Tag: Movement Building

In the aftermath of elections, whether they bring victory, disappointment, or controversy, movements promoting democracy and human rights often face critical challenges in sustaining momentum and navigating political realities. This webinar brings together trainers and seasoned practitioners from the United States and Zimbabwe to share insights, strategies, and lessons learned from managing movements during the crucial post-election period. With a focus on resilience, care, innovation, and solidarity, this discussion will explore how movements can adapt to shifting landscapes, attract new people, and build resilience for the long-term movement work needed to push for systemic change. Our panelists will address pivotal questions central to post-election movement management. How can movements maintain momentum and sustain public engagement once the immediate focus of the election fades? What measures can be taken to protect activists from burnout in politically volatile environments, while building resilience? How can movements effectively transform short-term campaigns into enduring efforts, and adapt to electoral outcomes? Drawing on real-world experiences, speakers will provide actionable insights into these critical areas, helping attendees navigate the complexities of post-election advocacy. Whether you are an organizer, bridgebuilder, civil society leader, or simply interested in the resilience of democratic movements, this webinar offers an invaluable opportunity to gain actionable insights. Join us to learn from experienced leaders, engage in a dynamic discussion, and deepen your understanding of how to build enduring movements that thrive beyond election cycles. Panelists include:

• Evan Mawarire – Zimbabwean activist and Senior Fellow at Renew Democracy Initiative
• Andre Henry – US-American Singer-Songwriter, Author, and Community Organizer
• Isabella Cuomo - Trainer and Head Researcher at the Center for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies

*By Adam Fefer
Time Period: 1956-1968
Location: Montgomery & Birmingham, AL; Prince Edward County, VA; Washington, DC; Cape May, NJ; New Delhi, India
Main Actors: American Friends Service Committee, Bayard Rustin.
Tactics
- Publishing Dissenting Literature
- Newspapers and Journals
- Marches

This caselet is about Quakers’ contributions to the civil rights movement, which advanced US multi-racial democracy. The civil rights movement’s causes are well known: the southern states were authoritarian enclaves where African Americans were disenfranchised and faced legalized discrimination. Meanwhile, northern states had informal segregation in housing, education, and employment. Despite their small size --just over 75,000 US members today-- Quakers served as an important pillar in undoing the US’ authoritarian, exclusive status quo.

Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, are a Christian denomination noted for their emphasis on direct inward revelations, styles of worship that enable such revelations (e.g., “quaking” silently in place), and forms of social “witness” or activism, especially pacifism and conscientious objection. Much Quaker activism is formulated at “Yearly Meetings,” which are decentralized decision-making organizations.

Quakers’ social witness has earned them international acclaim: Quakers Emily Greene Balch and Philip Noel-Baker won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 and 1959 for their contributions to peace. In 1947, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and British Friends Service Council - Quaker-led institutions that focus on advancing peace and social justice - won the prize, accepting it on behalf of Quakers worldwide. In practice, Quakers have not always been maximally progressive on issues of race and democracy such as abolitionism and desegregation. However, Quaker theology has often emphasized ideals of equality, community, and consensual decision-making; these ideals proved useful for pro-democracy activists during the civil rights movement.

Many Quaker activities during the civil rights movement centered around relations between the AFSC, various Quaker meetings and conferences, and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Bayard Rustin, the latter a noted Quaker. In 1956, a Quaker Yearly Meeting sent a delegation to Montgomery, AL, which organized with MLK ahead of the Montgomery bus boycott, the first major campaign of the civil rights movement. The Montgomery boycott prompted the Supreme Court in 1957 to rule that segregation was unconstitutional.

In 1957, MLK, Rustin, and over 50 others founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Rustin saw the SCLC’s organizing strategies --based on building large, disparate coalitions of labor, civil rights, and political organizers-- as informed by Quaker notions of pragmatism and equality. SCLC and Rustin played key roles in organizing the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, among other landmark protests.

In 1959, the AFSC arranged for MLK’s travel to New Delhi, India, where he became more familiar with Gandhian methods of nonviolence. What MLK gained in terms of his strategic vision proved important to the civil rights movement: as Rustin said, “[we] observe the eternal truth proclaimed by Buddha, Jesus…[Quaker founder] George Fox and Gandhi: the use of violence will destroy moral integrity -- the very fundamental of community on which peace rests” (Figueroa 2023, 172).

In 1963, AFSC nominated MLK for the Nobel Peace Prize, which he won. Later that year, they distributed over 50,000 copies of his influential Letter from Birmingham City Jail. In 1968, AFSC participated in the Poor People’s Campaign, working with King and others to draft its platform. Against the backdrop of MLK’s assassination and the campaign’s focus on economic justice, it was largely unsuccessful in extracting concessions from the US government. AFSC also released a statement later that year, where it denounced “a great many Americans, including elected officials…flouting the established law of the land, and…[taking] little action to enforce the law and bring the offenders to account” (AFSC 1968, 2). In other words, AFSC saw formal integrationist measures as inadequate in the face of non-compliance by US government officials.

The US civil rights movement succeeded in ending legal segregation and advancing multiracial democracy in the United States, particularly through the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. Quaker social witness played an important role in achieving these victories. However, the struggle for multiracial democracy is still incomplete. Democracy activists today would do well to remember how Quaker activists like Bayard Rustin sought to build large, inclusive coalitions, as well as how Quaker organizations like AFSC found inventive ways to broaden the civil rights movement’s horizons, for instance through sending Martin Luther King to India to learn methods of satyagraha. Restoring the quality of US democracy today will require similarly inventive solutions that cut across different political, social, and economic interests.

