples of direct actions:
- ADAPT’s 2017 mass action at the Capitol, fighting to save the Affordable Care Act (2017)
- ADA Capitol Crawl – Disability rights activists fight for the ADA (1990)
- The ACT UP Historical Archive: Political Funerals (1990s)
- 504 Sit-In (1977)
- We’re collecting more examples of COVID-safer direct actions, please send links to [email protected]!
Mutual aid projects on COVID and other health issues:
- Installing community mask dispensers and zines at bus stops
- List of health-related mutual aid projects – Big Door Brigade’s Mutual Aid Toolbox
- COVID Action Map: Find local organizing projects
Make your meetings & workplace more accessible
- Disability Justice: An Audit Tool – Stacey Park Milbern & Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
This toolkit is aimed at helping Black, Indigenous and POC-led organizations (that are not primarily focused around disability) examine where they’re at in practicing disability justice, and where they want to learn and grow. It includes questions for self-assessment, links to access tools, organizational stories and more. - Recommended Highlight: Suggestions and Questions for Public Protests and Rallies (p30-32)
- Examples of COVID-safer event policies & protocols from our Resources page
- People’s CDC
People’s CDC offers a number of COVID-specific resources, including how to hold safer in-person gatherings.
Data security, anti-surveillance & safety
- Post-Election Digital Security 101 (video recording) & resource list – 18 Million Rising
- Surveillance Self-Defense: Protecting Your Data During a Protest – Electronic Frontier Foundation
Includes a printable pocket guide. Check out the EFF tool library for more tips. - Anti-Doxing Guide – Equality Labs
Detailed guide to protect yourself from being doxed (Doxing includes having your name, photo, contact info and other personal details shared publicly as a form of harassment and intimidation. Activists are often targets of doxing.) - Keeping Each Other Safe When Virtually Organizing Mutual Aid – Electronic Frontier Foundation
Considerations for data security and safety for digital organizing around mutual aid or other projects. - Get in Formation: A Community Safety Toolkit – Vision Change Win
This Community Safety Toolkit by Vision Change Win is a collection of security and safety practices built by years of learning in the streets from Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour movements within the U.S. Developed and edited by safety and security practitioners with a range of 10-40 years experience, this toolkit includes handouts, tips, and worksheets to support you in growing or building your community safety practices and/or teams. Includes COVID safety tips.
Additional learning: Films, readings, trainings
Films & documentaries
Related resources & trainings
- Pandemics Are Chronic – Long COVID Justice
These are the principles that guide us and call us to action in the fight for Long COVID justice. - We Must Fight Repression With Solidarity — Not by Replicating Carceral Logic – Dean Spade
A new tool helps activists think through the material impacts of the language we use to talk about protest and backlash. - A Nervous Wreck’s Disabled Guide to Stepping Up: Navigating dis/ability and anxiety in the call to action – Mahdia Lynn
- Get In Formation Training Series (G.I.F.T.S.) – Vision Change Win
Includes training on Safety for Direct Actions and Events - 10 Things Noncitizen Protestors Need to Know – Immigrant Legal Resource Center
- Disability Justice reading & resource list – Project LETS
- How Disabled Mutual Aid Is Different Than Abled Mutual Aid – Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
- Pod mapping – Mia Mingus / SOIL TJP
Mapping relationships for for direct action organizing, accountability and collective care. - ACUPRESSURE for PROTESTS and STREET ACTIONS
Data security, anti-surveillance, & safety
- Post-Election Digital Security 101 (video recording) & resource list – 18 Million Rising
- Surveillance Self-Defense: Protecting Your Data During a Protest – Electronic Frontier Foundation
Includes a printable pocket guide. Check out the EFF tool library for more tips. - Anti-Doxing Guide – Equality Labs
Detailed guide to protect yourself from being doxed (Doxing includes having your name, photo, contact info and other personal details shared publicly as a form of harassment and intimidation. Activists are often targets of doxing.) - Keeping Each Other Safe When Virtually Organizing Mutual Aid – Electronic Frontier Foundation
Considerations for data security and safety for digital organizing around mutual aid or other projects. - Get in Formation: A Community Safety Toolkit – Vision Change Win
This Community Safety Toolkit by Vision Change Win is a collection of security and safety practices built by years of learning in the streets from Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour movements within the U.S. Developed and edited by safety and security practitioners with a range of 10-40 years experience, this toolkit includes handouts, tips, and worksheets to support you in growing or building your community safety practices and/or teams. Includes COVID safety tips.