Convergence is a magazine for radical insights. We work with organizers and activists on the frontlines of today’s most pressing struggles to produce articles, videos and podcasts that sharpen our collective practice, lift up stories from the grassroots, and promote strategic debate. Our goal is to create the shared strategy needed to change our society and the world. Our community of readers, viewers, and content producers are united in our purpose: winning multi-racial democracy and a radically democratic economy.
Today’s movements for racial justice, workers’ power, climate justice, and progressive electoral power are growing, but so is the ambition and ruthlessness of the racist authoritarian right. We believe we can defeat them, dismantle racial capitalism, and win the change we need by building a new governing majority that is driven by a convergence of grassroots social movements, labor movements, socialists, and progressives.
Convergence will help to cohere that majority.
Convergence began 13 years ago as Organizing Upgrade, an independent movement vehicle where people who were engaged in organizing could reflect on pressing strategic questions in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. From the start, we’ve taken pride in being a publication by and for social movement practitioners, where people on the frontlines of the most pressing struggles of our time offer strategic analysis, assessments of our changing conditions, and arguments about how we could build working-class power.
Over the last decade, we have grown alongside the new radical spirit that has rippled across society following the explosive movements of our day, from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter, from Bernie 2016 to the reemergence of DSA, from the Dreamers and NoDAPL to the #MeToo movement. Alongside these mobilizations, a robust ecosystem has emerged of grassroots organizations, independent political projects, skilled communications and legal groups, and networks of progressive elected officials.
Our movements have begun to reshape the political terrain, igniting some of the largest mobilizations in history, redefining what’s politically possible. A new generation is leading these movements, as millions awaken to the powerful possibilities, and great perils, of our time.
In the years to come, we have to further cohere a new majority driven by these dynamic movements. As our movements have grown, so too has the threat from the reactionary right. To meet the moment, we must overcome the points of tactical misalignment, fragmentation, and gaps in our own strategic thinking. A powerful majority can block the racist authoritarian right, and build a multi-racial democracy, as we walk the path toward a new, radically transformed society.
We know that will only be possible by working across movements to analyze conditions, sharpen our practice, and deepen alignment around a shared strategy. We know that strategic clarity and unity is complex and difficult to make happen. There are no shortcuts, there are no magic bullets.
We aim to be a go-to magazine where our movements meet and converge, so that together, we can win.
Convergence exists to help anchor this new political project. Our community of readers and content producers brings perspectives and priorities from across race, geography, generation, and movement sectors. Our content engages our community in substantive dialogue. We invite newcomers and lifelong organizers to study historical models, share lessons from organizing victories and losses, and debate strategies for taking action.
Convergence offers its readers and community of practice these propositions:
- We commit to doing the hard and complex work of fostering convergence because it’s needed to achieve our political mission.
- We promote discussion, stay away from ungrounded polemics, and bring people together to cohere the multi-racial working-class majority needed to win governing power.
- We stay away from surface-level reporting on movements and, instead, provide thoughtful analysis.
- We base our learnings on practical experiences and disseminate information in a clear and approachable way.
- We don’t shy away from challenges, debates, and areas of misalignment.
- We celebrate the joy and resilience of our struggles and our shared vision of the future.
- We acknowledge the very real challenges, limits, and obstacles we face. But we’re optimistic about the opportunities we have to build something new.
We invite you to join us, to reflect on the complexities of our time, the challenges we have yet to overcome, and the strategies we must create together to win.