Where to Learn More
- American Friends Service Committee. (1968). “The Theory and Practice of Civil Disobedience.”
- American Friends Service Committee. (2024). “From India to Birmingham: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s connections with AFSC.”
- Friends Journal. (1958). “Friends General Conference June 23 to 30, Cape May, New Jersey.” Volume 4, Number 28.
- Figueroa, C. (2023). “The Political Activist Life of Pragmatic Quaker Bayard T. Rustin.” In C.W. Daniels & R. Grant (Eds.), The Quaker World, pp. 307-319. Routledge.

You can access all the caselets from the Pillars of Support Project here.

*By Lucianne Nelson
Time Period: Civil Rights Era, 1955-1970s
Location: United States
Main Actors: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); affiliate churches; Civil Rights organizers
Tactics
- Protest–teach-ins to educate and encourage participation
- Mass action–sharing information and raising awareness
- Boycotts–refusal to purchase certain goods or utilize services

Following the success of the Montgomery bus boycotts, civil rights leader Bayard Rustin identified a need for a central organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action across the South. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., consulting with Rustin, invited other Black leaders and ministers to establish a coalition to leverage Black churches’ influential networks, independence, and influence as a force against segregation. Together, they established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. The SCLC framed the (mis)treatment of “Negroes [as] a basic spiritual problem,” and the organization called on churches to “delve deeper into the struggle [for desegregation] and to do so with greater reliance on nonviolence and with greater unity, coordination, sharing and Christian understanding.” Unlike other umbrella groups that recruited individual members, the SCLC leveraged the collective impact of faith communities to fight segregation and advocate for voting rights. The SCLC’s work was critical to the Civil Rights movement.

The SCLC began its first major campaign, the Crusade for Citizenship, in late 1957. The crusade was developed in August 1957 in response to pending civil rights legislation in Congress. The main objective was to register thousands of Black voters - historically targeted with violence and disenfranchised - in time for the 1958 and 1960 elections. The Crusade raised awareness among Black Americans that “their chances for improvement rest on their ability to vote.” Funded by donations from local churches and other private donors, the SCLC established voter education clinics throughout the South. While the SCLC did not achieve its ambition of doubling the number of Black voters in the 1958 and 1960 elections, the Crusade did accomplish the SCLC’s overarching goal of consolidating churches and regional organizations into a movement.

SCLC campaigns that focused on the desegregation of individual cities were more successful. The SCLC joined local movements in Albany, GA, Birmingham, AL, and St. Augustine, FL to coordinate mass protests and nonviolent civil disobedience. In 1963, the SCLC’s Alabama affiliate wrote that the Birmingham campaign was “a moral witness to give our community a chance to survive.” SCLC members educated Black citizens about the philosophy and strategies of nonviolence and nonviolent action and appealed for volunteers. The SCLC relied on tactics such as mass meetings, direct actions, lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall, and boycotts of local merchants. The desegregation campaigns expanded to include additional tactics like kneel-ins at churches, sit-ins at libraries, and marches to register voters. Because of these campaigns, the organization quickly moved to the forefront of the civil rights movement.

The SCLC reflected Dr. King’s belief that the Christian faith entailed a responsibility to reform unjust laws and policies. However, the SCLC’s position that churches had a spiritual imperative to be politically engaged—especially in pursuit of racial equality—was controversial. Even some Black religious leaders opposed SCLC’s overt call to activism because they considered segregation a “social” issue that fell outside the scope of the church’s mission. The SCLC largely failed to attract moderate white churches for similar reasons. While some Christian progressives challenged white supremacy, this support was often clustered at white seminaries, in denominational headquarters, and on the foreign mission field. Billy Graham, a highly visible white Christian evangelist, supported some measures of desegregation but kept his support for the SCLC private. Oral histories and contemporary documentation indicate that, even when white pastors did attempt to affiliate with the SCLC, their congregations rejected and undermined those efforts. As a result, very few white churches officially joined the SCLC. 

Though the SCLC did not convince many white churches to join its coalition, it was nevertheless successful in recruiting white Christians (and Jews) on an individual level. Reverend Hosea Williams, who had been joined by white college students for various short-term civil rights projects facilitated by local SCLC affiliates, developed an idea to connect teams of young, white volunteers with Black churches. This grew into the SCLC’s Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) Project, a voter registration and civil rights initiative. The SCOPE project began in 1965 and deployed 500 white college volunteers (from nearly 100 universities) across six Southern states to areas where local Black leaders had requested aid from the SCLC. The Black church provided a network of homes for SCOPE volunteers to stay at while they registered voters and provided civic literacy classes. 

These white college students provided critical support that helped the SCLC and Black churches accomplish grassroots change. SCOPE volunteers reported violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Based on this information, the Department of Justice conducted targeted investigations and sent additional support to counties that had denied Black peoples’ rights to vote. SCOPE alumni include activist Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis, and evangelical pastors. By inviting young, white people to act on their faith directly, the SCLC found a creative alternative to white churches’ resistance. In this way, the SCLC maximized the collective impact and influence of religion. The SCOPE Project offers an interesting model for re-routing individual “defectors” or dissidents toward changemaking initiatives and for supporting them in taking actions of courage beyond their religious communities. 

