Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

4:30pm CDT

People Over Mega-Events: Organizing for Housing, Workers, and Communities Beyond the World Cup

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

Cities increasingly chase global events like the Olympics and World Cup while working-class communities face displacement, policing, and exploitation. This session explores how organizers in Atlanta built Play Fair ATL to fight back—and how socialists can organize coalitions that turn mega-events into battlegrounds for housing justice, labor rights, and community power.

Speakers

TBD

Sponsors

Play Fair ATL

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

Organizing

10:00am CDT

Attention Economics for Organizers: How Big Tech Hijacked Our Attention & How We’re Fighting Back

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

While problems of disinformation and distraction are systemic, "common sense" solutions are often about individual choice. There are important roles for publications, media makers, and movements to play in the struggle for our collective attention. We’ll unpack the attention economy for organizers, and examine how movement media makers are balancing meeting their needs and protecting their peace.

Speakers

Sarah Jaffe

Sarah Jaffe is the author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion To Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone, and From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire, all from Bold Type Books. Her next book, Heterosexuality... Read More →

Cayden Mak

Cayden Mak is the publisher at Convergence Magazine and the host of Block & Build: Roadmaps for the Left. Prior to Convergence, Cayden spent nearly a decade in various roles at 18 Million Rising, including five years as Executive Director and two as Chief Technology Officer, developing... Read More →

Delaney Vandergrift

Sponsors

Convergence Magazine

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Organizing

3:00pm CDT

Bridging the Gap: Building Intergenerational Organizing Power

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

TBA

This pop-ed skills share will explore ways to build strong intergenerational organizing by challenging adultism and reimagining what shared leadership can look like. Together, we'll explore the transition from youth to young adult organizing, unpack how adultist perspectives can be unintentionally reproduced, and discuss how we can build movements rooted in trust, collaboration, and shared power.

Speakers

Essence-Jade Gatheright

Essence-Jade Gatheright is a CFS Youth Organizer

Mari Lee

Mari Lee is a CFS High School Youth Organizer

Sponsors

Chicago Freedom School

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

Organizing

10:00am CDT

Documenting Transformative Justice: Building Knowledge Bases for Community Accountability Strategies

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

TBA

This introductory session to Transformative Justice (TJ) explores three key questions centering TJ documentation and knowledge bases: 1) How can our movements build knowledge given the challenges of documenting the intimate, confidential, and often divisive and high risk nature of interpersonal harm? 2) How do we responsibly share learnings based on on-the-ground TJ situations in a heightened climate of social media call-out, political repression, and surveillance? 3) How do we draw from and make knowledge accessible across a broad range of communities, cultural practices, literacies, and languages? The session will feature intentions that guide and lessons gained from these collaborative projects, offering a collective space to discuss shared visions and concrete strategies to build TJ and broader abolitionist knowledge bases.

Speakers

Shira Hassan

Shira Hassan (Just Practice Collaborative)

Mimi Kim

Mimi Kim (Creative Interventions)

Deana Lewis

Deana Lewis (Just Practice Collaborative)

iLL Weaver

iLL Weaver (Emergence Media)

Sponsors

Creative Interventions

Emergence Media

Just Praxtice

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

Organizing

12:00pm CDT

Documenting Actions, Activism, and Activists’ Lives: Strategies for Preserving Personal and Organizational Archives

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

TBA

This workshop will include tips, strategies, and discussion on preserving analog and digital documentation of our own lives as activists and the work of our organizations in unprecedented times. We will also discuss privacy, anonymity, donating material to archives and libraries, and its future use for scholarship and restorative justice.

Speakers

Kate Stewart

Kate Stewart is the Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements at the Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas. She has worked as a librarian and archivist for twenty years, including managing oral history projects such as the Civil Rights History Project... Read More →

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

Organizing

12:00pm CDT

Organizing 101: a Black Youth Project 100 Joint

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

TBA

Help! I don’t know where to start! Don’t worry we got you! We will put you through three acting scenarios in small groups that will help build the basis of your organizing journey! Join Byp100 in building more rounded organizers and preparing for a world we want to live in.

Speakers

Desmond King

BYP100 Members

Sponsors

Black Youth Project 100

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

Organizing

3:00pm CDT

Neighborhood Organizing 101

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

TBA

Learn how to build a neighborhood rapid response network rooted in neighborly relationships. This workshop covers block organizing basics: connecting with neighbors, building communication channels, and responding to crises like evictions, ICE alerts, or other emergencies. Participants will also develop long-term plans for mutual aid and community defense.

Speakers

Amadi Ozier

Amadi Ozier is a community organizer with Madison Tenant Power and Madison RR Community Defense focused on neighborhood-based mutual aid, tenant organizing, and grassroots response networks. Their work centers on building trusting relationships to manage neighborhood crises.

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

Organizing

5:00pm CDT

People's Movement Assembly 101: Building Insurgent Democracies in the US South

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

TBA

People's Movement Assemblies (PMAs) are radical democratic organizing processes that translate collective resistance into concrete action. As US imperialism continues consolidating power globally, PMAs are where insurgent democracies can be cultivated. Learn from the Black Nashville Assembly how PMAs are being used to build participatory democratic power in the US South.

Speakers

Denzel Caldwell

Born, raised, and organizing in Nashville, Denzel Caldwell is an organizer, economist, popular educator, and self- defense instructor dedicated to transforming the lives of Black folks in Nashville. Inspired by Vietnam War era Dr. King, he chose to study economics while at Morehouse... Read More →

Sponsors

Black Nashville Assembly

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

Organizing

4:30pm CDT

10:00am CDT

3:00pm CDT

10:00am CDT

12:00pm CDT

12:00pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

5:00pm CDT

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