Dignity in Schools Campaign “Community not Cops” National Week of Action

Register for the event HERE.

Join us for a book launch and workshop on education organizing! Willful Defiance (available now!) tells the story of how Black and Brown parents and students organized to dismantle the school–to–prison pipeline in their local schools and built a movement that spread across the country. It examines organizing processes in Mississippi, Los Angeles and Chicago, showing how parents and students of color changed exclusionary discipline policies that suspend and expel students of color at disproportionate rates and policing practices that lead students into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The book documents the struggle to build a movement led by community groups and people most impacted by injustice rather than Washington–based professional advocates. It lifts up lessons for organizing and building movements that build the power to win policy changes to transform deep–seated and systemic racism in public schools and the broader society.

Participants & Workshop Leaders

Mark R. Warren, Professor, UMass Boston, Author of Willful Defiance
Kameisha Smith, Youth Organizer, Nollie Jenkins Family Center
Gina Womack, Executive Director, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children
Karen Lynn Morton, CoChair Emeritus, POWER PAC 

Program:

  • Music
  • Author presentation with Mark Warren
  • Dignity in Schools Campaign perspective with Lorraine Wright
  • Break-out Group Discussions, including –
    • Forming alliances rooted in most impacted (with DSC National staff)
    • How national movements support local organizing and vice versa (with I Vote For Me – Virginia)
    • Intersectional organizing, girls of color, gender nonconforming students (with Nollie Jenkins Family Center – Mississippi)
    • Organizing in the South/Organizing in suburbs (with Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children)
    • Restorative and transformative justice (with Community Organizing and Family Issues – Illinois)
    • Police-Free Schools
    • Role of researchers & educators (with Mark Warren)

Register for the event HERE.