Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

2:30pm CDT

Community Lessons for Fighting Fascism: In Honor of Amisha Patel

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

Organizers and storytellers from across Chicago’s movements speak to what our people will need to carry into the fights against fascism: deep relationships, courage to act amidst uncertainty, self-reflection and healing, and a long-arc strategy to move us past the short-term pain. This session is held to honor the legacy of our sister and comrade, Amisha Patel.

Attendees will receive a free zine (by Tanuja Jagernauth) distilling the highlights of the last piece Amisha Patel wrote, sharing wisdom and resources for facing down fascism together.

Speakers

Maya Schenwar

Maya Schenwar is director of the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism. She is also Truthout’s board president. She is the co-editor of We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition; co-author of Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reform... Read More →

Juliet DeJesus Alejandre

Juliet De Jesus Alejandre is executive director of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.

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 →

Katelyn Johnson

Katelyn Johnson is executive director of the Chicago Racial Justice Pooled Fund. Previously, she was executive director of the Blackroots Alliance.

Rocío García

Rocío García is currently the Senior Organizing Director at Grassroots Collaborative, a coalition of community and labor groups across Chicago and Peoria. She leads the People’s Unity Platform–created to bring together the people’s agenda ahead of the 2024 municipal... Read More →

Sponsors

Truthout

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

Fighting the Right

4:30pm CDT

How Veterans & Labor Are Fighting VA Union Busting And Privatization

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

Erie

The murder of VA nurse member Alex Pretti drew national attention to federal worker resistance to Trump. On this panel, a VA care-giver, VA patient, and healthcare activist will report on labor/community campaigning to keep our best working model of socialized medicine from being privatized and dismantled.

Speakers

Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall is a native of central Florida, a 22-year resident of Chicago, and a veteran of the United States Navy.As a Navy veteran, Stuart was a systems operator aboard the s3a Viking, a carrier-based anti-submarine warfare aircraft. His most significant area of operation was Beirut... Read More →

Dan Blough

Daniel Blough leads recruiting relationships as a member of Loyola University Chicago's Career Services. He works with non-profit and mission driven organizations, education, arts and culture, media, government, and law. Dan is a Loyola alum, earning his BA and MA in Philosophy here... Read More →

Grace Neudek

Grace Neudek is a union organizer with SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas (HCIIMK), where she works alongside VA hospital workers to build power and advocate for quality public healthcare. A graduate of Earlham College, she holds a master's degree in Peace and Social... Read More →

Lisa Dadabo

Lisa Dadabo is a Vice President at AFGE Local 789 at the Jesse Brown VA, (Chicago, Illinois) and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker/Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor who focuses on the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She also maintains a small private therapy... Read More →

Sponsors

Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute

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

Labor Movement

10:00am CDT

Crisis in Venezuela: Socialist Perspectives

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

Erie

This session features contributors to the book Venezuela in Crisis, presenting Venezuelan socialist analyses of the country’s collapse and advancing an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-authoritarian critique of the Maduro regime. It will also assess the post–January 3 U.S. military intervention and the reconfiguration of power, sovereignty, and class relations in its aftermath.

Speakers

Simón Rodríguez

Simón Rodríguez, Venezuelan socialist, member of Partido Socialismo y Libertad, and author of Por Qué Fracasó el Chavismo

Anderson Bean

Anderson Bean is a North Carolina–based activist and editor and contributor of the book Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives from Haymarket Books, and the author of Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis from Lexington... Read More →

Gonzalo Gómez

Gonzalo Gómez is a Venezuelan socialist activist and writer who played a key role in the regroupment of Trotskyism in Venezuela and provided critical support to the Bolivarian Revolution during the Chavez era. He is a cofounder of both Aporrea and Marea Socialista, a current that... Read More →

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

International Politics

12:00pm CDT

Migra Watch Training for Illinois Residents

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

Erie

For more than a year, PUÑO has been building collective power to protect Chicago’s immigrant communities through a variety of trainings and connecting Chicagoans to their local rapid response group. At this training organizers will lead attendees on how to document and record ICE activity, as well as how to combat ICE terror in our communities.

