During the month of June, Pride celebrations continued to unfold, with important new resources on the global struggle over gender rights provided by our friends at the Carnegie Endowment. The celebration of Juneteenth was also an important reminder that the fight for freedom is not over. New research validates that many people around the world do not feel that democracy is working for them; Protect Democracy has provided some guidance on “what democracy is anyway”, and the Metropolitan Group has released new narrative research on Democracy Narratives in Action. You should also check out these Reflections on Narrative Power, Social Movements, and the Fight for the Future from Shannelle Matthews who recently launched a wonderful compendium of Liberation Stories with Marzena Zukowska.
As the ICE raids escalated in Los Angeles with the deployment of the National Guard and U.S. military, many are providing resources on how to respond, and noting that elected leaders standing up against ICE are also facing increased threats around the country. As the violent rhetoric of the current administration against political opponents has ratcheted up, our hearts go out to the families and friends of Representative Melissa Hortman as well as State Senator John Hoffman from Minnesota. Please take a look at the resources available on how to make political violence backfire and sign up for a free training or coaching session to put the tools into practice.
In June we saw one of the largest mass mobilizations in US history with the No Kings Day. At the same time, attacks on civil society are increasing under the guise of national security. It’s important to continue to learn from veteran organizers, such as these lessons from the 2020 uprisings for black lives; and don’t miss the new online magazine, the Outlook from Keseb, including these 10 Global Trends Shaping the Future of Democracy offering a powerful lens on how civic resilience is being reimagined around the world. As people get more and more mobilized, you can find an organization to plug into with this new searchable database of grassroots organizations, mutual aid groups in the All of US Directory. It is set up so that organizations can add themselves to the directory by going here and filling out a simple form.
Please read Chief Organizer, Maria Stephan’s latest article in Just Security, on how Big Tents and Collective Action Can Defeat Authoritarianism, and Chief Network Weaver, Julia Roig’s recent article with Rinku Sen in the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s the Commons, In Defense of Noisy, Disruptive Movements. You can also listen to two podcasts this month where Julia is interviewed: Change the Story, Change the World discussing the importance of partnering with artists and cultural workers within the pro-democracy movement; and, on the Great Battlefield podcast reflecting on the intersection of movement building, narrative strategy and bridge building within Horizons’ organizing. Finally, we are saying goodbye to Horizons’ Director for Race and Democracy, Jarvis Williams, this month. You can watch a short video conversation between Jarvis and Julia here as they reflect on his two years with Horizons and what he’s excited about that’s coming next.
Here are some additional resources that we are reading, watching and listening to this month:
READING
We are No Longer free. But We Can Win our Freedom Back
by Deepak Bhargava, The Guardian
“For most in this country, unfreedom is a novel experience. What makes this condition confounding is that our unfreedom doesn’t yet look like it does in Russia or China – it is still partial. Most in this country can still enjoy a dinner out with friends, loudly deploring the current state of affairs. For most, authoritarianism has not snuffed out the pleasures, private or communal, of a spring morning in the park…When – if – you wake up to our shared condition of unfreedom, you face an existential choice. Do you act on what you know to be true, or do you hide? Too many corporate titans, university presidents and heads of major law firms are behaving as though they are powerless. Members of Congress admit that they are afraid to speak up. Judges talk openly about the threats they face to their safety. To meet this moment in US history, we need to revisit the rich – and successful – tradition of nonviolent disruption.”
Self-Organization Needs Activators: The 9% Who Turn Networks into Movements
by Socialroots
“In today’s connected world, our biggest problems need many groups working together to solve them. But when different organizations try to work together without anyone in charge, we face a basic challenge: how do we organize our work and move in the same direction without having one central leader? Sometimes networks begin by replicating traditional leadership; a ‘backbone organization’ creates a ‘hub and spoke network. Others start as several fragmented initiatives. [This research shows that] effective collaboration across networks of groups requires supporting the “middle layer” of participants – network catalysts who step into leadership roles but aren’t part of the core team. Without these critical participants, networks struggle to build capacity or maintain coherence as they grow.”
Building and Repairing Trust in Social Justice Movements
by Amber Banks
“The evidence is overwhelming: trust is the critical ingredient in nearly every successful collaborative endeavor in any sector. From securing funding to achieving policy victories, our movements succeed or fail on the strength of our relationships… Despite our best intentions, we sometimes find ourselves navigating varying degrees of distrust, or at best a fragile trust. Maybe hurt people hurt people. Maybe we have not yet mastered the art of relational repair. Or maybe dealing with trust and distrust is just part of being human and working together. So, then the question becomes: how do we build and repair trust in movements fighting for justice and freedom?” Enjoy this article – part one of a two-part series exploring this important success factor for our movements.
