People's Summit shows there is overwhelming unity of vision and a common commitment to solidarity for progressive change
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| Led by an all-star lineup of prominent national leaders, more than 3,000 people attended the three-day People’s Summit in Chicago last week in order to build momentum and strategize for the next phase of the populist moment that found itself galvanized around the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. Picture (from left): journalist Juan Gonzalez, actor Rosario Dawson, journalist John Nichols, author Naomi Klein, and NNU executive director RoseAnn DeMoro. (Photo: NNU/Flickr/cc) |
In three momentous days June 17-19, 3,000 activists gathered in a People’s Summit in Chicago to embrace a continuing resolution to building a broad, bigger progressive movement to transform the nation and the planet.
From the speakers podiums to discussion tables and workshops to trainings on everything from building independent politics to the digital political revolution to how to carry out civil disobedience, it was evident there was overwhelming unity of vision and a common commitment to solidarity in creating change.
"Much as we love Bernie Sanders, he didn't do it by himself. He did it because the movements made a Sanders campaign possible." —Frances Fox Piven“We're in a movement moment,” said educator/author Frances Fox Piven. “Those movement moments don't occur too frequently in American history, but when they have occurred, they have changed our society.”
At the end of the final day, participants concluded with a call for unified action that includes:
- Stepping up pressure on the Democratic Party outside and inside its convention in Philadelphia next month.
- Running and supporting progressive candidates for local to statewide to national offices.
- A national day of action and protests to greet the next administration next February no matter who is elected President.
- And, a strong sense that the inaugural People’s Summit would be a harbinger of similar comings together for years to come.
"We are on the precipice of an overwhelming movement — that political revolution that the country needs so badly,” said HIV/AIDS activist Bobby Tolbert of VOCAL NY.
“What we've created together is incredible,” said Moumita Ahmed of Millenials for Bernie. “We’re going to come together and win.”
"It is our duty to fight for each other," emphasized Dante Barry, executive director of A Million Hoodies Movement for Justice.
Climate action filmmaker Josh Fox said he is often asked, facing the threat of rising seas and other climate dangers “where do I move? My answer is always the same, anywhere there is a strong movement.”
“We aren’t going to try to tell people what they need to care about,” said Charles Lencher, co-founder of People for Bernie told a reporter. “Our job is to reflect back at them what they already care about—and then get them to take action.”
“Never before after a victory or a loss have people said, I’m not finished. We’re not finished,” noted journalist/activist Shaun King. “Bernie was obsessed with the issues, like we are obsessed with the issues. The people who formed the People’s Summit knew there was a time after the primaries that we would need to get together.”
Many of those in Chicago had worked for months swelling the ranks and success of the Bernie Sanders campaign.
But the Sanders movement does not exist in isolation. Many economic and social forces of resistance and struggle predated this electoral cycle.
“There is a history that has led up to this moment that allows us to step on the backs of so many people who gave us the leverage to be able to speak as powerfully as we are, to organize as well as we have,” noted actor/activist Rosario Dawson.
Their recent roots can be traced to neoliberal policies, which began in the 1970s that ripped away at the heart of our country and made everything for sale through deregulation, privatization and austerity measures. But oppression always engenders resistance.
Please continue this article here: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/06/24/we-will-not-waver-our-political-revolution
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