Progressive While Black in 2018
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Friday, Aug. 3 2:00 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Friday, Aug. 3 3:15 PM (Eastern)
Building on last year’s panel and growing trends in movement spaces nationwide, this panel will analyze the challenge facing the progressive movement to organize and engage Black voters and provide practical tactics for engagement that will lead to wins in 2018 and beyond. With a panel comprised of black progressive thought leaders, grassroots organizers and former Sanders campaign staff, participants will gain insight from the shared experiences of each panelist through their respective roles in the movement. Participants will be challenged to examine how to bridge the gap between intention and action when engaging black progressives in key upcoming races.
Moderator
Anoa Changa
Anoa J. Changa is a staff reporter leading Prism’s coverage of electoral justice and voting rights.
An organizer by nature and a lawyer by trade, Anoa has a deep history of working within the realms of advocacy and justice. Her passion lies in building collaborative political spaces that fundamentally change the way communities and grassroots organizations engage with the social and political systems around us. Expanding on her experience as an attorney, Anoa has been a grassroots digital organizer and strategic advisor to several organizations. She came to Prism from the New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan effort to register and civically engage Georgian voters, where she was the director of digital strategy and storytelling. Prior to that, she held the position of cities electoral manager for Democracy for America.
Anoa is a movement journalist, deeply influenced by grassroots-led electoral organizing efforts. She is the host of the podcast “The Way with Anoa” tackling politics and current events through a Black progressive feminist perspective. Anoa has bylines in The Independent, The Nation, Dame Magazine, Huffington Post, and Rewire.News. She is a speaker, trainer, and presenter in progressive spaces.
Anoa received a B.A. in Sociology and a Master in City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University. She was awarded a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law where she was a W.E.B Dubois fellowship recipient. She resides in Atlanta.
Other sessions: Dear White Progressives
Panelists
Anoa Changa
Anoa J. Changa is a staff reporter leading Prism’s coverage of electoral justice and voting rights.
An organizer by nature and a lawyer by trade, Anoa has a deep history of working within the realms of advocacy and justice. Her passion lies in building collaborative political spaces that fundamentally change the way communities and grassroots organizations engage with the social and political systems around us. Expanding on her experience as an attorney, Anoa has been a grassroots digital organizer and strategic advisor to several organizations. She came to Prism from the New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan effort to register and civically engage Georgian voters, where she was the director of digital strategy and storytelling. Prior to that, she held the position of cities electoral manager for Democracy for America.
Anoa is a movement journalist, deeply influenced by grassroots-led electoral organizing efforts. She is the host of the podcast “The Way with Anoa” tackling politics and current events through a Black progressive feminist perspective. Anoa has bylines in The Independent, The Nation, Dame Magazine, Huffington Post, and Rewire.News. She is a speaker, trainer, and presenter in progressive spaces.
Anoa received a B.A. in Sociology and a Master in City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University. She was awarded a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law where she was a W.E.B Dubois fellowship recipient. She resides in Atlanta.
Other sessions: Dear White Progressives
Elle Hearns
Elle Hearns is a organizer,speaker,strategist,and writer. Elle’s voice as a community organizer and speaker were formed from her upbringing in Columbus, Ohio as a youth organizer. Ms. Elle is a co-founding member of the Black Lives Matter network an organization formed with multiple local chapters as a political project in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin in order to explicitly combat implicit bias and anti-black racism and to protect and affirm the beauty and dignity of all Black lives. In her role before stepping down she was formerly a strategic partner
to BLM co-founders Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi and to local chapters of the organization as the former interim Organizing Director advocating for Collaborative Solidarity across the network and Black Liberation movement. Elle has been honored with the Young Women’s Achievement Award for Advocacy and Organizing by the Women’s Information Network, the Black Feminist Human Rights Defender award by Black Women’s Blueprint,and was named a Woke 100 honoree by Essence Magazine.
Ms. Elle currently is the Executive Director of The Marsha P. Johnson Institute an organization founded in 2015 that works to create a crucial entry point for Black transgender women to advocate for an end to violence against all trans people through advocacy, transformative organizing, restoration, civil disobedience and direct action. The organization is credited for organizing the first ever National Day of Action for Black Trans Women in response to the murders of Amber Monroe, Kandis Capri, and Elisha Walker and held organized events in multiple cities including New York City,Chicago, and Washington DC.
