Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

4:30pm CDT

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT

Rural communities are often written off as politically unreachable, but organizers across the country are building power through relational networks, trusted institutions, and local leadership. This session explores practical strategies for rural organizing and introduces a toolkit designed to help organizers build trust, grow a base, and develop leaders in rural communities.

Speakers

Bo Belotti

Bo Belotti is a community organizer from Virginia and first year Masters of Public Policy student at Georgetown University. Bo has spent the last 10 years engaged in movement work, starting with their local school board while they were still in high school. They attended Virginia... Read More →

Jake Krug

Jake Krug is an organizer based in Staunton, VA. Jake began organizing as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America before co-founding the Shenandoah Socialist Collective and Shenandoah Mutual Aid. He is a member of the United Campus Workers of Virginia, CWA Local 2265, where... Read More →

Vida Rangel

Vida is a community organizer and public servant with a long history of working to improve the lives of those in her communities and improving the systems we all live under. As an autistic queer nonbinary transgender Latina woman, her commitment to community and to working families... Read More →

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

4:30pm CDT

Workers Deserve More! A Program for a Future Beyond Capitalism

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT

TBA

This summer, DSA released “Workers Deserve More,” our political program for a free, equal, and democratic society that prioritizes human flourishing and peace instead of exploitation, oppression, and war. We’ll discuss how we developed Workers Deserve More, its contents, the reactions so far, and its role in organizing for democratic socialism in our current moment, and for our future. program.dsausa.org

Speakers

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 →

Michaela Brangan

Michaela Brangan is an educator and researcher, chair of DSA’s National Political Education Committee, and a member of North New Jersey DSA. She cochairs DSA’s Workers Deserve More program committee.

Frances Gill

Frances Gill is cochair of DSA’s Workers Deserve More program committee, and a member of DSA’s National Political Committee from Los Angeles. She is a health care worker and rank-and-file member of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD).

Megan Romer

Megan Romer is a mom, a writer, a PTA volunteer and an erstwhile Sunday School teacher from rural Central New York. She's been organizing with DSA since 2018, is a former co-chair of Southwest Louisiana DSA, and served three terms on steering of the DSA national Mutual Aid Working... Read More →

Sponsors

DSA

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

12:00pm CDT

Revolutionary Socialism from Below: Strategies to Build the Resistance

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

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.

Speakers

Aaron Amaral

Kristen Guptill-Godfrey

Sponsors

Tempest

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

12:00pm CDT

What Is the Muslim Left?

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

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

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 →

TBD

Sponsors

Acacia Magazine

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

3:00pm CDT

All Socialism, No Government: An Introduction to Anarchist Theory and Strategy

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

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

Heb Braggs

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

Ben Eager

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

Jeremy Jewitt

Jeremy Jewitt is a tenant organizer in Chicago, Illinois.

Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso

Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso is a law student, organizer, and writer in Queens, New York City

Sponsors

Black Rose / Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

3:00pm CDT

Black Left Feminism and the Fight Against Fascism: Lessons and Assignments

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

Speakers

Barbara Ransby

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

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

TBA

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

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 →

Chris Kutalik

Chris Kutalik, a native Texan, is the former Democratic Socialists of America communications director, transit union officer, and editor/director of Labor Notes. He currently works as Showing Up for Racial Justice communications director and is (busy) father of four.

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 →

Sponsors

SURJ

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

5:00pm CDT

Movement Lawyering in Times of Retrenchment

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

TBA

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

Leena Odeh

Leena Odeh, Exec. Director, First Defense Legal Aid

Christian Snow

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

Morgan Wilson

Morgan Wilson, Partnerships Director, L4BL

Sponsors

Law 4 Black Lives

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

10:00am CDT

Protecting Our Own: Shifting from State Intervention to Community Care in Crisis Times

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

ICE agents are using family separation tactics central to US state violence. In this interactive workshop on "family policing" participants will examine real-world manifestations and analyze emerging resistance strategies. Workshop will share the tools to build a paradigm shift from "mandated reporting"—which fuels state intrusion—to "mandated supporting.”

Speakers

jaboa lake

jaboa lake phd, is a sister, auntie, neighbor, former foster youth, organizer, and liberation researcher. jaboa’s work has centered liberation of oppressed people and solidarity across movements through using research as a tactic within grassroots strategies. jaboa’s work has... Read More →

Erica Meiners

A writer, an educator and an organizer, Erica R. Meiners lives in Chicago and works with others on a range of ongoing mobilizations for liberation.

