Antonio Roman-Acala,Kanoa Dinwoodie, Feral Heart Farm
Krysten Leach, Namu Farms
Nadia Barhoum, Thurayya Seeds
Navina Khanna, HEAL food alliance
Gavin Raders, Planting Justice
Vanessa, farm manager at SF’s Alemany Farm
Oriented in part by the forthcoming book by Antonio Roman-Alcalá on contemporary food movements in California, this session will include both the author and leaders from movements included in the book. The focus of the discussion will be strategies for organizing around food, farming, and reconnecting to the natural world, in the context of a rising fascist state and the fascism-enabling role of mainstream liberal politics. Against conventional reformist politics, newer food and farm movements — led by BIPOC and informed by radical lineages from Black, Indigenous, Marxist, anarchist, and intersectional perspectives — are advancing a radical North Star politics that moves beyond the existing social order, while pragmatically engaging both markets and state arenas. Come here about some of these strategies and share your own.
Tongo-Eisen Martin, Mike Dunn, Ananda Esteva, Jenny Worley
Fascists, authoritarians, and capitalists exploit existing prejudices and bigotries within marginalized communities to divide them and get them fighting among each other. They exploit these bigotries to disrupt their movements and their solidarity, and to reduce their effectiveness. In this workshop, several working-class writers will read excerpts from their books, and then discuss how their books address the bigotries and prejudices within particular marginalized communities, particularly in otherwise progressive communities, and how activists or characters in their books worked to overcome these bigotries. And they will discuss how these experiences apply to conditions today.
Aisha Mansour, Palestinian Youth Movement
Peter Olney, Organizing Director ILWU (retired)
Sam Levens, Inland Boatmen's Union
Gifford Hartman, Labor Studies Laney College
Building power for workers always involves building their agency and commitment. Such power is enhanced by a sophisticated understanding of production systems and logistics supply chains. This workshop will bring to bear the experiences of veteran organizers to identify choke points and key points of leverage that can enable workers to win. Historically, workers have used that power to stop arms from being sent to warzones, such as in 1981 when ILWU militants refused to send bomb parts to El Salvador or recently when millions of Italian workers and students went on strike, in solidarity with Gaza, to prevent weapons from being shipped to Israel.
Ansel Schmidt, Felix Thomson, Raghav Goyal, Reilly Gardine
Four Highland Hospital workers and SEIU members will share firsthand accounts of grassroots organizing at Alameda County’s largest public hospital. From leading a system-wide campaign to divest from weapons manufacturers, to organizing “Know Your Rights” trainings in response to ICE threats, to building cross-departmental networks that can - and did - defend from external attacks on the workforce, these workers are demonstrating how to transform their workplace through collective action. Their efforts offer a powerful example of how workers can build organization and solidarity on the job - even in difficult conditions.
Paul Messersmith-Glavin, Danielle Filippo, Steve Moriarty, Stephanie Mendez
With the donation of the Maximum Rock n Roll music library to Rutgers University archive, a grass roots youth culture espousing DIY counterculture and punk ethos entering perimenopause and aging out of relevance internationally, the punk movement which challenged the music industry since the 1970’s has matured, but not faded away. Print magazines, like Razor Cake and hundreds of podcasts have revived the message. Festivals like Punk in The Park with shows featuring reformed bands like, Dead Kennedys, TSOL, and Black Flag draw three generations of punk music fans hungry to carry on resistance against the Patriarchy. Musicians instrumental in the DIY punk music scene with decades of experience are writing about the old days as a fame work for younger generations to organize bands and communities focused on social justice, inclusion and anti-fascist work. The discussion featured editors from Razor Cakes, Gilman Street Collective in Berkeley, musician turned authors from Tribe 8, Bottle Rockets, Mudhoney and The Gits. The panel will discuss how music created inspiration and charged the revolutionary spirit of youth culture during the past five decades.
Shella Cervantes, Tehmina Kahn, Kinneret Alexander, James Tracy, Beatriz Herrera
Instructors from City College of San Francisco's Ethnic Studies and Social Justice Departments explain the meaning of attacks on dissident education, ethnic studies and history from below.
Dominique Conway, Erica Woodland, Mansa Musa, Ward Churchill
This session is a dialogue with activists about the legacy of former political prisoner Marshall "Eddie" Conway's legacy. We will explore the impact and relevancy of the FBI's counter-intelligence program for current movements, and how Conway's work positions us to get free now.
