As the deepening authoritarianism of Trump and the global far-right present an existential threat to democracy itself, there has never been a more urgent time to build lasting and scalable forms of power and participation in our local communities. Shifting the power and responsibility of governance from states and corporations into the hands of ordinary people will require alternative institutions like popular assemblies which can facilitate discussion and democratic decision-making at the grassroots level.
What does it look like in practice to build direct democracy in our neighborhoods and home towns? How do we empower ourselves and our neighbors to participate in the decisions that affect our lives? What are the opportunities and challenges of organizing popular assemblies in the current moment?
Join us on September 9th for a discussion on these questions led by a panel of grassroots community organizers working to build a new democracy within the shell of the old, starting at the local level.
Speakers:
- Denzel Caldwell, Black Nashville Assembly
- Aaron, Richmond People’s Assembly
- Rosie DeSantis, Riverbend Free Space
Facilitated by Arthur Pye, Co-Director of the Municipalism Learning Series
Speakers
Denzel Caldwell
Denzel Caldwell is a community organizer and movement economist who was born, raised in Nashville, Tennessee. After growing up in a community-oriented household, and reading the unpublished words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the King Archives at Atlanta University, he went on to earn a Master’s degree in Economics at the University of Oklahoma. He currently serves as the electoral justice researcher and educator at the Highlander Research and Education Center, and is an organizer for the Nashville Economic Justice Alliance and the Black Nashville Assembly (BNA).
Aaron
Aaron is a social organizer based in Richmond, Va. For the last four years he has sat on the Richmond Steering Commission for Participatory Budgeting where he helped draft the rulebook and oversaw its implementation. He is a founding member of the coordinating committee for the Richmond People’s Assembly that facilitates city wide assemblies. He spends his days promoting cooperative development within worker owned businesses and nonprofits.
Rosie DeSantis
they/themRosie DeSantis (they/them) is a poet, Detroiter, audience-integrated theater-maker, co-op developer, and “community organizer” who resents the term. They are the founder of Riverbend Free Space, an early-stage, intentionally offline, DIY neighborhood programming space dedicated to catalyzing capacity for community self-governance in their neighborhood on the far eastside of Detroit, as part of a coalition of neighbors and organizations in the neighborhood and grounded in the tradition of black anarchism.
Organizing Project:Riverbend Free Space
Location:Detroit, MI
Arthur Pye
he/himArthur Pye is a writer and community organizer based in the Pacific Northwest. He spent a year living in North-East Syria studying the Rojava revolution, and is a member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava. His writing can be found in Strange Matters Magazine.
