Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop! Maintaining Momentum amidst Grief and Fear

How does a local solidarity movement maintain momentum in the face of overwhelming odds? Using models of sustained mobilization, this paper examines over 600 pro-Palestine/pro-ceasefire protests in Toronto during the first year of the attacks on Gaza, showing how local activists found ways to maintain momentum and solidarity, despite local repression, and unremitting violence in Israel/Palestine. It examines the mechanisms of shifting goals, frames, temporal conceptions, and tactics, as well as the ways factionalization, radicalization and institutionalization mattered in the struggle to maintain momentum.