A vibrant pro-democracy movement can engage and deploy individuals to protest, boycott, and participate in mass action but these tactics are most powerful when there is well-resourced scaffolding backing up public action. The SCLC recognized that churches can provide crucial infrastructure and networks of support for coalition building. The work of preserving and revitalizing American democracy relies on both the responsiveness of individual activists and advocates and a more sustained response by formal organizations. This case demonstrates how faith communities can strengthen and reinforce pro-democracy movements. 

Where to Learn More
- SCLC History
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Carolyn Dupont, Mississippi Praying (2015)

You can access all the caselets from the Pillars of Support Project here.

*By Lucianne Nelson
Time Period: Civil Rights Era, 1955-1970s
Location: United States
Main Actors: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); Labor unions
Tactics
- Mass action
- Boycotts
- Protests/Marches
- Protective Presence/Witnessing 

Following the success of the Montgomery bus boycotts, civil rights leader Bayard Rustin identified the need for a central organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action across the South. Martin Luther King, Jr., consulting with Rustin, invited other Black leaders and ministers to establish a coalition that would mobilize the community and strengthen the influence of churches against segregation. Together, they established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. 

Unlike other umbrella groups that recruited individual members, the SCLC leveraged faith communities and other local organizations to mobilize individuals into a collective movement equipped to fight segregation, advocate for voting rights, and promote nonviolent action as a strategy. And, given its coalition-based approach, the SCLC developed a strong alliance with labor unions. Several labor unions—including the Teamsters, the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), and the United Auto Workers (UAW)— supported SCLC campaigns by organizing union members to participate in direct-action protests, marches, and other acts of civil disobedience. Together, the SCLC and labor unions coordinated mutual solidarity under the banner of “jobs and freedom.”

In 1962, the SCLC launched Operation Breadbasket to create economic opportunities in Black communities. Operation Breadbasket was a selective patronage program that leveraged the persuasive power and organizing strength of Black churches. Groups of ministers surveyed the hiring practices of local businesses, then requested that companies with few (or no) Black employees “negotiate a more equitable employment practice” and hire qualified candidates within a set time frame. At the same time, these ministers urged their congregations to (re)consider the morality of shopping at stores or buying from businesses that took money from the Black community but underemployed African Americans (leading to several boycotts and “Don’t Buy” picketing initiatives). When the SCLC implemented Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, members of the Teamsters and the UPWA unions helped with on-the-ground movement building.

Ralph Helstein, who led UPWA for 20 years, closely advised Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC. Helstein was a “pioneer” of the Civil Rights movement, and the meatpackers union focused on expanding equal employment rights for minorities through its Anti-Discrimination Department. Under Helstein’s leadership, the UPWA supported the Montgomery bus boycott by providing training to organizers and by donating money to support the protest. Members of the UPWA offered additional support to the SCLC by participating in civil rights campaigns throughout the country during the 1950s and 1960s. The union also launched a Fund for Democracy in the South, which raised over $11,000 in local contributions for the SCLC. Additionally, the UPWA supported students who were involved in the Civil Rights movement through scholarships and Helstein contributed his experience as a labor organizer to help the SCLC train student volunteers. 

In addition to UPWA, the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) also shared the SCLC’s vision for “jobs and freedom.” These labor unions joined the 1963 March on Washington in support of robust civil rights legislation. Union members were among the 200,000 who marched to protest high levels of Black unemployment, work that offered most African Americans only minimal wages and poor job mobility, systematic disenfranchisement of many African Americans, and the persistence of racial segregation in the South. Labor groups were instrumental allies of the SCLC and the Civil Rights movement because unions underscored the social, political, and economic impact of racial equality.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, labor unions offered institutional support for the Civil Rights Movement and were strong allies of Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. One key takeaway is that diverse groups strengthen movements. Even though labor unions were founded to protect worker’s rights, the unions which supported the Civil Rights movement recognized the value of advocating for (and with) other marginalized groups.

Another essential lesson this case offers is the power of collaboration. The SCLC deployed its network to protest and take other meaningful action, and labor unions offered a systematic, organized framework of support that ensured the SCLC could maintain its pro-democracy efforts. This cross-issue, collective action produced a more robust movement. By engaging in civil rights action, unions fulfilled a critical role in building American multi-racial democracy. 

Where to Learn More
- The National SCLC | SCLC History
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

You can access all the caselets from the Pillars of Support Project here.

*By Claire Trilling
Time Period: November 2001 - April 2002
Location: Venezuela, Caracas
Main Actors: Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Production/Federación de Cámaras y Asociaciones de Comercio y Producción de Venezuela (Fedecámaras)
Tactics
- Economic shutdowns 
- General strikes 
- Cacerolazo 
- Marches 

Hugo Chávez was elected president of Venezuela in December 1998 after running a populist campaign that appealed to Venezuelans’ frustration with economic inequality and political stagnation. In 1999, voters approved a new constitution via popular referendum and then re-elected Chávez as president the following year. From 1999-2000, Venezuela experienced a sharp drop in its level of democracy, as Chávez systematically undermined the country’s system of checks and balances. He dismantled judiciary independence and legislative power, while politicizing the military and police and increasingly clashing with organized labor, business groups, the Catholic Church, and the media. Chávez came into office with a history of anti-democratic behavior, having led and been imprisoned for a failed coup attempt in 1992. Between his steps to consolidate power and his growing ties to Cuba, many citizens began to fear that he was modeling his government after a Fidel Castro-style Communist dictatorship. 