Shannon Perez-Darby

Shannon Perez-Darby is a founding member of the Accountable Communities Consortium and a member of the Mandatory Reporting is Not Neutral core group. Shannon Perez-Darby centers queer and trans communities of color while working to address issues of domestic and sexual violence... Read More →

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

12:00pm CDT

Psychic Militancy

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

This talk argues that in the face of accelerating fascism, we need to take seriously that our psyche is contested space, learn to track psychic intrusions that aim to settle and reconfigure our psychic province and interiority, and most importantly, learn to remain antagonistic to this violence through psychic militancy. Lara Sheehi discusses her new book to distill the mechanics of psychic militancy and how we might engage in refusals against these intrusions and their politically demobilizing work.

Speakers

Lara Sheehi

Lara Sheehi is a Research Fellow at the University of South Africa's Institute for Social and Health Sciences, a licensed clinical psychologist, and the host of the Psychic Militancy podcast. Lara’s work focuses on psychoanalysis, the psychic refusals central to liberation struggles... Read More →

Sponsors

Pluto Press

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

12:00pm CDT

The Muslim Left, NYC, and Zohran Mamdani’s Victory

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

The historic victory of Afro-Asian Muslim socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in NYC in 2025 was won in part by the NYC Muslim community, which mobilized in mass and has birthed an anti-imperialist ecosocialist Muslim Left. This panel will share and explore the ideological and organizational underpinnings of this new political formation as well as reflect upon the messy grappling with contradictions that comes with building counter-hegemonic power.

Speakers

Iskander Abbasi

Iskander Abbasi, PhD scholar of Islamic liberation theology and ecosocialism at Fordham University.

Asad Dandia

Asad Dandia, local Muslim activist, Brooklyn Borough Historian and radical NYC tour guide leader.

Aber Kawas

Aber Kawas is a Palestinian-American organizer from NYC. She has worked in community and movement organizations fighting for racial and economic justice across NYC and the country since she was a teenager.

TBD

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

3:00pm CDT

Data Centers, Class Politics, and Socialist Strategy

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

How can socialists organize within the diverse and widespread anti-data center movements gripping the nation, and help transform frustrations over tech giants’ dispossession of community resources into a broader struggle and a radical alternative to capitalism? This session convenes anti-data center organizers to consider these questions of socialist strategy together.

Speakers

Nathan Kim

Nathan Kim is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan. He’s interested in the political economy of tech production, and in particular Silicon Valley’s relationship to state violence after the Cold War.

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.

Jasmine Lu

Cella Sum

Yvette Vargas

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

3:00pm CDT

Revolutionary Socialists and the Fight Against War and Authoritarianism

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

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

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.

Pepper Macias

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

Meg

Meg is a grassroots activist organizing in working class neighborhoods of Baltimore for ICE defense, climate justice, and and other political coalitions.

Bill Mullen

Bill Mullen is a member of the national AAUP/Committee to Defend Tom Alter.

Kirstin Roberts

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

Sponsors

United Left Platform

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

10:00am CDT

Mayor Mamdani vs. Wall Street. Sewer Socialism and Municipal Financing—Which Way Forward?

Monday September 7, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

Wall Street has cities in a financial straight jacket. Yet with the recent elections of socialist mayors and council members, notably New York's Zohran Mamdani, financing new social programs will be essential. This panel explores both the ways in which private financing and the municipal bond market can restrict what is politically possible, and what an inventive new generation of municipal socialists can do to escape the straight jacket.

Speakers

David Backer

David Backer is a professor at Seton Hall University who studies debt and education.

Sylvia Kidder

Sylvia Kidder is an organizer with The People's Lobby who has worked in municipal finance for a decade.

Michael Reagan

Michael Reagan is a member of Black Rose / Rosa Negra.

Monday September 7, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Left Strategy

12:00pm CDT

We Want it All: Reclaiming the World from the Rich and the Right

Monday September 7, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

There is nothing inevitable about how the next year or five years or ten years unfold. While billionaire oligarchs and their friends on the far right attempt to build a fortress around the future for themselves, glimmers of a brighter future have been fanned into flames by socialists, abolitionists, and working people all around the world. Join the closing plenary of Socialism 2026 for a reminder of what we are fighting for and our collective power to achieve it.

Speakers

Kelly Hayes

Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, organizer, movement educator and photographer. She is the host of Truthout‘s podcast Movement Memos and the creator of Organizing My Thoughts, a weekly newsletter about politics and justice work. She is co-author of the book Let This Radicalize... Read More →

Beth Howard

TBD

Monday September 7, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

Left Strategy

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