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Saturday, September 5
 

8:30am CDT

Morning Yoga
Saturday September 5, 2026 8:30am - 9:30am CDT
Join us for a Vinyasa yoga session led by local yogi Angel. We’ll work to sync our breath and bodies to beginner’s poses with just enough challenge to get you out of your comfort zone. This 60-min flow is perfect for all levels. We will have mats available on a first come, first serve basis.
Saturday September 5, 2026 8:30am - 9:30am CDT
Outside on the lawn (weather-permitting)

10:00am CDT

The Black Path to Socialism
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
A recent pew research poll indicates that Black folk have the most positive opinion of socialism of any other race/ethnicity in the US—but there is a contradiction as it pertains to who these folk vote for, the party they support the most, and the “leaders” they allow to speak for and guide them. “The Black Path to Socialism” will explore these contradictions and give historic content as to why and how socialism was always the preferred model for poor and working class Black folk until the rise of the Black Misleadership class and other elements of neoliberalism.
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
W190A

10:00am CDT

No Such Thing As NIMBY: The Fight to Protect Our Water
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Myopic local site fights have failed to meet the moment. Meanwhile, broad sloganeering and positive visioning around climate justice have not galvanized workers (especially across the South) the way ecosocialists have hoped. This session will explore how the struggle against Corpus Christi's water crisis became an anti-imperialist and ecosocialist struggle.
Speakers
JE

Jenny Espino

Jenny Espino has been organizing across the Gulf South since the Bush era. She has spoken at conferences such as the Southwestern Marxism Conference, the Texas Socialism Conference, Haymarket’s Socialism conference, and on panels and conferences across Europe including Beyond Gas... Read More →
JH

Jake Hernandez

Jake Hernandez is a union steward and the co-chair of Corpus Christi DSA. He has been instrumental in the fight to defend Corpus Christi’s bay and estuaries while connecting local issues like the tax abatements, the drought contingency plan, and water rates to internationalist... Read More →
CT

Chloe Torres

Chloe Torres is a proud lifelong resident of Corpus Christi, Texas and truly believes in the city’s potential to set an example for other Gulf Coast cities on how to fight back against environmental racism. They helped build successful campaigns to elect and reelect a socialist... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Hyde Park B

10:00am CDT

Hustle Culture vs. Solidarity
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Hustle Culture offers working-class and poor people a false alternative to organizing that feels:: agency, aspiration, and a path that feels immediate and non-partisan. This panel examines how it shapeshifts across cultural contexts—from MLMs to Girl Boss feminism—and what its appeal reveals about blind spots in how the left communicates solidarity and collective action.
Speakers
NB

Natalie Bencivega

Natalie Bencivenga is an award-winning journalist, producer, and media consultant based in Pittsburgh. She hosts and produces Week in Focus for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star and Just the Source for PublicSource, and is a fellow at Duquesne University's Institute for Ethics and Integrity... Read More →
avatar for Chenjerai Kumanyika

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Chenjerai Kumanyika is a journalist, scholar, organizer, and professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the host and creator of  Unruly Subjects, produced with Rowhome Productions. Through conversations with organizers, journalists, artists, and scholars, Unruly... Read More →
DN

Demetrius Noble

Demetrius "D." Noble is a professor, poet, and cultural organizer specializing in African American Literature, Black class antagonisms, and Hip-Hop Studies. A member of Greensboro Socialists, his work has appeared in Tempest, Hammer & Hope, African American Review, Socialism & Democracy... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
W190B

10:00am CDT

Journalism, Authoritarianism and Struggles Against ICE
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
This panel will explore journalism and other writing about the solidarity networks and mutual aid efforts that emerged in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and other US cities in response to the Trump administration's ICE surge. Speakers include the 2026 Daniel Singer Prize winner Diane de Vignemont, whose winning essay is entitled "Minneapolis Protests Sound a Lot Like the French Resistance," as well as Adam Goodman (Professor at University of Illinois Chicago and author of The Deportation Machine) and Memo Torres (journalist with L.A. TACO and host of the "Daily Memo").
Speakers
AG

Adam Goodman

Adam Goodman, Professor at University of Illinois Chicago and author of The Deportation Machine
MT

Memo Torres

Memo Torres, journalist with L.A. TACO
DD

Diane de Vignemont

Diane de Vignemont, journalist and winner of this year's Daniel Singer Prize
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Hyde Park A

10:00am CDT

Gender and Accumulation
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Marxist historians note that “primitive” or “original” accumulation preceded capitalism. This early concentration of wealth depended on the theft of common lands, colonization, slavery, and the displacement of Indigenous peoples. It also required the imposition of a modern gender order. This presentation traces the role of gender discipline in both original accumulation and later moments of intensified capitalist accumulation.
Speakers
EM

Eric Maroney

Eric Maroney is a socialist writer and member of the Tempest Collective. His first book, tentatively titled The Anti-trans Turn, is forthcoming from Haymarket Books.
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Jackson Park D

10:00am CDT

Health Fascism, Body Politics, and the Anti-State State (Health Fascism Series)
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
As governments retreat from care, and health increasingly becomes a signifier of discipline—rather than provision—fitness, disability, fatness, illness, Blackness, impairment, and bodily capacity are mobilized into measures of moral worth and political belonging. This panel examines how health, disability, body size, and race are instrumentalized by the state and being reorganized under health fascism. Da’Shaun L. Harrison, Beatrice Adler-Bolton, and Artie Vierkant will discuss what these transformations reveal about the changing relationship between capitalism, the state, and everyday life.
Speakers
BA

Beatrice Adler-Bolton

Beatrice Adler-Bolton is a disabled and chronically ill agitator and independent researcher. She is the co-author of Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto (Verso, 2022) and a co-host of the Death Panel podcast.


AV

Artie Vierkant

Artie Vierkant is the co-author of Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto (Verso, 2022) and a co-host, as well as the editor and producer, of the Death Panel podcast. 
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Grant Park AB

10:00am CDT

Building the Anti-War Movement: Identifying and Organizing Against U.S. Military Subcontractors
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
What will it take to meaningfully interrupt the U.S. military industrial complex? How can we engage in effective anti-war action against U.S. imperialism? Using the experience of organizing against Howmet Aerospace, a military subcontractor based in Pittsburgh, panelists will show how local movements can identify hundreds of of lesser-known subcontractors that participate in war profiteering and build effective movements to dismantle their power.
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Burnham ABC

10:00am CDT

Crisis in Venezuela: Socialist Perspectives
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
This session features contributors to the book Venezuela in Crisis, presenting Venezuelan socialist analyses of the country’s collapse and advancing an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-authoritarian critique of the Maduro regime. It will also assess the post–January 3 U.S. military intervention and the reconfiguration of power, sovereignty, and class relations in its aftermath.
Speakers
SR

Simón Rodríguez

Simón Rodríguez, Venezuelan socialist, member of Partido Socialismo y Libertad, and author of Por Qué Fracasó el Chavismo
AB

Anderson Bean

Anderson Bean is a North Carolina–based activist and editor and contributor of the book Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives from Haymarket Books, and the author of Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis from Lexington... Read More →
GG

Gonzalo Gómez

Gonzalo Gómez is a Venezuelan socialist activist and writer who played a key role in the regroupment of Trotskyism in Venezuela and provided critical support to the Bolivarian Revolution during the Chavez era. He is a cofounder of both Aporrea and Marea Socialista, a current that... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Erie

10:00am CDT

Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
As tech bosses fall in line with the right, tech workers are fighting back. Join Clarissa Redwine and JS Tan as they explore the history and lessons of the tech worker movement that has been taking on their own employers since the early 2020s, drawing crucial insights from this inspiring workers' movement and analyzing the rise of the hostile labor politics that define Silicon Valley today.
Speakers
CR

Clarissa Redwine

Clarissa Redwine helped organize the Kickstarter union and cofounded the tech organizing conference Circuit Breakers. Her organizing work has been featured in The New York Times, the BBC, The Guardian, The Verge, TechCrunch, and elsewhere. She is co-author of Against Tech Oligarchy... Read More →
JT

JS Tan

JS Tan is getting his PhD at MIT and formerly worked in tech. His work has been featured in The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Dissent, Jacobin, Foreign Policy, The Baffler, and The Guardian, among other outlets. He is co-author of Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Adler ABC

10:00am CDT

Labor at the Margins
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
While union representation in the US remains at an all time low, labor organizing is resurgent. But as the US economy shifts from an industrial to a high-tech and service economy, and as the working class confronts intensified forms of criminalization, the sites of worker agitation have expanded beyond the factory floor. In the process, workers traditionally at the “margins” of the labor movement—such as sex workers and formerly incarcerated workers—are reshaping the struggle for worker power and deepening our understanding of how capitalism exploits and punishes workers in the twenty-first century. Moderated by journalist Kim Kelly, this panel will hear from Maya (Sex Worker Organizing Project—Chicago) and Kat (Beyond the Bars) about their organizing and the ways the wider labor movement can learn from labor at the “margins.”
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Field ABC

10:00am CDT

Chicago's Educators and Families Defending Communities Against ICE
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Chicago public educators and community members reflect on lessons learned on the front lines defending our schools and neighborhoods during Operation Midway Blitz. We united to protect our communities in brilliant acts of multi-racial solidarity, providing a blueprint for the kind of critical resistance demanded in an era of unfettered state violence.
Speakers
LG

Lisset G

Lizette G became involved with the southwest rapid response team during operation midway blitz and is now a key organizer at a day laborer hiring site in her neighborhood of Brighton Park. She is a mother to two CPS students.
KG

Kobi Guillory

Kobi Guillory was born in Atlanta and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a middle school science teacher on the South side and a CTU delegate. He is also a member of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and Freedom Road Socialist Organization
KZ

Kathryn Zamarron

Kat Zamarrón teaches elementary school music and is a member of the Chicago Teachers Union and Caucus-of-Rank-and-File-Educators (CORE). She is a member of the union's Latine Caucus, PAC, and Executive Board. Outside of union activities, she is involved with community defense work... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Jackson Park A

10:00am CDT

Lessons of the Russian Revolution
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
The 1917 Russian Revolution was one of the 20th century’s most important events. Its early successes inspired workers internationally, but within a decade the revolution had degenerated, and the early gains were replaced with labor camps, show trials, and bureaucratic dictatorship. What lessons does this history hold for socialists today?
Speakers
PG

Phil Gasper

Phil Gasper is co-editor of New Politics, editor of an annotated edition of The Communist Manifesto, and a member of the Tempest Collective.
SW

Suzi Weissman

Suzi Weissman is an editor of Against the Current and Critique. She is an award-winning journalist who hosts “Beneath the Surface” on Los Angeles’ KPFK radio, and the author of Victor Serge: The Course is Set on Hope.
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Jackson Park B

10:00am CDT

Political Education 2: Understanding Dialectics
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
This workshop will introduce dialectical materialism, giving insight into the Marxist theory of change. Dialectics is a useful framework not simply for its explanatory power; this “theory is a weapon”, honed by revolutionaries seeking to transform oppressive systems over generations and across the world. After establishing a baseline of understanding, we’ll deploy dialectics to better grasp the nature of the developments in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, especially focusing on the period of struggle since October 2023.
Speakers
SA

Samer Araabi

Samer Araabi, Arab Resource & Organizing Center/ Center for Constitutional Rights
TM

Thomas Mariadason

Thomas Mariadason is the Executive Director of the Center for Political Education
CO

Chika Okoye

Chika Okoye is the Lead Educator for the Center for Political Education
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Dusable ABC

10:00am CDT

Song for a Hard-Hit People: Building Anti-Racist Solidarity in Appalachia
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Appalachia is often framed as a place to escape from, where people are hateful, lazy, and bring tragedy upon themselves. Join Beth Howard to discuss the powerful history of white Appalachians fighting alongside Black and Brown people, pushing back against billionaires who gain power by using racism to divide them. Appalachia has not only been hit hard; it is the place to wage a freedom struggle.
Speakers
BH

Beth Howard

Beth Howard is the Cultural Strategist for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), the largest national organization bringing white people into the fight for racial and economic justice. She grew up in a rural white working-class community in Eastern Kentucky and has organized in the... Read More →
JS

Jerome Scott

Jerome Scott was a labor organizer in the auto plants of Detroit in the 1960s-’70s, and a member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. As a community organizer, popular educator and author in the South since the 1970s, he was a founding member and former director of Project... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
Jackson Park C

12:00pm CDT

Cross-Walls Solidarity Against Carceral Infrastructure
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Incarcerated and detained people have always played a complex role in the movement to end caging and free them all. This session brings together abolitionist organizers focused on permanently closing facilities without replacing them to discuss the process of building cross-walls solidarity beyond campaigns. Speakers will discuss how closure impacts those inside facilities, as well as lessons learned from responding to retaliation, censorship, and a constantly adapting carceral state.
Speakers
KD

Kendra Drysdale

Kendra Drysdale, California Coalition for Women’s Prisoners (FCI Dublin Fight)
BH

Berty Hernandez

Berty Hernandez, California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (Shut Down Adelanto)
MM

Mon Mohapatra

Mon Mohapatra (Community Justice Exchange)
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Dusable ABC

12:00pm CDT

Debates in Prison Abolitionist Theory and Practice
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Scholars and organizers will discuss live questions of abolitionist theory and practice, from how to think about taking on police vs. ICE vs. the military (or county jails vs. prisons vs. warehousing projects) within this conjuncture of authoritarianism and imperial decline to the relationship between Marxism and prison abolition.
Moderators Speakers
SS

Silky Shah

Silky Shah has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over two decades. Originally from Texas, she began fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2009, she joined the staff of Detention Watch Network... Read More →
ZA

Zohra Ahmed

Zohra Ahmed is an associate professor of law at Boston University, USA. She writes and teaches about U.S. militarism, domestically and globally. She is a former public defender, and works closely with grassroots movements challenging criminalization. 
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
W190A

12:00pm CDT

The Merciless Society: Incarceration, Dehumanization, and American Empire
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
In our age of carceral imperialism, the return of longer and more brutal punishments reveals the pretense of civilization slipping away. As mercy toward the marginalized is demonized by a steady diet of disinformation about crime and punishment, the worst-case scenarios are quickly becoming more and more possible unless we confront the merciless society head on.
Speakers
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Burnham ABC

12:00pm CDT

Art and Propaganda: On Learning from Paul Robeson, Why the Artist must Take Sides
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Join award-winning poet and performer Saul Williams for a discussion of his new book, Song My Mother Taught Me: Why The Artist Must Take Sides, a clear-eyed exploration of radical poetry, art, and the role of the artist in these times.
Speakers
avatar for Saul Williams

Saul Williams

For nearly three decades, writer, musician, poet, director, and actor Saul Williams has occupied a singular place in Black culture, resisting the confines of genre across music, literature and film, and using art as a transformative device.

Raised between church traditions, hip hop, revolutionary literature and the liberating chaos of downtown poetry scenes, Williams learned early that speaking over music could carry the same emotional force as singing. He traces the lineage through Black church sermons, through... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Grant Park AB

12:00pm CDT

State Fiscal Strategy for the 21st Century: Dispatches from New York's New Era
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Working-class priorities are reshaping fiscal policy across America’s cities, prompting urgent debates on state and municipal budgets. Join representatives from New York’s Fiscal Policy Institute to discuss the fiscal issues confronting movement advocates and elected officials in New York State and New York City, from expanding revenue through taxing the rich to countering misinfomation about millionaire tax flight.
Speakers
EC

Elizabeth Cooper

Elizabeth Cooper is the Housing Policy Analyst at the Fiscal Policy Institute. She received an MA in economics from the New School for Social Research. She is also the research coordinator for North Jersey DSA's electoral working group.
CF

Ciarán Finlayson

Ciarán Finlayson is Communications Director at the Fiscal Policy Institute. He is a student in the economics department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, and received an MA from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, United K... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Jackson Park C

12:00pm CDT

Break the Board: Neoliberalism in Crisis and the Popular University as Abolition
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
This panel introduces the Board of Butchers framework, an abolitionist project in opposition to the neoliberal university, actualized through the pursuit of the Popular University. The panel further strategizes how academics and intellectuals can use their skills to effectively support the Palestinian liberation movement and the abolition of the university.
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Field ABC

12:00pm CDT

Sex for Pleasure: Controlling your Reproduction Under a Pro-Natalist Regime
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
In a post-Dobbs era, are restrictions on birth control next? Probably. Learn about alternative contraception methods in a hands-on workshop with a doula + herbalist. **this is not medical advice, educational in nature **
Speakers
EL

Emily Likins-Ehlers

Emily Likins-Ehlers is a full spectrum doula and educator in Illinois. They have been working with contraceptive plants and Fertility Awareness for over a decade.
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Jackson Park B

12:00pm CDT

Class Struggle Infrastructure: Tenant Unions and Socialism
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Under capitalism, housing is commodified — a primary site of extraction and exploitation of ordinary people. But the fundamental need for a home remains a shared human experience. From this contradiction the tenant struggle emerges: the fight for a dignified home against the profiteering landlords who control housing. Tenant unions are the infrastructure we use to transform isolated tenant fights into a collective class struggle. Come learn why socialism needs the tenant movement, why the tenant movement needs you, and how to get involved in tenant organizing where you live!
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Jackson Park A

12:00pm CDT

Rank and File Lessons from a New York Nurses Strike in the Mamdani Era
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Hear how the rank-and-file leaders of the longest nurses’ strike in NY history defeated multimillionaire hospital CEOs on the freezing picket lines by defying concessionary agreements from their own leadership and using open bargaining strategies to build unity, to win pay raises, staffing/workplace safety standards and protections against ICE.
Speakers
RG

Roxana Garcia

Roxanna Garcia has been an active a member of NYSNA, throughout her 14 year career as an RN and NP. During the January 2026 strike, she served on the Contract Action Team and as a Strike Captain, acting as a liaison between members and leadership, supporting colleagues, and helping... Read More →
BL

Beth Loudin

Beth Loudin is a NYC Union nurse who specializes in cardiac neonatal intensive care while leading her local bargaining unit as president of NYSNA at NYP. Beth lives in Brooklyn with her husband and toddler.
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Adler ABC

12:00pm CDT

Revolutionary Socialism from Below: Strategies to Build the Resistance
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
If liberation could come from the government, it can be taken away again by that government. But there is a different approach to building socialism—from the bottom up. Strategies for creating socialism from below aim to inspire the creative participation of the multiracial working class through mass protests, long-term democratic organizing in rank-and-file unions, neighborhood-level organizations, and other working-class institutions. Join us to discuss recent examples of such efforts and their critical role in resisting authoritarianism and advancing the revolutionary transformation of society toward ecosocialism.
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
W190B

12:00pm CDT

What Is the Muslim Left?
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
From Malcolm X and the Black Radical Tradition to anti-imperialist organizing after 9/11, Muslim leftists have shaped US movements while remaining illegible to the broader left. Is the Muslim left a coherent political tradition or a coalition of incompatible projects? Speakers stake out distinct positions on religion, racialization, and revolutionary strategy.
Speakers
AS

Ashik Siddique

Ashik Siddique is national co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America, and has served on DSA's National Political Committee since 2021. He has organized with DSA’s campaign for Bernie in 2020, for campaigns against the climate crisis and for labor rights, with protests at the... Read More →
EA

Eman Abdelhadi

Eman Abdelhadi is a scholar, organizer and writer. She is an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago, writes a column for In These Times Magazine and is co-author of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, a sci-fi novel... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Hyde Park B

12:00pm CDT

Migra Watch Training for Illinois Residents
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
For more than a year, PUÑO has been building collective power to protect Chicago’s immigrant communities through a variety of trainings and connecting Chicagoans to their local rapid response group. At this training organizers will lead attendees on how to document and record ICE activity, as well as how to combat ICE terror in our communities.
Speakers Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Erie

12:00pm CDT

Che’s “New Man” and The Bodhisattva Revolutionary
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
This panel will examine Che Guevara's concept of the "New Socialist Man" (person) and argue for the necessity of cultivating a revolutionary subjectivity through struggle. Using the lens of Buddhist meditation, it will explore how we can elevate consciousness through love, interdependence, and service to others in the world--creating a truly communist subjectivity in the process.
Speakers
BO