An opposition movement, composed of business, labor, and church groups together with a mix of left- and right-wing political parties, began to emerge in the summer of 2001. Later that year, on November 13, Chávez enacted 49 new laws without approval from Venezuela’s legislature, the National Assembly. Many viewed the laws’ overhaul of the oil industry and land expropriation processes, among other changes, as a move by Chávez to consolidate power. Entrepreneurs and business groups immediately denounced such drastic changes being undertaken without consultation with or input from affected interest groups. They called on the government to suspend ten laws that faced the strongest opposition, but Chávez refused to either suspend the laws or meet with the opposition. 

In response to Chávez’s intransigence, the business community activated the fledgling opposition movement. On December 10, the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Production (Fedecámaras), the country’s main business union, called for a day-long national strike in collaboration with the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), the country’s largest labor coalition. They demanded that Chávez renegotiate the fast-tracked laws via a dialogue with the business community and other affected interest groups.

The 6am-6pm “paro”, or stoppage, drew widespread support from across the private sector. Millions of people participated across a range of industries, from shopping centers and small businesses to factories and newspapers to banks and the stock exchange. Private schools closed, professional baseball refused to play, and even some hospitals offered emergency services only. In a show of support, housewives organized a cacerolazo, a form of protest in which people make noise by banging pots and pans. The strike paralyzed the country, shutting down 90% of its economy for the day.

The action had a mixed outcome. Chávez refused to reform the laws or hold a dialogue with the business community, although he fired a key ally accused of corruption in a reconciliatory move. The main success of the Dec. 10th strike came from the momentum and strength it built for the opposition movement by exposing the widespread opposition to Chávez’s policies. The Fedecámaras and CTV organized another successful strike in early January 2002 that once again shut down the country’s economy. Between the two, they organized regular marches that drew hundreds of thousands of participants. By the end of the second strike, Chávez’s approval ratings had dropped to 30%. 

In late March, Chávez attempted to offset the movement’s growing power by taking steps to increase his control over the state-owned oil company responsible for much of the country’s export revenue. The Fedecámaras and CTV responded by organizing another general strike for April 9th, this time targeting the oil industry. The action involved a near-total shutdown of the state-owned oil company and was extended first for another day. After Chávez refused to respond, the Fedecámaras and CTV voted to extend the strike indefinitely until a coordinating committee focused on reinstituting democratic procedures was formed. On April 11, they organized a mass march against Chávez in Caracas. However, the march resulted in violent clashes between pro- and anti-government demonstrators outside the presidential palace. When Chávez ordered the military to repress the protesters, top officials refused and instead arrested Chávez, alongside other members of his administration.

The head of the Fedecámaras, Pedron Carmona, stepped in as interim president. However, he unilaterally abrogated the 1999 constitution and dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court, moves that were seen as highly undemocratic, even by some who opposed Chávez. Carmona was ultimately forced to resign on April 13 in the face of a mass counter-mobilization by Chávez’s supporters, with the result being Chávez’s re-installment and heightened levels of polarization in the country.

In disregarding democratic norms and processes, the coup attempt and following unilateral institutional changes backfired, costing the movement significant legitimacy, and accelerating the backsliding process. As such, this case not only offers insight on the powerful tactics available to the business sector; it also provides a warning about the dangers of using undemocratic tactics to address democratic backsliding. 

Where to Learn More
- Forero, Juan. “Daylong Venezuelan Strike Protests Economic Program.” New York Times, Dec. 11, 2001. 
- Global Nonviolent Action Database. “Venezuelans defend against coup attempt, 2002.” Swarthmore College, 2012.
- Nelson, Brian. 2009. The Silence and the Scorpion: The Coup against Chavez and the Making of Modern Venezuela. New York: Nation Books.

You can access all the caselets from the Pillars of Support Project here.

Chief Network Weaver, Julia Roig and Jarvis Williams, Director for Race & Democracy reflect on some of the natural tensions facing the work of organizers at the national and state levels within a "block, bridge, build" framework - the importance of applied history, attention to what voices and partnerships are privileged, and how specific asks for policies and institutional reforms are raised and prioritized. All this while also bringing in our "intermestic" lens of shared struggles with colleagues in other countries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjKVFT6kvWI

On March 3, 2024, Maria J. Stephan, co-lead of the Horizons Project, discussed her work to strengthen multi-racial democracy in the US and globally to the Forum at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church. Since 1943 the Forum has served as a platform for discussing significant issues especially those involving ethical values in the Contemporary World. The full interview is embedded below. You can find and edited version with links to resources mentioned in the interview that was broadcast on 90.1 KKFI FM on their website as well as an exerpt on the Effectiveness of Nonviolence on Soundcloud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XID9JhLOmg

*By Research Assistant Sivahn Sapirstein and Director for Race and Democracy Jarvis Williams.

As 2024 continues, all eyes are on the Presidential election. Many Americans are focused on the colossal task of ensuring our democracy can survive another crucial election without descending into violence. Yet, as we become increasingly focused on such a pivotal election, it is also important to remember that defending democracy neither starts nor ends at the ballot box. In fact, defending democracy is a far more expansive project. Louis Brandeis, former Supreme Court justice, once proclaimed that the most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen. Pro-democracy organizers agree with these words, and it is their constant practice to put these words into action.

