By Partners for Dignity & Rights
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The podcast currently has 36 episodes available.
Host Max Rameau is joined by Erika L. Anthony, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Cleveland VOTES, and Molly Martin, a member of the Cleveland Catholic Worker and the lead organizer for the People's Budget Cleveland grassroots ballot initiative campaign, for a conversation on Cleveland’s fight for participatory budgeting, and why sometimes losing an election is still a victory.
Earning 49.11% of the vote in 2023, the People's Budget amendment would have given Cleveland residents the ability to decide how 2% of the city budget is spent.
Molly Martin is a member of the Cleveland Catholic Worker community on the near west side of Cleveland. In 2023, Molly was the lead organizer for Issue 38, the People's Budget Cleveland grassroots ballot initiative campaign. Earning 49.11% of the vote in November 2023, the Issue 38 People’s Budget charter amendment would have given Cleveland residents the ability to decide how 2% of the city budget is spent. Molly also organizes with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless on direct action campaigns for homeless civil rights and legal renter protections.
Erika L. Anthony, a native New Yorker, is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Cleveland VOTES. Cleveland VOTES is a nonpartisan, democracy-building movement that works to reconstruct and strengthen power through active participation of our collective partners. Prior to her full-time role with Cleveland VOTES, Erika most recently served as the Executive Director of the Ohio Transformation Fund (OTF). The OTF is a statewide funding collaborative developed by national and local funders that focuses on advocating for more fair and just policies and solutions to address the harms imposed by the criminal legal system. Additionally, Erika was the Vice President of Government Relations and Strategy for Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, Director of Business Development at Oriana House, Inc., Project Coordinator for a pilot reentry program at the Centers for Families and Children and held various roles in the legal sector.
In addition to her full-time roles, she also sits on a number of Boards, including: City of Cleveland Planning Commission, Midtown Cleveland Inc., Ohio Voice, and Red, Wine + Blue. Additionally, in the fall of 2021 Erika was selected to serve as a Co-Chair for then Mayor-Elect Justin Bibb’s Transition Team. Erika has served as an Adjunct Professor for a policy class at Case Western Reserve University, Mandel School of Applied Sciences. She has also participated in a number of leadership programs including: Cleveland Bridge Builders, Fellowship with New Leaders Council and Rockwood Leadership Institute. Erika holds a B.S. in Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University and a Masters of Public Administration from the Maxine G. Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. Erika and her husband Brian reside in Cleveland; they enjoy traveling, biking and spending time with their family, friends and puppy.
Links to topics mentioned on this episode:
Public Budgeting
refundcleveland.com
Cleveland Votes
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Today on the show: a special panel discussion addressing the questions: How can communities build power in the face of colonization, natural disasters, and corporate profiteering? In Puerto Rico and the Hawaiian island of Molokai, residents have been grappling with some of the highest energy costs in the nation, while for-profit utilities amass record profits. But communities on both islands have advocated for a different path, one that prioritizes care, democratic control, and resilience. Join us to hear how people are fighting back against disaster capitalism and the privatization of their energy utilities and building their own energy solutions.
Guests:
Moderator: Niki Franco, Partners for Dignity & Rights
FULL BIOS:
Ruth Santiago, JD, LLM is a community and environmental lawyer who works with grassroots environmental advocacy groups in Puerto Rico. She has sought to protect Puerto Rico’s South Coast aquifer, battled the country’s largest oil burning power complex and worked to expand rooftop solar energy projects in the Jobos Bay communities between Salinas and Guayama in southeastern Puerto Rico. Additionally, she is part of a civil society initiative to promote community-based solar projects and energy democracy called We Want Sun (Queremos Sol). She also serves on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
Born and raised in Molokai, Keani Rawlins-Fernandez is honored to serve the people and ‘āina of Molokai, Maui, Lāna‘i, and Kaho‘olawe on the Maui County Council. She is committed to ensuring that her community’s voice is put at the center of decision-making, that the ‘āina is protected, and that the people in her community are cared for.
Todd Yamashita is a fourth-generation resident of Molokai and serves on the board of Hoahu Energy Cooperative Molokai, which is committed to creating resilient, sustainable, equitable, culturally conscious energy for all.
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Host Max Rameau talks with Manju Rajendran of Durham Beyond Policing. Together, they discuss the landscape of organizing in North Carolina, abolition, healing justice, and the work of building and maintaining community.
Manju Rajendran is a facilitator, trainer, conflict transformation practitioner, and organizer with 27 years of local, state, regional, and national-level experience. Her work is grounded in popular education pedagogy and healing justice. Manju is a trainer with Ready the Ground Training Team, member of Sanctuary Beyond Walls, and part of Durham Beyond Policing. Manju is a queer, working class, South Asian immigrant woman who grew up in North Carolina. Her father organized with the local NAACP chapter and her mother was active in public schools, so she was brought up in meetings and community gatherings. She brings an expansive network of intentionally-sustained relationships with peers and mentors with her, especially from across the Southeastern US, and remains accountable to the communities who raised her.