Breht O’Shea

Breht is the host of Rev Left Radio, Co-Host of the Red Menace podcast, author of an upcoming book put out by the left wing publisher Iskra Books titled "A Letter to Young Revolutionaries", a founding member of Socialist Night School (a community based political education program... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Jackson Park D

12:00pm CDT

Socialism, Liberation Theology, and the Black Church: Lessons from Black Socialist Preachers Past and Present
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Taking inspiration from James Cone’s “The Black Church and Marxism: What Do They Have to Say to Each Other” (1980), this session will explore the organizing of early Black socialist Rev. George W. Woodbey and discuss perspectives on liberation theology, the Black church, and socialist organizing today.
Speakers
AR

Andrew Reginald Hairston

Andrew Reginald Hairston is a Black socialist who lives and works in the American South. He serves in leadership at Ebenezer Third Baptist Church in Austin, TX and attends ACTS Community Baptist Church in Oklahoma City.
CH

Charles Holm

Charles Holm is a ‘white’ abolitionist-socialist based in Nebraska and has a PhD in Black Studies from Texas. A former union organizer in Atlanta, he is currently an adjunct instructor in northwest Iowa and is writing a book about George W. Woodbey.
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Hyde Park A

12:00pm CDT

AI Extractivism: Global Systems, Local Processes
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
From colonial cattle economies to gold, critical minerals, and data centers, this session presents AI as an evolving extractive regime of global capitalism that reorganizes governance frameworks. It examines how system logics within emerging geopolitical structures translate into local politics and collective responses, exploring possibilities for transnational resistance and solidarity.
Speakers
SS

Shiera S. al-Malik

Shiera S. el-Malik is Professor of International Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. She teaches and writes on themes of coloniality, politics, and theory. Her research is guided by an interest in the intersection of politics of knowledge and lived experience, particularly in... Read More →
VC

V'cenza Cirefice

Dr. V’cenza Cirefice is an ecofeminist researcher, organiser and artist from the Mourne Mountains in the North of Ireland. She works on themes of resistance to extractivism and feminist political ecology. Currently she organises with CAIM, Communities Against the Injustice of Mining... Read More →
MC

Marta Cook

Marta Cook is a researcher, writer, and widely recognized as one of the foremost harpists in Irish traditional music. Her article Subjects of Tradition: Cultural Construction and Irish Comprador Capitalism appeared in Irish Studies Review Volume 32, 2024. Her work on cultural extractivism... Read More →
FE

Fawn E. Pochel

Fawn E. Pochel (they/she), a gender-queer urban Native, works closely with communities across Chicago to incorporate land-based pedagogies and Indigenous worldview into curricula and policy while working towards dismantling systems of white supremacy. Their father, a member of the... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Clark ABC

1:30pm CDT

Letter Writing to Incarcerated Comrades
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Do you want to build connections with imprisoned comrades, but don’t know where to start? Spend your lunch hour learning the political importance of and best practices for letter writing to people who are incarcerated. Participants will have the opportunity to write letters during the session with guidance and support from organizers and activists supporting folks inside as well as formerly imprisoned people. Bring a friend, or two!
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Michigan/Huron

1:30pm CDT

"Finding Our Place in the Sun:" A Black Socialists Meetup
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Join aja monet, Delaney Vandergrift, and Derecka Purnell for a conversation and gathering about how and why our people resonate with type of socialism that sings from Stevie Wonder songs, lives in houses filled with multiple generations, and grows from the shared gardens that we tend. What are our commitments to each other, and how do we manifest them across space, time, and strategy?
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Burnham ABC

1:30pm CDT

Labor for Palestine National Network Meet-Up
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Join Labor for Palestine activists to strategize about how we can collectively organize workers' power to shut down genocidal wars, from LA to Palestine, Iran, and beyond.
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Clark ABC

1:30pm CDT

Public Educators Meet-Up
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Join this meet up to strategize and build solidarity with other teachers on the front lines of the struggle to fight the dismantling of public education under the Trump administration.
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Hyde Park A

1:30pm CDT

Socialist Horizon Meet-up
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Socialist Horizon is an independent class struggle organization with branches and members across the U.S. Socialist Horizon is a member of the United Left Platform and is the U.S. section of the International Socialist League.  Socialist Horizon meet-up with conference attendees will discuss the group's political orientation and collaboration with other Socialist groups, as well as prospects for mass organizing and socialist intervention in the coming year.  
Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT
Jackson Park C

3:00pm CDT

Land and Abolition
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Based in concrete struggles throughout what Milton Santos provocatively called “used territory,” this talk traces abolition's emergence as an aspirational totality sprouting from cracks in urbanization and agrarian upheavals.
Speakers
RW

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Ruth Wilson Gilmore is professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences, and American Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, USA. Co-founder of many grassroots organizations including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
W190B

3:00pm CDT

Solidarity Across the Walls and Beyond: Conversation on Inside/Outside Collaborations
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
This session is an invitation for abolitionist organizers on the outside to take steps to ensure imprisoned people are part of the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex. Join formerly imprisoned educators and organizers Stevie Wilson and James Kilgore for a conversation on the importance and potential of genuine collaborations between people in prison and their comrades on the outside. This session will also feature reflections from two members of the 9971 abolitionist study group who are currently imprisoned at SCI Dallas in Pennsylvania.
Speakers Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Burnham ABC

3:00pm CDT

Ocean Deep Solidarity: Reparations, LANDBACK, and Collective Liberation
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
As capitalism and empire intensify crises this panel explores how Black and Indigenous struggles for land, reparations, and sovereignty are braided to challenge structural power. Drawing on BLIS Collective research with RISE (Research for Indigenous Social Action and Equity) Center, we examine coordinated organizing, narrative, and strategy for liberated futures.
Moderators Speakers
DA

Dr. Aymar Jean Escoffery

Dr. Aymar Jean "AJ" Escoffery (fka Aymar Jean Christian) is the Margaret Walker  Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University, Faculty Director of the MS in Leadership for Creative Enterprises, and Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center... Read More →
MH

Matthew Harvey

Matthew Harvey is a father, media literacy educator, and award-winning writer born-and-raised in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. His career is dedicated to empowering communities through access to information, and connecting people through storytelling. He spent nearly a decade as... Read More →
CM

Claire Maracle

Claire Maracle is a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, raised as a guest on Muscogee, Osage, and Cherokee land. This experience directly informs their work in rematriation and their conviction that language is the key to transcending displacement... Read More →
RS

Raven Schwam-Curtis

Raven Schwam-Curtis (they/she) makes disappeared histories visible through accessible education. As a Black, Jewish, and queer educator, Raven’s work emerges from the intersections where communities overlap, clash, and must find common ground. After earning degrees from Cornell... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Adler ABC

3:00pm CDT

Printing the Revolution: The Role of Art in Organizing and Building Community Resistance
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Art is too often seen as an extra when building social struggles. Sometimes its seen as an important part of mobilizing people. But too rarely art is treated as a way into organizing and building an alternative to our crisis-ridden world. These artist-activists will bring their rich insights from combined decades of experience to explore art's role in building a better world.
Speakers
AP

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr.

