The women of the Benton Street Improvement Association had been here before.

Back in 2016 it was something close to shock they felt watching the presidential election results roll in declaring Donald Trump the winner.

Last November, watching from their homes in Santa Rosa’s junior college neighborhood, there was certainly another round of shock, but there was something else, too: Anger, disappointment, frustration, fear.

“The day after the election I just felt miserable and a friend of mine … made a comment, ‘We need your signs,’” Laura Doty said. “I had already been thinking — we need signs.”

The signs.

The first version of the signs was born after Doty had attended the March for Science in Washington, D.C., on Earth Day, April 22, 2017. Inspired by signs featuring inspiring quotes and calls to action that she had seen spiked into lawns and yards in our nation’s capital, Doty returned to her Benton Street home and got to talking with like-minded neighbors.

“I said to Melanie, ‘I saw this great thing. I want to bring them here,’” Doty remembered.

It was an idea when Doty said it aloud, but it became a mission when Melanie Jones-Carter heard it.

“There she is, her hands across her chest, her jaw set like she does and she says, ‘We are going to do it,’” Doty said.

And boy did they.

The four women gave themselves a name: Benton Street Improvement Association, a nod to the Montgomery Improvement Association, the group formed in Alabama in 1955 by Martin Luther King Jr. to lead the bus boycott.

They sold hundreds of signs over the course of months. Many still stand in yards across Sonoma County, as well as in places like New York, West Virginia and Iowa. The women donated all of the proceeds to F.I.S.H., a local nonprofit food bank.

They promoted the idea of a religion of kindness, the virtues of nonviolence and respect for all cultures.

They sold signs until they ran out of gas. Then they went back to their day jobs, they went back to being neighbors and friends instead of pseudo philanthropy partners.

They breathed a sigh of relief when Joe Biden won the election in 2020.

‘Really scary time’

Then Trump was elected again last fall. And the weeks and months since he took office have been so heartbreaking and terrifying, according to association member Kristen Throop, the four women decided it was time to bring back the signs.

“I think it’s a really scary time for a lot of people,” she said. “Finding something to do, even if it’s putting a yard sign in my front yard. We are in a very serious situation.”

They were spurred to action by a growing litany of moves by the Trump administration, including its brushback of Ukraine over the limits of U.S. support for its defense against Russia; the administration’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members to foreign countries, many without due process; the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the chief philanthropic arm for nonmilitary American foreign aid; the wholesale elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and the targeting of major universities under the guise of “civil rights investigations.”

Getting ‘more edgy’

In 2017, the signs featured hopeful words from the likes of the Dalai Lama, poet Maya Angelou, antislavery crusader Frederick Douglass and farm labor icon Cesar Chavez.

This moment in history called for a different vibe.

Following a process they established in 2017, the women each brought to the proverbial table a handful of potential quotes. They read them aloud. They voted.

“The Dalai Lama and Maya Angelou were the biggest sellers of all signs, but this time we decided we didn’t want to reprint those, we wanted to try and do something a little more, a little more edgy than the feel-good message,” Jones-Carter said. “The first time, we called them signs of hope. But this time we felt like we needed to spark conversation.”

For Doty, she voted for the quotes that gave her chills.

“What had a voice that contained resolve in it? And firmness,” she said. “There are boundaries that simply have to be set right now in our society around recognizing the things that are under attack. It’s not acceptable to have a country right now where laws aren’t recognized as laws, where the Constitution is not recognized. Justice is something that is nonnegotiable.”

So they chose to highlight civil rights legend John Lewis’ “good trouble,” anthropologist Margaret Mead’s idea that committed folks can change the world, educator Bell Hooks’ call to “stand for justice” and author James Baldwin’s belief in allowing for disagreement so long as it doesn’t lead to oppression and the right to exist.

“There were only six quotes that were unanimous and we printed all of them,” Throop said.

The signs are printed in the black and white design of the original batches but this time they are in Spanish on one side, English on the other.

Once again, they are flying out the door by the hundreds.

‘It’s old fashioned work’

The association, which hosts a Facebook page and has an email account, charges $15 for signs and stands.

All proceeds benefit the following local nonprofit organizations: Food for Thought, North Bay Organizing Project, Positive Images and Secure Families Collaborative.

Unlike last time around, the association will not ship signs, nor will they take anything but cash. It feels like this time around, the face-to-face transaction, the conversation, is part of the activism.

“It’s old fashioned work,” Throop said. “It’s cash, it’s having a conversation with people, it’s helping an elderly person put the wire in the sign.”

Because connection is part of the activism, association members said.

“I think they definitely start a conversation,” association member Valerie Waidler said. “And just a pause, thinking ‘Well maybe there is something I can do.’”

And for some people, in this environment of elevated tensions, putting a sign in the front yard might be just the thing that they can pull off. Others might be inspired to do more, like turning up for marches and protests, calling politicians or boycotting companies.

“Now go do something of your own,” Throop said. “In some ways, it doesn’t matter, just go do something that makes your community stronger, whatever it is.”

But if the signs simply signal an allegiance, then that, too, is considered a job well done by the association. Throop calls them “a stake in the sand.”

“These little signs, they are just the first little thing,” Throop said. “Then people are like ‘Oh, I’m not alone. There are other people who care about me.’”

To the association members’ way of thinking, a little dose of care and a bigger dose of inspiration to action is what this moment calls for.

“We are a group of neighbors just trying to do some stuff,” Jones-Carter said.

And maybe get into some good trouble while they are at it.

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com.