Featured Story
Philanthropy’s Mandate to Divest from Genocide in Palestine and Beyond
Philanthropy’s urgent mandate to divest from genocide, occupation, and systemic oppression is powerfully underscored by the launch of the Funding Freedom toolkit, which calls for funders to fulfill their moral responsibilities. Philanthropy wields enormous power—rooted in vast accumulations of wealth...
Narrative Power Today for a Radical Tomorrow
Invitation to 21st-century Orators, Griots, Futurists
Ase! In West African traditions, ase means “and so it is.” It is “the power to make change happen,” the essential energy that animates everything. Mabuhay! In Tagalog, mabuhay means “welcome.” It is also an observation of conditions, as in,...
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For the Record: How Social Media Users are Highlighting Media Bias and Reframing the Narrative
Language Is Never Neutral The best way to communicate something is usually the simplest way to communicate something. Yet, journalists and editors will offer wordy or deficient headlines knowing that readers are likely to interpret a headline in ways that...
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Building Community Power to Take Back Our Data
Unprecedented abuses of personal data by tech companies and federal agencies to support law enforcement have raised new concerns among the general public about what happens when our personal and community data falls into the wrong hands. Companies like Palantir,...
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Inspiring Radical Optimism Through Solidarity Economy Storytelling: Narrative Power & The Fight Against the Mainstream
One of the most powerful roles of narrative is its ability to challenge the dominant stories that uphold existing systems. Narratives are strategic tools that shape culture and collective sense-making. Narratives are the stories we tell about who we are,...
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Moral Messaging When It’s Raining Cats and Dogs
Last fall, the presidential campaign took a nasty turn. Ohio Senator J.D. Vance told a false story about Haitian immigrants in Springfield that was just as repulsive in content as it was in contempt. Within hours, presidential candidate Donald Trump...
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Winning the Reality War against Fascism and Ecological Collapse: Lessons from the Right’s Narrative Strategy
From the Overton Window to the Overton Sliding Door If the 20th century taught the world about the dangers of fascism, the 21st century shows that those lessons can all too easily be distorted and erased. Imagine historians of the...
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On the Importance of Building Narrative Infrastructure
Crises are paradoxical. They are urgent and immediate and demand every tool at our disposal to survive, but a crisis does not happen in a single moment. Crises like the genocide of the Palestinian people, ICE kidnappings, the racial justice...
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Shades of Discourse: Bridging Culture, Scholarship, and Organizing
Back in the 2000s and early 2010s, social media companies sold us a vision: a hyperconnected, virtual world where strangers could cross paths and follow each other, where acquaintances could become “friends,” and distant family could be clued into the...
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Power, Not Panic: Why Organizers Must Engage with AI to Build the Future We Deserve
AI-generated political ads. Deepfake disinformation. Predictive voter databases that track and target us without our consent. These are not futuristic threats. They are currently unfolding, reshaping our political terrain in real time. And the billionaires, autocrats, and tech oligarchs using...
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Hasbara v Irreplaceable
Almost two years of bearing witness to Palestinians’ genocide raises the moral question that lies at the heart of any solidarity movement: What is our collective responsibility to each other? The backdrop of a genocide As we speak, Israel continues...
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Rebuilding Our Narrative Home: A Movement’s Journey Through the Immigration Divide
This past June, amidst relentless ICE raids and an illegal military deployment, more than 50 immigrant justice organizations came together in downtown Los Angeles to talk about the future of immigration in this country and the stories we tell about...
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The Summer Everybody Wanted to be Puerto Rican: Cultural Strategy for Decolonial Narrative Power
It’s 2025 and Puerto Rico is still a colony of the United States. Y ni siquiera disimulan. A federally appointed fiscal control board slashes public services like health, pensions, and education in the name of austerity to pay back U.S....
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What We’ve Learned from State Organizers Building Narrative Power
In 2018, Steve Bannon said: “All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day, we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will...
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Death of the Messenger
More than 265 known career journalists, who represent Al-Jazeera, local networks, or independent outlets, have been assassinated since October 7, 2023. Suppose you expand the term “journalist” beyond the career title to include citizen journalists. In that case, the term...
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Looking Forward: Narrative Power Today for a Radical Tomorrow
Right now, we have an opportunity to define a compelling story that moves beyond resistance, sets the terms for what comes next, and distinguishes us from the Democratic Party and the broader political establishment. We have an opportunity to invoke...
Right to a Roof: On Climate, Crises, and Care
The Climate Movement Must Be A Movement Against Fascism
The era of “holding our lane” is over: we must now choose between building a single-issue movement or preserving the democracy necessary for any movement to survive. In America and around the world, fascism is on the rise. From...
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As Climate Collapse Inches Closer, The Tenant Union Is The Best Chance We’ve Got
The hallways of apartment buildings have become a new front in the climate fight, where tenant unions are battling for survival against the twin threats of negligent landlords and rising heat. Kansas City was hot and humid this summer,...
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What We’ve Cultivated Still Remains: Black Home, Black Memory, and Collective Resilience in a Burning World
The same systemic forces that steal Black communities’ cultural harvest are being met with an unbreakable resilience, as neighbors build solidarity networks, reclaim land, and seed a future where their culture can thrive. At the start of this year...
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Using Participatory-Action Research to Explore New Campaign Strategies in Red-Trifecta Florida
In the face of a hostile legislature and stalled policies, Miami tenants have stopped asking politicians for help and started building their own power—by turning corporate landlords’ financial records into weapons. The housing crisis in Florida has only worsened...
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Lessons From Helene: An Organized Community is a Safe Community
When floodwaters consumed the only roads into their Appalachian town, the community’s survival hinged on the deep trust and organizing muscle built by a local group over years, proving that true disaster resilience is forged long before the storm ever...
