An excerpt from Andrea Ritchie’s new book Practicing New Worlds. This book examines the role of practicing emergent strategies toward abolition, or a just future without punishment, prisons, or violence in any form. Arguing that emergent…

Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies

PRA talks to Andrea J. Ritchie about her new book Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies, and what lessons we can learn from organizers and experts working to fight the Right.

Author Q&A with Ryan Grim

PRA interviews author Ryan Grim about his latest book, The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution, the possibility of bipartisan political progress, and cultivating cohesion in progressive spaces.

In this conversation with Lauren Jacobs from PowerSwitch Action, the discussion focuses on the role of worker power in combating authoritarianism. Lauren and host Koki Mendis explore the allure of reactionary anti-state narratives in explaining…

Inform Your Resistance Season 1: Episode 6

In this interview host Koki Mendis and Daryle discuss the change in how the Far Right has shown up both historically and today, the importance of pushback, and the work of One People’s Project in documenting and exposing far-right movements.…

Inform Your Giving: Right-wing Funding Session 1

This article is an excerpt of a longer discussion about right-wing funding, part of our Inform Your Giving series.

The political Right currently runs the country. That’s very annoying, but pretending it isn’t true is foolhardy. What is truly annoying is that in the late 1970s some of us were giving speeches and writing articles explaining that rightists intended…

The Right’s many groups organize on a wide variety of specific issues, from education, the environment, civil and human rights, immigration, and criminal justice to developing new constituencies such as fathers and conservative people of color.

Oral argument on motions for summary judgment in Sexual Minorities Uganda v. Lively, a federal lawsuit in which Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), is suing Scott Lively, a U.S.-based anti-…

This is a difficult moment for justice-minded people and anyone who believes in democracy. A man who ran an insurgent campaign as a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and anti-establishment demagogue is now president-elect of the United States.

No one organization “controls” the Right. No single funder is “behind” the Right. Some large organizations are important, but many others appear to be more influential than they really are. Recognize that there are multiple networks of organizations…

Responding to Patriot Movement claims on militias and gun rights, rural economics, the Constitution, public lands, and conspiracy theories.

Why we can’t ignore the momentum of the Right

Broadly speaking, the consensus is that we’re in a time of great instability, revolt, and possibility. History teaches us that in times like these, we need to be both bold and vigilant. Authoritarian, chauvinistic, and bigoted movements assert…

Disrupt, Defuse, Compete

To defeat the current upsurge in right-wing populism, progressives will need to disrupt, defuse, and – critically – compete for portions of its constituency.

Plan for the worst; work and hope for the best. Here are some specific suggestions for protecting yourself and your projects.

Asad Badat, the artist behind the cover of the Summer 2015 issue, says he’s always seen himself as “a passionate observer who has romantic eyes for beauty.” Recently, though, he’s departed from this observatory position, opting instead to use his…

Helen Zughaib came to her longtime home in Washington, D.C., by way of many other nations. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, she also lived in Iraq, Kuwait, Greece and France, before coming to the United States to earn her BFA at Syracuse University in 1981…

This interview with PRA founder Jean Hardisty was published in our Fall/Winter 2011 newsletter, celebrating PRA’s 30th anniversary. It is republished here in honor of Jean, who passed away in March

As the U.S. Right’s global impact on the lives of women, LGBTQ people, and people of color increases, the pressing question is: “What can we do?” Know Your Neighbors—a collaborative project between PRA and Soulforce—aims to respond.

For more than 30 years, David Bacon has been writing about and photographing people who are displaced by poverty in Mexico and choose to cross into the United States in search of a better life.

An Interview with Rev. Dr. William Barber II, President, North Carolina NAACP

This issue’s cover artist, Rommy Torrico, is the graphics and new media director for the Collier County Neighborhood Stories Project (CCNSP), based in southwest Florida.

An Interview with Dr. E.L. Kornegay Jr.

Kornegay was drawn to study the work of the writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) through a comment made by the founder of Black liberation theology, James H. Cone, who once said that Baldwin taught him how to write. Kornegay was intrigued: “That took me…

Creating a Path to LGBTQ Youth Liberation

In Small Town Cross Roads, Southerners On New Ground (SONG) explores the realities and dreams of queer people who live in small Southern towns like West Monroe. Echoing SONG’s findings, FIERCE also lifts up challenges faced by LGBTQ youth in rural…

Headed to the Creating Change conference in Houston this week? Don’t miss PRA’s workshops!

As an Asian-American, I’m often cast as an ally rather than a stakeholder when I show up at Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations. Occasionally, someone will even come right out and thank me for showing up, like I’m doing folk a favor or something…

As many of us enjoy the long weekend, we are called to remember Dr. King’s extraordinary role in the movement that dismantled Jim Crow segregation and secured civil rights for African Americans. But we also remember MLK’s broader vision for…

What African Sexual Minorities Can Learn from Tata Mandela

Mandela’s vision extended to all those who continue to pursue long walks to freedom. Mandela championed the human rights of all people, whether Black, White, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex. He lived to see the day when…

An Interview with David Cunningham

David Cunningham became interested in the Ku Klux Klan while conducting research for his dissertation at the University of North Carolina. He originally focused on how the FBI dealt with the Civil Rights Movement, but his research led to a…

Spencer Sunshine Interviews Walter Reeves

In 1990, when I was a teenager, I met and began working with Walter Reeves and other members of Neighbors Network—an anti-Klan, anti-Nazi group based in Atlanta, GA. Reeves was its co-chair of education and outreach from 1989 until the group’s…

We pause this day to celebrate Nelson Mandela, “Madiba,” and to reflect on what his life and the South African freedom movement has to teach us. Inevitably, this involves reflecting on our own lives and our own social justice commitments.

On June 25, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, which established a formula for determining whether states and jurisdictions need permission from the federal government to change…

Looking back, what do you think PRA’s most memorable impact was?

An Interview with Roberto Lovato

Last year, a coalition of Latino/a groups successfully fought to remove anti-immigrant pundit Lou Dobbs from CNN. Political Research Associates Executive Director Tarso Luís Ramos spoke to Presente.org co-founder Roberto Lovato to find out how they…

Since the successful street demonstrations against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in 1999, police and federal agencies have relied on aggressive and unconstitutional tactics to disperse, disrupt, and dissuade popular protest. Last…

Toward a Dialogue with George Lakoff

Since last November’s election, George Lakoff’s book, Don’t Think of an Elephant!,1 has deservedly captured the imagination of mainstream Democrats and of many progressives as well. He offers us the promise that we can achieve…

Fighting the Far Right with Research

In April 2005, Kevin McGuire, an engineering student at the local state university, ran for the Bozeman, Mon. elementary school board. He was a newcomer in town, hailing from Santa Rosa, Calif., and part of the white flight flowing into the state.…

by the Blue Mountain Working Group Coordinated by Chip Berlet Jean V. Hardisty Suzanne Pharr Loretta Ross November 1994 We are a group of individuals interested in joining with others to rebuild a multi-issue movement for…