‘Good Trouble’ comes to New Iberia – The Current

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This Saturday, the “Good Trouble Lives On” protest rally, held in honor of civil rights leader John Lewis and his legendary call for “good trouble, necessary trouble” is expanding to New Iberia, preceding the national July 17 event.

New Iberia, like many towns, especially in the Deep South, has seen its share of racial strife. In 1944, the founders of a new local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were driven out of town by the sheriff. Fast forward 80 years, and attendees of a Christmas parade last year returned to their cars to find them spray-painted with racial slurs.

With that history in mind, organizer Matthew Isaak says this is an especially important moment to engage those who may have become detached from politics.

For Isaak, it has become personal, a need to put his opposition to the Trump administration’s action on the record; “I did stand up and say: ‘This is wrong.’ That we don’t have masked thugs in our streets grabbing people in the streets.”

New Iberia community activist and radio show host Donavon D. Davis agrees that this is perfect timing for the Good Trouble 337 chapter, inspired by the legacy of Lewis and his words, to expand its outreach to new communities within the namesake area code. Democracy, he fears, is at risk.

Published:

July 11, 5:17 pm

The Boulet administration established the commission to advise LCG on how to support and engage local veterans of the U.S. armed services.

“A revival to understand what is happening in today’s world and put a halt to the whistle calls,” is necessary, he says. He’s especially adamant about getting more African Americans involved, considering the event both an awakening and a call to action for his community.

“We have to help people to understand — who are not politically inclined — the language of politics and the meaning of politics,” says Davis. “We need to do that — wake up sleeping giants,” he adds. “It’s critically imperative now in 2025.”

Isaak recently appeared on Davis’ radio show to discuss the protests taking place in Lafayette, a conversation that ended up inspiring the expansion to New Iberia. And while the current administration has aggressively policed protests, Isaak argues that protesting is inherently American.

“It’s an important part of the American process, isn’t it?” he says.

He hopes to get a new generation engaged in this American tradition and that more young people become involved in Good Trouble 337. “We want to go beyond the stereotype of the privileged middle-class boomer,” Isaak says.

While some events have drawn as many as 300 protesters, Isaak and his fellow organizers say that the success of these events isn’t necessarily based on the number of attendees. “I’m not obsessed with the numbers,” he says. “It’s not how many come, but how many people see it.” That includes those who have shouted at them from car windows.

Isaak, his co-organizer Aimée Dominique and others will be co-hosting Saturday’s event — 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the New Iberia Civic Center — with Samika Miner of Voice of the Experienced (VOTE).

Speakers include former and future congressional candidate Tia LeBrun, the Rev. Constance Macintosh of Presbyterian Church USA, NAACP President Ravis K. Martinez of Lafayette, and the Rev. Wilfred Johnson of A New Chapter PUSH.

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