Links to topics mentioned on this episode:
Durham Beyond Policing
Budget Proposal on Policing
News article on 2023 protest
Community Safety and Wellness Task Force
Southerners On New Ground (SONG)
Interrupting Criminalization
INCITE
Critical Resistance
BYP 100 Durham
UE 150 City Workers Union
Manju's bio with AORTA
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Host Max Rameau talks with Kamau Franklin of Community Movement Builders, Inc and Black Power Media. Together, they discuss the movement to Stop Cop City, its national relevance, and the strategy behind the movement. They also discuss creating accessible political media, and what Kamau's learned from his time in Palestine.
Kamau Franklin is the founder of Community Movement Builders, Inc. Kamau has been a dedicated community organizer for over thirty years, beginning in New York City and now based in Atlanta. For 18 of those years, Kamau was a leading member of a national grassroots organization dedicated to the ideas of self-determination and the teachings of Malcolm X.
He has spearheaded organizing work in various areas including youth organizing and development, police misconduct, and the development of sustainable urban communities. Kamau has coordinated and led community cop-watch programs, liberation/freedom schools for youth, electoral and policy campaigns, large-scale community gardens, organizing collectives and alternatives to incarceration programs. Kamau was an attorney for ten years in New York with his own practice in criminal, civil rights and transactional law. He now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and two children.
For more on the topics we discussed, see these links:
@kamaufranklin
@CommunityMvt
https://communitymovementbuilders.org/
https://www.blackpowermedia.org
https://forgeorganizing.org/article/struggle-stop-cop-city-any-means-necessary
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DSC Communications Coordinator Tafari Melisizwe and Coordinating Committee Member Andrew Hairston of Texas Appleseed join organizer, writer, and radical political theorist Geo Maher for a robust conversation on policing and social justice movements. The episode begins with Geo laying out the ideas of his book A World Without Police, and then continues with a conversation with Tafari and Andrew about translating these ideas to the work of getting police out of schools and transforming society.
Geo Maher is an abolitionist educator, organizer, and writer based in Philadelphia. He has taught previously at the University of Pennsylvania, Vassar College, Drexel University, San Quentin State Prison, and the Venezuelan School of Planning in Caracas, and has held visiting positions at the CUNY Graduate Center, the Decolonizing Humanities Project at the College of William & Mary, NYU’s Hemispheric Institute, and the Institute of Social Research at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He is the author of five books: We Created Chávez (2013); Building the Commune (2016); Decolonizing Dialectics (2017); A World Without Police (2021); and Anticolonial Eruptions (2022); and co-editor of the Duke University Press book series Radical Américas.
Andrew Reginald Hairston is a civil rights attorney and writer who serves as the Education Justice Project Director of Texas Appleseed. In this role, he engages in public policy advocacy and works with community groups to diminish the presence and influence of school police officers across the state of Texas. In recognition of these efforts, Andrew served as a 2019 Law for Black Lives Fellow, along with Tyler Whittenberg of Advancement Project’s National Office. Along with Khem Irby, he is a 2022-23 co-chair of the Dignity in Schools Campaign’s Coordinating Committee. He earned his law degree from Louisiana State University in May 2016, where he was a Faculty Scholar. Andrew received his bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Howard University. From 2017 to 2019, Andrew served as a staff attorney at Advancement Project in Washington, D.C.
Tafari Melisizwe is a passionate educator, brand strategist, graphic designer & photographer based in Chicago. He joined the Dignity in Schools Campaign as Communications Coordinator in April 2018. Tafari is the owner and operator of The Indigenous Lens, a photography company that works to connect heritage and beauty through the art of visual conversation. Tafari also is a Facilitator-in-Training at AYA Educational Institute, an African-Centered educational and leadership development organization that facilitates a myriad of trainings, workshops and one-on-one sessions designed to heal alienation, heal toxic communication patterns and other wounds born of oppression. Previously, he Co-Directed HABESHA-Baltimore, a Pan-African organization that cultivates leadership in youth and families through practical experiences in cultural education, sustainable agriculture, entrepreneurship, holistic health, and technology.
Links for more information:
Dignity in Schools
Texas Appleseed
Geo Maher
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Today on the show: a special panel discussion featuring leaders who are utilizing co-governance strategies in organizing. Hear from Elianne Farhat of TakeAction Minnesota, Faduma Fido of People’s Economy Lab, and Tarson Núñez, member of the Governance Board of People Powered. The discussion is moderated by Kesi Foster, Co-Executive Director of Partners for Dignity & Rights.
