Blog
CPD and our affiliates are at the forefront of engaging the New Majority in our country. Our base-building model means we organize year-round on the issues communities of color, immigrants, and working families care most about: protecting health care, comprehensive immigration reform, ending criminalization, public education, affordable housing and more. And through that deep, relationship-based organizing we ensure that come election day, our issues are at the core of the national conversation and inspire people to get out to vote (GOTV).
Our integrated community organizing/GOTV culminated in new scale and impact this off-cycle election. Our partners:
- Engaged more than 500,000 voters registered in previous two years on issue organizing and leadership development leading up to Election Day;
- Registered over 100,000 new voters; and
- Drove integrated community organizing and GOTV targeting more than 1 million voters in 17 states, including Virginia, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico.
CPD and our affiliates contributed to a powerful national movement that put our shared priorities of ending inequality, bigotry, anti-immigrant hate, and fear at the center of the debate and generates new momentum to hold newly-elected leaders accountable to our values and to drive integrate issue organizing and GOTV work into 2020. This goes to show that when we organize, we win.
On November 9th, Dreamers and their allies took part in an inspiring action calling on Congress to pass a Clean DREAM Act to protect the 800,000 young immigrants impacted by Trump's repeal of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In Washington, DC, student walk-outs culminated in a powerful occupation of Congress, including banner drops, civil disobedience, and a march and rally around Capitol Hill. There were also student walk-outs and solidarity actions around the country. A number of CPD partners participated in these actions in DC and around the country. Watch this video for highlights!
When Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. president in January, we knew he would try to act fast to undo many of President Obama’s policies and enact draconian ones instead. Anticipating a need for aggressive resistance, we created a rapid response operation for these new challenges.
This summer, they tried to take our healthcare, deport millions of immigrants, and give an economy built on the backs of working people to billionaires. As if this weren’t enough, Trump gave support to white supremacy after neo-Nazis rallied in Charlottesville and killed a protester.
CPD and our affiliates immediately took to the streets against Trump, the Republican Party, and their corporate backers. We fought back against their racist, antidemocratic, anti-immigrant, anti-worker pro-corporate message and policies. This is the story of what we did this summer.
Our fight connects the dots between race, income, and communities. With all we face, we cannot lose sight of that.
ECONOMY & JOBS
Trump, the GOP and their corporate backers want to slash financial regulation and give massive tax cuts to the wealthy, which would send our economy into freefall. His administration tries to trample the rights of low-wage workers. We fought back.
- CPD, affiliates and allies mounted about 20 actions around the country calling for massive public investment in the country's infrastructure as part of the Millions of Jobs Coalition.
- Our Fed Up coalition lobbied members of Congress to block the appointment to the Federal Reserve of self-described Wall Street lawyer Randal Quarles as Vice-Chair of Supervision and crashed the Fed's elite conference in Wyoming in August to call for the re-appointment of Janet Yellen as Fed Chair.
- Because of organizing by CPD affiliate PCUN, Oregon in August became the first state in the country to turn fair scheduling practices - like giving shift workers their schedule at least a week in advance - into law.
HEALTHCARE
This past summer, the Republicans made repeated attempts to ram through Trumpcare, which would strip more than 30 million of healthcare in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. We mobilized thousands of people to take to the streets and get arrested.
- In conjunction with Housing Works, we launched a nationwide birddogging program that trained 1,783 people in how to confront their members of Congress.
- From June to September, more than 500 people got arrested after occupying Congress offices in Washington D.C. in five CPD-organized civil disobedience actions.
- CPD affiliates mounted hundreds of in-district healthcarerelated lobby visits, protests, and teach-ins around the country, including a whopping 20 vigils held in one day by One PA and Make the Road Pennsylvania in their state.
IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
When Texas passed the draconian anti-immigrant “Show me your Papers” SB4 law and Trump announced he would cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the CPD network mobilized to protect vulnerable undocumented immigrant communities.
- CPD affiliates Texas Organizing Project and Worker’s Defense Project led a coalition of community groups to pressure lawmakers to challenge SB4 in court, eventually leading to the law’s injunction.
- More than 100 elected officials, who are part of the Local Progress network, held a protest in late July at the state capitol in Texas against SB4.
- CPD and affiliates, such as Arizona-based LUCHA and Maryland’s CASA, held dozens of actions around the country protesting Trump’s cruel DACA decision in early September.
