What Would Dumbledore Do?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrew Slack, HP Alliance, andrew@thehpalliance.org

THE HARRY POTTER ALLIANCE BRINGS TOGETHER HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF HARRY POTTER FANS:
A spirit of community service and activism for the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

BOSTON –

The Harry Potter Alliance, a global organization dedicated to bringing the themes of Potter into the real world, is is joining with tens of thousands of Harry Potter fans this week to cover the world in inspirational messages urging social change.

Fans will harness new media like Twitter and Facebook to take worldwide action at movie theaters around the globe, acting in concert at showings on the evening of July 14, directing friends and readers to whatwoulddumbledoredo.org for larger discussion on how the lessons of Albus Dumbledore can be translated into our lives and toward a global transformation.

“In just two weeks, millions of theater goers will watch the shocking death of Harry’s mentor Albus Dumbledore followed by Harry stating that Dumbledore will live on in all who remain loyal to his spirit,” says Andrew Slack, the 29-year-old Executive Director of the Harry Potter Alliance – an organization that uses online organizing to mobilize Harry Potter fans around social justice issues. “Although Dumbledore is a fictional character, his presence remains real in the hearts of Harry Potter fans and his message, much like the message of such real life figures as Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama, is needed in our world.”

In the Dumbledore Movie Theater Challenge Harry Potter fans around the world will attend the movie’s release on the evening of July 14, lining up just before midnight, wearing name tags that state a lesson that Dumbledore taught them. They will also hand out name tags for everyone in line to fill out.

In the Dumbledore Twitter Challenge, sites such as The Leaky Cauldron (www.leakynews.com), MuggleNet (www.mugglenet.com) and others within the HP fandom will be asking their visitors to tweet #dumbledore and a link to WWDD, with the hope that each time people do, they’ll think of what he stood for and how he lives on in each of us. With the support of the whole fandom, it is conceivable that “Dumbledore” will become one of Twitter’s most popular trending topics.

Most important to the campaign is the What Would Dumbledore Do Doctrine: a comprehensive document of over 100 lessons that articulate how Dumbledore’s values can be translated to our personal lives. Every day five new lessons are added to the doctrine based off of blogs that have been written by Harry Potter fans at http://thehpalliance.ning.com

The Doctrine, however, goes beyond the personal, discussing how Dumbledore’s values can be translated onto the national and global stage into public policy that legalizes same sex marriage, indigenous people’s rights, the Employee Free Choice Act, and media reform while joining the HPA’s partner NGO’s in their stand against genocide, poverty, prison torture, and global warming.

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CONTACT:
Andrew Slack
andrew@thehpalliance.org

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The HP Alliance (www.thehpalliance.org) is 501c3 nonprofit that engages Harry Potter fans in social activism. With over 30 active chapters, the HPA has raised over $15,000 to protect thousands in in both Darfur and Burma, put out original podcasts on Darfur that have been downloaded over 120,000 times, donated over 14,000 books world wide (4,000 of which are being shipped to a youth village in Rwanda), helped educate over 2 million people on Wal-Mart’s unfair treatment of employees through the famous “Lord WaldeMart” videos, and continues to work on promoting media reform, marriage equality, and tools for our members to live more creatively or “magically.”

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has recognized the HP Alliance on her web site, www.jkrowling.com, awarding it the Fan Site Award and praising its efforts.

Our work has been featured in over 200 US publications including the front covers of Politico and the Chicago Tribune Business Section.

From Time Magazine’s 2007 Person of the Year article about JK Rowling: “When asked about the [HP Alliance], Rowling practically levitates off the couch, spilling her coffee along the way. ‘It’s incredible, it’s humbling, and it’s uplifting to see people going out there and doing that in the name of your character,’ she says. She’s especially pleased by the group’s choice of mission, and the old Amnesty International worker in her surfaces.”