Get Involved in DC

We get lots of emails from people asking to “join our group.” Unfortunately, this website doesn’t belong to a group; it’s just a few people posting events and things we hear about. There isn’t really an “anarchist group” in DC right now, although there are plenty of groups that have anarchist members.

Below are our suggestions for the best places to “get started” if you are new to the city or new to activism, and want to meet and connect with other anarchists. These groups in particular have many members who are anarchists, and have regular in-person meetings or events (except for the email list, of course) that anyone is welcome to attend.

This is only a small part of what is going on in DC at any given time. For more info, you should also check out our local resources page, and make sure to stay tuned to this website, as we post events as we hear about them.

Please double-check times and locations as the information on this page may not be current! Last update was Nov. 2007.

DC Anarchist Email List

This email list is not as active as it used to be, but you can still find announcement of anarchist-related events, or post your own announcements.

Brian MacKenzie Infoshop

The Brian MacKenzie Infoshop is a radical book and record shop, as well as a resource center. They are organized around anarchist principles and are volunteer and cooperatively run.

Critical Mass

Critical Mass is a monthly group bicycle ride to celebrate bicycles and their right to the road. Other non-motorized wheeled vehicles are welcome (unicycles, skates, etc.). Critical Mass events are held in various cities throughout the world, with no formal organization/leadership.

Positive Force

Positive Force DC is an activist group that works for fundamental social change and youth empowerment. They organize benefit and free concerts, demonstrations and teach-ins and also do direct work with needy people. It is geared more toward young people, but anyone is welcome.

  • Meetings - held every Saturday and open to anyone who is interested
  • Benefit concerts - check their website for upcoming events.
  • Email list - join via their website

Food Not Bombs

Food Not Bombs (FNB) chapters share free vegetarian food with hungry people and protest war and poverty. Typically, a FNB group recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out, and gathers once a week to prepare the food and then serve it outside in public spaces to anyone without restriction. Anyone is welcome and it’s a great way to meet people and get involved in the community.

  • FNB prepares and serves food every Sunday:

    • Meet to prepare food at American University in the basement of the Kay Spiritual Life Center at 1:00 pm. If you take the AU shuttle from the Tenleytown metro, it’s the second stop. It’s the building that looks like the flaming cupcake.
    • Help serve food in Dupont Circle at 3:00 pm
  • FNB DC Facebook Group
  • For more info, email casj@american.edu or contact Nicole at (732) 804-0051

DC Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

SDS is a national association of young people of the left. It seeks to create a sustained community of educational and political concern, one bringing together liberals, radicals, and revolutionaries, activists and scholars, students, staff, and faculty. It maintains a vision of democratic society, where at all levels the people have control of the decisions which affect them and the resources on which they are dependent.

DC IWW

The International Workers of the World (IWW) is a fighting labor union that strives to unite all working people as a class in one big union. It is open to all workers; you do not have to be employed at a particular workplace to join IWW.

  • Meetings - every other Wednesday at the Martin Luther King, Jr., branch of the DC Public Library
  • DC IWW email list

Dancing Cat Anarchist Collective

The Dancing Cat Anarchist Collective are a newly-formed anarchist communist collective from DC. They’re a platformist group of workers, affiliated with the Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (NEFAC). Current projects include solidarity work with UNITE-HERE workers in Baltimore, UFCW workers in DC and VA, countering and opposing fascist and racist groups in the Balt-Wash-NOVA area, and a newly undertaken counter-recruitment campaign.