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

Kelsea Bond

Kelsea Bond, Atlanta City Councilmember.

Matthew Nursey

Matthew Nursey, Housing Justice League

Mariah Parker

Mariah Parker is an emcee and labor organizer born and raised in the South. Their cultural work and organizing have been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, SPIN, Al Jazeera, Scalawag and Hammer & Hope.

... Read More →

Michael Collins

Michael Collins, Director, Play Fair ATL.

Sponsors

Play Fair ATL

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

Organizing

10:00am CDT

No Such Thing As NIMBY: The Fight to Protect Our Water

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

Hyde Park B

Myopic local site fights have failed to meet the moment. Meanwhile, broad sloganeering and positive visioning around climate justice have not galvanized workers (especially across the South) the way ecosocialists have hoped. This session will explore how the struggle against Corpus Christi's water crisis became an anti-imperialist and ecosocialist struggle.

Speakers

Jenny Espino

Jenny Espino has been organizing across the Gulf South since the Bush era. She has spoken at conferences such as the Southwestern Marxism Conference, the Texas Socialism Conference, Haymarket’s Socialism conference, and on panels and conferences across Europe including Beyond Gas... Read More →

Jake Hernandez

Jake Hernandez is a union steward and the co-chair of Corpus Christi DSA. He has been instrumental in the fight to defend Corpus Christi’s bay and estuaries while connecting local issues like the tax abatements, the drought contingency plan, and water rates to internationalist... Read More →

Chloe Torres

Chloe Torres is a proud lifelong resident of Corpus Christi, Texas and truly believes in the city’s potential to set an example for other Gulf Coast cities on how to fight back against environmental racism. They helped build successful campaigns to elect and reelect a socialist... Read More →

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

Climate Justice

12:00pm CDT

What Is the Muslim Left?

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

Hyde Park B

From Malcolm X and the Black Radical Tradition to anti-imperialist organizing after 9/11, Muslim leftists have shaped US movements while remaining illegible to the broader left. Is the Muslim left a coherent political tradition or a coalition of incompatible projects? Speakers stake out distinct positions on religion, racialization, and revolutionary strategy.

Speakers

Ashik Siddique

Ashik Siddique is national co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America, and has served on DSA's National Political Committee since 2021. He has organized with DSA’s campaign for Bernie in 2020, for campaigns against the climate crisis and for labor rights, with protests at the... Read More →

Maryam Adamu

TBD

Eman Abdelhadi

Eman Abdelhadi is a scholar, organizer and writer. She is an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago, writes a column for In These Times Magazine and is co-author of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, a sci-fi novel... Read More →

Sponsors

Acacia Magazine

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

Left Strategy

3:00pm CDT

Funding Until It’s Free: Building a Movement for Tomorrow While Fundraising for Today

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

Hyde Park B

A conversation with members of direct aid funds in Chicago discussing strategies related to fundraising for and providing direct services in our times. A conversation reflecting on charity vs solidarity and ways to fight for and build a better world while meeting people’s needs now.

Moderators

Mary Coleman

Speakers

Maheen

Qudsiyyah Shariyf

Em Gonzalez

Lawrence

Sponsors

Chicago For Abortion Rights

Lux

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

Gender-Sexuality-Liberation

5:00pm CDT

Movement Lawyering in Times of Retrenchment

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

Hyde Park B

Using lessons from "Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers", this session explores how lawyers can support and sustain powerful movements, emphasizing the importance of power building and radical imagining in today’s context. As we face unique threats posed by growing authoritarianism, this need has never been more urgent.

Speakers

Leena Odeh

Leena Odeh, Exec. Director, First Defense Legal Aid

Christian Snow

Christian Snow, Exec. Director, Law 4 Black Lives (L4BL)

Morgan Wilson

Morgan Wilson, Partnerships Director, L4BL

Sponsors

Law 4 Black Lives

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

Left Strategy

12:00pm CDT

Intro: Harm Reduction and Solidarity with Unsheltered Neighbors

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

Hyde Park B

The rise of racialized capitalism has caused a rise in homelessness, primarily affecting marginalized groups. This session discusses how gentrification, private property, privatization of social services, and rugged individualism perpetuate homelessness, and the experience of the unhoused, focusing on harm reduction.… and what is to be done?

Speakers

Rachel Shearer

Rachel (they/she) is an anarchist, harm reductionist, and medical social worker living in so-called California. They have worked with street-based communities for almost a decade and are a survivor of the drug war.

Luna Bender

Luna Bender is a born and raised Chicagoan studying to become a public librarian. She spent early childhood in communal housing and is determined to form and maintain stronger communal support wherever she goes.

Andrew Atkinson Bernd

Andrew Atkinson Bernd is an independent Chicago-based researcher and analyst focusing on systemic inequalities, food systems, and geographic socio-economic disparities. Andrew’s work is rooted in building solidarity with the lumpenproletariat population; specifically, people experiencing... Read More →

Alexa Gold

Lexie Gold is an advocate, outreach volunteer, and interdisciplinary scholar. Her research and writing works at the intersection of Gender & Women’s Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, Rhetoric & Discourse. Specifically thinking about the subtle ways in which power operates. As an... Read More →

Lucy Morales

Lucy Morales is an advocate and disruptor of systems, specifically focused on dismantling the inequitable systems at the cross-section of homelessness, neoliberal policies, and forced migration. Lucy identifies as Chicana, indigenous tauramaura/mechica, raised in Chicago.

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

Housing Justice

3:00pm CDT

Poetry for the People: Creating Your Own Community-Based Poetry Workshop, A Training for Facilitators

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

Hyde Park B

June Jordan’s Poetry for the People followed principles radical both in their context and today. Poetry for the People cohered around the ideas that poetry is a “medium for telling the truth,” and that participants are creators of today’s literature not detached students of “the canon.” In this workshop we will discuss June Jordan’s groundbreaking blueprint for teaching poetry and collapsing the divide between the university and the community. We will talk about facilitation, collaboration, venues, funding, and readings &prompts.

Speakers

Maya Marshall

Sponsors

Haymarket Books

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

Culture and Art

8:00pm CDT

South Asian Solidarity Meet-Up

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

Hyde Park B

South Asia Solidarity Network (SASN) builds solidarity across interconnected struggles in South Asia and beyond. SASN members recently visited Pakistani-administered Kashmir, where a mass movement of protests for rights have faced a deadly crackdown. They will share their observations, and we invite attendees interested in South Asia or with a South Asian background to connect with us.

Sponsors

South Asian Solidarity Network

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

Meet-up

10:00am CDT

How Communities Become Targets: Somalis in Minnesota and the Policing of Black Muslim Life

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

Hyde Park B

How do communities become targets? This session traces Somali migration to Minnesota through the lens of Operation Metro Surge. It examines how race, religion, and immigration status shape who is marked as “risk,” and how these structures expand, revealing how Black refugees are policed as threats while inviting reflection on resistance and belonging.

Speakers

Somali Organizers from MN

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

Migrant Justice

4:30pm CDT

10:00am CDT

12:00pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

5:00pm CDT

12:00pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

8:00pm CDT

10:00am CDT

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