At Center for Media Justice, we believe the power to communicate, and therefore imagine and organize for a new future must belong to everyone. We are proud to be building a movement alongside our allies for media rights and narrative and cultural power.
Last week we put these buzz words to the test: Scale. Transformation. Collaboration.
As the 99 percent movement spread and progressives gathered to Take Back the American Dream, another important convening took place in the capitol: The Echo Justice Initiative’s first convening. And our opponents should be shaking in their boots.
Center for Media Justice and the Praxis project – along with a cohort of justice centered communications and alliance building organizations like smartMeme, the Movement Strategy Center, Miami Workers Center and Progressive Communicators Network – convened a group leaders from national alliances to strategize to shift the culture and amplify the effectiveness of communications for community organizing.
As folks in the room cautioned, the devil is in the details — but from all early indications, we passed the first test, and it was no small feat. We want to appreciate all participants expansive creative thinking, strategic insight, eagerness to collaborate, and drive to get practical and concrete. As some said, we “loosened the silos,” began a path toward a “movement division of labor” to change what is understood as “common sense,” and “contest for power and meaning” at a new scale.
Again, we want to thank the following organizations for contributing to this new movement moment for the practice formerly known as communications, and we look forward to digging into the creative work of making a few of the ideas discussed together a reality:
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice
Black Alliance for Just Immigration
Detention Watch Network
Grassroots Global Justice
Indigenous Environmental Network
Inter-Alliance Dialogue/UNITY
Jobs with Justice
Labor Community Strategy Center
Main Street Project
Media Action Grassroots Network
National Day Laborers Organizing Network
National Domestic Workers Alliance
National Guestworker Alliance
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Progressive Technology Project
Pushback Network
Restaurant Opportunities Center United
Right to the City Alliance
Strong Families
Vermont Workers Center
We also want to thank the following foundations for their generous donations, leadership and vision to this process:
Akonadi
Ford Foundation
Solidago
Surdna
As always, click the “like” button above if you feel me!
Peep a quick slideshow of the convening below:
