Inside the Organizers Corner | The Ups and Downs of New Voices in the Movement

Join us Inside the Organizers’ Corner, a new video series in which we bring together organizers from different parts of the movement to talk about organizing strategy and practice. 

In this segment, Ben Chin (Maine People’s Alliance) talks with Nelini Stamp (Working Families Party), James Haslam (Rights & Democracy), Arleen Vargas (OneAmerica), and Kendall Mackey (350) about the influx of white, upwardly-mobile activists during the Trump years. They discuss how they’re balancing the work of including new voices and energy in the movement while challenging white activists to examine their privilege, investing in the leadership of Black and brown organizers, and centering the needs of communities of color.  

Join the conversation. Has your organization seen a rise in participation by white organizers and activists? What effect has it had on your organizing work? Send a video or written response to lzafir@forgeorganizing.org. 

Watch the rest of Inside the Organizers’ Corner. Click here for a discussion of how to keep bottom-up democracy strong as the movement grows and click here for a conversation about power — what it means, how we built it, and how we use it to win.

About Ben Chin

Ben Chin is the Deputy Director of Maine People’s Alliance, where he has worked on community organizing campaigns for the last fifteen years. He helped build the teams that have won wage increases for one out of three Maine workers, the first Medicaid expansion through ballot, and the nation’s first...