Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

10:00am CDT

Friday September 4, 2026 10:00am - 1:00pm CDT

Join activists from around the country to discuss what’s next for the movement for abortion access and reproductive justice. Learn more and register here.

Sponsors

Chicago For Abortion Rights

Friday September 4, 2026 10:00am - 1:00pm CDT
Burnham ABC

Gender-Sexuality-Liberation

2:30pm CDT

Abolitionist Campaigns in Hostile Terrains: Fighting Against Immigrant Detention in NY

Friday September 4, 2026 2:30pm - 4:00pm CDT

Burnham ABC

We will be looking at the NY Dignity Not Detention (DND) campaign as a case study on abolitionist organizing that builds the power of migrant communities. We will discuss the hostile conditions of the moment and how we worked with communities & groups resisting ICE to achieve victory. Join us to learn about DND and develop and strengthen your abolitionist anti-deportation campaigns.

Speakers

Viju Mathew

Viju is a member of Critical Resistance and has been fighting abolitionist campaigns in coalitions across California & New York for the past few years. Viju & Critical Resistance see the abolition of ICE as Part and Parcel of prison industrial complex abolition.

Sophia Gurule

Sophia Elena Gurulé (she/her/ella) is a member of Critical Resistance based in Brooklyn, New York with experience organizing at the intersection of prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition, migrant justice, and organized labor. A long-time member of the Dignity Not Detention coalition, Sophia has... Read More →

Sponsors

Critical Resistance

Friday September 4, 2026 2:30pm - 4:00pm CDT
Burnham ABC

Abolition

4:30pm CDT

Why Does Capitalism Suck and Why Does it Fail? An Introduction to Marxist Economics

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

Burnham ABC

Why does capitalism produce lousy jobs, long hours, unemployment, racism, sexism, homo/transphobia, xenophobia and periodic economic crises that make things even worse? Marx's analysis of capitalism provides some key answers.

Speakers

Charlie Post

Charlie Post is a long-time revolutionary socialist and writer, and a member of the Tempest Collective.

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

Economics

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

Burnham ABC

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.

Speakers

Matt Fiorillo

Joseph Gumina

Julia Mente

Valerie Wallach

Sponsors

BDS Pittsburgh

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

Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism

12:00pm CDT

The Merciless Society: Incarceration, Dehumanization, and American Empire

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

Burnham ABC

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

Lyle May

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

Abolition

1:30pm CDT

"Finding Our Place in the Sun:" A Black Socialists Meetup

Saturday September 5, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm CDT

Burnham ABC

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

Meet-up

3:00pm CDT

Solidarity Across the Walls and Beyond: Conversation on Inside/Outside Collaborations

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

Burnham ABC

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

Nick Brown

Eddy Fletcher

James Kilgore

Mon Mohapatra

Mon Mohapatra (Community Justice Exchange)

Stevie Wilson

Sponsors

Community Justice Exchange

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

Abolition

5:00pm CDT

They Called Us Non-Compliant: The (Sedated) History of Psychiatric Resistance

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

Burnham ABC

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

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 →

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 →

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

Project LETS

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

Health Politics & Disability Justice

12:00pm CDT

Socialize the Grid: Data Centers and Translocal Organizing

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

Burnham ABC

Data centers have become a ubiquitous element of the political and social lexicon. While local wins are encouraging and inspiring, the need for translocal organizing models is necessary to fully socialize grid networks as part of the larger push for 100 percent publicly owned power and stopping data center proliferation.

Speakers

David Cobb

Johanna Epke

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright

India Willi

Sponsors

Black Alliance for Peace

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

Science and Tech

3:00pm CDT

The Politics of Debt: Organizing in the Age of Finance

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

Burnham ABC

As finance capital continues to reshape working class life, people are increasingly forced into debt to make ends meet. What is the political landscape of debt today, and how should we respond at the level of action? How has financialization shifted leverage across different sites of struggle, and what new contradictions or vulnerabilities has it produced for capital? Debt Collective organizers working on healthcare, education, and housing debt will discuss their work and the politics of debt in the current conjuncture.

Speakers

Braxton Brewington

René Christian Moya

René Christian Moya is an organizer with the Debt Collective and the Los Angeles Tenants Union. He is the former campaign director for statewide ballot initiative in 2020 to strengthen rent control in California, and has worked extensively on tenant rights, local rent control campaigns... Read More →

Lindsey Muniak

Lindsey Muniak is an organizer with the Debt Collective, where she leads national efforts to abolish medical debt, interrupt patterns of financialization in healthcare, and bring those who have experienced the failures of our profit-driven healthcare system into the fight for its transformation... Read More →

Sponsors

Debt Collective

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

Economics

5:00pm CDT

Mass Labor Action in Defense of Immigrant Workers: Why We Need It and How We Can Get there

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

Burnham ABC

This panel brings together immigrant activists from San Jose and Los Angeles, a labor militant from Minneapolis, and a historian of the complex working class history in which radicals fought to create a powerful synergy between the unions and workers who have crossed borders.

Speakers

Justin Akers Chacón

Justin Akers Chacón is an educator, activist, and writer in the San Diego-Tijuana border region, and is a member of Socialist Horizon. His works include No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US-Mexico Border (with Mike Davis), Radicals in the Barrio: Magonistas... Read More →

Lucia Flores

Lucia Flores is an organizer at Cal State University. She is a Mexican American daughter of immigrants who has been involved in community and student organizing for over a decade.

Victor Rodríguez

Victor Rodríguez has been active in the socialist movement for four decades. Since moving to the U.S. from his native South America more than 20 years ago, he has worked in factories in California and has been involved in union organizing and the fight for immigrants’ rights. Victor... Read More →

Dan Troccoli

Dan Troccoli is a trade unionist, middle school teacher, and community activist in Minneapolis, MN.

Sponsors

Workers Voice

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

Migrant Justice

8:00pm CDT

The South Meet Up

Sunday September 6, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm CDT

Burnham ABC

Are you from the South of the US? Join fellow conference participants from the South to meet each other, talk about your organizing, and make connections for future struggles!

Sponsors

Southern Workers Assembly

Sunday September 6, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm CDT
Burnham ABC

Meet-up

10:00am CDT

RePRESSion: Press Censorship in the Time of Fascism and Increasing Media Illiteracy

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

Burnham ABC

RePRESSion examines media censorship from South to South and how fascism, genocide, and incarceration intensify repression. This panel shares strategies for press organizing amid media consolidation, AI, and declining literacy—media and illiteracy. Panelists will center abolitionist publishing and amplify incarcerated writers’ perspectives on censorship from inside.

Speakers

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