From May 8-10, CPD welcomed over 150 grassroots organizers, and organizational leaders from 36 of our affiliates from across the country to our Second Annual Leadership Council Convening in Washington, DC. The gathering was a critical opportunity for us to gather as a network, build relationships and shared purpose, and take our voices and our resistance to the Capitol.

As part of the event, affiliates held over 30 meetings with members of Congress on the priority issues including health care, disaster relief in Puerto Rico, immigration and the opioid crisis. The visits were followed by rallies and direct action at the federal Office of Management and Budget, where we demanded divestment from initiatives that over-police and criminalize our communities, and at the American Investment Council, where we called for accountability from private equity for the loss of 30,000 jobs through the exploitative acquisition and sale of Toys R Us. Read more about the sessions and actions from the Leadership Council below.

Throughout the three days, affiliates connected with each other, built relationships, and engaged in critical conversations about worker organizing, education justice, climate justice, redistricting and the census, and other shared priorities. We hosted workshops on community and self-care, building movement through voter engagement and bird dogging elected officials.

Additionally, delegations to the Leadership Council met in a five-hour session on May 10 in the Historic Thurgood Marshall Center for Services to affirm our shared values and vision, building a shared ideology, and coordinating to express our shared agenda federally in a  powerful way.

These conversations established a shared understanding of what binds us together as a network and to set priorities for our collective work at the federal level. The gathering laid a foundation for increasingly impactful work in the immediate term and for years to come.