Elianne Farhat (she/her) is the executive director of TakeAction Minnesota and has been a leader in many successful local, state and national campaigns throughout her 15 years of community, labor, and electoral organizing. Elianne’s commitment to building power in poor and working class communities of color has been a constant thread through her diverse work experience – whether that be while organizing New American voters in Chicago, electing Minnesota’s first progressive governor in more than 20 years, or advancing strategic campaigns securing historic policy wins for millions of working families. Elianne is the first in her Lebanese father’s family to be born in the United States and of Lakota (Standing Rock) descent on her mother’s side. She serves on the board of People’s Action and is the recent recipient of the Joan Growe Award for Distinguished Commitment to Expanding Access to Democracy and Justice.
Faduma Fido is passionate about public service and has worked in the intersection of community and economic development over the past decade. After transitioning to Peoples Economy Lab, Faduma has focused on programs and models that elevate community participation in policy design and decision-making spaces. She believes that community-oriented programs coupled with equitable policy design is one of the most equitable ways to mitigate lack of resources for under-served communities. Faduma has a Bachelor’s in Economics and English from the University of Washington and a Master's in Public Administration from Seattle University.
Tarson Núñez is a doctor in political science who is currently participating in a post-doctoral project at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. He works as a social researcher at the Department of Economy and Statistics at the Secretary of Planning of the State Government of Rio Grande do Sul. His experience with participatory democracy started as an activist and adviser for the urban social movements in Brazil in the early eighties. At the beginning of the nineties, he worked at the Porto Alegre Municipal government, as the head of the Planning Office, in charge of the Participatory Budgeting process in the city. At the beginning of the two-thousands, he was the director of the Urban and Regional Development Department of the state government, when they launched PB at the state level. In the same period, he worked as a volunteer in the first versions of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. He is also a member of the governance board of People Powered, an international association for participatory democracy.
Links for more information:
Co-Governing Towards Multiracial Democracy Report
@ElianneMJF
@TakeActionMN
@PeoplePowrd
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Host Max Rameau talks with leaders of the Cooperation New Orleans Loan Fund: Tamah Yisrael, the Education and outreach coordinator, and Tamara Prosper, the Loan Steward. Together, they discuss unions, capitalism, and organizing for cooperative economics in the deep south.
BIOS
Tamara Prosper is the Loan Steward at Cooperation New Orleans. She is an avid reader and writer who grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, came to New Orleans for a college education, graduated, got married, and decided to make New Orleans her home. Tamara has worked in non-profit fundraising and development, program management, education, long-term care as a Social Services Director, then as a Nursing Home Administrator. She’s worked as a Dementia Care Coach and a stay-at-home mom. Most recently, in an effort to address the root causes of illnesses and injuries that create a need for long term care services, her work included addressing the social determinants of health and managing primary care offices.
She’s also an entrepreneur. With her husband, Tamara owns Sheaux Fresh Sustainable Foods, a 12 year old business dedicated to making fresh produce accessible to all members of our community. She also owns a tour and travel planning service called Legacy Tours, and in 2017 published a book called, “The Elders.”
Tamah Yisrael is currently organizing a cooperative movement and is education and outreach coordinator of Cooperation New Orleans Loan Fund. She is also Chief Solutions Officer of TMH Financial Services LLC and a member of Resolve Financial Cooperative. She established her firm in October 2018 to provide business development, bookkeeping and management services to small businesses, nonprofits, and social impact enterprises in the Greater New Orleans Area. She currently provides Outsourced Executive Director Services to Builders of the Highway Foundation (BOTH Foundation) a national nonprofit. Under her leadership BOTH Foundation has merged the Temple of Brothers of Sisters of Goodwill and Neo Jazz School of Music under its umbrella and has developed educational community centers in New Orleans, Miami, and Orlando. She is also a partner of Yisrael Records Inc. an independent record label and producer of jazz and contemporary music who provides management of local artist such as the Yisrael Trio.
Her community advocacy efforts are focused on cultural awareness, social justice, and access to healthy foods. In her role as President of the board of directors for the New Orleans Food Coop, she was able bridge the connection in all three of these sectors. Additionally, she has been recognized by the Metro Birmingham Branch of the NAACP in its Annual Salute to Outstanding African American for her contributions to culture and youth of the community. She is a graduate of the Foundation for Louisiana’s TOGETHER Initiative LEAD Community Training Program, UNO’s Community Development Finance program, Cooperation Works’ Art & Science of Cooperative Development. She continues to serve community on various committees and working groups to build a more equitable society.
For more on the topics we discussed, see these links:
Cooperation New Orleans website
Local article on Cooperation New Orleans
Cooperation New Orleans linktree
Cooperation New Orleans Instagram page
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Host Max Rameau talks with Judith Le Blanc of the Native Organizers Alliance. Together, they discuss organizing in Native nations, protecting sacred spaces, lessons from Standing Rock, and celebrating victories.
