April Freeman and Bennett Foster interviewed by Mary Jo Connelly Background: How & Why Memphis for All Was Founded After the 2016 Clinton defeat the founders of Memphis for All concluded that status quo Democratic Party politics had moved away from a core progressive agenda because it was so disconnected from progressive constituencies and bases, […]
By Daniel Doubet A lot of organizers have taken to a self-defeating posture to the rise of fascism: “I told you so.” They told us so as Trump crushed his opposition. They told us so when Trump won. Last week, they told us so when the Mueller Report was submitted. Organizing tests us. […]
Rand Wilson and Peter Olney respond to the many replies to their January 22 article. We are indebted to the many Organizing Upgrade readers who responded thoughtfully to our article, A Labor Movement 2020 Election Strategy. Privately, we also received additional comments that were in the same constructive spirit. Brothers Garver, Maki and […]
This piece was written by a group of campaign organizers from the Cynthia Nixon, Jumaane Williams, and Zephyr Teachout campaigns in New York State in 2018. The September 2018 primary elections in New York was a watershed moment that shaped politics across the state. A massive coalition of community organizations and grassroots electoral […]
by Rand Wilson and Peter Olney Organized labor has an opportunity to play an important role in the upcoming selection of a presidential candidate in the Democratic Party’s primaries and the eventual November 3, 2020 U.S. presidential election. The stakes couldn’t be higher, not only for the future of the labor movement but […]
by Rand Wilson and Peter Olney The November U.S. elections produced very good results for most Americans and indeed for the rest of the world. The Democrats won control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Since Trump was elected in 2016, the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the Supreme Court have been in […]
As part of our series of interviews with members of the Democratic Socialists of America, Organizing Upgrade spoke with Beth Huang, co-chair of the Boston chapter of DSA. Huang spoke on a range of topics, from what the rise of DSA means to radicals of her generation to how Boston DSA hopes to build a […]
by Rebecca Gordon Many years ago, a young friend told me she was giving up politics. She’d been working for some time with one of the formations that emerged from the breakup of Students for a Democratic Society in the 1970’s, and was close to some of the organization’s local leaders. She seemed to […]
By Max Elbaum These notes were the basis for a presentation to the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild on November 8, 2018. This piece was originally posted on portside.org Politics is about Power. One of the positive things about this moment is that the question of […]
OrgUp interviewed Sema Hernandez, a progressive community organizer in Texas who ran in the Democratic Party primary for U.S. Senate. In this interview, Hernandez touches upon the political landscape in Texas before and after the midterm elections as well as how she used the Democratic primary to push Beto O’Rourke’s program to the […]