| Type | Non Profit |
|---|---|
| Industry | Activism |
| Founded | 1995, Mount Hood National Forest, Oregon |
| Headquarters | Oakland, California |
| Key people | Mike Roselle (co-founder), John Sellers, Adrienne Maree Brown |
| Products | Strategic nonviolent direct action, Internet activism, civil disobedience |
| Revenue | $600,000 |
| Employees | 5[1] |
| Website | ruckus.org |
The Ruckus Society is a nonprofit organization that sponsors skill-sharing and direct action training camps for activists from impacted communities working on social justice, human rights, and environmental justice. Ruckus was founded by Mike Roselle and co-founded with Twilly Cannon and JR Roof to specialize in environmental activism and guerrilla communication.
The Ruckus Society's mission is to provide training in classic civil disobedience tactics as well as non-traditional and specialized skills such as urban rappelling and "locking down."[2] The organization designs custom training camps based on the specifics of the activists, and uses popular education techniques to allow participants to discover the direct action knowledge they already possess.
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Ruckus co-sponsors the Not Your Soldier Project (NYS), a counter-recruitment effort with the War Resisters League, and the Indigenous Peoples' Power Project (IP3), bringing together indigenous youth organizers from all over the country. In 2006, Ruckus teamed up with Working Assets for an Election Protection project.[3] Together with Global Exchange and Rainforest Action Network, they worked against Ford Motor Company and later other auto-manufacturers. The Ruckus Society is a member of numerous coalitions efforts, and have performed actions for Wal-Mart Watch and others. The group has provided training to Greenpeace, Patagonia, Inc., the California Faculty Association, United Students Against Sweatshops, Students for Bhopal, Student Farmworker Alliance, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, Students for a Free Tibet and Detroit Summer.
John Sellers was the executive director of the organization for 8 years, through the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, the creation of IP3 and NYS and his own $2 million bail. Adrienne Maree Brown came on as executive director in 2006, the first woman of color to lead the organization.
The Ruckus Society has been described by many reliable sources as an anarchist organization that played a major role in inciting property damage and vandalism during the Seattle WTO protests in 1999.[1][2][3][4] According to a 2005 article by Randy Borum and Chuck Tilby, in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism: "Some organizations such as Ruckus Society and Anarchist Black Cross Federation even specialize in providing training in activism and varying forms of civil disobedience. There are many resources freely available to teach interested anarchists how to conduct surveillance, prepare for protests, climb and descend, build shields, and craft weapons. The legality of the proposed actions is secondary to their perceived effectiveness. Some manuals and instructional resources limit themselves to nonviolent tactics; others do not."[5] In a 2000 interview with the magazine Mother Jones, John Sellers said: "I make a distinction between violence and destruction of property. Violence to me is against living things. But inanimate objects? I think you can be destructive, you can use vandalism strategically. It may be violence under the law, but I just don't think it's violence."[6]