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is an American printer, book artist and papermaker best known for social and political commentary, particularly in printed posters. 














DC

Dio Cramer

Dio (they/them) is an artist, organizer, printmaker, and geographer currently living on occupied Dakota lands in so-called Minnesota. Their work is focused on placemaking, community building, and organizing through the arts, and facilitating collective and collaborative art-making... Read More →
RL

Ricardo Levins Morales

Ricardo Levins Morales is an artist and organizer based in Minneapolis. He uses his art as a form of political medicine to support individual and collective healing from the injuries and ongoing reality of oppression.He was born into the anti-colonial movement in his native Puerto Rico and was drawn into... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Jackson Park B

3:00pm CDT

Resisting Attacks on Schools, from Gaza to Chicago
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
This panel looks at K-12 schools as sites of imperial violence and attacks on knowledge, including scholasticide in Palestine and repression in the U.S. Demystifying the Anti-Defamation League’s assaults on antiracist teaching, this session grounds us in the knowledge needed to organize our schools — for Palestine, against racism, and with our communities.
Speakers
HM

Hadeil M. Abdelfattah, Ed.D

Hadeil M. Abdelfattah, Ed.D. is a Palestinian-American born and raised on the northside of the city of Chicago. She is an educator of nearly 28 years and is currently a Lead Instructional Coach at Chicago Public Schools. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and wrote an... Read More →
DS

David Stovall, Ph.D

David Stovall, Ph.D. is a professor in the departments of Black Studies and Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). His scholarship investigates three areas 1) Critical Race Theory, 2) the relationship between housing and education, and 3) the intersection... Read More →
NL

Nora Lester Murad

Nora Lester Murad is a writer and activist. She is the author of the award-winning young adult novel, Ida in the Middle, editor of I Found Myself in Palestine (2020) and co-author of Rest in My Shade (2018). Nora writes commentary for outlets including Mondoweiss, The New Arab, Markaz... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Superior

3:00pm CDT

Funding Until It’s Free: Building a Movement for Tomorrow While Fundraising for Today
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
A conversation with members of direct aid funds in Chicago discussing strategies related to fundraising for and providing direct services in our times. A conversation reflecting on charity vs solidarity and ways to fight for and build a better world while meeting people’s needs now.
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Hyde Park B

3:00pm CDT

Trans Care in the Age of Health Fascism (Health Fascism Series)
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
The struggle over trans healthcare is one of the clearest expressions of how medicine, incarceration, and borders are intertwined. As the US and Britain increasingly govern through prohibition, austerity, and criminalization, the reach of policing and punishment has rapidly expanded—both inside and outside the prison walls. Vicky Osterweil, S. Lamble, and Beatrice Adler-Bolton will discuss the carcerality of the anti-trans panic, its centrality to health fascism, and what abolition can teach us about defending care beyond the limits of the state.
Speakers
BA

Beatrice Adler-Bolton

Beatrice Adler-Bolton is a disabled and chronically ill agitator and independent researcher. She is the co-author of Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto (Verso, 2022) and a co-host of the Death Panel podcast.


SL

S. Lamble

Lamble is a community organizer and Professor of Criminology and Queer Theory at Birkbeck, University of London, and the author of Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash. Their work explores questions of gender, sexuality, and justice with a focus on feminist and abolitionist... Read More →
VO

Vicky Osterweil

Vicky Osterweil is a Philadelphia-based writer, agitator, and worker and the author of The Extended Universe and In Defense of Looting. She is a member of the anarchist journal CAW and has written about the intersections of film, politics, and culture for publications such as The... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Jackson Park C

3:00pm CDT

Connecting with Coworkers to Form Your Union
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Trying to organize your workplace? Want to learn how to have conversations that move people to action? Join the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) for a training on tried and true methods of organizing: how to build relationships, ask good questions, and bring your coworkers in to join the campaign.
Speakers
DT

Dawn Tefft

Dawn Tefft works as a union representative and organizer, volunteers as a Lead Organizer and Advanced Organizer for the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), and volunteers with the Federal Unionists Network (FUN).  She has helped develop and facilitate labor trainings... Read More →
AB

Araya Barnes

Araya is a trainer and organizer for EWOC and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. They most frequently work at the intersection of the labor and electoral arms of the DSA.
R

Rumin

Rumin supports trainings at EWOC that help workers launch efforts to organize their workplace. In her day job, she conducts public health research.
AA

AK Alilonu

AK is a Southsider, an organizer with EWOC and one of the coordinators for its Chicago local, CHIWOC. He works as a union lawyer at the Illinois Nurses Association.
AD

Atulya Dora-Laskey

Atulya was an organizing and bargaining committee member for the first-ever unionized Chipotle. She is now an EWOC volunteer and a staff organizer for the University of Illinois Chicago United Faculty. She is trying to read more.
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Clark ABC

3:00pm CDT

All Socialism, No Government: An Introduction to Anarchist Theory and Strategy
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Anarchism is often the least understood branch of socialism. Anarchists walk a revolutionary path separate from the brutality of state systems, whether social democratic or Stalinist. Join us to discuss how anarchists are organizing and building toward a directly democratic world without capitalism, the state, and systemic oppression.
Speakers
HB

Heb Braggs

Heb Braggs is a writer, artist, and organizer in Chicago, Illinois. 
BE

Ben Eager

Ben Eager is an independent academic and activist in Chicago, Illinois.
JJ

Jeremy Jewitt

Jeremy Jewitt is a tenant organizer in Chicago, Illinois. 
JG

Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso

Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso is a law student, organizer, and writer in Queens, New York City
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Field ABC

3:00pm CDT

Black Left Feminism and the Fight Against Fascism: Lessons and Assignments
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Black feminist thinkers and organizers have historically generated our most powerful frameworks and resources for defense against the far right and for remaking the world. Today, as neoliberal conditions give rise to new fascisms and attacks on our people, the Black feminist lineage provides strength and direction for struggles across a range of contexts, from the arts to municipal politics, public employment, and higher education. The ongoing work of Scholars for Social Justice is one important site of Black feminist organizing that will be discussed in this session.
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Grant Park AB

3:00pm CDT

Revolutionary Socialists and the Fight Against War and Authoritarianism
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Organizers from the revolutionary and independent socialist left, from four different cities, share their experiences in helping build the broader anti-Trump movement while fighting for distinct strategies and perspective—based on the need for political independence, a strategic focus on social struggle and mass action, and democratic organizing—to defeat authoritarianism.
Speakers
NK

