OrgUp is excited to present a conversation between two leading activists who are each deep in the worlds of electoral politics as well as direct action: our new Executive Editor Alex Han and Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell. They’ll meet on a special livestream Friday, Dec. 10 at 10:30 am EST to discuss openings we can seize in the coming year. What movement moments could shift the midterm election trajectory? How can we support energized efforts to build independent grassroots political power, and encourage a convergence of Left and progressive social movements? You can register here.
“As challenging as 2022 will be, we have the ingredients to build strategies that can protect our communities and expand the movement for multiracial democracy,” Han said. “We learned so much about progressive electoral work last year that we are building on. With a convergence of those lessons, the upsurge of labor militancy, and the ongoing street action in defense of black lives, we can create the kind of politics that can meet the moment.”
Based in Chicago and rooted in the labor movement, Han served a vice president of SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Healthcare Illinois and Indiana, where he helped tens of thousands of home-care and childcare workers organize. He was one of the founders of United Working Families, an independent labor-community political organization that has elected movement leaders to city, county, and state offices, and he has worked with the Bargaining for the Common Good network. “I was lucky to be in a position to be elected into the leadership of one of the largest local unions in the country, in a city at the heart of the neoliberal experiment, in a moment in which multiple strands of movement and organization building were beginning to grow,” Han said.
Mitchell moved to Ferguson, MO in 2014 to support organizers on the ground, and subsequently founded Blackbird to provide strategic support for Movement for Black Lives activists around the country. In 2018 he became national director for the Working Families Party, helping to build it into the political home for a multiracial working-class movement.
Please join us for what promises to be a thought-provoking and inspiring exchange!