2017 was a whirlwind. A new president in the White House, ramped up authoritarianism, nativism, and repression, attempts to suppress social justice movements and the media, and increased warmongering and militarism. 2017 also saw an increase in the range and depth of grassroots efforts to fight back and build people’s power.
In 2017, CPE programs included:
People Get Ready: Building Resistance in the Trump Era
A one-day conference on analysis, strategy, and resistance after the 2016 election.
Political Education Workshop with Underground Scholars Initiative
In support of the Underground Scholars Initiative at UC Berkeley, CPE facilitated a session on movements and movement strategy with members of the group.
Who’s Got the Power?
A workshop for organizers on analyzing the balance of forces facilitated by Rebecca Gordon.
Watch the Watchers
A workshop on protecting activists against police surveillance. Co-hosted with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition.
Reading Black Reconstruction Study Group
A six-part study group dedicated to reading WEB DuBois groundbreaking book and considering its lessons for today’s political climate.
Visualizing Revolution
A presentation by Melanie Cervantes of Dignidad Rebelde about the role of graphics and visual language in making revolution beautiful, irresistible, and achievable.
Without Walls: Abolition and Rethinking Education
A panel discussion with K-12 educators and prison industrial complex abolition organizers. Featuring Chrissy Anderson-Zavala, UC Santa Cruz; Farima Pour-Khorshid, Teachers 4 Social Justice; Sagnicthe Salazar, Xicana Moratorium Coalition; Sharif Zakout, Arab Resource and Organizing Center; moderated by Isaac Ontiveros, Center for Political Education.
Facing the Right: A Conversation with Tarso Ramos
A conversation with Tarso Ramos, executive director of Political Research Associates on the contemporary constellation of right wing forces within government and on the ground in the United States.
In the Dark Times Will There Also Be Singing?
A block of programming curated for the 2017 San Francisco International Arts Festival. The program included three panels of culture workers and organizers exploring issues including gentrification and displacement, borders and organizing in diaspora, and the relationship between culture work and movements for change. Featuring: Fernando Martí, Charmaine Davis, Nihar Bhatt, Eden Silva Jequinto, Ziad Abbas, Wael Buhaissy, Dohee Lee, Cat Brooks, and Armael Malinis.
Degrees of Visibility
A photo exhibition and opening program featuring photographs by Ashley Hunt interrogating the role of imprisonment in our physical and social environments.
Freedom and Dignity across Walls: Understanding Prisoner Organizing from Palestine to Pelican Bay
A panel discussion discussing prisoner-led hunger strikes in Palestine and California and prospects for solidarity outside of prisons. Featuring: Claude Marks, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Marie Levin, and Lara Kiswani.
CPE Summer Film Series
A presentation of films in unlikely genres, whose stories have something to say about the struggle to survive in an alienating world. Featuring: The Brother from Another Planet (John Sayles, 1984) and Songs My Brothers Taught Me (Chloe Zhao, 2016).
Occupation and Intervention: US Militarism in the Current Moment
A panel discussion on the current state of US militarism, with analysis on the war and anti-war activism in Iraq and the Philippines. Part of CPE’s WAR & LIBERATION series taking on critical issues of war, militarism, resistance and liberation from across the world. Featuring: Rhonda Ramiro, Max Elbaum, Yousef K. Baker, and Clare Bayard.
Marxism 101
A six-part introductory course on Marxist history, theory, economics, and political practice for grassroots organizers.
A Healthy Dose of Struggle: Women and trans people on the front lines of the fight for healthcare
A discussion about the work on the impacts health inequity, the erosion of Medicaid, and restrictions on reproductive health access on working class women and transgender people. Featuring: Sari Bilick, Liz Derias-Tyehimba, Layidua Salazar, and Diana Wu.
Averting U.S. War on North Korea: What Progressives Must Know and Do
A discussion with leading Korea peace activists and experts on the historical roots of conflict and crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Part of CPE’s WAR & LIBERATION series taking on critical issues of war, militarism, resistance and liberation from across the world. Featuring: Christine Ahn , Ellen Choy, Kevin Gray, and Miriam Ching Yoon Louie.
Co-sponsored by HOBAK – Hella Organized Bay Area Koreans Women Cross DMZ and Catalyst Project
Education for Liberation: The Role of Political Education in the PAIGC’s Struggle for Independence and the Lessons for Today
A conversation with scholar and activist Sónia Vaz Borges on the education programs at the core of Amílcar Cabral’s national liberation struggle in Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau during the 1960s and 70s, the concept of militant education, and its lessons for movement building today. Featuring: Sónia Vaz Borges, Steve Williams, and Rachel Herzing.
Co-organized by LeftRoots.
Black Reconstruction in Our Times
A five-session track of panels at the 2017 Howard Zinn Book Fair engaging contemporary authors, researchers, and activist on the themes of themes of land, education, labor, political power, and resistance explored by WEB DuBois’ in his monumental book, Black Reconstruction in America.