HOUSING
The Trump administration proposed massive cuts to almost all federal housing programs, aimed at the poorest families. CPD fought back.
- CPD and CPD affiliate New York Communities for Change convened over 20 other organizations and roughly 1,000 community leaders to stage a day of action on July 12 in 22 cities, including Miami, Denver, and Staten Island.
- We called out the Trump administration for allowing private equity firms, like Blackstone, to buy up affordable neighborhood housing.
RACIAL JUSTICE
The Trump regime supports white supremacist policies like mass incarceration and the militarization of the police. But Trump made his support for white supremacy even more clear when he blamed “both sides” after white supremacists held a violent rally in August in Charlottesville. We resisted Trump’s politics of hate.
- We released a groundbreaking report in early July that revealed how 12 cities and counties rely overwhelmingly on policing and incarceration spending while under-resourcing less damaging and more effective safety initiatives.
- After the disturbing events in Charlottesville, CPD joined other national organizations in planning and carrying out a 10-day, 118-mile march that ended with a rally attended by hundreds in Washington D.C. in early September.
CORPORATE BACKERS OF HATE
CPD has long fought against the widespread corporatization of our government and public lives. When Trump took office, we knew we had to ramp up our activity against companies represented on Trump’s business advisory council. Earlier this year, we mounted protests against Uber, Goldman Sachs, Disney, and J.P. Morgan Chase.
- In May, CPD together with Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change launched the Corporate Backers of Hate campaign targeting nine private companies who help execute the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant and anti-worker agenda.
- In August, CPD affiliates led about 15 powerful actions around the country urging J.P. Morgan Chase to cut its financial ties to private prisons and immigration detention centers.
- The relentless pressure on members of Trump’s business advisory council paid off when the council disbanded in mid-August.
We brought the heat this summer, but we are not done.
We will carry this momentum into the fall with initiatives like resistancevoter.org. And that will be a springboard into even more dynamic action in the 2018 election year. We will not stop. Every challenge is an opportunity to unite, resist and progress. Join us.
Click below to see the full brochure.
On August 17, over 200 Hoosiers packed Bloomington Indiana’’s First United Church for Hoosier Action’s “Confronting White Supremacy in Indiana” organizing meeting in response to the racist violence at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. After an opening prayer, Hoosier Action member Stephanie Solomon invited the attendees to take a moment of silence and then 10 minutes of discussion with their neighbors, contemplating their feelings and fears in the wake of the Charlottesville violence.
Hoosier Action Director Kate Hess Pace then offered a working understanding of white supremacy and introduced Hooiser Action’s model of “invitational organizing” as a strategy to counter the growing influence of the Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP), a white nationalist organization headquartered in Paoli, Indiana -- and transforming the political-economic factors that give rise to groups like the TWP. Recognizing that this model would not resonate with all of those in attendance, Hess Pace acknowledged the work of other Indiana organizations such as Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), Indivisibles, and the Democratic Socialists of America, urging the assembled crowd to get involved in whichever organization spoke most fully to them.
Hoosier Action Director of Outreach Jesse Myerson guided the attendees through a deeper look into the TWP’s leader, Matthew Heimbach, a central figure at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, and the substance of his appeal to Hoosiers. Myerson also expanded on Hoosier Action’s understanding of the “invitational organizing” model and “radical abundance” political appeal that form the core of Hoosier Action’s plan to out-organize the TWP with multi-racial coalitions, aligned around common interests, that can immunize Hoosiers from Heimbach’s “racist politics of scarcity” and shift the balance of political forces in the state.
The attendees then broke out into five geographically-focused groups, developing organizing plans and beginning to assemble power maps for Paoli, Martinsville, Greenwood, Bedford, and Indiana University. Each group elected a chair and committed to a timeframe for a next meeting before returning to the church’s sanctuary for a wrap-up led by Hoosier Action member Colleen Johnston, who told her personal story and asked attendees to become dues-paying members of Hoosier Action and commit to the work of building political power and out-organizing the white supremacist forces in the region.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Outraged, CPD affiliates sprang into action: organizing marches and rallies, educating their communities, taking legal action to save DACA, and calling on Congress to pass a clean DREAM Act - legislation which would provide protections for Dreamers without increasing immigration enforcement or further militarization of the border. Dreamers should not be used as bargaining chips for Trump’s border wall or deportation machine.
On Tuesday, September 26, CPD affiliates from all over the country traveled to Washington DC and occupied more than 50 Congressional offices, disrupting business as usual for over an hour with powerful testimonies, sit-ins, songs and chants.
