On Sept. 16-17, the People’s Congress of Resistance movement was inaugurated with a mass convening of grassroots organizers and frontline resistors at Howard University. All told, 727 delegates from 38 states and 160 towns and cities came to Washington, D.C., to discuss the People’s Congress of Resistance manifesto “Society for the Many: A Vision for Revolution,” to share organizing experiences to take back home, to express solidarity with each other and to resolve on common projects and actions for the future.
The People’s Congress was opened by housing organizer Yasmina Mrabet of ONE DC and Los Angeles teacher Peta Lindsay, a former Howard University student leader, who welcomed the attendees. Lindsay explained that the school itself derived from the Black community’s struggle for education in the Reconstruction period, and generation after generation, 150 years later, has continued to produce freedom fighters. Two high school student organizers from California, one a DACA recipient, announced that they were unbowed by the Trump administration, and had come to Washington to deepen their commitment to the movement and make links with activists nationwide.