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Tenant Power and Protections on the Frontlines of Climate Crisis
In California, disaster-triggered renter protections are a crucial victory that contributes to a just recovery for working-class people facing the climate crisis. Just north of the San Francisco Bay, dense urban centers give way to rolling oak woodland hills and...
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Putting Housing on the High Road
This is a republish of part of a series of CCI substack posts and a policy brief exploring why the United States needs a Green Industrial Policy for Housing. The United States is in the midst of a decades-long housing crisis that has...
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Frontline Communities Lead the Way on Housing and Climate Justice Panel
In this panel, housing organizers have identified our most vital source of resilience as climate disasters intensify: the trust between neighbors, which they are forging into a powerful force for collective survival and justice. Tony Samara: Welcome everyone. I’m...
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Razing Liberty Square with Valencia Gunder
This interview was conducted in Fall 2025 with Valencia Gunder of The Smile Trust, about Razing Liberty Square, a documentary about the Black community of Liberty City and how they’re resisting climate gentrification. Misk Noor: Thank you for sending...
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Solidarity is the Solution
The same public subsidies that fund Memphis’s slumlords now bankroll Elon Musk’s pollution, revealing a single, profitable system that organizers are challenging by uniting the struggles for housing and environmental justice. In late 2022, residents at a HUD-subsidized complex...
Latest Stories
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For the Record: How Social Media Users are Highlighting Media Bias and Reframing the Narrative
Language Is Never Neutral The best way to communicate something is usually the simplest way to communicate something. Yet, journalists and editors will offer wordy or deficient headlines knowing that readers are likely to interpret a headline in ways that...
-
Building Community Power to Take Back Our Data
Unprecedented abuses of personal data by tech companies and federal agencies to support law enforcement have raised new concerns among the general public about what happens when our personal and community data falls into the wrong hands. Companies like Palantir,...
-
Inspiring Radical Optimism Through Solidarity Economy Storytelling: Narrative Power & The Fight Against the Mainstream
One of the most powerful roles of narrative is its ability to challenge the dominant stories that uphold existing systems. Narratives are strategic tools that shape culture and collective sense-making. Narratives are the stories we tell about who we are,...
-
Moral Messaging When It’s Raining Cats and Dogs
Last fall, the presidential campaign took a nasty turn. Ohio Senator J.D. Vance told a false story about Haitian immigrants in Springfield that was just as repulsive in content as it was in contempt. Within hours, presidential candidate Donald Trump...
-
Winning the Reality War against Fascism and Ecological Collapse: Lessons from the Right’s Narrative Strategy
From the Overton Window to the Overton Sliding Door If the 20th century taught the world about the dangers of fascism, the 21st century shows that those lessons can all too easily be distorted and erased. Imagine historians of the...
-
On the Importance of Building Narrative Infrastructure
Crises are paradoxical. They are urgent and immediate and demand every tool at our disposal to survive, but a crisis does not happen in a single moment. Crises like the genocide of the Palestinian people, ICE kidnappings, the racial justice...
-
Shades of Discourse: Bridging Culture, Scholarship, and Organizing
Back in the 2000s and early 2010s, social media companies sold us a vision: a hyperconnected, virtual world where strangers could cross paths and follow each other, where acquaintances could become “friends,” and distant family could be clued into the...
-
Power, Not Panic: Why Organizers Must Engage with AI to Build the Future We Deserve
AI-generated political ads. Deepfake disinformation. Predictive voter databases that track and target us without our consent. These are not futuristic threats. They are currently unfolding, reshaping our political terrain in real time. And the billionaires, autocrats, and tech oligarchs using...
-
Hasbara v Irreplaceable
Almost two years of bearing witness to Palestinians’ genocide raises the moral question that lies at the heart of any solidarity movement: What is our collective responsibility to each other? The backdrop of a genocide As we speak, Israel continues...
-
Rebuilding Our Narrative Home: A Movement’s Journey Through the Immigration Divide
This past June, amidst relentless ICE raids and an illegal military deployment, more than 50 immigrant justice organizations came together in downtown Los Angeles to talk about the future of immigration in this country and the stories we tell about...
-
The Summer Everybody Wanted to be Puerto Rican: Cultural Strategy for Decolonial Narrative Power
It’s 2025 and Puerto Rico is still a colony of the United States. Y ni siquiera disimulan. A federally appointed fiscal control board slashes public services like health, pensions, and education in the name of austerity to pay back U.S....
-
What We’ve Learned from State Organizers Building Narrative Power
In 2018, Steve Bannon said: “All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day, we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will...
-
Death of the Messenger
More than 265 known career journalists, who represent Al-Jazeera, local networks, or independent outlets, have been assassinated since October 7, 2023. Suppose you expand the term “journalist” beyond the career title to include citizen journalists. In that case, the term...
-
Invitation to 21st-century Orators, Griots, Futurists
Ase! In West African traditions, ase means “and so it is.” It is “the power to make change happen,” the essential energy that animates everything. Mabuhay! In Tagalog, mabuhay means “welcome.” It is also an observation of conditions, as in,...
-
Looking Forward: Narrative Power Today for a Radical Tomorrow
Right now, we have an opportunity to define a compelling story that moves beyond resistance, sets the terms for what comes next, and distinguishes us from the Democratic Party and the broader political establishment. We have an opportunity to invoke...
-
Philanthropy’s Mandate to Divest from Genocide in Palestine and Beyond
Philanthropy’s urgent mandate to divest from genocide, occupation, and systemic oppression is powerfully underscored by the launch of the Funding Freedom toolkit, which calls for funders to fulfill their moral responsibilities. Philanthropy wields enormous power—rooted in vast accumulations of wealth...