But we need your help to make our voices heard. Here are three tangible things you can do today:
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Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to connect to your Senators and House Representative and demand they pass a clean DREAM Act!
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Make a donation to the Center for Popular Democracy to support this vital organizing effort of our affiliates who are on the ground working diligently to defend and protect our communities.
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Help elevate the voices of DACAmented youth by sharing their stories on Facebook and Twitter, using the hashtags #DefendDACA and #HereToStay.
Call Congress today at (202) 224-3121 and demand they pass a clean Dream Act!
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
These words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. echoed in our heads every day along the 118-mile trek from Charlottesville to Washington, DC that began on the anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech and ended at the MLK Memorial. Entitled “The March to Confront White Supremacy,” we came together to demand that white supremacy be addressed both by this administration and in all of the ways that it takes root in our communities.
On August 11 and 12, White Supremacists rallied in Charlottesville against legislation passed by Vice Mayor and Local Progress Member Wes Bellamy, as well as the removal of a statue of Robert E Lee. White nationalists marched through the streets, many of them armed, holding tiki torches and chanting Nazi slogans. One woman, Heather Heyer, lost her life standing up against hatred when a car plowed into a crowd of people who turned out to protest the white supremacist rally.
“I can’t believe this is happening in 2017”, was a common response. People of color, especially Black people, were not shocked. Resistance has been the state of existence for Black people in this country and resistance was the response to this instance of domestic terrorism. The Center for Popular Democracy joined the Working Families Party, the Women’s March, If Not Now, Color of Change, and Democracy Spring to bring together a multi-racial, multi-faith coalition that stood united in opposition to white supremacy.
White Supremacy as both policy and rhetoric has been a powerful political agent in our country since its founding. But under this President, it has flourished in the public eye. We who believe in freedom cannot rest: now is the time to take bold action again to defeat white supremacy and honor MLK’s legacy. Kumar Rao, CPD Senior Staff Attorney said of his experiences:
“Participating in the #Cville2DC march was an emotional and inspiring experience. During the several days I was at the march, I bonded with and spoke with folks of all backgrounds, faiths, and geographies who felt a calling to come together and to convert outrage against white supremacy into action with moral clarity.”
After arriving in Washington, DC the march turned into a sustained vigil in Farragut Square against white supremacy in what has been dubbed “Impeachment Square.” This vigil will continue throughout the month of September and join the March for Racial Justice on September 30 in Washington, DC and in New York City on October 1. You can get involved by joining the marches and by following the work of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Racial Justice Team.
On Friday, September 22 a group of about 200 activists, led by high school students, took to the steps of the NYC Department of Education and marched to Manhattan Criminal Summons Court calling for an end to arrests, summons, and NYPD juvenile reports in schools for misdemeanors and non-criminal violations. The action was organized and led by student members of the Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC). UYC is a coalition that includes Make the Road New York, Sistas and Brothas United, and Future of Tomorrow. Watch the rally again here.
The protest was aimed at highlighting analysis (conducted by UYC and the Center for Popular Democracy) of the most recent NYPD data which shows that during the last year young people in NYC schools experienced 1,106 arrests, 960 NYPD juvenile reports, 805 summonses, and 2,702 mental health crises in schools where NYPD officers intervened.
Although certain recent policy reforms regarding the mandate of NYPD officers in schools have led to a reduction in arrests and summons of students, Black and Latinx youth account for nearly all the young people funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline and are increasingly vulnerable to the school-to-deportation pipeline. Black and Latinx youth represent 67% of all students enrolled in NYC public schools but account for 92.4% of all students arrested, 88.6% of students receiving summons, 88.8% of NYPD juvenile reports, and 96% of students handcuffed during a mental health crisis. The youngest student handcuffed during a “child-in-crisis” incident was a five-year-old Black girl. Nearly 78% of all arrests, summons, and juvenile reports in schools are for misdemeanors and non-criminal violations.
At the rally, a number of speakers highlighted these severe racial disparities characterizing the school-to-prison and school-to-deportation pipelines and called for urgent, transformative policy reform. In particular, youth leaders called on Mayor de Blasio to end the practice of using arrests, summonses, and juvenile reports for misdemeanors and non-criminal violations.