Ndindi Kitonga

Ndindi Kitonga, a black activist in LA originally from Kenya who is founder of Palms Unhoused Mutual Aid, an abolitionist housing network. She has also been active in BLM and related community organizing.
BM

Bill Mullen

Bill Mullen is a member of Socialist Horizon and the Committee to Defend Tom Alter.
KR

Kirstin Roberts

Kirstin Roberts is a Chicago teacher and socialist activist, long standing member of the CTU and active in May Day Strong Chicago. 
PM

Pepper Macias

Pepper Macias is a hotel kitchen worker, UNITE/HERE activist who is part of Unidad Latina en Accion.
M

Meg

Meg is a grassroots activist organizing in working class neighborhoods of Baltimore for ICE defense, climate justice, and and other political coalitions.
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Jackson Park A

3:00pm CDT

How to Close a Camp: Dispatches from the Fight Against Immigrant Detention
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Masked federal agents are kidnapping and killing our neighbors, on the streets and behind the bars of hundreds of detention centers across the country. In spite of the decades-long growth of immigrant detention, communities have been fighting back against camps—and winning. Join award-winning journalist and translator John Washington and community advocate Johannes Favi as they discuss the community-led fights to shut down these camps.
Speakers
JW

John Washington

John Washington is a journalist covering the border, climate change, democracy, and more. He has written for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Intercept, and other outlets. He is the author of The Case for Open Borders and The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum... Read More →
JF

Johannes Favi

Johannes Favi is a nationally recognized community leader, human rights advocate, and founder of Caged Dreams, a nonprofit organization advancing healing, leadership, and educational opportunity for immigrant communities. His work bridges lived experience, public policy, and community engagement... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Jackson Park D

3:00pm CDT

The Revolutionary Legacies and Lineages of Grace Lee Boggs
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
This workshop is an introduction to the life and thoughts of this Detroit-based Chinese-US American labor organizer, Black Power activist, and leftist Asian American icon. We will explore how her revolutionary legacy continues to inform visionary projects in Detroit and global movements. Drawing from the lessons I’ve learned over two summers in Detroit, together we will envision what a visionary, place-based, relational organizing could look like for your local context.
Speakers
LL

Lily Luo

Dr. Lily Luo is a scholar, organizer, and artist based in New York City and working at the University of Connecticut. She recently successfully defended her dissertation titled “Learning to Transform: The Revolutionary Legacies and Lineages of Grace Lee Boggs” at the University... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Erie

3:00pm CDT

How the Left Takes on AI Will Determine the Future
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
How we respond to AI may define the next decade of organizing. This debate, originally featured at Take Back Tech III, stages opposing perspectives on whether to seize control of or abolish AI systems. Designed to model principled disagreement and sharpen strategic thinking on technology, ownership, and power.
Speakers
SC

Sasha Costanza-Chock

Sasha Costanza-Chock (she/they/ella/elle) is a researcher and designer who works to support community-led processes that build shared power, dismantle the matrix of domination, and advance ecological survival. They are a nonbinary trans* femme. Sasha is known for their work on networked... Read More →
SH

Sarah Hamid

Sarah T. Hamid is Director of Strategic Campaigns at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She brings over a decade of experience as a community organizer working at the intersection of technology, warfare, and punishment-based criminal and border systems. In 2018, she co-founded the... Read More →
TP

Tawana Petty

Tawana Petty, also known by her poetry stage name Honeycomb, is a mother, social justice organizer, poet, author, facilitator and keynote lecturer.

Petty is the founding Executive Director of Petty Propolis, Inc., an artist incubator which leverages poetry, literary and literacy workshops, anti-racism facilitation, political education and community-centered initiatives in pursuit of data and digital justice and racial and environmental... Read More →
ER

Edith Romero

Edith Romero is originally from Honduras; she grew up in a banana town in the north coast of Honduras and moved to New Orleans to begin her higher education. Edith holds a Master’s in Healthcare Management and has experience in community health, Latinx health, reproductive justice... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
W190A

3:00pm CDT

Propaganda Printmaking
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
From the Reformation through the modern day, printmaking has served as a powerful tool of political propaganda. In this workshop, participants will be inspired by a brief history of eye-catching works of social justice printmaking, and will learn the process of making a relief print on paper or fabric to express a political message.
Speakers
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Michigan/Huron

3:00pm CDT

Political Education 3: Slavery, Colonialism, and Primitive Accumulation
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Capitalism has never been just an economic system, but has instead always relied on the use of violence, law, and the state in a process Marx described as "so-called primitive accumulation," which reaches its height in colonialism and slavery. This participatory workshop will provide an introduction to this concept and its ongoing relevance, and guide a collective mapping of its relevance for the present.
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Dusable ABC

5:00pm CDT

Fighting the Surveillance Apparatus: Connecting ALPRs to Larger Networks of Policing & How to Build Past Them
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Panel discussion to contextualize the current anti-surveillance organizing landscape & build momentum towards utilizing local budget fights to take back resources currently going to policing/surveillance. Afterwards facilitators will lead a workshop so folks can connect across regions and build towards an anti-alpr or budget campaign.
Speakers
AK

Austin Kral

Austin Kral (he/him) is an abolitionist organizer and geographer based in Atlanta. He is a member of Southerners Against Surveillance Systems & Infrastructure and the Atlanta Abolition Research Collective.
TH

Tynetta Hill-Muhammad

Tynetta Hill-Muhammad (they/them) is an MPH candidate in the Community Health Sciences division at the School of Public Health and works on projects centered on policy and public health initiatives that aim to create meaningful impacts for Black, queer, and women communities, in particular... Read More →
NH

Navjot Heer

Navjot Heer (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist and organizer of south asian-panjabi immigrant descent whose work spans architecture, urban planning, design, oral history, and more. they have supported local and national abolitionist campaigns, such as stop shotspotter in chicago... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Jackson Park D

5:00pm CDT

Prison Papers in Action: Activating Archives with Walls Turned Sideways
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Join Walls Turned Sideways to learn about their current exhibition, Prison Papers: Organizing Inside/Outside Solidarity. We will do a brief presentation about the history of the penal press, solidarity publishing, and the legacy of print media as a tool for organizing across walls. This will be followed by small group readings and discussions of publications such as No More Cages, Prison News Service, Anarchist Black Dragon, The Abolitionist, and others and a hands-on collage activity!
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Michigan/Huron

5:00pm CDT

Building the People's Embargo for Palestine: Strategy, Assessment, and the Path to Freedom During the Time of Genocide
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Last year, the Palestinian Youth Movement launched the People’s Embargo for Palestine (PEP), a grassroots campaign uniting the international movement for arms embargo under a single banner: by intervening in the weapons supply chain, we can stop the genocide on Gaza. Sharing powerful campaign lessons from the U.S., and Europe, this session will share key insights into the PEP’s strategy and framework while equipping participants on how to identify local targets and take on PEP in their locales.
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Hyde Park A

