Report Back from Leap Day 2024

Cop-City Haters and football lovers unite!

On February 29th, 2024—taking hold of a once-in-a-four-year opportunity and inspiration from Slingshot collective’s call to liberate this year’s extra day—members of Stop Cop City United and Woodbine FC organized an action at the Myrtle-Wyckoff pedestrian plaza in Ridgewood, Queens to call for a Free Palestine.

In the lead-up, we circulated a call to comrades and through social media channels with the following proposal:

Join us for a demonstration in which we aim to use football as a platform to express unwavering support for the Palestinian people and call for an end to the occupation. We will bring our soccer goals, balls, banners, printed resources, and our voices to take over a busy pedestrian block in Bushwick/Ridgewood. Wear your soccer gear to show your support. Non soccer players welcome! Signs and banners needed! BYOB (balls)! #FootballforPalestine #RedCardforIsrael #BanIsraelfromFIFA

If you’re reading this, we hope you can be part of our organizing committee / conspiracy. All you have to do between now and Leap Day is to talk with your friends and community and show up to Myrtle Wyckoff. We encourage any other types of programming, banners, signs, activities, artwork, dance moves, chants, and snacks. This action is not a precious effort, it is a collective spectacle to make our support for Palestine seen and heard in Bushwick/Ridgewood.

After speaking with the food vendors along the perimeter of the plaza—who all expressed support for the action and were pleased to share their space with us for the duration of the evening—we set up a distro table with zines, pamphlets, flyers, coffee, and snacks. We hung Palestinian flags, held up banners, and chanted slogans decrying the unfolding ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians. We also set up goals across the length of the pedestrian plaza, inviting passerby to join in on three-a-side kickabouts. We shared both collective grief and militant joy.

Notwithstanding the striking February cold, we were warmed by the energy produced in collective play. Delivery drivers seeking to pass the plaza on mopeds or electric bicycles took a moment to enjoy the game, before cries of “Bike” would create openings for all to share the plaza.

Unlike our previous actions organized in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle—including a solidarity tournament in Ridgewood; a global day of football matches organized with football teams in Paris, London, and elsewhere; and our participation in the first annual Keffiyeh Cup in Astoria, Queens—this night’s action took part in a bustling urban space, staking a collective claim to the city.

Watch this space for further communiques from Stop Cop City United and Woodbine FC.