The Not In Our Town Action Kit: Resources for Your Town

Today we uploaded three new files to the Not In Our Town Action Kit: Materials from West Virginia's successful multi-pronged action campaign titled, West Virginia: No Place for Hate.

Though this counter-protest occured in 2010, we believe these resources remain relevant and inspiring today. West Virginia leaders came together after Fred Phelps' Westboro hate group announced it would picket Catholic and Jewish institutions in the two towns, a local university, and a mine where more than a dozen miners had recently lost their lives.

The Not In Our Town Action Kit is a hidden gem on NIOT.org, compiling resources from communities standing up to hate and intolerance. In addition to these materials from West Virginia, you will find:

Sample posters
Sample pledges
Sample proclamations
Guidance on hosting a screening in your town
Video viewing and discussion guides
Materials from anti-hate campaigns on K-12 and college campuses.

We invite you to download these materials and use them as inspiration for action in your own communities. Stay tuned as we update even more materials from our archives in the coming months.

Finally, thanks to our friend Paul Sheridan, Deputy Attorney General in West Virginia and veteran Not In Our Town supporter, for sharing the following posters with us in 2010, which we, in turn, would now like to share with you. See how West Virginia turned hate into an opportunity for community building.

The above statement was published as a full-page ad in two Charleston newspapers in the spring of 2010.

The heart image appeared alongside the statement as a tear-out poster, which community members were encouraged to display on their windows that week, as a response to messages of hate and representation of the "power of love in [the] community."