It is with tremendous joy that we send you our program. Our anticipation for the Social Forum is building and we look forward to joining with thousands of comrades working to build the movements we need. This program is not ours alone, we are collaborating with 23 wonderful organizations on the sessions that follow. We look forward to seeing many of you in Atlanta. Please send this out to your friends and networks. Any help you can provide with outreach is much appreciated.
Catalyst Project works from the assumptions that we need to build grassroots political power in working class communities and communities of color, that women's, transgender and gender variant leadership is central to building dynamic and powerful movements, and that there is a need to organize people who have race, class and gender privilege to participate in building movements led by oppressed communities for collective liberation. We are rooted in the belief that we need a praxis-oriented practice of drawing lessons from our work to advance our vision and understanding of the world. These are the assumptions that shape our program.
1. "You Can't Kill the Spirit": Solidarity Organizing in the Movement to Rebuild New Orleans
Thursday 1-3, Room 1402 at the Westin Hotel
A workshop by the Catalyst Project and People's Hurricane Relief Fund
Panelists: Akua Jackson, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, an organizer from New Orleans INCITE!: Women of Color Against Violence and the Women's Health and Justice Initiative, Ingrid Chapman, Catalyst Project and Kali Akuno from the People's Hurricane Relief Fund
After the levees broke and Black New Orleans was left to die by the State, left and progressive activists around the country struggled to find meaningful ways to respond. As we near the 2nd anniversary of Katrina, many on the left continue to ask how they can participate in a responsible and strategic way to the reconstruction movement led by Black and working class communities and their organizations in New Orleans. "You Can't Kill the Spirit" brings together leaders from organizations based in and outside New Orleans to share reflections and lessons on how social justice activists from around the country can support the struggle for New Orleans and build grassroots power.
This workshop will explore goals and strategies of New Orleans based groups who have utilized national resources and outside volunteers from progressive/left organizations. These organizations will also provide concrete suggestions for how people can directly support the leadership and organizing of working class, Black-led organizing in New Orleans. It will also explore the goals and strategies of organizations who have come to New Orleans to support the grassroots movement. These organizations will speak to the key lessons they have learned from organizing in solidarity with the local movement. One will speak directly to the challenges and opportunities of organizing out of town, primarily white volunteers using an anti-racist and multiracial alliance building strategy. And one will speak to the challenges and opportunities of organizing in communities of color.
2. Throwing Down Against Empire: Military Veterans Speak-Out on Practical Strategies to End War
Saturday 3:30-5:30, Room 1202 at the Westin Hotel
Organizations: War Resisters League, Catalyst Project and Iraq Veterans Against the War
Participants: Greg Payton (Vietnam Veteran), Aimee Alison (Gulf War Veteran), Diedra Cobb (Iraq War Resister) IVAW rep TBA
Moderators: Steve Theberge and Clare Bayard
Can we build an anti-war movement that not only ends the occupation of Iraq, but also challenges the foundations of war? This panel will bring together Veterans of the Vietnam, first Gulf, and Iraq wars to share their experiences of resistance and organizing and discuss how you can support GI resistance, the Conscientious Objectors movement and counter-recruitment as core strategies for building a successful anti-war movement.
3. GI Resistance & Solidarity Movement Against War & Empire
Friday 1-3, Choir Room at Trinity United Methodist Church
Organizations: Courage To Resist, Iraq Vets Against the War and Catalyst Project
The G.I. resistance/solidarity movement is made up of organizations and people engaged in work, ranging from counseling to legal advocacy to political campaigns supporting public resisters and their families. Currently there is no umbrella, network, or clearinghouse where we can all come together to exchange information, coordinate and collaborate, and strategize together. At the Social Forum we aim to bring together the different elements of this movement to build more cohesion and strengthen our work and our movement.
We'll have a brief explanation of what's going on with GI resistance and support; facilitated discussion; and interactive networking for groups and individuals who are already involved or ready to start.
