Find the overview of the program here.

Find the application here.

Who was Anne Braden?

Anne Braden was a white anti-racist organizer and leader in racial justice movements in the U.S. South, including the Civil Rights Movement. She brought a working-class based socialist analysis and community-organizing model to the struggle against white supremacy and all forms of inequality. She believed in the need to root out racism in the hearts and minds of white people, and worked from the perspective that white people have a collective interest in dismantling white supremacy. Anne Braden’s legacy has deeply inspired Catalyst Project and many others. In naming our program after her, we honor her memory and the movements of which she was a part. We’ve heard from many anti-racist organizers in the South about being personally mentored by Anne and her commitment to developing more and more leaders, and we hope the Program will contribute towards those goals she dedicated her life to.

Who is the Anne Braden program for? 

The Anne Braden Anti-Racist Training program is designed for white social justice activists who are looking for ways to bring a deeper racial justice analysis and practice to their current political work. The program is grounded in the politics of collective liberation from which Catalyst Project operates – a framework that focuses on challenging white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, and all forms of systemic oppression while building toward new liberatory and equitable relationships, structures, and institutions. This is not a series of “101” style workshops, but rather an intensive political education and leadership development experience. We are looking for participants who have at least a few years of experience working for social justice; who have been part of organizations and/or plan on joining organizations working for systemic social change; and who strongly desire to step up their work for justice and grow personally. The program is designed for participants who bring what they learn in the program to long-term organizing and movement building for liberation.

What are the goals of Anne Braden program? Our goals for this political education program are to:

• Support participants in developing radical (radical meaning “going to the root”) political analysis, organizing skills, and the ability to think strategically.
• Explore lessons and insights from different political traditions and study histories of resistance to racism and systemic oppression.
• Support participants’ confidence, capacity, and vision to develop holistic politics that take wing as strategic action to build movements for justice.
• Support the development of more accountable, healthy and strategic leaders, who are effective in working class, multiracial and primarily white social justice organizations, and who have skills to move anti-racist politics and practice in different organizations, communities and movements.
• Build relationships between participants so they can support and encourage one another’s work for justice beyond the Braden Program.
• Support economic and racial justice organizations in working class communities and communities of color through the volunteer placements component.
• Contribute to strengthening a dynamic, multiracial, working class based left in the Bay Area and nationally, led by people of color, working class people, women, queers, transgender and non-binary people and other marginalized communities.

What will the training program include?

Mentorship

Participants will be paired with an experienced white anti-racist activist or organizer who is part of Catalyst’s local network. Mentors support participants in their overall political development, and to deepen their learnings from their readings and the weekly trainings.

Organizing Skills

Participants will connect their vision and analysis with strategy and organization. They will develop a basic understanding of different kinds of organizations, strategies, and principles, including practices of accountability. In doing so, participants will increase their ability to be effective organizers for justice.

Grassroots Fundraising

Participants will develop their grassroots fundraising and organizing skills by fundraising for people of color-led social justice organizations. Participants will get training and support around creative ways to raise money and develop tools useful in sustaining social justice organizations. The grassroots fundraising component is designed as an organizing tool to help participants share their experience in the program with family, friends and community, towards bringing broader numbers of people into connection with the movement for racial and economic justice.

Analysis of Systems of Oppression and Privilege

Program participants engage in intensive education in understanding systems of oppression and privilege, with a focus on capitalism and imperialism and how race, class and gender operate within these systems. This component of the program will also explore how white privilege and white supremacy developed, and how they operate in U.S. institutions and within social justice movements today. We study these systems within a framework that recognizes the interdependence of our struggles and our liberation.

Histories of Resistance and Liberation

Participants will study the history of multiracial working class resistance movements, global justice movements in and outside of the U.S., and legacies of white anti-racist history.

Political Vision and strategy

Participants will explore visions and strategies from a range of liberation movements, and apply this to their own context. They will use tools to practice articulating their own visions of a just world, and begin to explore strategies towards those visions.

Guest Presenters and Speakers

As part of the curriculum, organizers and activists will facilitate and present, giving participants access to the lessons, politics, and experiences from multiracial left organizing.

Readings, Audio and Video

The reading list (including other media) for the 2022 program is here.

How much time do I need to set aside for the program each week? 

There will be 3 4-day weekends–sessions will be from 10 am – 6 pm each day:

• Weekend 1: May 10-13
• Weekend 2: June 21-24 
• Weekend 3: August 2-5

Between weekends, expect to commit an average of 5 hours per week. This will include: homework; readings; research; meetings with small groups, a mentor, and a Catalyst collective member; and a couple additional webinars. These are core components of the program and are required. The work starts when participants are accepted into the program in early March. 

What if I don’t know my schedule yet?

Don’t let that stop you from applying. Please hold the dates and times in your calendar and do your best to keep them free for the program. You will have an opportunity to confirm your participation later in the process. 

Why is the Anne Braden program designed for white people?

We believe that white supremacy is a major barrier to ending all systems of oppression, including capitalism, patriarchy, homophobia, and others. We believe that white people have a stake and a role in fighting for racial justice, and that not only our humanity but also our liberation depends on ending white supremacy. We want to see millions of white people stand up for racial justice, and support and join multiracial struggles led by communities of color. We see working with other white people as a strategic way to support building multiracial movements for justice. In order to do this we believe it is important to have curriculum designed for white people to explore the historical development of white supremacy and the process of internalizing white superiority. We believe there is specific curriculum that is useful for white activists to develop anti-racist consciousness and skills to develop proactive anti-racist organizing strategies. Anti-racist political education can and should happen in many ways— within multiracial spaces, people-of-color-specific spaces, and white-specific spaces, with an understanding that which form it takes should be context-specific and these different types of political education can support each other.

