Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

4:30pm CDT

Abolition Judaism: The Revolutionary Possiblities of Diaspora

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

Everyone is made in the image of the divine—even (maybe especial)y) when you don't believe in God, or aren't sure. To take this seriously, to explore ira imication for a revolutionary horizon - we are making Abolition Judaism, continuing the proud tradition finding spiritual sustenance for our solidarity in our religious practice. Come co-create it, and hear what we are learning about sifting through the ashes of the old.

Speakers

Rabbi Andrue Kahn

Rabbi Andy Kahn (he/they) is a Brooklyn-based rabbi and the executive director of the American Council for Judaism (ACJ). The ACJ was founded in 1942 to uphold Reform Judaism as a tradition dedicated to universal ethics and justice at a time when many Jewish institutions began centering... Read More →

Dania Rajendra

Dania Rajendra (she/her), an organizer and a writer, has worked at the intersection of racial and economic justice for twenty-five years. She is now the interim managing director of the In Our Name Fund and works with the American Council on Judaism. Dania was the founding director of Athena and has worked in unions, worker centers, academia, social enterprise, philanthropy, think tanks, and the arts. Her career-long commitment is to thinking and working across boundaries, disciplin... Read More →

Benjamin Balthaser

Benjamin Balthaser's (he/him) critical and creative work explores the connections among radical U.S. social movements, racial and class formation, internationalism, and culture. He is the author of Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish... Read More →

Maurice BP-Weeks Balthazar

Maurice BP-Weeks (he/him) is a distinguished corporate campaigner, organizer, and advocate for economic and racial justice. Co-founder and former Co-Executive Director of The Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), Maurice has collaborated with community organizations, labor... Read More →

Sponsors

JVP

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

Religion & Spirituality

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

Hyde Park A

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

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.

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

Religion & Spirituality

5:00pm CDT

Spirit of Justice: Building Beloved Community, Embodying Revolutionary Love

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

Grant Park AB

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

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 →

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 →

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 →

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

Spirit of Justice

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

Religion & Spirituality

3:00pm CDT

Liberatory Spirit, the Spirit of Liberation: Multi-tradition Conversation on How We Get Free

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

Adler ABC

We know that: liberation is spirit work; the separation of spirituality, culture and politics is a colonial, white supremacist and capitalist construct; in times of collapse we must root in things bigger than ourselves. Our movements can and must become places that: give birth to nourishing spiritual frameworks and theologies that uplift our vision for the world as it must become; are communities of care, interdependence with each other and the earth, and mutual aid; create the felt sense and knowledge of our belonging with each other and the earth.

Speakers

Autumn Brown

Autumn Brown is a mother, movement leader, and musician, whose organizing work is rooted in Black feminist and fugitive freedom movements. For over 20 years she has organized for healing justice, developed movement strategy, and trained organizers in consensus process, facilitation... Read More →

Rev. Jinzu Minna Jain

Rev. Jinzu Minna Jain (they/them) is an artist, writer, and racial & systemic equity educator residing in Mni Sóta Makoce on the lands of the Dakhóta Oyáte. They identify as BIPOC, disabled, queer and trans/nonbinary. Jinzu has been practicing Sōtō Zen Buddhism for over twenty-five... Read More →

Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg

Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg is a teacher, writer and organizer based on Dakota land in South Minneapolis. She became a rabbi in order to learn diverse and nuanced histories, tell stories, and create spaces, ritual, and organizing that helps transform our relationships to past, present... Read More →

Sponsors

JVP

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

Religion & Spirituality

10:00am CDT

Creating Emotional and Spiritual Support Groups for Activists

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

Jackson Park A

Kelly Hayes and Tanuja Jagernauth discuss Understory, an emotional and spiritual support group for activists they co-facilitate. Hayes and Jagernauth will also share a toolkit to help others organize their own groups.

Speakers

Atena Danner

Atena O. Danner is a cultural worker who imagines Black liberation, engaged in boundless curiosity. Her poems range from kitchen-table specificity to expansive relatability, covering topics including neurodiversity, human connection, and collective liberation. Atena is also an experienced... Read More →

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 →

Tanuja Jagernauth

Tanuja Devi Jagernauth is an Indo-Caribbean prison-industrial-complex abolitionist, writer, theater maker, conflict tender, and yoga educator who believes in the necessity of creation during times of destruction. Tanuja's writing is inspired by healing justice, caste abolition, and... Read More →

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

Religion & Spirituality

10:00am CDT

Insurgent Spiritualities for Revolutionary Struggle

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

Field ABC

From Indigenous land defense to anti-slavery abolitionism to prison organizing and Stop Cop City, insurgent political spiritualities have been foundational to revolutionary struggles for another world. How do we train ourselves and our movements to discern and build upon the enduring unity of collective spiritual practice and political struggle?

Speakers

Benji Hart

Benji Hart is an interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator.‍ Their words have appeared in numerous anthologies, including No Cop City, No Cop World (Haymarket Books, 2025), Constellations of Care (Pluto Press, 2024), And the Category Is… (Beacon Press, 2022), and the second... Read More →

Joy James

Joy James is Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities at Williams College. She is the author of Resisting State Violence; Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics, Transcending the Talented Tenth and Seeking the Beloved Community. James has published numerous articles... Read More →

Andrew Krinks

Andrew Krinks is a writer, educator, organizer, and movement builder working at the intersections of religion, racial capitalism, criminalization, abolition, and housing justice in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of White Property, Black Trespass: Racial Capitalism and the... Read More →

Belkis Terán

Rev. Belkis Teran is the mother of Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran, a queer, non-binary, Venezuelan forest defender who was killed by Georgia State Patrol in January 2023. She is an ordained minister and the founder of the Tortuguita Healing Center, an integral, environmentalist project... Read More →

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

Religion & Spirituality

4:30pm CDT

12:00pm CDT

5:00pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

10:00am CDT

10:00am CDT

Get help with the event