Location: Mess Hall, 6932 N Glenwood, Chicago
Link out: Click here
Description: The US Social Forum will take place in Detroit from June 22-26, 2010. It is a multi-ethnic gathering, an organizers’ conference, an activists’ exchange, and above all, a movement building process, US Social Forum. Part of this process are People’s Movement Assemblies held around the country. The Assemblies take slightly different shape depending on where they happen, who organizes them, etc. We see the PMA as an organizing tool and as a call to put our own efforts in relation to something larger than ourselves.

Compass Working Group invite you to participate in a People’s Movement Assembly. We will offer a report-back from Detroit, outlining long-term social struggles in the city as well as USSF organizing. We will explain our own ongoing work and invite others to exchange information on their own projects, to engage in mutual advisement and analysis.

Compass have been exploring our ties to different neighborhoods, cities, and rural parts around the Midwest. It is a collective project of knowing where we are – of inhabiting, traversing and narrating what we call the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor. We will be traveling and hosting meetings as a way to experience another world happening in our own region, to participate in enduring structures of radical regional self-recognition and empowerment. We hope to be with you at the USSF, and along the way.

Our session proposal for the USSF: Midwest Radical Culture Corridor How can the scattered communities of the Rust Belt and the Corn Belt recognize each other, connect, share resources and build a common culture of transformation? The Midwest Radical Cultural Corridor is a sign, a vision, an invitation to meet with other groups and individuals in cities, towns and rural areas on the roads to Detroit, in order to learn about local situations and spread the news of the Forum among inhabitants. The workshop offers a convergence for all interested caravanistas, bicyclists and walkers to tell stories of their travels and speak about the ways they link their home environments, projects and struggles to other localities and initiatives. Participants will offer a short narrative, show digital images if they desire, and trace their routes on a large map of North America, indicating the communities and struggles they found significant.

Key themes are: environmental and social justice campaigns, alternative food production and the fight against corporate agriculture, nourishing cultures of resistance and building radical institutions. In conclusion, participants will discuss the best tools to encourage exchanges and collaborations between cultural groups and activist efforts in neighboring localities. Follow-ups during the Forum will include a walking tour in Detroit in collaboration with local inhabitants. We will also carry out video interviews with participants about the life path that has led them to Detroit, in order to create a lasting document distributed for free. All caravans will be invited and this workshop can be merged with any similar proposal. For more examples of how we have worked in the past: download this small book, A Call to Farms. http://www.heavydutypress.com/books/farms_pdf/view

Start Time: 13:00
Date: 2010-03-28
End Time: 16:00

Reprinted with the permission of Mess Hall.