Articles
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Building Governing Power To Make the World We Need
Lessons from “Governing Power”: How organizations can move from protest to contesting power on a greater scale, and what shifts must be made to allow our movements to fight in all arenas of power, from electoral to economic.
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Drive Michigan Forward Young Organizers Say ‘Drivers Licenses Ensure Dignity’
Immigrant communities mobilized to return the Michigan legislature to Democratic control—but lawmakers stalled on restoring drivers’ licenses for undocumented residents. Two organizers call them to account.
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The New Press How Today’s Underdogs Can Win Big with Strategy
An excerpt from the book "Practical Radicals", a clear seven part guide to changing the world. Deepak and Stephanie are both professors at CUNY's School of Labor and Urban Studies, and Deepak was just announced as the next president of The JPB Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to empowering those living in poverty, sustaining our environment and enabling pioneering medical research.
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Lewis Hine via Wikimedia Commons A Social Justice State
Scholar and long-time organizer Janice Fine argues that the state must reject “neutrality” and embrace social movements as partners in promoting justice.
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The White House via Wikimedia Commons This Strike Worked
In a monumental labor victory echoing the 1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike, the UAW's triumphant strike against top automakers marks a defining moment in modern labor history.
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The White House via Wikimedia Commons Using the “Hidden Levers” of Government
Alex Hertel-Fernandez, who served in the Biden-Harris Administration at the U.S. Department of Labor and the White House Office of Management and Budget, takes stock of efforts by federal agencies to encourage more participation in using the “hidden levers of government,” including challenges and opportunities for organizers and government alike.
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Never Again Action The Ten Components of Good Strategy
Never Again Action’s Serena Adlerstein proposes a framework for understanding strategy that aims to give organizers what they need to build more resilient, and effective, organizations.
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Isabella Chavez via Asian Texans for Justice Building Power in the Midst of Crisis in Texas Asian American Communities and Beyond
This article is co-authored by UyenThi Tran Myhre, Coordinator of Movement Building Programs at the Building Movement Project, and Lily Trieu, Executive Director at Asian Texans for Justice.
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IfNotNowMovement.org What We Talk About When We Talk About Gaza
"While some fringe parts of the activist left confusingly mapped on the “Black Lives Matter” vs “All Lives Matter” discourse onto Israelis and Palestinians, where it became inappropriate or uncool to mourn or even acknowledge “Israeli lives,” other leaders showed a different path forward: a politics of solidarity where every human being is precious and has value."
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istock: PeopleImages All Campaigning is Social
In a post-COVID world, one where loneliness is the next epidemic, the organized left must do our part to organize socially.
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Beth Huang What DSA Can Learn from Organizational Death In the Student Movement
A decades' long right-wing assault on membership organizations led to the collapse of the US Student Association in 2017. What can organizers take away from the last decade of organizational death in the student movement?
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Get Free The Next Ten Years: Retrenchment or Reconstruction?
“To fight back in our current moment we need a flurry of experimentation by organizations looking to absorb and develop the wave of youth activists from 2020, and engage them with a coherent and integrated strategy aimed at defeating white supremacy and leveraging power over the Democratic Party.”
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JR How Organizers and Artists are Creating a Better World
Ken Grossinger’s new book, Art Works: How Organizers and Artists are Creating a Better World Together, finds inspiration at the intersection of art and organizing, with examples ranging from George Floyd Square to Central America. Andrew Friedman, Senior Director of Strategy at The Action Lab and Director of the Initiative for Community Power at NYU, talked with him about the book.
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Anthony Crider via Wikimedia Commons How Ideology Can Help—or Hurt—Movements Trying to Build Power
Political educator Harmony Goldberg discusses whether the ideological traditions of the left are helpful for practical organizing.
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Power 50 Power 50’s Work to Transform Leadership Development
Power 50 offers leadership development that addresses systemic oppression and internalized racism and sexism. The program nurtures deep relationships and interdependence, and emphasizes healing and somatics practices to support women of color leaders in their journey toward collective liberation.
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Credit: DragonImages Getting Personal to Build Power and a Better Tomorrow
Changing the Conversation Together, was founded to use deep canvassing in election campaigns. “Deep canvassers” are trained to initiate respectful conversations, exchange stories, and build relationships with each potential voter.
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AK Press 2023 Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies
The following is an excerpt from Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies by Andrea J. Ritchie (AK Press 2023).
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Kharkiv, 2022. Photo: Lev Turkov Student Organizing at War: Ukraine
An overview of Priama Diia, a leftwing student union in Ukraine, and how they are organizing students in the face of the war with Russia and the increasingly repressive and austere policies of the Ukrainian government
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Wikimedia Commons State of Abolition Introduction
The Forge's Abolitionist Issue aims to capture the "State of Abolition" and provide an overview of not only what modern abolitionists are doing, but the logic and experience that is driving the work. These are a series of reflections from the Abolitionist Gathering which occurred in 2022, two years after the 2020 Uprisings. Much of this work was either produced by participants during the conference or through reflection on their organizing afterward.
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Rowland Scherman via Wikimedia Commons What Time Is It on the Clock of Abolitionist Organizing?
The following is a lightly edited transcript of opening remarks by Andrea J. Ritchie for the Abolitionist Gathering at the 2022 Allied Media Conference. It is an assessment of the current conditions in which the abolitionist movement exists and some of the difficult questions concerning power and strategy that must be faced in the coming years.