As a speaker Elle has delivered keynotes and talks at Harvard University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,The Public Theatre,and for The National Lawyer’s Guild,Columbia University, Stanford University and NYU.
Prior to founding The Marsha P. Johnson Institute Ms. Elle worked for LGBT organization GetEQUAL an organization that she shifted from an equality framework to one that was centered more on the liberation of LGBTQ people. During her time there she successfully led many campaigns including More Than Marriage a digital campaign detailing why LGBTQIA people needed more than marriage equality to be “free”, Year Without Tamir a campaign honoring the life of Tamir Rice a 12 year old who was murdered by the Cleveland Police Department in which the campaign demanded and advocated for a new prosecutor for the case and in Cuyahoga County, and the firing of the officers and all responsible for his murder. Elle operates politically from the perspectives of black nationalism,humanist theory, and black trans theory and practice. She credits Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and Marsha P. Johnson as her teachers. Their words along with her life experiences are what she credits for politicising her.
Elle’s writings have been published by The CUNY Law Review and Ebony magazine. Her
work has also been chronicled and featured by Time, CNN, MTV, The New York Times, Alternet, Democracy Now, The Daily Dot, Fusion, Essence Magazine,The Root, Alternet, Telesur TV and The Washington Post.
W. Mondale Robinson
W. Mondale grew up—one of thirteen children—in an environment riddled with all the norms of poverty, for a Southern Black family. That vantage point gave him a front row seat to all that plagues the oppressed and underserved in our nation, and it would eventually be at the root of all of his work. At an early age, W. Mondale began seeking answers to accepted social constructs, he quickly saw the need to challenge those flawed ideas and he took the path of solution architect. After graduating from high school he joined the United States Marine Corps. W. Mondale Robinson realized that joining the Corps was admirable, but quickly learned that it was not a mechanism for social change. With this in mind, he entered into the world of politics.
W. Mondale Robinson was the founder of The C. Institute which was a NGO concerned with equitable governance and inter-social treatment for persons of African descent, in countries where they are a minority population. W. Mondale is also the Founding Principal of Black Male Voters Project, the first and only national organization with a sole purpose of increasing Black men’s participation in electoral politics. He is also the creator of the BMEP Additory Approach© , an award winning, cultural competent political program, that’s responsible for increasing Black men’s participation in more than 21 states. He is also the CEO of WMR Consulting Firm. W. Mondale has worked on more than 160 campaigns (local, statewide, federal, and international).
W. Mondale Robinson is also the mayor of his hometown, Enfield NC where he defeated an incumbent by more than 53% points, to become the youngest mayor in the town’s history. He founded and led #ALLACTION which was an online organizing group that specialized in tech-community organizing, training for successful civil disobedience actions, and strategic advocacy planning.
He has appeared on national television news stations such as: Democracy Now, Al-Jazeera, NPR, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN, RT Germany, TYT, Australian Public Broadcasting and in most national written press. He has political and cultural columns on The Village Celebration a publication that focus on Black lives. Mondale is also one half of the team for Clickbaity: Political ThirstTrap, a raw political podcast.
Other sessions: Second Chances Florida: Restoring the Eligibility to Vote to 1.4 Million People
khalid kamau
The first #BlackLivesMatter organizer elected to public office in the country, Councilman khalid is leading a generation of young activists from protests to politics. This #Fightfor15 organizer & Bernie Sanders Delegate is part of the inaugural City Council of South Fulton, GA, which is poised to become the largest progressive city in the South.
khalid is a lifelong community activist. His name, lower-cased in the Yoruba African tradition, emphasizes the community over the individual and literally means “eternal quiet warrior.”
An activist with prophetic vision to pursue progressive policies ‘ in the streets & the suites,’ khalid enrolled and graduated from Fulton County Citizens University, while being an active member of Atlanta Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs) V (Mechanichsville), where he organized a neighborhood watch program; and NPUs P (Camp Creek) & L (Vine City), where he participated in Economic Development negotiations around the new Mercedes-Benz arena.
khalid helped organize the Atlanta chapter of #BlackLivesMatter and served as a Field Organizer for the Georgia House Democratic Caucus. In 2016, he was elected as an At-Large Delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
A college-educated, community activist with a career in nonprofit management and experience in blue-collar jobs, Councilman khalid uses his unique blend of professionalism, compassion & working class struggle to ensure the new city of South Fulton, Georgia builds a table big enough for everyone to have a seat at it.