For months after the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, the minds behind Scuppernong Editions had been thinking of ways to be useful. They considered reprinting government documents that were disappearing from websites or publishing climate change or health data. One idea was to publish former U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s testimony on his criminal investigations into the president. But when the administration’s immigration enforcement rolled out in full force, the answer became clear.
“The sheer cruelty of the administration’s approach to immigration and their use of ICE as a vigilante force became this thing,” said Steve Mitchell, the general editor at Scuppernong Editions, the nonprofit publishing arm of Scuppernong Books, an independent bookstore in Greensboro. “And it just became much more obvious.”
This week, Scuppernong Editions unveiled How to Resist ICE in Your Neighborhood or Town, a 72-page how-to guide to resisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement—or ICE—agents. The book is compiled by Bad Penny, an imprint of Scuppernong Editions.
“The idea was that maybe all we really needed to do was compile information from reputable sources,” said Mitchell, a co-owner of Scuppernong Books. “Everything is rewritten from sources that we use. There are nearly 100 sources in the book that are all referenced and linked to.”
The book can be pre-ordered for in-store pick-up at Scuppernong Books and downloaded as a PDF on the press’s website. The store will ship a physical copy for $5 to cover shipping and printing costs. Other independent bookstores around the country will also sell it for the same price.
The thin volume includes everything from a brief history of ICE and what to wear to protests to what people can do to resist from home.
“The idea was to try and put all of this information in one place,” Mitchell said.
He started researching in late December and began putting the book together in January. When Renée Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, and others were killed last month, Mitchell said the urgency increased.
“That and everything that was going on in Minneapolis made it feel like it was a thing we needed to do quickly,” Mitchell said.
The book is printed in plain language and organized into different sections. One covers ICE watch trainings, while another tackles how to safely film ICE agents. There’s a section that explains how to advocate for others from home and another that explains how business owners can participate, too.
Much of the book draws from practices put in place by Siembra NC, a statewide immigrant advocacy organization. For anyone reading the book anywhere, Mitchell said, it’s important to get tapped into local organizations that are working on these issues.
“That sounds really useful,” said Andrew Garcés, a volunteer for Siembra, of the new book.
Scuppernong Books was one of the first businesses to sign up as a 4th Amendment Workplace last year, Garcés remembered.
“This is consistent with their leadership locally to create more safety for immigrants,” Garcés said. “I’m glad they’re doing that.”
The book is meant to be a manual for anyone to find a way to get involved, Mitchell said.
“Hopefully it’s geared toward the general reader,” he said. “Not necessarily the person who is already involved in a whole lot of different things. It’s for somebody who is asking, ‘What can I do? How do I begin to do anything?’”
For those who can’t or don’t feel comfortable taking to the streets, there are other ways to get involved, Mitchell said. There’s even a portion of the book that takes advice from the government on how to resist fascist regimes.
“The simple sabotage manual was devised by the [Office of Strategic Services], which eventually became the CIA,” Mitchell said. “It was distributed to the Allies, and it instructs normal people how to sabotage a fascist regime, basically Hitler at the time.”
Some of the original instructions included how to blow up warehouses or set fire to buildings.
“We didn’t put that in the book,” Mitchell said, laughing.
What did make the cut were little inconveniences like telling officers the wrong directions.
“Anything that just annoys and gets in the way of things,” Mitchell said. “There’s a certain irony that this was written by the U.S. government.”
Scuppernong Books, the for-profit bookstore arm of the business, has long been a site for public discourse, political activism, and, of course, the proliferation of information. In a time when many are concerned about the rise of fascism, the decline of the rule of law, and threats to democracy, Mitchell said, it makes sense for an independent bookstore and its publishing arm to help lead the resistance movement.
“Bookstores should be centers in their community where conversations take place, where all kinds of ideas can be considered and rejected or accepted,” Mitchell said. “I think it’s always been an interest of ours as Scuppernong Books to carry books that address the concerns of people who are marginalized.”
Since its founding in 2018, Scuppernong Editions has published books, including Belles of Liberty, which highlights the part the Bennett Belles played in Greensboro’s sit-in movement, and I Ain’t Resisting, a book chronicling the killing of Marcus Deon Smith by Greensboro police officers in 2018.
“We are in a position to only do books we’re excited about that we want to see in print,” Mitchell said.
As a small press, it’s also easy to print on demand and update the books as needed. The way things are progressing nationally, Mitchell imagines the book will be updated sometime this summer, keeping it as relevant as it can be.
“You don’t have to do everything,” he said. “You’re not able to do everything. Sometimes we are overwhelmed because of this sense that there’s so much to do. But one of the things we saw in Minneapolis was how the city came together as a community. And the only way these things get resisted in an impactful way is by communities, and communities form one person at a time.”
Disclosure: Sayaka Matsuoka previously worked part-time at Scuppernong Books.