Dirt Road Democrat

Jess Piper traveled to remote Idaho to meet with and speak for a county Democratic club and tells the story of a group of local Democrats who have found their voice and are standing up to the horrible hate that has been allowed to fester and even thrive in their community.

The MO Equity Education Partnership’s mission is to advocate and mobilize for inclusion, diversity, equity, academic integrity, and accessibility for all individuals in all aspects of community life. We believe we are all stronger when we #LetThemLearn.

MOEEP Website: https://www.missouriequity.com/

Twitter: @EquityMissouri

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MOEquityEducationPartnership

Jess Piper dives into the conundrum of staying in a state like Missouri as a parent, a woman, and a progressive and helps us all remember that the answer is our own collective action.

Jess PIper brings a review of this week in Missouri politics, with the rural progressive voice she is known for.

Joe Burns is a veteran union negotiator and labor lawyer and the author of Strike Back and Reviving the Strike. His latest book is Class Struggle Unionism.

link to his writing: https://jacobin.com/author/joe-burns

Andrew L. Seidel is an author and attorney who’s defended the First Amendment for more than a decade, both in and out of court. Andrew dedicated his career to challenging religious privilege and battling Christian Nationalism. He speaks and writes extensively about religious freedom; and has been profiled by BBC News, Buzzfeed, International Business Times, and more.

A business owner and entrepreneur, Jesse built Mullen Newspaper Company from two newspapers in Granite and Powell counties to 21 newspapers in six states – nine in Montana alone – over the last six years. Jesse and his wife Sasha also own Browsing Bison Bookstores.

Twitter: @jmullen2

Website: https://jessejamesmullen.com/

Bio: Representative Aftyn Behn is the newest member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, serving House District 51, where she is the first female representative in over 50 years. She is the youngest serving woman in the Tennessee House and the only woman representing Nashville. She's currently the Campaign Director for RuralOrganizing.org, overseeing the organization's electoral strategy and execution and shaping the political and policy landscape impacting small towns and rural communities. Previously, she worked at the Indivisible Project as the Distributed Organizing Manager, building out national programs, including Indivisible's national rural program, one of the largest in the country. She also supported Indivisible's distributed network in long-term power building as the former senior regional organizer for Kentucky and Tennessee. Before Indivisible, she organized with the Tennessee Justice Center in 2017 during the national Medicaid and Affordable Care Act congressional fights. In 2016, she consulted with Switzerland's United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), developing community-based protection policies for special-interest refugee groups. Aftyn is from East Tennessee and received her MSW from the University of Texas at Austin Steve Hicks School of Social Work, specializing in public policy.

Twitter:@aftynbehn

Katherine Stewart's latest book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, was awarded first place for Excellence in Nonfiction Books by the Religion News Association as well as a Morris D. Forkosch award. She writes for The New York Times opinion, NBC, The New Republic and others. The film God & Country, produced by Rob Reiner, is based on The Power Worshippers, and she is currently at work on a forthcoming book. You may follow her on Twitter @kathsstewart

Erin Reed (she/her) works tracking anti-LGBTQ+ legislation around the world and helping people become better advocates for their queer family, friends, colleagues, and community. Erin's content has been viewed hundreds of millions of times with one goal: to achieve gender justice for queer and marginalized people through education and understanding.

You can catch Erin on your TikTok feed discussing transgender rights and life on a random weeknight. You can see Erin's informational social media posts on twitter and instagram bringing you news and information so that you can be a good advocate. You may find Erin on Google where her informed consent hormone therapy map has been used in millions of transitions. You can find Erin on NPR discussing her latest equity project. Or you may fight with Eirin in the trenches of legislative hearings on fundamental rights for queer and trans people.

Wherever you find Erin, know this: She is here so that we all can achieve liberation and a better future. Let's do that together.