Antiviolence Bl(A)ck Tea activists draw attention of authorities

Last summer, long before the Democratic National Convention had triggered even a single road closure, a small group of left-leaning activists gathered in Cambridge and came to a unanimous decision: The convention needed to be opposed, and its opponents would need all the support they could get.

The meeting included some anarchists, a handful of Green Party members, even a high school student. Some of them had never been to a political protest in their lives. But in the year since then, the organization they hatched, the Bl(A)ck Tea Society, has grown into a high-profile nerve center for the thousands of protesters expected to descend on Boston in the next five days.

"Given Boston's history, this should be one place where people can protest if they want to," said Elly Guillette, 27, a Bl(A)ck Tea member from Cambridge who works in the Back Bay as a financial analyst. "We want to make sure we have the logistics in place, the structure set up, so that people can have a voice."

Tomorrow, when they throw open the doors of their rented "convergence center" near Copley Square, Guillette and her collaborators will emerge as a full-fledged underground host committee, arranging housing, transit, even doctors and lawyers for the arriving protesters.

They have also attracted the attention of Boston police. Despite its focus on practical matters, such as child care and handicapped access for protesters, the Bl(A)ck Tea Society is one of a half-dozen groups that law enforcement is watching most closely, police commanders said. Some society members have ties to a group called the Anarchist Black Cross. Anarchists have been blamed for violence at the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle. (The Bl(A)ck Tea name alludes not only to the Boston Tea Party, but also to the black flag and circle-A symbol used by anarchists.) And the group has called for hard-to-control decentralized actions on the last day of the convention, when John Kerry is scheduled to accept the presidential nomination.

But Bl(A)ck Tea, whose few rules include an explicit antiviolence message, sees the police scrutiny as just another challenge of playing host in an activist world vastly changed by the Seattle riots and the post-9/11 security clampdown. Many members have been arrested at protests, and they say they fear the possibility of police violence and aggressive crowd control in Boston; taking no chances, the group has trained "street medics" to treat those who may be sprayed with tear gas and has volunteer lawyers lined up to help those who are jailed.

"The police are saying Boston has a high tolerance for civil disobedience," Guillette said. "We so hope that's true."

Bl(A)ck Tea members say that undercover police have attended their meetings for months. Because they're not planning to break the law, they said, they have maintained their open-door policy, though they do start their meetings by asking any police to identify themselves. (None has.)

A spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department, Beverly Ford, would not comment on specific undercover operations, but said the department is aware of the society. "It's normal to gather intelligence," she said.

Despite its name, BL(A)ck Tea is not a society as much as a loose coalition of activists, bound by opposition to corporate and government authority. After next week, it may not even exist. In the meantime, however, the group is taking advantage of many of the tools of modern political organizing: a user-friendly website, online since last fall; catchy slogans ("finish the American revolution"); press conferences complete with media kits for reporters.

The group is urging political action, calling for protesters to boycott the city's fenced-off "free speech zone," for example, because of safety concerns and philosophical objections.

But much of its work has been more mundane: finding good deals on gauze pads; recruiting local residents to house out-of-town activists; fixing old bikes for protesters to borrow; making lists of vegan restaurants.

Preparations began last July, with an invitation sent to liberal e-mail lists. Early on, the group settled on a three-part agenda: Setting up a "convergence center" with food, phones, and medics, open to all protesters; planning a family-friendly festival (the "Really Really Democratic Bazaar," planned for Tuesday on Boston Common); and encouraging decentralized actions on the last day of the convention, unlicensed protests carried out by many small groups and scattered through the city.

In February, the group hosted a "resistance consulta" for 100 people to flesh out their strategy for the convention. In recent weeks, the group has scrambled to adjust to the city's evolving plan to handle protests, from permit rules and protest zones to court procedures. Like the police, the society doesn't know how many protesters will show; its e-mail list includes 400 individuals, each of whom may show up with a group, or not at all. Their website got 10,000 visitors one recent day.

At times, group members have set aside their own beliefs to help ensure a smooth week for other protesters. As anarchists and antiauthoritarians, many members don't endorse the notion that protests should require permits. Nevertheless, they sought the city's permission for their own events and helped other groups navigate the city's bureaucracy.

"We take racism into account and the fact that people who are not privileged and not white might not feel as comfortable going on an illegal march, because they're at risk," said Evan Greer, 19, a Swarthmore College student and musician raised in Andover, who balances his Bl(A)ck Tea work with acoustic folk-rock gigs.

At a Bl(A)ck Tea meeting last weekend, in a classroom at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, three dozen members sat in a circle and moved steadily through a two-hour agenda that offered no hints of illegal activity. Reports from smaller working groups included a call for bike locks, an update on the band lineup for their festival on the Common Tuesday -- plenty of folk and punk, but in need of other genres -- and a proposal to rent portable toilets. "Start drinking water for the DNC now," read a note neatly printed on the blackboard.

Members, most of whom appeared to be in their 20s, used hand signals to vote on proposals, raising both hands and fluttering their fingers, or twinkling, to signal agreement.

Cambridge native Emma Lang, 19, said the group is highly efficient, in part because members are kind to each other. "Boring things get done," said Lang, a labor studies major at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Like many Bl(A)ck Tea members, Lang grew up in the protest movement and was first arrested when she was 14. Her mother, Amy Lang, not in the group, said she was terrified at recent protests with her daughter, because the police tanks, snipers, and body armor so far exceeded the force she remembers from her own protest days.

"I can't say to my children, 'You can't do this,' but every time they go to a demonstration, my heart stops," said Amy Lang, 55, a Syracuse University professor.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.