It would be an understatement to say that practicing democracy is easy. American history is littered with testimonies reminding us that it is not. Like all worthy enterprises, defending democracy is fraught with challenges and sheer disappointments. Pro-democracy organizers would do well to spend some time considering this history. In the face of our current democratic crisis, and its more visible authoritarian manifestations, pro-democracy organizers would benefit from recognizing the manifold ways Americans have compromised democracy in the past. This knowledge would help pro-democracy organizers identify the current threats to democracy more clearly and expand their imaginations about the possibilities of democratic engagement. In this moment, establishing racial justice as the foundation for all pro-democracy work, seeing what multiracial visions emerge from that foundation, and crafting strategies that embed that learning into every aspect of our pro-democracy playbook is the challenging work that must be done.

Protecting and expanding access to voting is one of the most prominent strategies for defending democracy being modeled across pro-democracy organizations. Many organizations develop grassroot networks and work tirelessly encouraging citizens to participate in the electoral process. The New Georgia Project and ProGeorgia are two such organizations which have been particularly effective in registering and mobilizing new constituencies. These organizations see voter registration and mobilization as a key step towards a multiracial democracy. Other organizations such as America Votes, Common Cause, and Movement Voter Project, alongside think tanks and policy groups such as States United Democracy Center, Brennan Center for Justice, or Protect Democracy, are all equally engaged (amongst a host of other activities) in defending democracy by exposing efforts to undermine elections and advancing new mechanisms to safeguard election systems.

While appreciating the importance of all these efforts, the authoritarian threat confronting the nation requires that pro-democracy organizations embrace a more expansive display of democratic agency. To be sure, many pro-democracy organizations are aware that democratic participation exists beyond the ballot box; some are also engaged with civic education programs or policy campaigns around gerrymandering, while others are bridging voter registration campaigns with issue specific organizing such as reproductive rights and raising the minimum wage. These are all critical elements of expanding the playbook for democratic defense beyond participation in electoral politics. Nonetheless, the nature of the authoritarian threat requires that we go even further.

A more expansive defense of American democracy begins with the understanding that the seeds of our current democratic crisis can be found in our past. Our current threat emerged by exploiting unresolved narratives of white supremacy and its unspoken acceptance of systemic racism. Ta-Nehisi Coates drew a link between these unresolved narratives and their capacity to produce electoral success. After Trump’s election in 2016, Ta-Nehisi made this observation, “it is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true—his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power.” Other writers do not see these unresolved narratives as causative but merely correlative. In their view, seeing Trump as merely a mirror is the most constructive way to understand our current democratic dilemma.

The overarching point is that one presidential election should not be viewed as the source of our current democratic crisis. It is critical for pro-democracy organizations to see this moment in relationship to our larger history of tolerating anti-democratic laws and norms based on race. This history shows the emergence and maintenance of “authoritarian enclaves” up until 1968. Following 1968, a revised framework for excluding groups from accessing democratic rights, opportunities, and resources emerged. The new framework mobilized social prejudices and sought to legitimize them in our institutional practices. Of critical significance was the decision in Terry v Ohio that made stop and frisk constitutional (something people today are demonstrating violates the 4th amendment). The ongoing refusal to practice democracy with integrity in America is what Weaver and Prowse have labeled as “racial authoritarianism.” Constantly engaging American history is critical for understanding the true nature of our current threats and resisting their cancerous effects in our current moment.

As it stands, the conversations and organizing around democracy and racial justice remain largely distinct. One way to bridge these spaces is by advocating for the acknowledgement of racism as a critical “animating factor” within our current democratic crisis and integrating that awareness into existing pro-democracy spaces. Another way to bolster the pro-democracy efforts is by seeing what themes racial authoritarianism and racial justice can illuminate within the American democracy conversation. Through this approach, several new categories emerge under the banner of pro-democracy organizing work in America: confronting structures of policing and mass surveillance, reforming the justice system, and addressing economic inequality (specifically access to housing). For each category, there are passionate organizations advancing what could be considered a more expansive democratic defense strategy. Yet, these defense strategies remain mostly outside the traditional framework of pro-democracy work.

The absence of policing, mass surveillance, and criminal justice reform from most discourses on defending democracy is particularly glaring. While the relationship between policing and democracy in America may not seem apparent at first glance, it is worth noting that, when analyzing other countries, we typically assume a relationship between policing practices and structures of authoritarianism. Why not probe that relationship in the US? For example, in the spirit of defending American democracy, we should interrogate police militarization, the proliferation of SWAT teams and their disproportionately high use in Black neighborhoods, how racial profiling deepens a distinct experience of citizenship, and the worrying trends in police education which deepen the divide between police and the communities they are supposed to protect. Campaign Zero and Southern Center for Human Rights are two organizations working to develop clear steps for advancing community safety and strengthening accountability and fairness – key concepts in our fight against authoritarianism. Civilian review boards – though often stymied by politicians and police – can serve as a foundational concept for future initiatives demanding the democratization of police departments and their relationships to local communities.

