Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

10:00am CDT

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

A recent pew research poll indicates that Black folk have the most positive opinion of socialism of any other race/ethnicity in the US—but there is a contradiction as it pertains to who these folk vote for, the party they support the most, and the “leaders” they allow to speak for and guide them. “The Black Path to Socialism” will explore these contradictions and give historic content as to why and how socialism was always the preferred model for poor and working class Black folk until the rise of the Black Misleadership class and other elements of neoliberalism.

Speakers

Kali Akuno

India

Brian Kwoba

Erica Ryan

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
W190A

Black Liberation

12:00pm CDT

Debates in Prison Abolitionist Theory and Practice

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

W190A

Scholars and organizers will discuss live questions of abolitionist theory and practice, from how to think about taking on police vs. ICE vs. the military (or county jails vs. prisons vs. warehousing projects) within this conjuncture of authoritarianism and imperial decline to the relationship between Marxism and prison abolition.

Moderators

Amna Akbar

Speakers

Amelia Kirby

Silky Shah

Silky Shah has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over two decades. Originally from Texas, she began fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2009, she joined the staff of Detention Watch Network... Read More →

Jack Norton

Zohra Ahmed

Zohra Ahmed is an associate professor of law at Boston University, USA. She writes and teaches about U.S. militarism, domestically and globally. She is a former public defender, and works closely with grassroots movements challenging criminalization.

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
W190A

Abolition

3:00pm CDT

How the Left Takes on AI Will Determine the Future

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

W190A

How we respond to AI may define the next decade of organizing. This debate, originally featured at Take Back Tech III, stages opposing perspectives on whether to seize control of or abolish AI systems. Designed to model principled disagreement and sharpen strategic thinking on technology, ownership, and power.

Speakers

Sasha Costanza-Chock

Sasha Costanza-Chock (she/they/ella/elle) is a researcher and designer who works to support community-led processes that build shared power, dismantle the matrix of domination, and advance ecological survival. They are a nonbinary trans* femme. Sasha is known for their work on networked... Read More →

Sarah Hamid

Sarah T. Hamid is Director of Strategic Campaigns at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She brings over a decade of experience as a community organizer working at the intersection of technology, warfare, and punishment-based criminal and border systems. In 2018, she co-founded the... Read More →

Tawana Petty

Tawana Petty, also known by her poetry stage name Honeycomb, is a mother, social justice organizer, poet, author, facilitator and keynote lecturer.

Petty is the founding Executive Director of Petty Propolis, Inc., an artist incubator which leverages poetry, literary and literacy workshops, anti-racism facilitation, political education and community-centered initiatives in pursuit of data and digital justice and racial and environmental... Read More →

Edith Romero

Edith Romero is originally from Honduras; she grew up in a banana town in the north coast of Honduras and moved to New Orleans to begin her higher education. Edith holds a Master’s in Healthcare Management and has experience in community health, Latinx health, reproductive justice... Read More →

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
W190A

Science and Tech

12:00pm CDT

Necessary Trouble: Movement-Building since the Financial Crisis

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

W190A

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

Cat Salonek Schladt

Cat Salonek Schladt (she/her) is a South Minneapolis based organizer for people power.
At work, Cat serves as Executive Director of Tending the Soil, an alignment of five power-building non-profits and labor organizations led by working class, BIPOC community leaders with a long history of effective and equitable organizing. Prior to her current role, Cat made good
... Read More →

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Chenjerai Kumanyika is a journalist, scholar, organizer, and professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the host and creator of Unruly Subjects, produced with Rowhome Productions. Through conversations with organizers, journalists, artists, and scholars, Unruly... Read More →

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 →

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
W190A

US Politics

3:00pm CDT

Left Insurgents and Liberal Exhaustion: Consolidating Power from Below

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

W190A

Trump’s reelection has triggered historic openings for the left. Wins at the ballot box suggest an organic hunger for leftist political visions among masses of people as well as an enduring exhaustion with the mainstream liberal establishment. In this panel, Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika and Hasan Piker will survey the state of left power in 2026. How can we build on and harness mass disaffection into a principled socialist movement in the US?

Speakers

Hasan Piker

Wielding sharp political insight and a characteristically irreverent sense of humor, Hasan Piker is redefining what political commentary looks like in the digital age. A journalist and wildly-popular content creator on the streaming platform Twitch, Piker has become an authoritative... Read More →

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Sponsors

Hammer & Hope

Unruly Subjects

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
W190A

US Politics

5:00pm CDT

Are All Cops Bastards?

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

W190A

While liberal objections to an ACAB approach may be expected, recently some surprising defenses of police forces in supposedly socialist states have emerged. This session will examine the role of police around the world and ask the question, is there really any such thing as a “revolutionary” cop?

Speakers

brian bean

brian bean is a Chicago-based socialist organizer, writer, and agitator originally from North Carolina. They are one of the founding editors of Rampant magazine. Their work has been published in Truthout, Jacobin, Tempest, Spectre, Red Flag, New Politics, Socialist Worker, International... Read More →

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 →

Sunday September 6, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
W190A

Abolition

7:00pm CDT

Steal This Story, Please! Film Screening and Discussion

Sunday September 6, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm CDT

W190A

Fiercely independent journalist Amy Goodman has spent three decades holding the powerful to account, reporting from war zones and the Democracy Now! newsroom. In Steal This Story, Please!, Oscar-nominated filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin craft a riveting portrait of journalism’s power – and peril – in an era of corporate control and political attacks on truth. (Film screening and Q&A)

Speakers

Socialism 2026

10:00am CDT

Kali Akuno

India

Brian Kwoba

Erica Ryan

12:00pm CDT

Amna Akbar

Amelia Kirby

Silky Shah

Jack Norton

Zohra Ahmed

3:00pm CDT

Sasha Costanza-Chock

Sarah Hamid

Tawana Petty

Edith Romero

12:00pm CDT

Cat Salonek Schladt

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Alex Hanna

Sarah Jaffe

Yotam Marom

3:00pm CDT

Hasan Piker

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Hammer & Hope

Unruly Subjects

5:00pm CDT

brian bean

Anderson Bean

7:00pm CDT

Amy Goodman

Juan González

Carl Deal

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