Building on the history of the 12 years of the Challenging White Supremacy (CWS) workshops (a 15 week anti-racist training program for white social justice activists led by veterans of the Civil Rights, anti-war, and anti-racist socialist movement), along with feedback from our advisors and allies within racial and economic justice organizations, we determined that an anti-racism program specifically designed for white activists is both needed and strategic. Many past participants of both CWS and the Anne Braden Program are playing important roles in both multiracial and predominately white social justice efforts through a wide range of settings, institutions, and groups. Many participants have led effective anti-racist efforts to build up people of color-led struggles. Many participants have taken on solidarity work and fundraising work with social justice organizations in communities of color. Many are taking responsibility to organize within majority white communities to raise the level of anti-racist awareness, commitment, and action. Many are raising and educating young people in their communities to know peoples’ history, develop democratic anti-racist skills, and create positive change. Additionally, in the Bay Area, there are multiple long standing political education and organizing training programs designed for people of color, such as the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), and Center for Third World Organizing. Catalyst Project sees our work supporting the development of white anti-racist organizers and leaders as part of building multi-racial movements for collective liberation.

After the first three rounds of the Anne Braden Program, Catalyst Project assessed the program and did a community feedback process with allies and other grassroots social justice organizations around the country. The overwhelming response was that this program is needed, wanted, and having positive impacts.

What do the training program fees go towards?

Catalyst Project is a small, primarily volunteer-based organization with a limited budget. We are supported by grassroots fundraising, and fees from some of the political education we do. In our attempt to keep the program accessible, we are trying to be creative about ways to cover expenses. The training program fee partially covers the expenses of planning, developing and leading the sessions, developing and printing materials, honorariums for speakers, paying for technology tools, childcare stipends, and much more. We do not want money to be a reason for you not to participate— please contact us if you have questions about sliding scale or payment programs.

What if I can’t afford program fees?

We are committed to developing poor and working class leadership in our movements. We offer a sliding scale that goes down to $0 to support the participation of poor and working class participants. We also offer stipends for childcare and lost wage support. (There is a place in the application to let us know if you need that to support your participation. If your needs change over the course of the program, please let us know.) If you were raised middle class, managerial class, or owning class but are currently unable to afford program fees, please consider the networks you have access to as a resource. Many participants have fundraised from friends and family in order to participate in programs in the past. If you have further questions about program fees, please email us at rochelle@collectiveliberation.org.

What if I make a mistake on my application or accidentally submit before I’m finished?

No worries! You can edit your responses. Once you submit your application, a copy of it will be emailed to you. Within that email, find “Edit your response” and click the link to go back to your application, make the edits you need and resubmit.

How was the Anne Braden program developed?

Since the end of the Challenging White Supremacy (CWS) workshops (a 15-week anti-racism training institute based in San Francisco that the Catalyst Project grew out of in 2000), there has been an acute need and a consistent request for a training space such as this. We believe political education should be directly tied to on-the-ground organizing, and shaped by the social justice community of which we are a part, so we developed a community input process. This included meetings with Sharon Martinas, who ran the CWS workshops, Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez who has led many efforts to build multiracial movement strategy, and other movement elders, getting feedback and ideas from all of our advisers, having ongoing meetings with racial and economic justice organizations and organizers, and holding a community meeting to get feedback and ideas on how this program can most effectively support multiracial movement building and struggles for social justice.

We have led eleven Anne Braden programs with over 500 participants. Many of the participants said it was a transformative experience for them, and had a significant impact on their social justice work. We have received positive feedback from the volunteer placement sites that participants have made important contributions to their work. Additionally, we have received feedback from organizers of color and white anti-racists in the Bay Area and around the country that developing more white anti-racist leaders and organizers is making an important contribution to multiracial movement building.

Reflections from past participants:

The Braden Program gave us an understanding of how to bring our whole selves to our lives, organizing, families and communities – through exploring our roots; developing analysis around oppression, resistance and movement building; and strengthening our confidence and leadership skills as anti-racist organizers. The different components of the program are helping me meaningfully place myself in racial justice struggles for the long haul.

-Leah Carnine, Braden Participant ‘09 (Tempe, Arizona)

“The Braden program helped me better understand who I am as a leader and specifically as a white woman operating in a multiracial organization. I have a clearer purpose behind the work that I’m doing and a deeper connection to my own heritage that grounds me in the fight for collective liberation. The trainers of the Braden program are hands down the most knowledgeable, vulnerable, passionate facilitators and coaches I have ever had.” — Erin Scott, Executive Director, Ohio Women’s Alliance

“I entered the Anne Braden program a strong organizer and by the time I completed the program, I was also a revolutionary, a sharper strategist, and someone who is fully committed to doing my part to build the multi-racial class solidarity movement we need to win.The Braden program gave me tools to make an accurate political assessment that I now use along with the base-building organizing skills I’ve built over the years. I have embraced my leadership in this political moment as a working-class white woman from Appalachia who is organizing a movement so that my people have a path to join a movement for multiracial class solidarity instead of falling into the divide and conquer racist rhetoric of the Right. There are people, places, and experiences that change the course of our lives and the Anne Braden program was one of those transformational experiences for me. I’m so grateful others get that experience, too.” – Beth Howard, Organizing Director, Southern Crossroads 

The next Anne Braden Program will be held from May through August 2024. Applications will be open until February 15th, 2024. Apply here!