Upcoming Partner Events
Past Partner Events
Kopkind 2008 – Call for Participants
Session One: July 19 – 27 Theme: The Politics of Everyday Life — or, What Happens After the Election Hangover? Both mentors, deeply embedded in their communities, have been involved in numerous local justice efforts whose broader political and cultural ramifications they have explored over the years in their extensive writing and speaking.
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Session Two: August 3 – 10 Kopkind/CID Filmmakers Retreat Seminar This session is open to all ages over 21 but limited to independent documentary filmmakers. More of a focused workshop, in this session participants show and collegially critique one another’s work, get feedback on works in progress, discuss issues of story-telling, point of view, archival footage, research, editing, distribution, fundraising, etc. Screenings are done each evening, with discussions at morning seminars. (The 3rd and 10th are travel days.) The week closes with Kopkind’s 3rd Annual Grassroots Film Festival, a two-day event which is open to the public.
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Date: July 19 – 27
Theme: The Politics of Everyday Life — or, What Happens After the Election Hangover?
Both mentors, deeply embedded in their communities, have been involved in numerous local justice efforts whose broader political and cultural ramifications they have explored over the years in their extensive writing and speaking. They are:
Frank Bardacke, a veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech movement, the antiwar and GI Coffeehouse movement, has been a writer, agitator and teacher in Watsonville, CA, for more than 30 years. In the 1970s he worked in the vegetable fields of California for six seasons as a member of the United Farm Workers, and in the canneries as a Teamster and early member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union. He has been involved with local pirate radio, and has written about politics, culture, sports and work, primarily for the local popular press, but also, particularly on labor issues and the farm workers, for New Left Review and academic publications. With Leslie Lopez and the Watsonville Human Rights Committee, he translated the letters and communiques of Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, in Shadows of Tender Fury (1995, Monthly Review Press); and he is the author of a forthcoming sweeping history of California farm workers and the UFW.
Kevin Gray, a child participant in the desegregation of South Carolina schools in the 1960s, has been an activist, writer and political organizer in Columbia, SC, for more than 25 years. He coordinated Jesse Jackson’s South Carolina caucus victory in the 1988 presidential campaign, and later worked for the Rainbow Coalition. As a longtime member, and former president, of the state ACLU, he has fought on numerous civil liberties issues, from police brutality and due process to the state’s flying of the Confederate flag on the capitol dome to the prosecution of the Charleston Five dockworkers. He has been involved in various electoral campaigns, including, in 2006, opposition to a statewide anti-gay ballot initiative. He contributes regularly to Black News, to CounterPunch, the Progressive and SIRIUS radio’s “Live From the Land of Hopes and Dream,” with Dave Marsh; and is the author of two forthcoming books, includingThe Decline of Black Politics, From Malcolm X to Barack Obama.
For this session, we encourage younger people who have been at work for a few years as media makers or activists (or hybrids) to apply. (Generally the average age is about 28, with people older and younger than that, but for legal/insurance reasons we cannot invite people under 21.) The program is entirely free, including transportation. (The 19th and 27th are travel days.) There are seminars every morning for three hours, free afternoons, and evening discussions sometimes with special guests, two of which are free public events. People must be able to commit to the full week’s program.
The week’s discussion will focus on left politics in the context of the election year and beyond – when the issues of war and economic exploitation and questions of race, class and sex will no longer be welded to campaign season flimflam and candidate fast footwork. What is the relationship of left organizers and journalists to electoral politics, to the Democratic Party (particularly if there is a Democratic government after November), to the mission of telling it like it is when so much conspires against honesty and reason? How does the participants’ work in the lived reality of one place or one issue here, now, at this political moment, connect to the broader story, the broader project of making a better world – no matter who is president? How do we relate the current yearning for “change” to the dream that a different, popular-led “change is gonna come”?
Participants stay in individual cabin rooms, with all sheets, towels, etc. provided. We arrange for travel, as well as transport from airport or railroad station to Tree Frog Farm, as well as all meals, beautifully prepared and drawing on produce from Tree Frog’s lovely garden.
Interested applicants should send a letter of intent, telling us a little about their work, themselves and their politics, and explaining why they would like to come. They should also tell us how they heard about the project. Letters should be sent to me, JoAnn Wypijewski, atjwyp@earthlink.net. Letters of intent should include all the applicants’ contact information, phones and mailing address, and must be in by Monday, June 2, 2008.
A Better Deal: Reclaiming Economic Security for a New Generation
May 8 & May 9
The Liaison Capitol Hill
415 New Jersey Ave. NW
WASHINGTON, DC
It’s getting harder for young adults to get ahead in America. Compared to previous generations, today’s 20-somethings earn less, carry more debt and pay more for everything from health care to housing. With young people voting in record numbers, it’s time to put this generation’s economic crisis on the national agenda and build a movement for a better deal. There will be hundreds of young activists meeting to learn about their generation’s economic crisis. The conference is not just about ideas, though – it’s about action. Attendees will get the tools to connect politics to the personal financial struggles of young voters, and get hooked up with others to build a movement for a better deal in their communities.
This conference is FREE and limited travel scholarships are available.
Register today to submit your idea.
A Better Deal Conference is a project of Demos, cosponsored by Campus Progress and more than 30 other organizations. For more information about Demos, the Economic Opportunity Program or other Demos projects and affiliated programs visit: Demos.org.
Green Jobs Conference
March 13-14, 2008, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The Green Jobs Conference is designed for advocates representing the labor, environment and public health movements; local, state and federal policy makers; business leaders; economic and workforce development specialists; investors; and scientists and technology experts. More than 50 experts and leaders will be present. Registration deadline is March 3, 2008.
Young Democratic Socialists Annual Winter Conference
February 15-17, 2008 New York City
“Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible: Reviving Democratic, Socialist, and Youth Activism” is an opportunity to hear great speakers, attend workshops on critical issues, and to connect with other activists working for long-term radical social change. Keynote speakers include renowned academic Manning Marable, trade unionist Bill Fletcher, Jr., and scholar/activists such as Stephen Eric Bronner and Frances Fox Piven.
Click Here for more information.
For events hosted by Campus Progress, click here.
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