Guillermina Castellanos, Rachel West, Francisco Herrera -Fundacion Caminante
This bi-lingual panel will address the unjust criminalization of sex workers, immigrants and domestic workers and racist immigration laws that separate children from their mothers or primary caregivers. Organizing for money and resources for mothers, not detention, deportation or imprisonment. What we are up against and what gains we have made.
10:30-12:00
10:30-12:00
Rowan Saoirse, Malkia Cyril and more TBD
We live in a moment defined by the authoritarian politics of repression and extermination. Transgender lives are in the crosshairs of an emboldened far right agenda to remake society along rigid and violent lines of gender oppression.In this panel, trans radicals will discuss how we can navigate this historical moment, what kind of material struggles can facilitate our survival , and how we can build radical left wing social movements that put trans/gender liberation at their center, as the right puts our extermination at theirs.
Rachel Bruhnke, Nadya Williams ,Mickey Huff, Peter Phillips, Bill Hackwell
The Cold War Truth Commission is a compilation of Testimonies, both by renowned activists and scholars, and also direct victims of the U.S's Cold War purge of the Left in the name of "anti-communism". The Panel will consist of the book's editor, as well as several Bay Area residents who are featured in the book. After panelists share, the public will be encouraged to take the mic to tell their own Testimonies of having been red-baited for their progressive work. As the MAGA base today still cries "communism!", we will together unravel the true purpose of the U.S. Cold War: To crush social programs, peace. labor, and anti-racist efforts both at home and abroad. If those values are "communist", we ask, then what is an "anti-communist" stand for?
Kim Stanley Robinson, Eileen Gunn, Gary Phillips, Jonathan Lethem, Charlie Jane Anders, Nick Mamatas, James Tracy
This panel is a celebration and discussion of Terry Bisson's new posthumous book, The Outspoken and the Incendiary: Interviews with Radical Speculative Fiction Writers, which is a collection from PM Press's award-winning Outspoken Authors series. Featuring Kim Stanley Robinson, Eileen Gunn, Gary Phillips, Jonathan Lethem, Charlie Jane Anders, and Nick Mamatas, with an Introduction by James Tracy, this "who's who" of authors will discuss the importance of politically charged fiction and writing against authoritarianism and reminisce about the incendiary life and career of Terry Bisson (1942–2024).
Charmaine Chua, Lara Kiswani, Samer Araabi
Palestinian trade unions have called on workers everywhere to unite to end Zionist supremacy and ethnic cleansing by halting the sale and funding of arms to Israel immediately. While the global response has not been sufficient to stop the current genocide in Gaza, certain tactical interventions have demonstrated that international labor is capable of achieving meaningful advancements in BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions). This discussion will examine concrete examples of long-haul labor organizing that have significantly impeded Israel's ability to engage in indiscriminate war, including successful Bay Area campaigns on divestment and blockades against Israeli shipping companies, and how these campaigns are instructive for guiding the labor movement as a force against Zionism and occupation moving forward.
Amelia Kirby, Jack Norton, Rachel Herzing
Drawing from their essay by the same name (https://hammerandhope.org/article/fascism-abolition), members of the Yarrow Institute for Organizing and Analysis (formerly Institute for Abolitionist Accompaniment) will engage participants in a discussion about why it is essential to understand how the punishment systems maintains and accelerates rising fascism and will offer lessons to be learned from organizers fighting for the abolition of the prison industrial complex.
Dani Gabriel, Jessica Huang Zachary Rogow
This Unruly Witness was curated for people who see love as a life force, who seek a community that can sustain us, who know that “we are the ones we have been waiting for.” Celebrating the life and legacy of the poet activist June Jordan, this collection illuminates why we need Jordan more than ever.
Left In The Bay And More TBD
Left in the Bay has been working to complete a radical history map of San Francisco’s Mission district for Bolerium Books. Join them and other panelists unpacking the history of one of the City’s most storied neighborhoods.