The other component is mass surveillance, and specifically the increasing practice of data sharing between major companies and the police, which poses a threat to our freedom of movement. Project South is one organization working on addressing the way mass surveillance erodes democratic norms through their report on state surveillance of Muslim communities. Reform Georgia, Southern Center for Human Rights, and Justice Reform Partnership are just a few of the organizations working on criminal justice reform issues such as private probation, cash bail, decriminalizing poverty, and, more broadly, ending mass incarceration. Even though voting isn’t the whole story of democratic defense, it is useful to highlight that each of these issues is intimately related to the question of who can physically participate in our democratic system.

Addressing economic inequality must become more squarely situated within pro-democracy discourse. Linking economic inequality to rising authoritarianism is not itself a novel idea; one common narrative explaining the rising support for a more authoritarian type of leadership amongst Americans is the dramatic and persistent level of economic inequality. From another angle, research on democratic participation has found empirical evidence showing that socio-economic status is the clearest indicator for a person’s level of democratic engagement (the poorer the individual the less likely they are to participate in a variety of democratic activities). Adding to the conversation the stark reality of the racial wealth gap in America, itself a legacy of racial authoritarianism, enables us to see why economic justice must be a key component of our pro-democracy organizing. Partnership for Southern Equity incorporates housing and economic justice as central pillars of their racial justice work. Atlanta Civic Circle also incorporates both housing rights and democracy within its strategic playbook. While addressing economic inequality may seem beyond the scope of pro-democracy organizing given the urgency of the upcoming election, our defense of democracy must be both audacious and expansive.

Admittedly, defending democracy is challenging work. And when you include the impact of policing and mass surveillance, the criminal justice system, and economic inequality in the assessment of our democracy a more disconcerting picture appears. Nevertheless, defenders of democracy must confront this picture with calm resolve. They must be assured that we can resist the authoritarian trends compromising our democratic aspirations. And it must never be forgotten that civil resistance works. In truth, we have an expansive democratic playbook bequeathed to us by social movements both within the US and around the world. Therefore, we must resolve to weave together all the strategies of democratic defense and unapologetically engage in pro-democracy work grounded in an unwavering commitment to racial justice.

Building powerful movements for a just and democratic society requires tearing down the walls separating people and welcoming new people into the movement. It takes recognizing that individuals, shaped by their lived experiences, are in different places along their journeys towards growth and change. Call-out culture, which includes public shaming to hold people accountable and oftentimes claiming one’s own moral high ground, can generate antagonism and challenge our ability to make progress together. But what other strategies do we have to hold people accountable for saying and doing harmful things?

Social justice and women’s rights activist Loretta Ross makes a case for the need to “call-in” instead of call-out. This approach prioritizes relationship-building over shaming. By “calling-in” someone who makes a harmful comment, a person may take them aside to share why the comment was harmful or inappropriate and offer alternative framing instead of calling them out in front of a large group. It creates a compassionate space for the person to reflect, hold themselves accountable and grow, instead of a space in which they may deny or deflect responsibility, retreat and/or not return out of shame or embarrassment.

However, not all situations lend themselves to calling someone in. Urgency, power dynamics, and individual safety are all important factors to consider when choosing how to respond to someone engaging in harmful behavior. In other words, calling out may sometimes be the more appropriate approach, especially if the individual in question has more power or is a repeat offender that has not been open to change. Yet, too often, we resort to calling out as the first and/or only option when this is not always the case, and we do so in ways that can cause additional harm and shame. By taking the time to pause and reflect on our intended outcome and how it will serve our larger goals for positive social change, we can create opportunities for people to reflect, grow and re-engage with accountability and new understanding.

Constructive methods of calling in and calling out both involve holding individuals and institutions accountable for harm while centering human dignity and embracing individuals’ capacity to change. However, calling in usually involves a private conversation with a small group or 1:1, while calling out means engaging in a more public space or forum. Based on the larger goal, an individual may choose either approach, or a mix of both—all while centering these approaches around care and a common humanity. At the Horizons Project, we work with networks of academics, social justice activists, bridge-builders, and democracy advocates to better understand how and when to use calling in and calling out methods in a way that will prevent harm, inspire collective learning, and hold people accountable with love.

*We would like to thank Tabitha Moore, a Vermont-based racial justice trainer and activist, for her thought leadership and contributions to this area of exploration as part of The Horizons Project research team.

RESOURCES

Interested in learning more? Check out these resources on calling in and calling out that are inspiring us right now.

Calling In and Calling Out Guide, Harvard University’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

“In fostering spaces of inclusion and belonging, it is important to recognize, name, and address when individuals or groups with marginalized identities are experiencing harm, such as bias or discrimination. The concepts of “calling out” or “calling in” have become popular ways of thinking about how to bring attention to this type of harm. Knowing the difference between these concepts can help us reflect, then act, in the ways we feel will best promote constructive change. This guide is a continuously evolving document that we plan to improve over time.”

Interrupting Bias: Calling Out vs. Calling In, The Vermont-NEA Racial Justice Task Force and Seed the Way

A quick tips guide for when you might choose to call someone in or out and how to do it.

#ListenFirst Conversations Complete Guide, #Listen First

“A #ListenFirst conversation is any conversation that helps us see each other across differences and discover human connection. It might be between two friends or among many strangers. It might be on a park bench, in a classroom, in the workplace, at home, or online. Regardless of where you are or who you’re with, here are our favorite principles and tips!”

