Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The right analysis alone, however, won’t end poverty. That will only happen through a movement or movements transforming the hurt and pain of millions into, as King once put it, a “new and unsettling force” carrying this nation to higher and more stable ground.
That is the place of a movement of movements, to move beyond single-issue politics, to pull together the various aspirations for a better society into an understandable, coherent whole, and to unify our forces to make our aspirations reality.
Building on the recommendations of other movement strategists, new research from the Social Change Lab offers key insights into the factors that lead to protest wins.
May we continue to embrace King’s powerful advice that we pursue multiple, connected lanes in order to achieve racial justice and multiracial democracy.
Labor activists take steps to preserve the documents and strategies they use today, so future organizers will have a practical guide.
Social movements are stronger when they sing. That’s a lesson that has been amply demonstrated throughout history, and it’s one that I have learned personally in working to develop trainings for activists over the past decade and a half.
Should we maintain independence and function as a critical force outside of mainstream politics, or should we attempt to take hold of the levers of institutional power in order to create change?
Those promoting co-governance describe it as a new relationship between social movements and the candidates they help win office — a partnership in which activists and elected officials work to maintain a long-term relationship, closely coordinate strategy and advance grassroots priorities.
I have taken to heart the insight that possibly, the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis; that we see this thing we call ‘the climate’ through a window whose frame is itself the product of our toxic culture.
Can civil disobedience ever be justified in a democracy? How does Extinction Rebellion relate to other social movements in history that have also practiced civil disobedience to advance social progress?
Ever since it launched its first audacious land occupations in the mid-1980s, in which groups of impoverished farmers took over unused estates in Southern Brazil and turned them into cooperative farms, the Landless Workers Movement has stood as one of the most innovative and inspiring social movements in the world.
Billy Wimsatt is founder and Executive Director of the Movement Voter Project, an organization that works to strengthen progressive power at all levels of government. He addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
