On Friday night I attended an event titled “We Want Something More: Building Revolutionary Movements That Can Win.” I’m planning to give it a fuller recap, but right now, as often happens, I only have a few minutes before I need to get the kids going with breakfast. So I’ll give a few details now and more later.
It was a great success. There were more than 50 people in attendance — people who have been involved in revolutionary organizations and maybe felt there was something lacking, maybe suffered from burnout or watched others who were actively pushed away. People who want something quite different. And Jeremy, who gave the main talk, has a concrete proposal. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. Here’s a quote from the handout:
Our Mission: Roots in the Movement is an open community of people who congregate together around our shared desire to build a transformative social justice movement. Through popular education, relationship building, and cultural activities, we aim to support and mutually inspire each other in the long and difficult struggle for a better world. We consider ourselves as just one part of a much larger liberation movement.
Consider that a teaser. There’s more information on a website that I currently can’t find.
I came to the event about a half hour late, having driven for 80 minutes straight in rush hour traffic. (Sigh.) Jeremy was speaking and showing slides about problems he’s seen with revolutionary organizations so far. He suggests that they actively push people away, and I agree. We broke into small groups and discussed it among ourselves, then came back to the larger group.
After laying out the problem, he began with some concrete proposals. I’ll get to those in another blog post, but suffice it to say that a whole lot of people came out of that energized and with new ideas.
So . . . breakfast now. More posts another day.
Kristin Ann King 