Cayden Mak, Max Elbaum, Maya Schenwar
The media system in general is at a crossroads: being pulled apart by private equity, ravaged by austerity, and squeezed by algorithmic suppression and AI slop, it’s harder than ever to thrive as a media maker these days. But the mission of the media also feels more urgent because of those pressures, and independent media is an important bulwark against the rising tide of authoritarianism. But merely being “independent” is not enough. Our shared commitment to building movement media is about building the informational and narrative power our movements need to strategize, struggle, and win against the far Right ascendant. In this intimate discussion between Max, Maya, and Cayden, we look to the past and look ahead: at the history of media consolidation; historic attempts to build alternative structures; and the challenges and opportunities we face as we strive to block authoritarian consolidation and build people power in our time and place.
Cayden Mak, Max Elbaum, Maya Schenwar
The media system in general is at a crossroads: being pulled apart by private equity, ravaged by austerity, and squeezed by algorithmic suppression and AI slop, it’s harder than ever to thrive as a media maker these days. But the mission of the media also feels more urgent because of those pressures, and independent media is an important bulwark against the rising tide of authoritarianism. But merely being “independent” is not enough. Our shared commitment to building movement media is about building the informational and narrative power our movements need to strategize, struggle, and win against the far Right ascendant. In this intimate discussion between Max, Maya, and Cayden, we look to the past and look ahead: at the history of media consolidation; historic attempts to build alternative structures; and the challenges and opportunities we face as we strive to block authoritarian consolidation and build people power in our time and place.
Owen Hill, Jonathan Lethem, Summer Brenner, Jerry Thompson
Crime writers and editors discuss its connection to politics and current events. How is it useful? How does it work as an extended metaphor? Is "noir" fiction, cynical as it is, an effective strategy for political statement?
Garrett Felber, Molly Porzig, Bryant Arroyo
Discussing the necessity of cross-wall organizing to revolutionary struggle. This panel will use the life and legacy of anarchist political prisoner and jailhouse lawyer Martin Sostre, to discuss the ongoing challenges faced by incarcerated organizers and their comrades outside, as well as tools, tactics, and strategies for abolitionists today.
Laura Ruberto, Evelyn Ferraro, Antonella Vitale, Benedetta Liccarda
This panel uses Jason Stanley’s work, Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, to examine the broader politics of history in Italian transnational and diaspora studies. Recent battles over monuments, school curricula, and DEI initiatives reflect a coordinated effort to reshape collective memory, silence marginalized voices, and reassert dominant power structures. Within the context of Italian studies, the glorification of figures like Christoper Columbus or the marginalization of southern Italian or immigration history illustrates the ways in which narratives are selectively constructed to serve nationalist or assimilationist agendas. Positioned within the frameworks of Italian Diaspora and transnational frameworks, panelists invite participants to consider: Who controls historical narratives and how do these narratives serve political ends? And what are the consequences when history is distorted to justify oppression or silence dissent? The panel seeks to foster critical engagement with the current forces reshaping our understanding of the past and how we can challenge them.
Sasha Coleman, Aryn Far, Marc Lispi, Blanca Missé
Under the Trump administration, we are witnessing a coordinated assault on public education at every level — from K-12 schools to colleges and universities. Budget cuts, book bans, attacks on curriculum, targeting of critical thought, going after undocumented students and families — this is all part of a broader authoritarian agenda to suppress dissent and impose a racist, reactionary ideology. From the defunding of public schools, to the attacks on unions, to the erosion of tenure and academic freedom in higher education, this offensive is designed to weaken working class access to education and criminalize dissent of any form. Against these attacks, the response cannot be fragmented. Now more than ever, we need unity across the entire education sector: students, teachers, staff, parents, and faculty must organize collectively, from elementary classrooms to graduate programs, to defend our communities from these attacks, and fight for a free, inclusive, and quality education for all. Our struggles are interconnected, and only together can we fight back.
Carol Costa, Roger Harris, Gerry Condon, David Paul, Rick Sterling, Marilyn Langois
The Task Force on the Americas, a 39-year-old human rights activist organization, reports back on the positive examples of Latin American countries and grassroots movements offering a vision of a better world, resisting US imperialism .
Jonathon Rosenblum, Bia LaCombe, more TBAConcept: How do working people use electoral politics to build movements and maintain their independence from big business and its money. We will draw on the experience of 2014-2024 when Seattle had an independent socialist city council person.
Jonathon Rosenblum, Bia LaCombe, & TBA
How do working people use electoral politics to build movements and maintain their independence from big business and its money. We will draw on the experience of 2014-2024 when Seattle had an independent socialist city council person.
