USSF2007

By Tendai Chinhakwe, who is an 11th grader at Long Reach High School in Columbia, Maryland, and was a volunteer in the Africa Tent at the US Social Forum.
The United States Social Forum (USSF) was an interesting experience. It was a large group of progressive thinking minds, exhibiting their passion for change and is the United States’ version of the World Social Forum. Held in Atlanta, Georgia at the Atlanta Civic Center, nearly 10,000 people came to the forum, staffing and visiting tables and tents that addressed various social issues. Workshops given at the Civic Center and around downtown Atlanta educated participants and gave them a chance to share their opinions on the issues at hand. Below the fold...

by Toyomi Yoshida

I am a member of United Voices, a youth program in Portland.  We are primarily youth of color and queer youth.  I am very thankful that AFSC has provided me with the opportunity to participate in the US Social Forum.  I am especially excited about the workshops that deal with transgender/gay issues, and hip hop.  I've attended and enjoyed the Homohop workshop, and this morning I went to one about racial profiling and hip hop.  Also, being around like minded people who come from different places in the US and the World has been just overwhelming to me (in a good way) as a 22 yr old who has not traveled much yet.  We have a couple of more days left so I'm trying to make sure that I get enough rest so I can get as much out of this wonderful experience as possible.

Hello,
My name is Mireaya Medina and I am a program assistant for United Voices in the Portland office. I work with youth to create art that challenges injustice. Also, we work to end military recruitment in our schools.
This is my first Social Forum and I have learned so much and have met many new allies and friends. I have attended workshops that include working with youth of color and the truth about hip hop & racial profiling. I marched in the opening ceremony, and volunteered at the AFSC table. I cannot wait to take what I have learned at the USSF to Portland!!!!

I thank you for your support.

By Sam Diener, Peacework Co-Editor, and Dwight Harriman

On Friday June 29, Ethan Vessely-Flad and I co-facilitated a workshop in Writing for Peace and Justice, with seemingly enthusiastic participation by over 20 people. At the end, I invited participants to send me their reflections or their contributions for this blog. The next day, I saw one of the participants, Dwight Harriman, and he asked me to post this.

What If?

What If? For just one way, all the guns of the world fell silent, no
bombs fell, no missiles launched, no bullets were fired? Below the fold...

By Sam Diener, Peacework Co-Editor

Attending the workshop by the legendary popular education center, the Highlander Center, 'Unearthing Seeds of Fire: 75 Years of Social Change through the Story of the Highlander Center, I appreciated the fact that while there were over 125 people in the room, true to popular education principles, the facilitators led the workshop in participatory ways.

By Steven Gibson, Los Angeles Area Program Director, AFSC Pacific Southwest Regional Office 

Day two attending sessions. In the morning I gathered with organizers from Boston, Western Mass, NY, Los Angeles and other regions to discuss how to organizing regional social forums. We heard and shared experiences of planning and carrying out social forums for citys and regions.

In the afternoon I attended the workshop led by SmartMeme about story telling for strategy. I found the workshop very informative and interesting. We talked about the elements of a good story: conflict, characters, images and foreshadowing. I was not sure when I started if the workshop was what I would want. But after a few minutes my attention was held with these lessons about applying story based strategy for political actions. I began to feel my pulse racing faster with thinking about bringing these concepts and tools to Los Angeles.


I toured the Dreams and Nightmares exhibit and again felt the conflict and sadness from the results of US military action in Iraq. The exhibit features civilian shoes and panels about civilians and the effect on their lives of the war.

The rest of Thursday was spent making contacts with organizers and activists from around the country.

By Jordan Garcia, Immigrant Rights Organizer, AFSC in Denver, CO


I started out this morning at the US Social Forum in Atlanta by volunteering to work security. I helped 
people find the registration area and answered a lot of questions. For not 
being from Atlanta, I had to figure out this area pretty quick. It was 
incredibly interesting to get a chance to talk to people and find out where 
they were from and the type of work they were doing in their communities. 
And it kept my mind of the heat and humidity!


Then I attended the Black and Brown Unity work shop with the Third World 
Coalition Members of the AFSC. I found the alliances built in the room 
exceptional and felt like I gained a deeper understanding of some of the 
nuances of the issues affecting African American and Latino Folks.

Next I attended a workshop put on by an organization named Smart Meme . 
They shortened their full-day workshop down into two hours and still spoke 
incredibly articulately about messaging and the importance of story telling 
in our work. We discussed the role of the dominant culture’s story and the 
power analysis that can become a part of any campaign’s strategy. We 
discussed the ways a good story is at the heart of any compelling campaign and 
the necessary components of those stories.

The presenters used elements of 
popular education to make the workshop interactive and each activity gave 
me ideas and made me think deeper. There wasn't a dull moment and I don't 
think it was a coincidence that all the presenters and members of the 
organization were young people.

I left feeling like there was so much I 
could bring back to my work with Coloradans For Immigrant Rights. Some of 
the activities I feel I could recreate for our members to further inform the 
messaging and effectiveness of the stories we use to move people to a more 
compassionate place with regard to immigrant rights.

While staffing the AFSC table this evening, I got to catch up with Marge 
Taniwaki, also from Denver, and spend time discussing how we can bring back 
the skills and energy we're privy to here at the USSF. Then we were able 
to tag team inviting folks from all over the world over to our table to 
encourage them to take some of our literature home with them. The No Human 
Being Is Illegal bumper stickers were of particular interest. 
Now I'm off to a party for the Ruckus Society and even more events put on by 
MondoHomo, a queer arts collective here in Atlanta!

Technorati search tag on USSF:USSF2007

By Sam Diener, Peacework Co-Editor

At the opening ceremony on Wednesday June 27, 2007, the speaker I looked most forward to hearing was C. T. Vivian, the legendary civil rights activist and brilliant nonviolent strategist.

Some of what he said was marvelous, including a challenge to us to work for fundamental, revolutionary social change – to reclaim liberty, reestablish voting rights, and focus on the long-haul work of ending poverty in the US and around the world. He said, “The thing about being a revolutionary is that you can’t be happy in a world in which people are oppressed. You can’t stand it. You have to do something.”

Yet, Vivian’s legacy of heroism can not render his remarks immune to critique. Below the fold...

By Sam Diener, Peacework Co-Editor

Despite the overall positive and creative tone of the march which opened the United States Social Forum 2007, there weren’t very many creative signs, perhaps because many of us are here from out of town, and so didn’t have the material to make our home-made signs on the spot.

This was balanced out by several wonderful organizational banners, including an “Impeach” banner that literally spanned the width of the very large boulevard, a large indigenous peoples banner, the beautiful Aboltion 2000 banner featuring a fearsome half of a mushroom cloud topped by a healthy green tree (carrying it, among others, was Jackie Cabasso, an indefatigable disarmament and environmental organizer in Oakland – she says she has a new book out., and several organizations (quite appropriately, since this Atlanta, home of Coke’s headquarters) organizing against the repressive policies of Coca Cola, :, “Killer-Cola: the Drink the Represses.” Below the fold...

by Sam Diener, Co-Editor, Peacework Magazine

The best organizing method I saw at the march was a fan (a largeish popsicle stick glued to piece of cardboard about 15 cm on a side). The fans read, “Fan the flames of Media Justice” and were being distributed quite successfully by the Media Action Grassroots Network (the folks I met distributing them were with YES! Magazine) . It wasn’t very hot this morning, but became hot this afternoon, and I saw activists up and down the length of the march fanning ourselves with this cool organizing idea.

Technorati search tag on USSF:USSF2007