WATCHING
Could The 3.5% Protest Rule Stop Donald Trump?
Pod Save America
“How much of America would we need to mobilize to stop Trump’s power grab? According to political scientist Erica Chenoweth, it only takes 3.5 percent—the magic number that defines every successful protest movement. Against the backdrop of the anti-ICE and No Kings protests, the national guard deployment, and Donald Trump’s birthday pageant, Chenoweth joins the show to break down the math of the 3.5 percent threshold, explain why nonviolence is the key to meeting it, and to share the lessons the civil rights movement can teach us about staying unified, organized, and disciplined in the fight against authoritarianism.”
A New Era for Black Women: Voices on the Ground
“Oxfam America is excited to announce the release of our latest findings, A New Era for Black Women: Listening Tour Report. This work amplifies the lived experiences and concerns of working-class Black women in Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina. Their voices brought to light pressing issues across five core themes: Worker’s Rights, Environmental Justice, Healthcare access, Political Representation and support around Child and Elder Care. It provides a comprehensive look into the systemic barriers Black women face and the transformative policies they envision. Moderated by Oxfam America’s Sophia Lafontant, this live Q&A feature[d] four expert panelists: Dr. Camryn Cobb, Oxfam; Kameron Dawson, A Better Balance; Alicia Netterville, Acclivity Strategies; and Rev. Erica Williams, Set it Off Movement”
Pay Attention to the Glimmers
Positively Maladjusted
“We are so steeped in the transactional – swipe here, tap there, keep moving. It’s easy to forget life could be arranged otherwise. The dominant values of our institutions – efficiency, productivity, security – are not the governing laws of nature. They are choices. Often unconscious ones. We’ve become so fluent in the grammar of suspicion and extraction that we forget there are other languages we might speak, and have done at different times and places. The values that inform it feel distinct from the norm; cooperation instead of competition, sufficiency instead of scarcity, belonging instead of branding. [In this episode, hear from Ruth Taylor] who has made a vocation out of helping people to pay attention to and question the values they are steeped in…It’s upstream work that many well-intentioned activists fail to notice the need for. You can read more about Ruth’s work and musings through her excellent Substack, Culture Soup.”
LISTENING TO
Solidarity as Strategy: Building Power Across Movements
Solidarity Is This Podcast
“In this episode, co-host Adaku Utah speaks with Nikko Viquiera of Race Forward about the role of solidarity in dismantling structural oppression and building thriving, just communities. Nikko shares insights on weaving cross-issue strategies, deepening relationships, and sustaining a racial justice ecosystem rooted in love, equity, and collective action.”
Why I Joined DOGE
Planet Money Podcast
“What was it like to work inside Elon Musk’s DOGE? The cost-cutting initiative promised transparency, but most of its actions have been shrouded in secrecy. For months, there were reports of software engineers and Trump loyalists entering agencies and accessing sensitive data. DOGE also helped the Trump administration lay off thousands of government workers… Sahil Lavingia, a former DOGE staffer assigned to the Department of Veteran Affairs, is speaking [about] what drew Sahil to DOGE and what he learned about the inner workings…”
Re-enchanting… the End of the World
Re-enchanting Podcast
“Alex Evans is the founder and Executive Director of Larger Us – a community of change-makers seeking to bridge divides and bring people together… Many have described our era as a ‘polycrisis’ or ‘permacrisis’, as climate change, war, technology, immigration and the rise of extremism threaten to destabilize the world. So how do we deal with 24- hour doom-scrolling? Last year Alex began a Substack titled ’The Good Apocalypse Guide’ about how we can survive and thrive to unlock a ‘breakthrough’ rather than ‘breakdown’ future.” Alex joins the discussion to attempt to re-enchant… the end of the world.
FOR FUN
Your Summer Homework: Fifty Small Acts to Safeguard American Democracy
by Peter Coleman
“Classes may be finished, but the exam that will shape the rest of your life has just begun. While beaches beckon, internships sparkle on résumés, and TV streaming queues keep growing, the United States is showing unmistakable signs of democratic erosion. This op-ed assigns you a different summer syllabus: fifty micro-assignments, one per day, that assist in turning concerns held in private into compound civic power. Each task requires ten to thirty minutes, and all of them together create a resilient network that movements need to tip the balance. These tasks fall into five learning modules: information defense, neighborhood and peer networking, institutional guardrails, cultural narrative work, and material support through mutual aid.”