Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections

The November 2020 US election was arguably the most consequential since the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln—and grassroots leaders and organizers played crucial roles in the contention for the presidency and control of both houses of Congress.

Power Concedes Nothing, a new collection edited by Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, and Maria Poblet, tells the stories behind a victory that won both the White House and the Senate and powered progressive candidates to new levels of influence. It describes the on-the-ground efforts that mobilized a record-breaking turnout by registering new voters and motivating an electorate both old and new. In doing so it charts a viable path to victory for the vital contests upcoming in 2022 and 2024.

Massachusetts progressives engage in grassroots electoral politics in a variety of campaigns. In this program, contributors to Power Concedes Nothing will present national lessons from the 2020 election cycle.  They will be questioned by several Massachusetts progressive organizers.

About the book: https://www.powerconcedesnothing2022.com/

To order: https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/power-concedes-nothing/

Presenters:

Jacob Swenson-Lengyel served as the director of communications and narrative at PA Stands Up from 2020 to 2021. Previously he was a program manager at Narrative Institute, served as deputy director of communications at People’s Action, and worked at Interfaith Worker Justice. He is on the editorial board of Convergence.

Rafael Návar served as the California state director for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign starting in 2019 and was subsequently appointed to lead Sanders’ campaign in New York. He was the only Latinx state director for the Sanders campaign, and was senior advisor for Mijente and Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights’ historic outreach to Latinx communities in the 2021 Georgia runoff election. From 2012 to 2019 he served as the national political director for the Communication Workers of America, and he is a cofounder of Mijente.

Linda Burnham served as national research director and senior advisor at the National Domestic Workers Alliance for nearly a decade and co-authored, with Nik Theodore, Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work. She was a leader in the Third World Women’s Alliance in the 1970s, and co-founded, with Miriam Ching Louie, the Women of Color Resource Center, serving as the organization’s executive director for 18 years.

Moderator:

Elvis Méndez is Executive Director of Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts. He has worked as an Organizer for Warehouse Workers for Justice, Coordinator and Director of Organizing for the Immigrant Worker Center Collaborative, and Lead Organizer for the National Guestworkers Alliance among others.

Respondents:

Vanessa Snow/MassVOTE

Rand Wilson/union organizer

Beth Huang/Mass Voter Table

Sponsors: Massachusetts Progressive Action Organizing Committee, Massachusetts Peace Action; Convergence; Liberation Road; Progressive Democrats of America; Our Revolution Massachusetts; Cape Cod Democratic Socialists of America, Progressive Massachusetts, Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts, Incorruptible Massachusetts (List in formation).

Register to attend.