The Violet Protest: A Creative Call for National Unity - Documentary Film

The Violet Protest has been a public effort to send hand-made ​textile squares to each and every member of Congress ​in support of these core American values:

• Respect for the other
• Citizenship
• Compromise
• Country over party and corporate influence
• Courage
• Candor
• Compassion
• Creativity

On January 15, 2020, with the click of the mouse, AZ artist Ann Morton sent out a call for textile makers across the US. What would happen over the next 20 months became the Violet Protest, a nation-wide public engagement project that employed hand-made textiles as tools for protest against political divisiveness - a creative call for nation unity.

The project focused on values we hold dear, rather than specific political or social issues. The color Violet symbolizes the literal combination of red and blue, familiar symbols of our nation’s differing ideologies.

The ultimate goal was to send bundles of these individual squares to all members of the 117th US Congress as a unique demonstration of protest, and to voice hope and support for cooperation between lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. In November of 2021, our goal was met when we sent 540 packages of 25 squares to each and every lawmaker in Congress.

The Violet Protest collected approx. 13,500 squares made by over 2000 makers representing nearly 60,000 hours of hand labor.

Now we want to share the extraordinary story of the Violet Protest through a film documentary.

Sharing the story of the Violet Protest offers the public, as well as teachers and students, an educational opportunity to see, in action, ideas of public engagement, civil discourse, American history - and experience an example of how critical thinking can be applied in myriad ways to address areas of public concern.

Arizona PBS is offering to be the presenting station for the Violet Protest film and work with our team to connect with the national PBS network to acquire carriage agreements. In addition, AZPBS would like to create educational materials made available on their website, PBS Learning Media, a repository that is accessible to K-12 families and educators.