Communities Confront Class Warfare

Posted by on October 31, 2011

The Moonstone Arts Center & Friends Present
Thursday November 3, 7pm
Class Warfare in Philadelphia, Part 5
Communities Confront Class Warfare
At Liberty Resources, 714 Market Street, Wade Blanc Room, 5th Floor

7:00pm: The David Harvey animated lecture The Crises of Capitalism (11 minutes)
Mr. Harvey, a scholar who heads CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture & Politics, describes not just the failures that caused the ongoing fiasco, but the failure of how we’ve explained it. This is really terrific, you have to see it.

7:15: Panel Discussion Moderated by Casey Cook, Executive Director of Bread & Roses

Casey Cook (Moderator) is a lifelong activist. She has been the Executive Director at Bread & Roses since 2006 and received both her M.S.S. in Social Work and her M.L.S.P in Law and Social Policy from Bryn Mawr College. She took the job at Bread & Roses because of her passion for social justice and for fundraising and has already personally witnessed how the actions of this network create tangible, positive change in the lives of others. Ron Blount is a taxi driver and the popularly-elected President of the Unified Taxi Workers Alliance. He is also a student and a teacher, a thinker and a fighter. He listens more than he talks. When he talks, many listen. TWA is a group of people who have come together across races, nationalities and languages to form an organization that stands for human rights. Kaytee Riek has been a community organizer and activist for nearly ten years, focusing most of her work on addressing the root causes of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In addition to working for Training for Change, Kaytee works for Casino-Free Philadelphia and volunteers with ACT UP Philadelphia, an AIDS activist group that fights to end the AIDS epidemic. She is also a photographer and graphic designer. Craig Robbins is Executive Director of Action United, a membership organization of low and moderate income Pennsylvanians working to build power through organizing communities to win changes on the issues that are important to them. Fabricio Rodriguez could be described as a labor entrepreneur, he is co-coordinator the Philadelphia Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) and he founded the union that now represents security guards at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philly ROC will begin classes to teach members the skills they need to move from low-paying kitchen work to higher-paid front-of-the-house jobs such as serving or bartending. In the lexicon of labor studies, organizations such as Philly ROC are known as worker centers. Ellen Somekawa Executive Director of Asian Americans United has worked in Philadelphia’s Asian American communities and in broader multiracial coalitions around quality education, youth leadership, anti-Asian violence, immigrant rights, and folk arts and cultural maintenance.

Gwen Snyder is Executive Director Philadelphia Jobs With Justice, a coalition of labor unions, community organizations, religious and student constituency groups building a movement for worker’s rights and social economic justice on the principles of solidarity, reciprocity, militancy and direct action. Philadelphia Jobs With Justice is dedicated to winning victories that matter for working people. Galen Tyler is a formerly homeless father. He was an organizer for the Kensington Welfare Rights Union from 1997-2003. He is a founding member of Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign and is in the leadership body. From 1999 to 2006 Galen sat on an International body as a board member on the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Network(ESCR-NET) and a founding member. In 2003 he became the Executive Director of KWRU. He played leadership role in a couple city-wide coalitions, Philadelphia Affordable Housing Coalition and the Campaign for Housing Justice. Galen still remains as a low-income father working with all section of the population to put an end to homelessness and poverty.

There are many fine organizations working hard to confront the issues facing us today.  It takes perseverance and bravery to fight the fight, and it takes hard work, organization and money. Whatever the issue that interests you, there is an organization working on it, if you don’t know who they are, contact Bread & Roses Community Fund, who supports many of them and find out.  These organizations need your help.

For more information about the rest of the series go to: http://www.moonstoneartscenter.org/moonstone-arts-center-events/class-warfare-program-5-%e2%80%93-communities-confront-class-warfare/