5:00pm CDT

War, Capitalism, and Navigating the Climate Crisis
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
We are all living through the most severe ecological crisis in human history, and it can feel overwhelming, disorienting, and hopeless. A vision of a just future seems even more out of reach as capitalism and war continue to dominate the world order. What are we to do? Can our problems be solved politically? Will green energy save us? How can we remain steadfast in the face of an economy dominated by Big Oil, Big Tech, and militarism? In this discussion, prominent climate activist Tori Tsui and journalist Joshua Frank will explore what's at stake and how and why the broader climate movement must think and organize to confront these persistent and daunting challenges.
Speakers
JF

Joshua Frank

Joshua Frank is co-editor of CounterPunch and co-host of CounterPunch Radio. He is the author of Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, and the forthcoming, Bad Energy: The AI Hucksters, Rogue Lithium Extractors, and Wind Industrialists Who are Selling Off... Read More →
TT

Tori Tsui

Tori Tsui is an environmental activist, author, and climate advisor originally from Hong Kong. She is a senior advisor for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and a campaigner for the Stop Rosebank coalition. Her work has been featured in British Vogue, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Adler ABC

5:00pm CDT

The US and China: Imperial Rivalry in a Multipolar World
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
“Chimerica” is over. The twin titans of neoliberal globalization are now at loggerheads over everything from trade to high tech, geopolitical alliances, and military hegemony over the Asia Pacific. Today’s global slump, exacerbated by Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, has heightened this imperial rivalry. This panel will examine the roots of the conflict, its trajectory, and how the left can build international solidarity from below against it.
Speakers
TC

Tobita Chow

Tobita Chow is an organizer based in the Chicago area. He researches progressive strategy, great power conflict, and international climate politics. Tobita was the founding Director of Justice is Global.
AS

Ashley Smith

Ashley Smith is co-author of China in Global Capitalism and has written in numerous publications including Truthout, New Politics, Against the Current, and many other online and print publications.
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Jackson Park C

5:00pm CDT

They Called Us Non-Compliant: The (Sedated) History of Psychiatric Resistance
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Drawing on the history of psychiatric survivor movements, specific acts of resistance, and the long use of pathology narratives to discredit organizers across liberation movements, this session explores: how do we recognize psychiatric resistance when we've been trained not to see it? And what does solidarity look like once we do?
Speakers
SB

Sarah Broas

Sarah Broas (they/them) is a white, queer, Disabled and Mad careworker. They are a writer, artist, advocate, and organizer focusing on Mad Liberation and psychiatric abolition. Their own experiences of psychiatric survivorship guide their approach, vision, and practice of community-based... Read More →
SL

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman Mthimkhulu (they/she) is a Mad, Disabled, multidisciplinary care strategist/worker, educator, psychiatric survivor, and healing practitioner. They are a white, queer, non-binary person of Puerto Rican and Ashkenazi Jewish descent, rooted in lineages of Disability... Read More →
HS

Heena Sharma

Heena Sharma (they/she) is a nonbinary, disabled, mentally ill South Asian lesbian striving towards abolitionist futures that center survivors of violence. A lifelong New Yorker, Heena has worked on the margins of decolonial political education, radical accompaniment and solidarity... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Burnham ABC

5:00pm CDT

“As Goes the South”: Building Multiracial Working-Class Solidarity in the South for a Socialist Future
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
As W.E.B. DuBois said “As goes the South, so goes the nation.” Ruling class and authoritarian forces have always prioritized organizing the South as a way to hold power over the entire nation. If we are to defeat authoritarianism and win a socialist future, we must organize a multiracial working-class base in the South.
Speakers
BH

Beth Howard

Beth Howard is the Cultural Strategist for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), the largest national organization bringing white people into the fight for racial and economic justice. She grew up in a rural white working-class community in Eastern Kentucky and has organized in the... Read More →
JS

Jerome Scott

Jerome Scott was a labor organizer in the auto plants of Detroit in the 1960s-’70s, and a member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. As a community organizer, popular educator and author in the South since the 1970s, he was a founding member and former director of Project... Read More →
WK

Walda Katz-Fishman

Walda Katz-Fishman is a scholar, activist, popular educator and author, and professor of sociology at Howard University. She was a founding member and former board chair of Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide. She is a contributing author and editor... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Jackson Park B

5:00pm CDT

Movement Lawyering in Times of Retrenchment
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Using lessons from "Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers", this session explores how lawyers can support and sustain powerful movements, emphasizing the importance of power building and radical imagining in today’s context. As we face unique threats posed by growing authoritarianism, this need has never been more urgent.
Speakers
LO

Leena Odeh

Leena Odeh, Exec. Director, First Defense Legal Aid
CS

Christian Snow

Christian Snow, Exec. Director, Law 4 Black Lives (L4BL)
MW

Morgan Wilson

Morgan Wilson, Partnerships Director, L4BL
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Hyde Park B

5:00pm CDT

The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Radical historian Howard Zinn changed the way Americans think about their history, but his life itself is a lesson in radical commitment. From the Great Depression to WWII to the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam war, he was part and parcel of the social movements that shaped our world. Join Dave Zirin, author of a new critically-praised book about Howard Zinn’s incredible life and author and actor Brian Jones (who played Marx in Zinn’s one man play ‘Marx in Soho’) for a conversation about the life of Howard Zinn and what his vision and work mean today.
Speakers
BJ

Brian Jones

Brian Jones is the author of Black History Is for Everyone
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Dusable ABC

5:00pm CDT

The Young Lords Speak: Building Revolution on the Streets of Chicago
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
In their field jackets and signature purple berets, the Young Lords mobilized their community for liberation and against gentrification, poverty, racism, and police brutality. Join historian Jacqueline Lazu and Chicago 33rd Ward Alderperson Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez as they explore how the Young Lords grew into one of the most dynamic revolutionary community organizations of the late 1960s and early ’70s.
Speakers
JL

Jacqueline Lazú

Jacqueline Lazú is a professor of Spanish and Latin American studies at DePaul University and the author of numerous scholarly articles on the Young Lords in Chicago.
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Field ABC

5:00pm CDT

When Socialists Turned to the Factory Floor
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
In 1971 the International Socialists relocated the organization's center to Detroit and pivoted its priority activity to organizing in industry. The experiences of IS members who "industrialized" provided lesdsons that remain highly relevant for socialists in today's workplaces, unions and rank and file movements.
Speakers
CC

Candace Cohn

Candace Cohn and Jack Weinberg were members of the International Socialists in the steel industry during the 1970s. Candace Cohn was one of the first women accepted into the carpenters' union and one of the first women to enter the steel mills in the 1970s. She became a labor... Read More →
JW

Jack Weinberg

Jack Weinberg, a leading figure in the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and a founding member of the IS, worked in auto in Detroit and then in steel in Gary, Indiana. Since the 1980s he has been active around environmental and health issues.   
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Superior