Shame, Safety and Moving Beyond Cancel Culture, The Ezra Klein Show

“When is cancellation merited or useful? When is it insufficient or harmful? And what other tools are available in those cases?”

Loretta J. Ross: “Don’t call people out – call them in”, TED Talk

‘We live in a call-out culture, says activist and scholar Loretta J. Ross. You’re probably familiar with it: the public shaming and blaming, on social media and in real life, of people who may have done wrong and are being held accountable. In this bold, actionable talk, Ross gives us a toolkit for starting productive conversations instead of fights — what she calls a “call-in culture” — and shares strategies that help challenge wrongdoing while still creating space for growth, forgiveness and maybe even an unexpected friend. “Fighting hate should be fun,” Ross says. “It’s being a hater that sucks.”’

How to talk to insurrectionists and conspiracy theorists, Nafees Hamid, CNN

“I’m a cognitive scientist who has been studying the drivers of political violence for the better part of a decade. My work has involved interviews, social network analysis, psychology experiments, and surveys of jihadists, white nationalists, and conspiracists. My colleagues and I also conducted the first-ever brain scan studies on jihadist supporters. Our findings point to one thing that ordinary people can do if they feel that someone they know might be getting radicalized: Stay connected.”

As we continue the collective work towards a just, inclusive and peaceful democracy, it is important to be able to understand and talk about the shared values and ideas that underpin it. We often use frames to help us make sense of these ideas and values, and we share stories to illustrate how these ideas and values might show up in everyday life. Narratives offer ways for us to package these stories and “provide a coherent view of the world based on our lived experience, our culture, and our education.” Narrative competency is the ability to collect and understand these narratives and share them in a way that can help make meaning of the world around us.

At the Horizons Project, we know that the narratives we use matter, especially during times of deep division. How we communicate can either invite or block collaboration; build or break down trust; uncover or bury shared values and goals. As agents of social change, we have our own cognitive biases that are based on our own stories and experiences. These biases influence how we and others perceive narratives, regardless of how they were intended. To develop narrative competency, it is important to start from a place of self-reflection, to explore our own biases so that we may be curious of other narratives and how we can engage with them. The purpose of developing narrative competency is not to change narratives we disagree with or prove them wrong. It is to better understand how they came into being and describe the current ecosystem. Rather than simplifying complex stories into “black or white” frames, an approach to narrative competency embraces complexity and nuance to better understand how different people make sense of the world.

Developing the competency to cultivate and share narrative frames of our country’s past, present and future is critical to inspiring and mobilizing people towards a society in which everyone feels a sense of belonging and can thrive. It will require curating insights from a diverse array of organizers, community and civic leaders, and activists representing different ideologies, geographies and backgrounds. At The Horizons Project, we are committed to leveraging existing platforms and sources of cultural influence to galvanize the larger ecosystem of social change around inclusive narratives that will help us form the broadest coalition possible to work towards a pluralistic, just and peaceful democracy.

RESOURCES

Interested in learning more? Check out these resources on Narrative Competency that are inspiring us right now.

Healing US democracy starts with understanding our values, norms, and narratives, The Horizons Project

“What are the common values that underpin US democracy? What is the “big story” we all share about how society should work and how we fit together as citizens? In the US today, with levels of toxic polarization astoundingly high, the narratives we use to make sense of the system and the sacred values we hold around democracy seem to be as divergent as ever. But by understanding these narratives and values, we can begin to rediscover how to respect different world views and commit to America’s future together. Experts shared some of their latest research and practice in a recent session on Democracy Narratives and Sacred Values co-convened by the Horizons Project with the Alliance for Peacebuilding for their Spring Series on Preventing and Reducing Conflict and Instability in the United States: Shaping What Comes Next.”

Engaging with Narratives of Peace, Toda Peace Institute 

“Narrative competency must be a fundamental aspect of our work as peacebuilders in the modern age. The term narrative is ubiquitous today and commonly used interchangeably with story. However, within the peacebuilding field there is currently a lack of understanding of the concept of narrative fundamentally as a cognitive framework that resides at the level of our unconscious minds, which allows human beings to make meaning of the world. While much has been written about how activists can address narrative change, peacebuilders have a special calling to engage with narratives in a way that is self-reflective, curious, seeks complexity and constructs meaning with others.”

Short Video on Restorative Advocacy & Narrative Engagement, Narratives and Civic Space Convening by OXFAM and the Ford Foundation 

“Julia Roig, in her segment, focuses on PartnersGlobal Engaging Narratives for Peace research and approach. She explains that social change agents must acknowledge their own cognitive biases and mental models. This affects how social change agents engage effectively with narrative change, and/or can further polarization and isolate potential allies by how issues are framed. She also explores how narrative engagement can contribute to Restorative Advocacy when our goal isn’t to change others’ narrative understanding or identity, but rather when we seek to “complexify” narratives, especially in the public sphere.”

A Call for Investment in Narrative Competency in Divided Times (Part One), Alliance Magazine 

“Narrative is a central and cutting-edge topic in a variety of well-established academic fields…  The study of narrative bridges the artificial divides between rationality and emotion or interests and identity that were once typical in the scientific literature and it offers important insights that need to be more widely embedded within the philanthropic ecosystem. To summarize a complicated topic: ‘narrative‘ is an abstract template for sensemaking, the central intersection of multiple, related stories that makes it possible for us to see the world in a meaningful way. Narrative is the lens through which human beings see the world and understand how it operates, and for whom it is the basis of political and moral decision making.”

