Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

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

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 →

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
TBA

US Politics

5:00pm CDT

Standing Up to the National Security State: Collective Defense against Political Repression

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

TBA

This panel brings together movement targets of Trump Administration repression and representatives of defense committee from the Minnesota 15, the Michigan 9, the Committee to Defend Tom Alter, and the Prairieland defendants. The panel will reflect the urgent need for a massive national, broad-based defense effort that can push back the regime’s offensive on political rights. The discussion will be followed by an organizing meeting that can involve new forces who can take these campaigns back to local areas and hold meetings, host fundraisers, and systematically seek the support of unions, faith organizations, and community groups.

Speakers

Tom Alter

TBD

Sponsors

United Left Platform

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

US Politics

12:00pm CDT

Necessary Trouble: Movement-Building since the Financial Crisis

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

TBA

The 2008 financial crisis upended US politics, and laid the groundwork for how we got to the current conjuncture. In the years since, we’ve seen the rise of both right-wing populism and a new class politics on the left. Marking the 10th anniversary of her book documenting post-crisis social movements, join Sarah Jaffe and comrades for a conversation about the trajectory of struggle—from Occupy to the Movement for Black Lives to rising socialist electoral power—and reaction that has shaped this pivotal political period.

Speakers

Alex Hanna

Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)

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 →

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Chenjerai Kumanyika is an Assistant Professor at NYU Journalism and Program Director of the Urban Journalism Workshop. He specializes in narrative audio journalism at the intersection of race, history, and media critique. He is co-creator and co-host of Uncivil (Gimlet Media) and... Read More →

Yotam Marom

Yotam Marom has been in movements since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has played leadership roles at Occupy Wall Street and other movements before and after, and co-founded IfNotNow and the Wildfire Project. Yotam has trained and facilitated many of the leading social justice... Read More →

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

US Politics

5:00pm CDT

Unruly Subjects LIVE: A Reckoning with our Moment

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

TBA

From indiscriminate warfare to an AI-fueled tech oligarchy and sprawling new punishment systems, our moment poses new challenges that demand new answers: What are the key features of our political landscape? What solidarities remain untapped? How do we stop the oligarchs and the fascists?

Speakers

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 →

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and a fellow at the Climate and Community Institute. He is the author of the critically acclaimed books Elite Capture and Reconsidering Reparations, a contributor to Greta Thunberg’s The C... Read More →

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

US Politics

10:00am CDT

5:00pm CDT

12:00pm CDT

5:00pm CDT

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