Here at Catalyst Project, we are welcoming the spring by getting ready for the final weekend of the 2018 Anne Braden Program.  It’s been an incredible journey so far, and we are so honored by the opportunity to build anti-racism with white social justice organizers from around the country.   

At each of our weekends, we host an Open Session where the community is invited to join the Braden Program participants for a panel of incredible organizers addressing a specific element of movements and movement building.  We invite you to the next panel, Visionary Politics, in Oakland on May 26th, and we are delighted to be able to share with you the videos from the first two.

For the first panel, three visionary community leaders spoke about the ongoing colonization of their homelands, and the politics and strategies of indigenous resistance. The speakers were Alicia Rodríguez, a former political prisoner who has been part of the Puerto Rican independence movement for the last 40 years, Corrina Gould, Ohlone leader currently leading the fight to save the West Berkeley Shellmound and return sacred land to native stewardship, and Lara Kiswani, Director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center.

“Wherever you come from in this country, whatever land you stand on, you’re on stolen land. This land was never given to what is now called the United States of America. This is a false government that is on this land. There are over 700 sovereign nations that live here that were here before that had names for these places that had their own language and own spirituality.”
Corrina Gould

“Black Liberation across Geographies” was our second Open Session panel. We heard from Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Co-Executive Director of Highlander Center, Pierre Labossiere, co-founder of Haiti Action Committee, and Kamau Walton, Communications Associate at the Transgender, Gender-variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP). They had a dynamic conversation about the many forms and strategies of the Black freedom struggle.

Transcript HERE

And if you’re in the Bay Area, please join us on May 26th from 2:30 to 4:30 at Oakstop, 1721 Broadway in downtown Oakland, for Visionary Politics: What is our vision of the world we are fighting for, and how are we going to get there?

We hope to see you soon,
Rahula Janowski
Catalyst Project