Community Allies - Activist Table
While many well known organizations were represented at Take Back America, we wanted to put you up on some of the groups you may not have heard of. It’s their time to shine:
CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into health care, education and other life-affirming activities. We reject the Bush administration’s fear-based politics that justify violence, and instead calls for policies based on compassion, kindness and a commitment to international law. With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence.
Open Society Institute
The Open Society Institute (OSI), a private operating and grantmaking foundation, aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI works to build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as combating corruption and rights abuses.
American Forum is a nonprofit media organization that works to encourage more citizen debate on important societal issues. It provides professionally prepared and easily used materials to print, broadcast and new media outlets seeking commentary from a state point of view. The Forum gives prominent and authoritative proponents of progressive measures an audience in their own communities as well as greater access to the latest communications technology.
Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications.
Choice USA mobilizes and provides ongoing support to the diverse, upcoming generation of leaders who promote and protect reproductive choice both now and in the future.
Since its founding in 1966, NOW’s goal has been to take action to bring about equality for all women. NOW works to eliminate discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society; secure abortion, birth control and reproductive rights for all women; end all forms of violence against women; eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia; and promote equality and justice in our society.
We are a consortium of partisan, bi-partisan and non-partisan interests working together to facilitate the National Presidential Caucus — helping the country be better prepared to select its next president, not in haste, but through thousands of informed face to face discussions and thoughtful deliberations.
NARAL Pro-Choice America is committed to advancing our shared values. We are committed to protecting the right to choose and electing candidates who will promote policies to prevent unintended pregnancy. We are going on the offensive, reshaping the terms of the debate, and bridging the false divides that are meant to keep us from progress on reproductive health.
The Generational Alliance is a collaborative youth leadership network that connects campus, community and voter education work to build a long-term, strategic and integrated movement for positive social change.
In 2005, three organizations, Young People For, League of Young Voters Education Fund, and Movement Strategy Center came together to form a new collaborative known as the “Generational Alliance” (GA). The GA was formed to bring together youth organizations among at least three distinct fields: community-based organizing; campus organizing; and civic engagement. The youth field has been fractured among these sub-fields, and the formation of the GA was a first step towards building a cohesive network and leadership development pipeline. In the past year, the GA has begun building infrastructure, core leadership, convening organizations, building a mapping project, and establishing an identity in the leadership and civic engagement field.
Young People For believes collaboration is critical to advancing youth progressive power and to establishing effective, strategic leadership pipelines across the nation. We have been collaborating and coordinating our work since the beginning and we will continue to forge critical relationships with local, state and national organizations.
The Secular Coalition for America is the only organization in the nation whose primary purpose is lobbying Congress on behalf of atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheistic Americans. From our office in the nation’s capital, our full-time lobbyist and support staff engage public policy makers and the media on issues ranging from religion’s influence on education and medical research to the privileging of faith groups by government. We are the first and only cooperative venture of eight member organizations coming together to improve the political situation of a previously unrepresented constituency: the tens of millions of atheists and agnostics in the United States.
The National Hip-Hop Political Convention
The National Hip Hop Political Convention (NHHPC) is a political organization founded in 2003 and operating in 20 states throughout the United States working on issues facing the hip-hop generation. Their keystone event is a biennial National Hip Hop Political Convention, where delegates and local organizing committees from the Hip Hop Generation vote on, adopt and endorse a political agenda for the Hip Hop Generation “to funnel the political and cultural power of the hip hop generation into mainstream political activities.” The first National Hip Hop Political Convention was held from June 16 to 19, 2004 in Newark, New Jersey. The second was held July 19–23, 2006 in Chicago.
Finally, after 50 years of television broadcasting, there now exists a national television channel that reflects the diversity of our society, provides perspectives that are under-represented or ignored by the mainstream media, and shines a national spotlight on engaged citizens working for progressive social change. We were happy to enjoy lunch on the last day with their president John Schwartz, who is also one of the founders of WYEP. If you have Dish Network, you can watch Free Speech TV on channel 9415.
People For The American Way is an energetic advocate for the values and institutions that sustain a diverse democratic society. Many of these are now threatened by the influence of the radical right and its allies who have risen to political power. Our most fundamental rights and freedoms – and even our basic constitutional framework – are at risk. People For The American Way works in close collaboration with other leading national and state progressive organizations to mobilize Americans at this defining moment in our history.
Campaign For America’s Future
Over 100 Prominent Americans—citizen activists and policy experts concerned about our country and our planet—joined together to launch and build the Campaign for America’s Future. We are challenging the big money corporate agenda by encouraging Americans to speak up—to discuss and debate a new vision of an economy and a future that works for all of us.
America’s Future insists that the question of falling wages and rising insecurity be placed at the center of our national debate. We challenge those who suggest that nothing can be done and expose the conservative agenda that has made things worse. America’s Future works to revitalize a progressive agenda, and fights to make this economy work for working people once again. We engage citizens, activists and political leaders in a renewed debate about the kind of country—and the kind of world—we want to build for the generations yet to come.
The California Coalition of Barrios Unidos began as a community based peace movement in the violent streets of urban California in 1977. Incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1993, the national office of Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos established the mission to prevent and curtail violence amongst youth within Santa Cruz County by providing them with life enhancing alternatives. Over the past twenty-five years Barrios Unidos has developed a model that seeks to reclaim and restore the lives of struggling youth while promoting unity amongst families and neighbors through community building efforts.
Highlander Research and Education Center
The Highlander Center was founded in 1932 to serve as an adult education center for community workers involved in social and economic justice movements. The goal of Highlander was and is to provide education and support to poor and working people fighting economic injustice, poverty, prejudice, and environmental destruction. We help grassroots leaders create the tools necessary for building broad-based movements for change.
The founding principle and guiding philosophy of Highlander is that the answers to the problems facing society lie in the experiences of ordinary people. Those experiences, so often belittled and denigrated in our society, are the keys to grassroots power.
The Hip Hop Caucus (H2C) is a nonprofit, non-partisan membership association created to establish a national and international coalition of pop-culture, social and political organizations, community based organizations, and individuals who believe in the collective powers of persons born after 1964.
The Hip Hop Caucus was established to provide a comprehensive agenda for the Progressive and Hip-Hop community both domesticlly and abroad. The Caucus’ programs promote social and political equality in the area of Economics, Education, Health Care, Housing, and Justice.