Judith LeBlanc is a member of the Caddo Tribe who has an endless appetite for fry bread, an inter-tribal culinary delight! As the executive director of Native Organizers Alliance (NOA), she has learned many intertribal secrets to good fry bread. She leads a national Native training and organizing network which supports tribes, traditional societies, and grassroots community groups in urban and tribal communities. Judith is part of a growing circle of Indian Country leaders who understand the necessity for an organized, durable ecosystem of Native leaders and organizers who lead with traditional values.
NOA leads learning circles, training, and strategic planning sessions to support Native leaders in organizing the grassroots movements for structural reforms, leading to Native sovereignty and racial equity for all. Judith has worked since 2016 with the Brave Heart Society, a traditional Dakota women’s society, and the Yankton Sioux Tribe on the Mni Wakan Wizipan. It is a project to re-establish the Yankton Sioux and other Oceti Sakowin tribes’ inherent rights to co-management the Missouri River bio-region. Judith is a board member of IllumiNative and chair of the board of NDN. She is a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow.
To learn more about the topics we discussed:
Native Organizers Alliance
Wounded Knee
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On this episode, Mississippi organizers discuss their work to end state sanctioned violence in schools.
We explore the statistics behind the fight to end corporal punishment in Mississippi and the other 18 states where it is still legal, and how Mississippi organizers have made progress in this crucial fight for change.
This a fight for human rights, children's rights, dignity, and respect. Whether it's in schools, the workplace, or judicial systems, punishment is more readily and harshly given to people of color, especially on the bodies of Black boys and girls. From being used as a tool of domination and control on the plantation to a tool of correction in our schools, from whips to paddles to policies, we've taken the last lash!
Featuring:
Janice Harper, Mississippi Coalition to End Corporal Punishment
Kameisha Smith, Nollie Jenkins Family Center
Katie Coates, Cooperation Jackson
Moderated by Tafari Melisizwe, Dignity in Schools Campaign
Links:
https://dignityinschools.org
https://nolliejenkinsfamilycenter.org
https://www.mscoalitiontoendcorporalpunishment.org
https://cooperationjackson.org
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On this episode, leaders from Black and immigrant community organizations discuss their work and draw out lessons and challenges for communities and local governments interested in working together to advance racial and economic justice. They discuss their fights for safe water infrastructure, stopping wage theft, combating police violence, and building restorative justice in schools. Featuring:
Brooke Floyd, People’s Advocacy Institute
Rosie Grant, Paterson Education Fund
Shaw San Liu, Chinese Progressive Association-San Francisco
Moderated by Ben Palmquist, Partners for Dignity & Rights
BIOS:
For over 20 years, Brooke Floyd has supported Mississippi children as a volunteer, AmeriCorps Tutor & Special Projects Coordinator, and as a public school & Head Start teacher. She previously served as the Director of Children’s Services at Stewpot Community Services. Brooke is currently the Coordinator for JXN People’s Assembly at People’s Advocacy Institute, engaging the community through education, providing access to information and resources, facilitating Assemblies, and bringing proposed solutions to elected officials. Brooke graduated from Tougaloo College and holds a M.S.Ed. from Jackson State University and an M.A.T. from Belhaven University.
Rosie Grant is the Executive Director of the Paterson Education Fund (PEF), where she has given 28 years of educational leadership. Rosie has trained more than 500 students and adults to be workshop facilitators including Restorative Practices circle keepers, as well as worked to support relationship building, reduce suspensions, and promote student social and emotional well-being. She is skilled at convening cross-sector partnerships for education and leading difficult public dialog, particularly in the areas of multicultural communications and anti-racism.
Shaw San Liu is the Executive Director at the Chinese Progressive Association. In her 14 years at CPA, Shaw San led the development of grassroots organizing and leadership development programs with the Tenant Worker Center, which includes services for low-wage Chinese immigrant workers and tenants living in San Francisco’s Chinatown. She also spearheaded campaign and alliance building to advance policy on labor and economic issues in the Bay Area. She co-founded the Progressive Worker Alliance, an alliance of low-wage worker centers in San Francisco and has extensive experience with labor and community organizing.
Ben Palmquist works with Partners for Dignity & Rights, where he directs the New Social Contract program and supports organizing for health care as a human right. He has over 15 years of experience working with community organizations on health care, labor, housing and environmental rights across the U.S and in Indonesia and Ecuador.
For more information on the topics of this episode, see:
Co-Governance Report
Peoples Advocacy Institute
JXN People's Assembly
Chinese Progressive Association - SF
Paterson Education Fund
Participatory Budgeting Project
Democracy Beyond Elections
Article: Building Bottom-Up Democracy Through Co-Governance
Article: How to Build Multiracial Democracy at the Local Level
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The podcast currently has 36 episodes available.
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