"New York City has been criminalizing Black and Latinx students for normal youthful behavior for decades. It’s 2017, and we are the only young people getting arrested, given summonses, and handcuffed. It can’t be acceptable that we are treated differently because of the color of our skin,” said Matthew Beeston, a youth leader of Future of Tomorrow and the Urban Youth Collaborative.
Irma Barrios, youth leader at Make the Road New York and the Urban Youth Collaborative, added that “Schools should be sanctuaries full of love and respect, not a place where we are pushed into the criminal justice system. Students of color can’t find sanctuaries until our school system stops feeding youth into Rikers Island and other detention centers.”
Yesterday morning, dozens of people from across the country showed up at GOP Senators’ homes chanting “kill the repeal, don’t kill us” ahead of a critical vote that afternoon to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). And still, by the slimmest of margins, Senate Republicans voted yesterday to advance a Trumpcare bill that doesn’t even exists yet. No matter how you spin it, every non-partisan analysis shows that tens of millions of Americans will lose coverage, health care costs will go up, and critical protections will be lost.
It’s disgraceful and and infuriating, but the fight is not even close to being over. We can still stop Trumpcare as the final vote on whatever bill the GOP come up with will likely take place on Thursday or Friday. We must create even more public pressure. Our response needs to be overwhelming.
Please call (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to each of your Senators. Tell them to vote NO on Trumpcare. They need to hear from as many people as possible. If you’re interested in joining the fight on the ground, please contact CPD’s Jennifer Flynn!
On June 29, Oregon became the first state to pass a statewide fair workweek law! The Oregon Fair Workweek bill passed the House with a 46-13 bipartisan vote and is headed to the Governor Kate Brown’s desk for her signature. The bill already passed the State Senate with another bipartisan 23-6 vote and Governor Brown is widely expected to sign.
At the forefront of the campaign were working mom’s like Kayleigh Game who said, “The bill certainly will make a world of difference for moms like me. Again and again for the past few years, I have cycled through jobs that promised stability, only to find myself thrown into chaos.” The Oregon Fair Workweek law will put an end to that chaos and only happened because leaders like Kayleigh along with Oregon Working Families Party, UFCW Local 555, CPD-partner Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) and many others stepped up to pass this historic measure. This victory made headlines in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Vox, American Prospect, Racked, The Hill, San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Times.
The Oregon bill will give employees a good faith estimate of weekly work hours upon hiring, two weeks’ advance notice of their schedule, compensation for employer-initiated work schedule changes, at least ten hours’ rest between shifts, and a right to input into work schedules. The Oregon bill would be the first Fair Workweek law to cover hotel, casino, and other hospitality workers.
The victory follows closely in the wake of a series of victories for the fair workweek movement, with the introduction of legislation to ensure a fair workweek in Chicago this week. Last month, New York City became the largest city in the country to win a fair workweek, ensuring better hours for more than 65,000 workers. New York followed Seattle, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Emeryville, and San Jose, CA, all of which have passed fair workweek policies in recent years. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced national legislation to provide fair work hours earlier this month.
Young people have often played significant roles in building and leading powerful social movements, protesting injustice and driving progressive and revolutionary social change. Today, more and more youth are becoming politically engaged in their communities, in organizing for social justice, and in resisting and challenging the harsh and unjust policies of the Trump administration. The youth who join our organizations and movements today, stand to be our leaders tomorrow. That is why CPD and the Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC) convened 35 youth leaders and 12 youth organizers from 11 of our affiliate organizations for a Youth Power & Leadership Retreat from June 2-4.
Youth leaders from CASA (MD), Communities United (MD), Good Jobs Now Detroit (MI), Living United for Change Arizona (LUCHA), Make the Road CT, Make the Road NY, Make the Road NY, Make the Road PA, Organize Florida / Florida Student Power Network, PCUN (OR), and West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition came together to share their experiences, aspirations and ideas for working together for change. They also created a timeline of the organizing and campaign work they want to tackle over the next 5 years.
These CPD affiliates are working on issues ranging from tuition assistance for undocumented immigrants, to tackling homelessness, to uplifting the beauty of communities through art, to the dismantling of the school-to-prison pipeline and more. Some of the organizations are just in their first year of youth organizing, while others have been building power with young people for twenty years.
Throughout the retreat, the youth identified a number of shared goals and priorities including: building organizing power, building statewide networks, developing campaigns and mobilizing together, and creating a community of learning among the youth organizers and their organizations. CPD will continue to help bring these youth together and to provide support to our affiliates in building leadership pipelines for these young activists within their organizations and beyond.
