• Carry water with you. It's hot, you're going to be moving around, so you'll need hydration at some point. Protecting yourself from heat stroke and dehydration is important

• Bring some kind of snacks. Clif bars or granola bars are good. Anything that won't melt and can still be eaten if it gets smashed.

• If someone get's pepper sprayed you can use clean water to flush their eyes. Don't use milk of magnesia or regular milk or anything else. Just use clean water, as much as you can

• A bike helmet is a relatively neutral way to protect your head

• Don't carry any weapons or anything a reasonable person would construe as a weapon unless you're aware of the severe risks. That means both physical harm to yourself or others, and the legal risk. Hitting someone with something is generally a more serious crime than hitting someone with your hands, but there's a lot of uncertainty with the courts these days

• Bring some safety glasses to wear if you see pepper spray come out. A respirator or an N-95 is also a good idea to protect your nose and lungs

• Wear comfortable, sturdy, close toed shoes that won't fall off if you need to run

• Carry a simple first aid kit. I usually bring medical tape and gauze instead of bandaids since you can cover the injury with gauze then tape it up even if it's relatively large or in a weird place. If someone gets hurt and it's more than a bump or a scrape find one of the street medics. They usually have large, well marked medical bags. Many will be wearing bike helmets marked with a red cross using red tape.

• Keep an eye on the crowd. If people start shoving you'll need to decide if you want to be involved in that, or try to move away from it.

• Do everything you can to stay on your feet. If you see someone else go down do your best to get them back up on their feet as quickly as possible. Being trampled if the crowd panics is a real risk and getting up off the ground is the best way to prevent it

• Consider writing the phone number for your lawyer or the national lawyers guild on your wrist. Note that this has been used as an excuse to hold people, with the cops claiming it showed that they intended to do crimes. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea, just something to be aware of.

• Make sure someone knows where you're going and when you expect to be back. Ideally you should call them at a pre-determined time. If they don't hear from you they should notify the local jail support group so they know you've likely been arrested.

• Consider carefully whether or not you need your phone. Cops have all kinds of spooky spy shit that can, at the very least, snatch unencrypted messages out of the air. We don't really know the extent of what they're capable of. Additionally, the cops could just steal your phone and force you to unlock it. So think carefully about whether you need your phone. If you're going to bring it scrub anything sensitive - Personal photos, numbers of comrades, any social media apps. If you do bring it make sure it's turned off. Remove the battery if you can as many modern phones don't actually turn off entirely when they're "off". Consider wrapping it in foil to block some signals. Don't turn it on unless you need it. If the cops want to they can generally either capture your phone's unique identifying numbers with their own equipment, or demand a list of all the phones that were in the area from the phone company. Not much you can do about that, but you can at least make it harder for them.

• Carry some cash, at least enough for a couple of bus fares and a fast food meal.

• Depending on your state laws, consider whether or not to bring your ID. In most states you are required to identify yourself to cops but they can't take your ID if you don't have it.

• Generally speaking you should trust your hunches or feelings. If something feels dangerous or wrong pay attention to that feeling and try to figure out what's bothering you. Sometimes people pick up on aggressive actions by others before anything obvious happens. It's not much but it can help

• Decide in advance what your level of "arrestibility" is. That means, if you feel relatively comfortable being arrested and are confidant you're at relatively low risk of being harmed by the police, you can be up front or where confrontations are occurring. On the other hand, if you feel you're more likely to be harmed by the police then stay further back in the crowd and be ready to back away if fights or direct confrontations with police pop up. Getting arrested isn't a badge of honor or anything, you should consider your own wellbeing on this. The organizers may explain this in more detail when you get there.

• Have a plan if you are arrested. Depending on the state they can usually hold you for up to 72 hours before they have to charge you with something, though in practice most protesters are released within 8-12 hours. Most of the time a local jail support group will be outside the jail to help you get a ride home, but cops have been known to drive people to random places before releasing them just to be assholes.

• If you have any special medical considerations like drug allergies make sure they're written down somewhere that EMTs and street medics will find them. On your forearm is usually a good place.

• Stay with the crowd as much as possible. Safety in numbers is a real thing. At the same time, sometimes crowds of protestors do stupid shit like walk in to an obvious police kettle, so again you're going to have to make your own decisions.

• Don't do cop stuff. No matter what anyone tells you, there's no reliable way to spot undercover cops. But asking for people's names or asking detailed questions may make people suspicious.

• Don't bring anything you can't afford to lose - Anything valuable, any jewelry, any electronics.

Aside from that, stick with your comrades, listen to the safety people that will be protecting the edges of the protest, and have fun. Most of these things go pretty smoothly. The fash aren't nearly as brave in person as they are when they're talking shit online. Good luck!

Leave with a group. If you're not there with anyone, just tag along with some other people leaving in the same direction as you.

Don’t bring your phone, use different devices to record. Don’t drive there, or if you do, make sure the driver is a separate person and have them not participate and drive off somewhere safe

it's dangerous to go alone, take this .

But seriously stick with your comrades

Buy cheap shoes that can be thrown away if you have fancyish footwear. Its something people might not think the opposition is paying attention to as a means of ID'ing protestors after the protest but probably do.

To add to Frank's first aid kit mention (self adhesive stuff won't stick or stay stuck to sweaty skin) a small tube of antibiotic ointment is cheap, easy to pack, and no big deal if it gets lost. Sweat and constant rubbing is going to make any scrapes inflamed and more likely to get minor infections.

Don't ask for people's names/phone number/other contact information anywhere near where police or fash will be at. If you fall in with a group that is moving from action to action or leaving the protest and will be away from the opposition and their recording equipment, that's probably an okay time to exchange contact info if you want. Might make a burner email account and just give that out for this purpose. After some back and forth, you can give up more personal information like your actual cell, regular email, etc if you feel more comfortable. You shouldn't feel odd about using a fake name either, both during the protest or if you start communicating with people you've met there afterwards.

Have an idea of how long you can be there and keep an eye out for other people in the protest that need to leave around the same time as you. If you have a long way to travel, its probably better to keep to your schedule and leave before you get too exhausted. Being overly tired makes you more of a target, more likely to get hurt and need to be helped by comrades, and more likely to make less than great decisions that increase the chances of the first two things happening.

Maybe a cheap digital wrist watch to help keep time and set an alarm for when you need to check in or leave.

If you fall in with a group, make it a habit to know where a few of them are. If the group is small, it'll be easy to keep up with everybody. If its large, just pick a few battle buddies to hang around. When you notice that somebody is missing, ask around and keep an eye out for them. If somebody is starting to lag behind the group, let the group know to slow down. Don't leave anybody behind that doesn't want to be left behind. If somebody wants to be left behind, its a good idea to figure out if its a good time to leave them by themselves.

Do you have access to a flamethrower?

Don't go to the protest. Instead hang back and follow the fash back to their cars. Get pics and license plates.