We see this session as a convergence where these conversations may start, but the primary goal is to build and strengthen relationships, which can then move forward with increased communication after the Forum. We expect this session to be multigenerational and multiracial.
For more info: courage@riseup.net or 510.764.2073
4. "Battle for the Hearts and Minds": White Anti-Racist Organizing Visions and Strategies
Saturday 1-3, Room 1205 at the Westin Hotel
A Catalyst Project workshop with presentations from Mel Pilbin of the Heads Up Collective and Amy Dudley of the Rural Organizing Project.
Since the mass direct action to shut down the WTO in Seattle 1999, a new generation of white left organizers have been engaged in anti-racist work in white communities with an overall multiracial movement building framework. Drawing from the long tradition of white anti-racist work, such as the legacy of Anne Braden who provides the quote in the title, these organizations have brought lessons and practices of the Global Justice movement to their organizing approach. This workshop will explore ways that white anti-racists are developing vision and strategy for their work. It will include participatory exercises and presentations. Mel Pilbin from the Heads Up Collective and Amy Dudley from the Rural Organizing Project will share key experiences, reflections and lessons from their work with the goal of advancing the visions and strategies used by white anti-racists.
5. Another Politics is Possible: Living the Vision from Below and to the Left
Friday 10:30-12:30, Georgia Ballroom East Room at Renaissance Downtown
Organizations: LA Garment Workers Center, Sista II Sista, INCITE!, Coalition of Immokalee workers/Student Farm worker Alliance, Center for Immigrant Families, Regeneracion Childcare, Pachamama Childcare collective, Harm Free Zone, Left Turn Magazine, Catalyst Project, and Refugio.
What does it mean to "live the vision" for social justice—to actualize the transformative world we desire within the present-day life of our organizations and movements?
This session will focus on models of organizing that begin with the premise that our political "successes" have as much to do with the internal processes, cultures and values of movements as they do with the external wins that define political victory. One of the biggest challenges our generation faces is understanding and prioritizing the belief that "Movements, must be people-oriented, as opposed to thing oriented," in the words of Grace Lee Boggs, veteran community activist and political theorist. She takes her cue from her Civil Right contemporary, Martin Luther King Jr., who on the eve of his assassination implored the movement to step to the challenge of a "revolution in values"—to ground movements in people-centered transformation. Today, this principle has made its way back into our political culture (some would argue that it has never left). Taking their own cue from the social justice movements of Latin America—mass movements that are now tipping the balance of power in places such as Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina—a new generation of US-based activists and organizers are adopting models that seek to promote a true democracy that values the individual transformation within its ranks, that encourages leadership structures which are horizontal as opposed to top-down, and that recognizes that the most successful organizations are not necessarily the ones that most effectively lead, but rather the ones that can be led by the will of those from below. Session participants will speak to such modes of transformative organizing.
6. Building in Context: Movements Across Generations
Friday 10:30-12:30, Mezzanine Left Room at Atlanta Civic Center
Organizations: Resistance in Brooklyn; Catalyst Project; Institute for Multiracial Justice, Southerners on New Ground
Panelists: Elizabeth Betita Martinez; Mandy Carter; Meg Starr; Clare Bayard; Moderated by Matt Meyer
Because building an intergenerational mass movement means building across many social justice movements, we have an obligation to learn from the specific struggles waged over the years across the U.S. and the world. This panel brings together five organizers to learn from our own history as well as each other's.
Collectively, the speakers span the past fifty years of U.S. grassroots mobilization in both urban and rural areas for civil rights, global justice, anti-racist solidarity, Puerto Rican independence, and queer and trans liberation. We will use a moderated discussion to delve into what strategies, tactics, and organizational forms have informed our victories or limited our accomplishments. The different urgencies and possibilities reflected in the speakers' different geographies and political experiences provides the opportunity to build those places where we meet across issues and identities in creating successful, broad-based radical movements.
*If any radio journalists want to record any of the sessions please contact chris@collectiveliberation.org