How to Invest in Narrative Competency to Combat Toxic Polarization (Part Two), Alliance Magazine 

In Part One of this series, Horizons’ Chief Network Weaver, Julia Roig, argued the importance of investing in Narrative Competency. In Part Two, she and co-author Melanie Greenberg offer recommendations for how. “By using a cultural lens for programming, philanthropy can help overcome the oversimplification of narrative and identity arising out of deep polarization and can help sustain curiosity about the other.”

Narrative Power & Collective Action, Conversations with people working to change narratives for social good, Oxfam Part I and Part II 

“Narratives are a form of power that can mobilize and connect, as well as divide and isolate. Social, public or dominant narratives help to legitimize existing power relationships, prop them up or make them seem natural. As an anthology of perspectives this knowledge offering is one way to amplify different and diverse ways of knowing and doing narratives.”

The Role of Narrative in Managing Conflict and Supporting Peace, Institute for Integrated Transitions

“A helpful way to visualize narratives is as trees making up a narrative landscape. The roots contain a mix of facts, stories, and parables about a common collective past. These are the foundation for people’s political/moral views or their identity/history. The trunk is the central framing that grows from all or a bundle of these roots. The branches are the policy preferences, actions, and outcomes attached to the truck, which are resilient, but liable to change.”

How to Use Stories to Bring ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ Together, Annie Neimand & Samantha Wright, Stanford Social Innovation Review

“Advocates often recycle the same type of stories to build a base of support, but this can create story fatigue among supporters and lose the opportunity to engage new ones. Choosing the right kind of story depends on your audience’s exposure to the issue and your opposition’s power. A familiar plot structure can help an audience understand complicated dynamics, but if they are familiar with the topic, an unexpected framing can make it feel new again. Issues with strong organized opposition pair better with stories that humanize or offer new insights.”

The Role of Narrative Change in Collective Action

This short webinar from the 2021 Collective Impact Action Summit is a Master Class on narrative change. Melody Barnes (Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions) interviewing Crystal Echo Hawk (IllumiNative) Rashad Robinson (Color of Change), and Nayantara Sen (Real Food Real Stories.)

“The metaphor actually begins with a story, the story as a single star in the night sky. If a story is like a star in the night sky, it is the singular unit of change….a narrative is like a constellation because it is a pattern of stars congregated together to create a mechanism that brings stories together as a whole, so then an individual story has more meaning when it sits within the narrative that you see as a constellation in the sky…There’s more to culture than just narrative but the critical thing to know is that you can’t change culture without changing narrative. We work on individual stars. We change the pattern that they sit within a constellation, and we change the cultural conditions or the galactic conditions…for what actually allows narratives to stick.” – Nayantara Sen

How America Fractured Into Four Parts, George Packer, The Atlantic

An essay exploring four dominant narratives in US that since the 1970s, emerged around four moral identities:

• “Free America,” which focuses on individual rights and freedom from government intervention and draws on elitist traditionalism and anti-communism.
• “Smart America,” which embraces capitalism, meritocracy, and globalism, but not patriotism.
• “Real America,” which encourages popular democracy, anti-intellectualism, and nationalism, and is primarily white.
• “Just America,” which is critical of institutional injustice and oppression, but has its own trappings.

Our Futures Now: Turning Imagination into Narrative Power, The Narrative Initiative 

This article describes how we can use imaginings of the future in narrative work. “Once we know the history, power and role of today’s dominant narratives we understand our present assumptions…then we can really name, describe and even map paths towards possible futures that aren’t dependent on today. That’s where this work gets exciting.” Márquez Rhyne, Program Manager at Transmedia Story at the University of Chicago

Keeping Democratic Ideals Alive During the Pandemic, Frameworks Institute 

“The way we talk about leaders, leadership, and institutions now sets the context for what comes next. We won’t revitalize democracy by leaving people to assume that politics is, and always will be, broken beyond repair. But if we remind people of our democratic ideals—and show how they connect to this crisis and our future beyond it—we can rebuild demand for leaders and systems that put people first. Framing advice: (1) Lift up democratic values; (2) Make the truth compelling and clear; (3) Show how issues and incidents are connected. Frameworks also has valuable materials on Shifting Mindsets and how we can think about advocacy in both the short and long term.”

The Larger Us Podcast with Karen Stenner on Why Some People Are Primed to Be Authoritarians

“The exploration of narrative and sense-making is informed by many disciplines, and Karen Stenner has spent years researching why some people seem to have a psychological predisposition towards authoritarianism on both the right and the left (in the right conditions,) which has led her to argue that “liberal democracy has now exceeded many people’s capacity to tolerate it.” The podcast interview discusses why support for authoritarianism is so widespread, what we can do about it, and what’s next in countries like the US where right wing populism has been surging.”

Changing the Narrative about Narrative: The Infrastructure Required to Build Narrative Power, Rashad Robinson, Nonprofit Quarterly 

“Narrative is now a big buzzword in the field of social change. That is more a testament to people wanting to understand narrative, however, than it is a testament to people actually understanding it. This paper presents a high-level outline of just some of the components of strategic thinking required to create the right story about narrative change within the progressive movement, with a focus on the components related to building the infrastructure we need to build what I call narrative power.”