5:00pm CDT

Spirit of Justice: Building Beloved Community, Embodying Revolutionary Love
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
What is freedom struggle beyond resisting political systems and improving material conditions? This program, organized by Spirit of Justice - a new spiritual home outside of traditional religion for people committed to freedom - explores this question. Through live music, collective ritual, artistic expression, and intimate dialogue, we will celebrate, grieve, and be inspired to not only change the world but to transform ourselves.
Speakers
avatar for nyle fort

nyle fort

Rev. Dr. Nyle Fort is a minister, organizer, and scholar who believes in the transformative power of love, servant leadership, and beloved community. With over 15 years of experience in community organizing, faith-based activism, and large-scale social movements, he has organized in cities, on college... Read More →
avatar for Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander is a civil rights lawyer, legal scholar, and the author of the bestselling book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, which helped to shift the national discourse on the U.S. criminal punishment system and inspired racial justice organizing nationwide.  She is a former associate professor of law at Stanford Law School and The Ohio State University, and the former director of the Racial Justice... Read More →
avatar for Saul Williams

Saul Williams

For nearly three decades, writer, musician, poet, director, and actor Saul Williams has occupied a singular place in Black culture, resisting the confines of genre across music, literature and film, and using art as a transformative device.

Raised between church traditions, hip hop, revolutionary literature and the liberating chaos of downtown poetry scenes, Williams learned early that speaking over music could carry the same emotional force as singing. He traces the lineage through Black church sermons, through... Read More →
avatar for Rami Nashashibi

Rami Nashashibi

Dr. Rami Nashashibi is a MacArthur Fellow, sociologist trained at the University of
Chicago, and the founding executive director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network
(IMAN). Since its founding in 1997, IMAN has fostered health, wellness, and healing on
Chicago's South Side and... Read More →
Sponsors
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Grant Park AB

5:00pm CDT

The False Choice Between Identity Politics and Class Struggle
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Does building mass political coalitions against the right require us to abandon issues specific to minorities of the population? For many centrists and even some on the left, such a sacrifice has become the new common sense. But history and on-the-ground organizing show a left that ignores the differences within the working class will never build power.
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Jackson Park A

5:00pm CDT

Who Moves America: Film Screening and Discussion
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 7:00pm CDT
As the deadline for a historic strike looms, UPS workers across the country navigate the challenges of building solidarity with their 340,000 co-workers. Feature documentary Who Moves America joins Teamsters in New York, California, and Kentucky. Join us for a conversation with Teamsters organizer Antonio Rosario.
Moderators
JS

Jesse Sharkey

Jesse Sharkey is the former president of the Chicago Teachers Union.
Speakers
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 7:00pm CDT
Clark ABC

6:30pm CDT

Abolitionist Zine Writing Workshop
Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
Join the Jail Solidarity Network, an inside-outside organizing project in Chicago, for this zine-writing workshop. You’ll be invited to read testimony from people jailed in Cook County and then respond with art that we’ll compile into a zine for insiders. You’ll also have the opportunity to connect with mutual aid organizations in the area organizing against jailing.
Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
Michigan/Huron

6:30pm CDT

Songs for Liberation
Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
Songs for Liberation is a Chicago protest music collective that sings at protests, fundraisers and community events. They were formed in response to the genocide in Gaza, and for several months were the "house band" on Friday mornings at anti-ICE protests in Broadview. Hear the collective sing, and stick around afterwards to discuss how to duplicate our model!

(in case of rain, join Songs for Liberation in Hyde Park B)
Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
Outside on the lawn (weather-permitting)

6:30pm CDT

United Left Platform Meet-up
Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
The United Left Platform, a coalition of six U.S.-based Socialist groups (Tempest, Solidarity, Workers’ Voice, Speak Out Socialists, International Marxist Humanist Organization, Socialist Horizon) was founded at the 2025 Socialism Conference in Chicago.  The ULP has worked over this past year to create a non-sectarian space for socialist organizing, self-defense, and political intervention.  The ULP meet-up will share its accomplishments and hold a public conversation with conference attendees about prospects for building out a broader space for mass organizing and socialist intervention in the coming year. 
Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
Jackson Park C

6:30pm CDT

How to Close a Camp Study Session
Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
Join us for a collective study session on  lessons from the struggle against immigration detention, drawing on extracts from John Washington's How to Close a Camp. Through a shared reading and drawing on organizing lessons and  experiences of folks in the room, we will explore the different ways the border regime and detention state can and must be resisted.

Reading the book's Introduction, or “This is How We Close the Camps” by John Washington in the Nation, ahead of the session is ideal but not necessary to attend. How to Close a Camp is also available from haymarketbooks.org and at the Socialism 2026 bookstore.
Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
Erie

7:00pm CDT

Minnesota 15 Anti-Repression Committee Meet Up
Saturday September 5, 2026 7:00pm - 8:00pm CDT
Meet up for those interested in helping organize a national network to defend the Minnesota 15. Please come with your questions and ideas for actions!  Minnesota 15 Anti-Repression Committee.
Saturday September 5, 2026 7:00pm - 8:00pm CDT
Hyde Park A

8:00pm CDT

Neighbors Get Ready: Forging New Solidarities and Defeating ICE
Saturday September 5, 2026 8:00pm - 9:30pm CDT
When ICE goose-stepped into our cities to raid and terrorize, regular people from all walks of life forged new solidarities to throw them out. Join activists from the front lines of the struggle to defend our neighbors for a plenary on getting organized and ready for what’s coming.
Moderators
JW

John Washington

John Washington is a journalist covering the border, climate change, democracy, and more. He has written for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Intercept, and other outlets. He is the author of The Case for Open Borders and The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum... Read More →
Speakers
SS

Silky Shah

Silky Shah has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over two decades. Originally from Texas, she began fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2009, she joined the staff of Detention Watch Network... Read More →
CN

Chris Newman

Chris Newman is the Legal Director & General Counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) based in its Los Angeles office. He has worked with day laborers since 2002, and was hired as NDLON’s first attorney in 2004. Since then, he has helped develop and coordinate... Read More →
TW

Tania Wolf

Tania serves as the Southeast Advocacy Manager at the National Immigration Project and as a Steering Committee member of the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition. Born in Queens, New York to parents who immigrated from Colombia and Ecuador, Tania has worked as an immigrant justice... Read More →
CS

Cat Salonek Schladt

Cat Salonek Schladt (she/her) is a South Minneapolis based organizer for people power.
At work, Cat serves as Executive Director of Tending the Soil, an alignment of five power-building non-profits and labor organizations led by working class, BIPOC community leaders with a long history of effective and equitable organizing. Prior to her current role, Cat made good
... Read More →
Saturday September 5, 2026 8:00pm - 9:30pm CDT
W190
 
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