Speakers

Diego Morales

Sponsors

PUÑO

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

Migrant Justice

3:00pm CDT

The Revolutionary Legacies and Lineages of Grace Lee Boggs

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

Erie

This workshop is an introduction to the life and thoughts of this Detroit-based Chinese-US American labor organizer, Black Power activist, and leftist Asian American icon. We will explore how her revolutionary legacy continues to inform visionary projects in Detroit and global movements. Drawing from the lessons I’ve learned over two summers in Detroit, together we will envision what a visionary, place-based, relational organizing could look like for your local context.

Speakers

Lily Luo

Dr. Lily Luo is a scholar, organizer, and artist based in New York City and working at the University of Connecticut. She recently successfully defended her dissertation titled “Learning to Transform: The Revolutionary Legacies and Lineages of Grace Lee Boggs” at the University... Read More →

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

Radical History

6:30pm CDT

How to Close a Camp Study Session

Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT

Erie

Join us for a collective study session on lessons from the struggle against immigration detention, drawing on extracts from John Washington's How to Close a Camp. Through a shared reading and drawing on organizing lessons and experiences of folks in the room, we will explore the different ways the border regime and detention state can and must be resisted.

Reading the book's Introduction, or “This is How We Close the Camps” by John Washington in the Nation, ahead of the session is ideal but not necessary to attend. How to Close a Camp is also available from haymarketbooks.org and at the Socialism 2026 bookstore.

Sponsors

Books Against Borders

Saturday September 5, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm CDT
Erie

Migrant Justice

10:00am CDT

Russian Neofascism: Imperialism Abroad & Repression at Home

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

Erie

Vladimir Putin responded to democratic uprising in Russia’s former empire by repressing domestic dissent and launching an imperialist war on Ukraine. In a discussion of their new book, Russia’s New Imperialism, Ilya Budraitskis and Ilya Matveev will be joined by Robert Brenner and Daria Saburova to examine Putin’s neofascist project, Ukraine’s struggle for self-determination, and today’s inter-imperial rivalries.

Speakers

Ilya Budraitskis

Ilya Budraitskis, co-author of Russia’s New Imperialism

Ilya Matveev

Ilya Matveev, co-author of Russia’s New Imperialism

Robert Brenner

Robert Brenner, professor Emeritus UCLA, editor at New Left Review, author of Economics of Global Turbulence

Yulia Yurchenko

Sponsors

Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign

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

International Politics

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

Erie

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
Erie

Organizing

3:00pm CDT

Using Historical Ephemera for Political Education

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

Erie

Buttons of the Left preserves and curates buttons and other ephemera of working class resistance to tell the stories of our movements. This session shares case studies of exhibits and workshops, explores the project’s origins, and the challenges and opportunities of using tangible historical materials for political education.

Speakers

Isaac Silver

Isaac Silver is a socialist activist and independent archivist/historian based in Chicago.

Sponsors

Buttons of the Left

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

Radical History

10:00am CDT

The Long Struggle for UAW Divestment From Israel Bonds, and the Future of Labor for Palestine

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

Erie

Building on historic protests led by Arab and Black rank-and-file auto workers in 1973-1974, and recent shop-floor struggles over Palestine across UAW-represented workplaces and beyond, Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) and UAW Labor for Palestine won a landmark vote at the 2026 UAW Convention to finally divest the union from Israel Bonds. How did this come about, what is its broader significance, and how can we build on this victory to escalate US labor solidarity with the Palestinian working class?

Speakers

Bill Mullen

Bill Mullen is a member of Socialist Horizon and the Committee to Defend Tom Alter.

Andrew Bergman

Co-Chair, Unite All Workers For Democracy (UAWD)

Andrew Bergman is an assembly worker at General Motors, member of UAW Local 22, and UAWD Co-Chair

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 →

Michael Letwin

A third-generation political activist, and a revolutionary socialist since the 1960s, Michael Letwin has participated in movements against the Vietnam War, apartheid South Africa, and U.S. imperialism in Iran, Central America, the Middle East, and around the world. He is a former... Read More →

Sponsors

Labor for Palestine National Network

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

Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism

2:30pm CDT

4:30pm CDT

10:00am CDT

12:00pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

6:30pm CDT

10:00am CDT

12:00pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

10:00am CDT

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